Alan Kerner is an initiated Mara’akame – a traditional healer – in the Wixárika (Huichol) tradition.
Serving his clients as a spiritual healer addressing illnesses and difficult life circumstances.
He also serves his community as a facilitator, leader, and member of the Elder Council (Kawitero) for the Group Tatewari.
Personal History
After forty years of living a conventional life, the path I had planned for myself did not fulfill me as I had expected. My days were consumed with work running my business, providing for my children, and moving on from two divorces.
Even after starting a new chapter with my wife, Amanda, I was hungry for a deeper purpose.
My journey started – even if I didn’t know it at the time – when I had my first experience of spirituality. It was through meditation that I learned about selfless service and self-inquiry. I learned the exalting, painful, and heart-warming feeling of transformation that could happen within myself. And equally as important, the benefit and messiness of gathering with others in the community.
A few years later, during my Plant Spirit Medicine healer training, I discovered my passion
and capacity for helping others. I continued on this path and was called to apply as an
apprentice of Don Eliot Cowan under the guidance of a Huichol Mara’akame, Don Lupe
Gonzales.
With the guidance of my elders, I began a yearly pilgrimage for six years to the
sacred Wixárika sites.
I completed my training to become a Mara’akame and made my lifetime commitment as a traditional healer to serve my community.
Today, I live in Santa Monica, California, where I practice as a Mara’akame offering sessions and counseling to my clients. As a firekeeper with the Sacred Fire Organization, I host monthly fires and other spiritual gatherings. Through the guidance of Grandfather Fire (Tatewari) and all my teachers, I continue to learn to be a conduit of the healing energy of the Gods.
17 years as a Traditional Healer-Mara'akame
Testimonials
“It has been such a blessing to work with Alan and receive healings in the Huichol tradition. I
only wish I had met him a long time ago! Alan is patient, gentle, wise, and humble. This work is
clearly his passion and joy. As a psychologist, I am aware of the transformation that can come
from deep healing work, but Alan’s treatments seem to cut much deeper than I have ever seen
or experienced. My first session with him was incredible; he was very quickly able to intuit
aspects of my life and see areas of blockage energetically and psychologically. The healing
work that he has done for me has been tangible and life-changing. It has helped me move
through and heal old pains and become a more effective healer myself. I am forever grateful!”
Lauren Dill, PhD.
“My mom is getting toward the end of her life, and my ability to spend weeks at a time with her,
appreciating and loving her, is a direct result of the work I did with Alan. Before Alan and I met, I
could not spend more than a few hours alone with my mom without becoming infuriated at her.
But this past Christmas I took her to Venice, just the two of us, for over a week. As I see her
enter this last phase of her life I am immensely grateful that I have gotten to a place where I can
simply accept and appreciate her with all her flaws. This time is sacred and I’m able to hold it
gracefully.
Thank you Alan for everything you’ve done, both for me and for everyone lucky enough to see you.
Connor W.
Having received Alan’s very powerful mode of healing over a period of a few sessions
I’m experiencing gradual yet tremendous improvement. As I write this, I’m reminded of how long I’ve come! I will continue to let his treatment take its course. I feel very fortunate to have met this healer. His friendship and counsel mean the world to me.
Dinesh Perera
Businessman.
Healing Sessions and How to Contact
Sessions are approximately an hour, depending on individual circumstances and involve.
Clearing emotional and physical blocks, using ancient Wixárika healing protocols.
To schedule an appointment please contact Alan’s assistant.
Contact Form Here
Contact Alan
Community
In the Wixárika tradition healing is not only an individual experience but a communal experience.
That is alive and well in the village which embraces the relationship to the Divine natural world and each other.
Alan invites you to deepen your healing experiences in the community by engaging these offerings:
Becoming a Mara’akame
How does one go about becoming a mara’akame after the potential has been identified in a person by the great Maestro Mara’akame, Tatewarí? No matter how spiritually talented people may believe they are, this is going to be profoundly challenging for them to comprehend when they have been raised in a non-indigenous culture.
In the Sierras, the work of a mara’akame is supported by hundreds of generations of social-cultural continuum. The work is extraordinarily demanding intellectually, physically, emotionally and spiritually. It requires great knowledge of the customs, forms, teachings and sacred stories along with a huge range of applied experiences. This all shapes the interpretative “lens” through which the mara’akame sees the world so that they can spiritually support and decipher life to address specific illnesses and difficult situations. It requires mature social skills in order to work with individuals and the community as a peacemaker, facilitator and leader so that the community can move together into an advantageous future. It takes a steady mind to deal with the destabilizing effects of interacting with the spirits and the intertwining divine forces that make up existence beyond the order that characterizes the human realm.
It also requires an understanding of the values that are important to the Huichols and therefore the mara’akame. Living existence is experienced as a complex counterbalancing of antagonistic forces such as hot-cold, light-dark, dry-wet, life-death, and productive-destructive. While nature does this instinctively, this is not so for humans.
Therefore, to walk through life as a Huichol—and, I would argue, as a human being—is to understand that the mind has the capacity, through a dark side of human nature, to produce imbalance. This requires a practical sacred wisdom to both discern and navigate the difficult complexities of spiritual and communal life. Consequently, the Huichols, and therefore the mara’akate, are deeply moral people.
One of the last essential qualities of becoming a mara’akame is a relationship to personal sacrifice. Sacrifice, as embodied through the sacred deer-person and deity,
Kauyumari,represents this principle as a mysterious and transformational commitment.
Mara’akateepitomize these qualities as a “Kauyumari” themselves. This is more than the giving of offerings, which is common during pilgrimages and ceremonies. This is more than a negotiation for blessings or outcome. The quality of the deer-person is the giving oneself up, one’s life, for the highest purpose, just as the deer does through the sacred agreement of surrender. Its blood will anoint the offerings and therefore help insure they are received by the gods. This ultimate act of giving and courage is necessary for life to transform. Hence, the mara’akame chooses to give his or her life to the community. This involves engaging their personal physical, spiritual, emotional and mental struggles as a willing and difficult choice for the rest of their lives. This includes facing the perpetual challenges of the dark side of one’s inner voice. All of this presents itself as a complex, interconnecting “package deal” that identifies what it is to endeavor to be a mara’akame. This serves as a way to understand that thisundertaking is met with reluctance by the one who has been identified by the elders. Yet, all of this is necessary to achieve even a modicum of authority and efficacy to appeal and receive the help from the divine forces of life itself, for healing, advising and in ceremonies.
Even with this deeply rooted understanding, not everyone makes it. Huichols consider those who make their commitment to achieve the status of mara’akame but fail, or those once initiated default on their personal-spiritual-social agreements as dangerous to the community and the elders.