4 Elements Earth Education Instructors
4EEE brings the arts of wilderness survival to life through outdoor adventure, storytelling,
and hands-on development of Earth skills.
and hands-on development of Earth skills.
Rick Berry, Founder and Director
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Rick Berry began with the Tracker School in 1986 at the age of 15, and has been teaching these skills for the past 30 years. After graduating with a B.S. from Humboldt State University in Arcata, CA, Rick honed his skills in the remote Klamath Mountain range where he immersed himself for 12 years in indigenous life-ways--passed on to him by Gary Morris who himself had lived with Yurok Elder Calvin Rube for 20 years.
Later, Rick spent two years in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey as a care-taker for the Tracker School, refining his tracking and survival skills. Rick taught with both Jon Young and Tom Brown, Jr. through the Tracker School’s Coyote Camps, and moved on to serve seven years as Director of The Children of the Earth Foundation. Read Letter From Tom Brown from 2010. Rick, Cherokee Descent, (Grandmother was part of the Red Bird Stokes Stomp Ground in Vian, Oklahoma), has been working in collaboration with the Siakumne Maidu Tribe for the past 10 years creating the Fox Walkers youth programs at Pata Panaka / Burton Educational Preserve in Nevada City, CA. In 2019 Rick was asked to be the Executive Director of The Children of the Earth Foundation; Rick will oversee Coyote Tracks Programs under the 4EEE west coast non-profit umbrella. |
Juan Villarreal, Founding Board Member and Visiting Instructor
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Juan, Southern Lipan Apache, connected with Rick in 2007 through the Tracker School. Passionate about keeping the old skills alive, Juan brings a unique indigenous view-point to every educational experience.
Whether he's helping lead 4EEE programs or teaching classes through his own organization, Juan serves as a gentle guide, helping people create sacred relationships with the land and life, as a care-taker and healer. A sister organization to 4EEE, Juan's Sacred Wind Earth Teachings program is located in Alice, TX and is dedicated to helping groups and individuals learn, share, and teach ancestral, holistic ways of living. |
Octavio Liriano Jr., East Coast Coyote Tracks Director
Octavio Liriano, Jr. grew up in the Pinelands of NJ with a love for play in nature. As a boy, he’d spend hours exploring the woods, swimming in the cedar lakes, crafting all manner of tools from rocks, and even working to make a fire by rubbing two sticks like in cartoons. At the age of 22, these memories surfaced when he happened upon the Tracker School. The spark of joy in nature that he carried since childhood was rekindled as he learned how to really make fire during the Tracker Standard Class in 1998. While learning and practicing all of the other skills connected with survival, Octavio found purpose in one that truly resonated with his heart. It was the role of the caretaker in nature.
Octavio carried this heart over the next 20 years while volunteering and taking classes at the Tracker School, working as a Tracker Intern, instructing at Coyote Tracks for five summers, and as an instructor and field supervisor at SageWalk, a wilderness therapy program for two and a half years.
Octavio later graduated from Portland State University with a B.A. in Public Health: School Health, and from Montclair State University with an M.A.T through the Newark Montclair Urban Teacher Residency. Octavio then worked three years as a preschool teacher at McKinley Elementary School in Newark, N.J. There he had the opportunity to use a school garden and weave nature skills within the academic curriculum, and the children LOVED it. He used this as inspiration to found Imaginal Early Childhood, an early childhood education program where he guided his children, and other children and families, to learn essential life skills through playing and exploring in nature.
Octavio joined the 4 Elements Earth Education team in 2021 as the Director of Coyote Tracks Youth Programs, leveraging his passion and experience to develop east coast programs and further the 4E mission.
Octavio carried this heart over the next 20 years while volunteering and taking classes at the Tracker School, working as a Tracker Intern, instructing at Coyote Tracks for five summers, and as an instructor and field supervisor at SageWalk, a wilderness therapy program for two and a half years.
Octavio later graduated from Portland State University with a B.A. in Public Health: School Health, and from Montclair State University with an M.A.T through the Newark Montclair Urban Teacher Residency. Octavio then worked three years as a preschool teacher at McKinley Elementary School in Newark, N.J. There he had the opportunity to use a school garden and weave nature skills within the academic curriculum, and the children LOVED it. He used this as inspiration to found Imaginal Early Childhood, an early childhood education program where he guided his children, and other children and families, to learn essential life skills through playing and exploring in nature.
Octavio joined the 4 Elements Earth Education team in 2021 as the Director of Coyote Tracks Youth Programs, leveraging his passion and experience to develop east coast programs and further the 4E mission.
Richard "Pashu" Esquibel, Lead Instructor, Fox Walkers Youth Programs
Pashu grew up playing in the out-of-doors, learning wood working skills, camping, hiking and fishing. As a child he also learned bow making and leather work from a Choctaw-Apache elder named Long-Trader. In 2007 he attended the Tracker School and is highly passionate and self motivated in working skills and dedicated to passing on the old ways. His passion for the skills shows in his hand made bows, arrows, baskets, buckskins, stone and bone tools. Pashu holds a deep respect for nature and loves teaching the sacred old ways skills to anyone that is willing to learn. Currently , Pashu Lives in Oregon at the Sharpening Stone site, and joins us for longer immersion programs with Families and Teens and runs adult survival skills workshops with 4EEE as well.
Jamie Coyle, Coyote Tracks Lead Instructor and Program Director
Jamie Coyle is from Philadelphia, PA. He joined 4 Elements Earth Education in 2013. For nearly 10 years, he has been a student of Tom Brown Jr.’s Tracker School and is inspired by the endless discoveries realized throughout the process of learning Earth Skills. Jamie has a Bachelor of Sciences degree from Northern Vermont University and a Wilderness First Responder Certification. He has worked as a professional ski patroller and served as a lead teacher of a nature-preschool class. While working towards his degree, he completed a 16-credit internship with 4 Elements Earth Education. Jamie has worked children, family, and teen wilderness programs with 4EEE from the East Coast to the West Coast of the US, and even up into Alaska. He enjoys nothing more than sharing time in natural settings with people of all ages, and is constantly hoping to learn the many lessons the Earth has to teach us all.
Mary Chapman, Instructor
Mary Chapman grew up in the east Bay Area with her adventurous family exploring the natural surroundings and learned a deep reverence and respect for nature at a young age. Sunday morning excursions became church, and this shaped her understanding of our relationship with nature being the most sacred and profound journey this life can offer. An avid gymnast, acrobat and circus performer, led to embodiment and deeper awareness which eventually led to yoga, and mindfulness practices honing a deep appreciation for balance in all things. For years she taught kids, teens and adults in many movement arts realms. Her love for warm weather and ocean adventures brought her to Hawai’i where she lived 12 years, got her bachelors degree in kinesiology and learned to live off the land. Growing food, foraging, natural building and learning some of the Hawaiian ways became a lifestyle. There she had a leading role in an off-grid sustainable community that ran kids programs helping them interact with the land in a playful and respectful way. Now back to her roots of California, she is embarking on a journey of discovering the impact of facilitating the youth to develop a healthy relationship to nature. She believes it is our responsibility and privilege to learn to caretake this earth, and really the most important thing we can do as a humans is to figure out how to leave it better off than it was when we got here. For Mary, gratitude and service leads the way, and she is a forever student of the forest. Honored to be working with Foxwalkers and spreading the knowledge and skills to learn to thrive in our natural environment.
Tony Cervantes, Board President and Cultural Specialist Instructor
Tony H. Cervantes (Chichimeca) has been working for over 45 years to protect and restore Indigenous relational constructs supportive of people, families, clans, Tribes, communities and Nations and the sacred relationship with the unseen world and all of Creation. Tony is retired from the State of California. After retirement he worked for Sierra Native Alliance and Shingle Springs Rancheria. He is trained in all White Bison, Positive Indian Parenting, Fatherhood/Motherhood is Sacred, Anger Manager and GONA curricula resulting in Cultural Revitalization, Leadership Development, Indigenous best practices, Wellbriety Community Development, Indigenous Addictions/Mental Health prevention/treatment and the Grieving Cycle. Indigenous Traditional Knowledge Systems, the Medicine Wheel and the behavioral components of addictions inform work focused on emotional, mental, physical, behavioral, social, volitional and economic wellness change. He currently lives with his partner Sara in Northern California’s mountains, has seven adult children and eight grandchildren. Tony enjoys being in nature and living sustainably, locally, organically, seasonally through perma-culture farming and wild harvesting medicine, cultural materials and food, road & mountain biking, kayaking, hiking & backpacking, hot springs, rivers and Indigenous ceremony. He and Sara currently provide workshops and farm 2.5 acres using perma-culture practices. They also provide consultant services, including with the California Conservation Corps Back County Crew Orientation training week. He deeply believes that living locally is key to bringing us closer to our original ancestors, tonantzin, ehecatl, atl and xieutecuhtli. "I remember drinking water directly from streams, rivers, creeks and seeing thousands of monarch butterflies in all stages of development at one place. What have we done?"
Lawrence Laughing, Cultural Specialist Instructor
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Lawrence Laughing (Ahrawenrateh) brings a unique skill set to Fox Walkers of sharing his Haudenosaunee
(People of the Long House) Ways to youth. Through stories, song, and round dance, Lawrence brings lessons on many levels to our program. |
Geoff Fisher, Visiting Instructor
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Geoff has studied with many survival arts teachers, first inspired by his high school teacher and then Tom Brown Jr. and the Tracker School. Geoff studied with Frank and Karen Sherwood through their Primitive Living Apprenticeship in 2008. Geoff instructs at various "Ancestral Arts" gatherings as well as with 4EEE and the Fox Walkers, where he brings his passion of Rock Tool making and love of working with youth.
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Sara Raskie, Instructor
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Sara Raskie has been instructing at Fox Walkers for 4 years. She loves teaching, learning, playing, growing and loving Nature with the young ones! She is the mother of one college student, and is blessed with many grandchildren through her partner Tony! She is Ojibwa, lives in Nevada City, and when not at Fox Walkers, farms using permaculture methods, teaches classes on wellness, and works with food and medicine plants. She loves hiking, biking, swimming, care taking plants, hot springs, backpacking- anything to be immersed in Nature! She is passionate about inspiring young people to deepen their relationship with Earth, Wind, Water, Fire and empower themselves with learning everything possible about the natural world and our place in Creation.
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