Introduction

Kaleo Ching
Healer, Artist, Teacher

With deep gratitude to ke Akua (Divine) for its guidance and love.

Kaleo was born and raised in Hawai'i. From his mother, who comes from Ka'u, near Kilauea Volcano on the Big Island, he learned the blessings of aloha 'aina. Kaleo received a Bachelor of Fine Arts (University of Hawai'i), a Masters in Studio Art (University of New Mexico) and a Fine Art Lithographer Certificate (Tamarind Institute). He is a Hawaiian Lomilomi Massage and Pohaku Wela (hot stones) practitioner and a Certified Acupressure Massage Therapist (1,500 hours). He is also a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist (Hypnotherapy Training Institute). He has been practicing Tai Chi and Chi Kung for 30 years and teaches Chi Kung and Lomi classes at the Acupressure Institute in Berkeley. He integrates applied Chi Kung with Hawaiian Lomilomi, and does hypnotherapy in his private bodywork practice in the East Bay.

Elise and Kaleo have developed a process that totally engages the BodyMindSpirit. This inner alchemical process entices one to enter into the collective unconscious of the body through Chi Kung and hypnotherapy/guided imagery, then to express its deep wisdom through creative art forms. The process promotes self awareness, empowerment and the transformation of self and community. In the Bay Area, Kaleo and Elise teach at John F. Kennedy University (Arts and Consciousness Program), Wisdom University, Luminous Body, Integral School of Energy Medicine, and California Institute of Integral Studies (Public Programs). They also collaborate and coteach "Fusion Chi Kung and Maskmaking" workshops with Gilles Marin, founder and director of the Chi Nei Tsang Institute, and for Desarrollo Transpersonal Instituto Universitario in Puebla, Mexico. Kaleo and Elise have extensive experience teaching for national and international conferences and at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology; Naropa University-Oakland; New College of California; the San Francisco County Jails (Haight Ashbury Free Clinic Jail Psychiatric Services and California Arts Council and National Endowment for the Arts), and the University of Creation Spirituality. calendar

As an artist, Kaleo has exhibited his art extensively in galleries locally and nationally (i.e. Reno Arts Commission; California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco; Euphrat Museum, Cupertino; Korean Art Center, Los Angeles; Oakland Museum; Rising Sun, Houston).

He received a Bay Guardian GOLDIE Award for "outstanding local discovery" in 1991.

Among his commissioned masks are those of author Maxine Hong Kingston, artist Susan Seddon Boulet, Kellogg Foundation CEO Russ Mawby, and yogi Rodney Yee.

Elise Dirlam Ching
Healer, Poet, Author, Artist

Elise has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Nursing and a Master's Degree in English (Ball State University). She also has a Master's Degree in Transpersonal Psychology (John F Kennedy University). She is a Certified Acupressure Massage Therapist (1,000 hrs) and a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist. For the past 25 years, she worked as a Registered Nurse in the San Francisco County Jail system. Elise is also a published and an award-winning poet, a practitioner of hatha yoga and Chi Kung (20 years) and a lover of the vanishing wild beyond the edge of the road.

Elise and Kaleo often collaborate as artists, teachers and writers and often exhibit their art and poetry together.

They coauthored Faces of Your Soul: Rituals in Art, Maskmaking, and Guided Imagery with Ancestors, Spirit Guides, and Totem Animals, 2006 and their new book Chi and Creativity: Vital Energy and Your Inner Artist, 2007, North Atlantic Books

Site photography by Kaleo, Lee Fatheree, Rob Lee, Charlie Lucke and John Pearson

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