2012 Dr. Tom Pinkson - Serpent and the Sun

Its very easy to get stuck in our own darkness, the darkness of the culture.

Psychologist

Tom Pinkson, Ph.D., is a psychologist in private practice in San Rafael and Truckee, CA. Tom was born in the heart of New York City in 1945. The death of his father when he was four years old set him on a path of exploration that began with psychosomatic illness, and later juvenile delinquency, but eventually took him to the far reaches of the Amazon jungle, the Andes mountains and to an eleven year apprenticeship with a group of Huichol Indian shaman in the Sierra Madre of Mexico. Seeking deeper truth about the mysteries of life and death, he sought out and found shamanic Medicine Teachers who initiated him into totally different realms than those from which he had come.

For more than twenty five year he has been a driving force in the field of death and dying, helping society shift its often-fearful attitude about this inevitable part of life. In the mid-1970s he helped establish the second hospice in the U.S. and has lectured extensively on death and dying and conducted workshops and retreats through the world.

Tom has been involved with the Center for Attitudinal Healing in Sausalito since 1977 and currently serves as their Clinical consultant. His book, Do They celebrate Christmas in Heaven?, gives an account of his experiences helping children respond to catastrophic illness. In addition, Tom has worked with indigenous elders all over the world for more than thirty years, studying shamanic rites of passage that relate to death and personal transformation. He has furthered our understanding of this important part of human consciousness, revealing the wisdom power of indigenous peoples.

For the last two decades he has studied and integrated into his work the spirit path of the Huichol People. From his experiences, Tom wrote a book entitled The Flowers of Wiricuta and founded WAKAN, a spiritual community dedicated to the sacredness of life.
Walking in two worlds, the shamanic world of indigenous spirituality, and the Western world of a practicing psychologist, consultant, teacher, workshop-retreat leader and public speaker, Tom serves as a bridge-builder, bringing what he calls The Teachings of the Elders into practical applications within the modern, urban setting.

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