Antoinette Cresci de la Torre, LMT
Guest Faculty

I started my healing journey as a child who was aware of the unseen. This was a difficult journey for me, growing up in a Sicilian Catholic family. But because of this, I developed the gift of discipline, which is essential in my shamanic practice. I first read The Way of the Shaman, by Michael Harner, in the early 1990s. At that time I was raising two small children and, though I continued to explore shamanism, I didn't begin my own experiments in nonordinary reality until the early 2000s.

My formal training in Core Shamanism is with the FSS. I am a graduate of The Three Year Program of Advanced Initiations and Shamanic Healing, The Two-Week Shamanic Healing Intensive and Harner Shamanic Counseling. I am also currently Guest Faculty for the FSS, teaching both online and in-person weekend workshops in the San Francisco Bay Area.

After graduating from the Acupressure Institute in Berkeley in 2004, I founded the Belle Luce Healing Center in Pacifica, California, a hub for practitioners of various holistic healing modalities. Core Shamanism is now the primary focus of my own healing practice, and I offer the full complement of healing methods including soul retrieval, extraction healing, psychopomp, divination and shamanic counseling.

Creativity has always played an important role in my life. Part of that creativity is expressed through communing with the sea while surfing. This relationship with the sea has opened me to a deep respect and compassion for the spirits of nature and our relationship to them. This awareness has inspired me to be a more compassionate being.

Creativity has taken many different forms throughout my life: I am a former professional figure skater, and was an Egyptian dancer in restaurants and nightclubs in San Francisco for many years. Presently, I spend my free time surfing, exploring the world of jazz through singing, and creating masks with clay. Throughout it all, I have been acutely aware of my spirit helpers' influence in my creative process.

Antoinette's students say:

"This workshop has gone down as one of the most impactful moments of my life, providing me with the beginnings of a toolset and a community to live effectively and whole."

"I absolutely loved Antoinette’s energy and teaching style. She’s clearly very knowledgeable and skilled but also humble and easy-breezy. Not an arrogant or pushy teacher. Very approachable."

"Antoinette is very considerate of her students and I never worry that any particular shamanic journey is expected to be ‘one size fits all'. She lets her students be who they will be in the moment, which is a powerful teaching gift."

"I‘m very comfortable with Antoinette as a teacher. No wrong answers. No stupid questions. I feel certain Antoinette 'owns' the material she is teaching. She is also patient and encouraging."

"Antoinette was very knowledgeable and was able to relate the content of the training to all our experience levels or lack of experience with journeying. She made the space and container feel very safe."

Website for FSS workshops: workshops.antoinettecresci.com