THE SOUL TEAM for 2010

MARC SHACKMAN (Founder & Project Director)

Marc was the founder of Soul Projects in 2008. He was born in London England in 1980, and lived in the South-East of England with his English dad, Finnish mum and younger brother for most of his early childhood.

He graduated from Loughborough University in the year 2003 with a degree in Commercial Management and Quantity Surveying. At that point in his life, he then felt a vital change was necessary for him to make, as he could feel there was something very important missing from his life. By listening to his heart and by following his curiosity to explore this strange feeling; that there was something more about the world than just survival, he took the giant step into the world, and into the unknown.

He then spent the next 6 years travelling the world in search of answers and truth, into finding out what this feeling he had always felt, might actually be. During this period of his life he had opportunities to live and work with many different cultures. Which acted as a strong reference point for him, and had the eventual effect of highlighting clearly the strengths and weaknesses of his own western culture. He has spent time studying Vipassana meditation in Thailand, and the internal martial arts in China. He has also become a keen snowboarder, surfer and skydiver.

He has worked as a research assistant, scuba diving instructor and expedition leader on a handful of global conservation expeditions over the years, including in Tanzania, Fiji, Honduras and Mexico. In 2007 he wrote his first book (The Spiral of Your Life, Part One, Stepping Out Into the Unknown), that was based upon his own travel experiences and the songs that he wrote with his guitar whilst on his travels, about this very transformative and eye-opening period of his life.

All these experiences gave him the vision, dream, and ambition, of one day eventually setting-up his own projects. Projects to help spread a positive message to other people out there in the world, that might find themselves in similar situations, or with similar feelings as he did not that long ago himself. His adventures eventually brought him to Guatemala in 2008, where he then, dazzled by its beauty and positive energy, felt the moment was right to simply go and make this dream happen! Hence the creation of Soul Projects Guatemala, and of our first expedition here in San Marcos La Laguna.

“ We are all floating pieces of ‘driftwood’ in the same ‘sea of energy.’ Evolving together, on a journey of self-realisation and self-discovery.”

 

LINDSAY PARISE (Co-Founder & Project Manager)

Lindsay grew up in the white mountains of New Hampshire, USA. She graduated from Plymouth State University in 2007 with a Fine Arts Degree in Graphic Design.

From a young age she has always loved art, diving into her thoughts, and coming out with any expression she wished. All she needed was a pencil and something to draw on. Art is how Lindsay expresses herself, and how she experiences life in every colour imaginable. It is a part of who she is. Painting is her true passion; as she tries to convey how something makes her feel or how she can make others feel, through her interpretation. Trying to capture all the beauty of this world in her imagination.

Growing up in the dense forests of New England, Lindsay has also always felt a strong connection with nature, as she was often outside, hiking, swimming or snowboarding. Nature holds some of the most beautiful surprises that one can experience, and she has always loved being a part of that.

Yoga found Lindsay in 2003, and over the past six years, Hatha Yoga has become a very deep spiritual practice for her, as it is a way to connect with the Earth, challenge herself, and quiet the mind. Lindsay completed her 200hr Yoga Teacher Training at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in 2009. To Lindsay Yoga is not just about postures to help advance the body, like it is commonly treated in the western world, but a way of life; an ancient spiritual teaching that can be applied to all aspects of living, it is about self inquiry with compassion.

She has always had the aspiration to get out there in the world, and experience as many different cultures and ways of life as possible. The unique history and wisdom of each culture has always been something she wished to learn from. Over the past five years Lindsay has managed to glimpse some very different ways of life: throughout Europe, Brazil, and Japan, and learned a lot about herself through each experience.

Lindsay’s deep desire to teach art, connect people with nature, learn from other cultures, and help people in any way possible, is what brought her to Guatemala in early 2008 to help start-up Soul Projects. As that is what a large part of the project is about.

“If you want to know who I am, don’t ask me my name, or where I live, or what I like to eat, or what clothes I wear, but ask me what I am living for, in-depth, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully that one thing I want to live for.”

 

GUATEMALA

BROOKE MCINTYRE (Expedition Leader)

Privileged to grow up in rural New Zealand, Brooke has always been at one with the outdoors and all creatures great and small. Awareness and concern of the fragility of the beautiful planet and human’s footprint led her to pursue a BSc in Zoology and a Post-graduate diploma in Wildlife Management, before enrolling in the New Zealand conservation corps.
A deep yearning to venture overseas brought firstly a teaching stint in Japan. She then purchased a one way ticket to Costa Rica and volunteered in turtle conservation and as a resident naturalist in the cloud forests of Monteverde. This led to recruitment by Global Vision International where expedition efforts focused on jaguar predation of marine turtles, surveying of aquatic bird life and monitoring nesting populations of the critically endangered leatherback and endangered green turtle.

Extensive travel throughout South America followed before a trip back home to NZ to work in a kiwi and native bird conservation park. However, tropical biodiversity summoned more work back in Costa Rica with a UK non-profit organisation helping to set up the project “Costa Rica, big cats, turtle and climate change.”

After scuba diving in Honduras and Spanish school in Guatemala, literally she then soul-searched ‘where-next?’ and roamed her way to Mexico to complete a one month intensive yoga course with Agama. Results on all levels - physical, emotional, mentally affected her profoundly and unfolded deep awareness and understanding of spirituality.

Brooke continues to aspire and share spiritual growth with others. The opportunity to join the Soul team in Guatemala is inspirational and an incredibly wonderful chance to meet people on their own, unique life journeys. Many remark… “Brooke, you are living the dream” -  simply life is by enjoying each moment and to greet opportunities that come.

"Be part of nature and let go of your fears. Go with the flow. A lifetime is short. There is not much time – so slow down as you travel through time and enjoy each and every moment – the here and the now."

 

EMMA-KATE GUIMOND (Yoga & Meditation Teacher)

For Emma-Kate there is little separation between the practice and life. One question remains consistent:

How is the body occupying space?

The purpose to this question is to WAKE UP AND FEEL. This means listen… to everything. Sensitize to reality –both inner and outer. Experience the body mind and spirit as one and connect it to space, to the environment, to society -all of which is one. She believes we have the right to a free body and the responsibility to share the love created from that experience outwards.

Her yoga practice is a fusion of Iyengar and Ashtanga yoga. From Iyengar she draws emphasis on alignment: Set up the body in alignment so that it may open; create a structure to support the natural flow of energy and find the posture from the inside out. From Ashtanga she draws the love to move; ride the breath, ride the flow. Also, inspired by Body-Mind centering, the practice often involves the visualization of bones, organs, bodily fluids and dynamic gravity.

Emma-Kate holds a degree in Contemporary Dance, from Concordia University in Montreal. There she studied the body and its various capacities for expression and experience via choreography. She has also studied diverse movement modalities including Feldekreiss, Body-Mind centering and authentic movement. Her artistic practice allows her limbs to stretch into other mediums including performance art, video, installation and drawing. Her content however is always the body.

“At the bottom of my exhale is a world of endless depth, ambiguous form and color. These are my insides. They reside in my pelvis and propel me through space. As the morphology of my anatomy extends beyond the time of human kind it is in tune to the history of all bodies and all of its secrets. I am interested in how the body conveys these secrets without telling them. I create movement which oscillates both on the individual emotional level and the universal primordial level; my body is born of my mother but also of the stone, water, fire and air. But all at once it is honest. I express only what I experience, only what is within the grasp of my own senses because this is the only channel through which my body can communicate. The body must be with itself to hark the secrets that murmur from its own belly.”

 

JOHN CHAMBERS (PADI Scuba Diving & EFR Instructor)

John was born in Portsmouth, England where he was schooled until he was 16. This was also where he made his first very chilly, yet very exciting first dive during the winter months of 2004. By 2005 he’d done his PADI Advanced Open Water course and was already a new enthusiastic addition to the scuba diving community of Southern England. After a trip to the Red Sea it became a new set goal of his to pursue scuba diving further, it was then, that he decided that he wanted to become a scuba diving instructor.

In the following years he found himself moving away from that dream. He studied acting at Chichester College and at the other end of the spectrum found himself suddenly working full-time climbing beams and rafters as a ‘roofer’s mate.’ As he’d always enjoyed making and building things as a boy in the garden and so it seemed like a good thing to do at that particular period of his life. However after a year doing it as a profession it seemed to lose its appeal somehow and he became unhappy and felt trapped.

Thinking of travelling the world for a year had also been another goal of his, a thought which he’d been focusing more and more now as a result of where he found himself to be at that moment of his life. That’s why in following Christmas 2007 he decided to take the huge step and combine this dream with the revival of his old ambition to train to be a diving instructor, and within 6 months John was on his way to Thailand to attend Mermaids Career Development Centre. Nine months later and after many exciting adventures, he finally returned back to England a changed man, before heading once again to Tenerife to start a new job.

However feeling a little unfulfilled from his previous work he soon realised that there was still something important missing from his life and his work. So once gain he returned to England, to get re-centred and re-focused with himself. He needed to find an opportunity with some more depth somehow, where he could live out his new found passion for scuba diving and travel, but grow and learn about his self at the same time and make a difference to others. That’s how John came to find himself as a willing volunteer right here at Soul Projects in 2009, and everything seemed to fall into place from there.

 

ANJILI LORI LYNN (Creative Arts Teacher & Village Representative)

Anjili has always loved people. She grew up listening and learning from all walks of life, and there has always been a compassionate desire in her heart to advocate for equality, human rights and social justice for all people. She knew at the age of 13 that her passion was to help people and she was, through a series of calculated events, led to complete a Bachelors Degree in Social Work, specializing in child and family welfare and a focus in First Nations issues in Canada. After working for 10 years in various roles as a social worker she became acutely aware of the systems inability to treat a person ‘wholly’ rather than just some of their parts.

She takes a holistic approach to her life and views all other beings as being comprised of 4 parts, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual; she desires to know and work with people on all levels, for it cannot be any other way. It was only when Anjili accepted her obvious place, outside of the box of societal conventions and expectations, that she was able to integrate all parts of her own being into One. It was at that time that she gave birth to a vision of assisting others to find the one thing that we are all in search of, but have no idea what or where it is: The Self.

Anjili maintains a constant wonder of the magical moments that are constantly brought into her life by the divine essence. She has a daily practice of yoga and meditation and it was a natural step in her life to move to India to study and train in the birthplace of yoga. She completed a 200hour Teaching Training Course in Traditional Ashtanga and Hatha Yoga and has lived and studied in various parts of India. Anjili is constantly reminded of her own humanness, as well as her resilience, as she commits to following the devotional path of yoga.

Anjili is a person who is passionate about people and aims to provide a space for which others can feel Free to be Loved. 

“Learn. What they love. How they hurt. Why they live. Words they believe in. What they bring to this earth. Celebrate this person."