COACHING CASCADIA FOUNDER, ELLYN ROSENTHAL, M.A.
"Elle is known for a compassionate and honest approach that facilitates deep personal transformation and expanded awareness. She brings her love of the wild, of the human condition, and her devotion to reality to the Work."
All through her life, Ellyn (known affectionately as Elle) has been an explorer of both her inner landscape and the outer world around her. Her courage and love of exploration is key to her journey. Like her life history, Elle’s bio is very full!
Elle grew up in 1960’s Brooklyn, New York in a working class neighbourhood rife with race, class and gender conflict. Much of her early exploration in psychological theory, history and the human condition centred around making sense of the suffering and injustice she experienced and witnessed.
Many theories, readings, teachers and professional experiences are woven through Elle’s inner journey toward freedom.
Throughout her life, being in nature and in the wilderness was an important healing balm. The natural world offered a guileless presence that first allowed Elle to begin to open and trust a process of direct experience that would feed her life’s devotion to sustainable living and psychological wholeness. Elle began meditating and studying Buddhism in 1972 (really? this is 50 years ago!!) At the same time -- it being the '70's -- she immersed herself in sacred plant medicine, healing ceremonies and vision quests. She has apprenticed and studied with little-known and world-renowned teachers around the globe for five decades.
Meanwhile, Elle began college as an adult and became immersed in economics, sociology and anthropology as a way of understanding the human condition. While going to school and working full time, Elle continued on to attend the City University Graduate School and had the opportunity to train with many ground-breaking anthropologists studying dependency theory, World Systems and the effects of colonization on gender, race and systems of oppression (Eleanor Leacock, Eric Wolf, June Nash, Rayna Rapp). She was very affected by her anthropological field work in the rainforest of Puerto Rico, where she lived in the radicalized squatter community of Villa Sin Miedo (Town without Fear).
Elle worked as an anthropologist with homeless and low-income women in New York City. In her social justice work, she co-developed innovative programs with and for marginalized women, including community businesses and entrepreneurial ventures for The Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corp. and others. She created New York’s first non-profit restaurant, One City Café, a social venture and experiment in municipal socialism. The project garnered international attention for its innovative approach to employing formerly homeless people and training low-income New Yorkers for high-end, well-paying jobs, breaking an industry-wide exclusion for marginalized people of color.
In 1991, Elle had the privilege to birth Chloe Louise Goldberg into the world, bringing to her life the joy, play, devotion, love and many other related challenges and glories of family intimacy.
Then, at the age of 39 Elle had a heart attack that required her to step back from the grueling demands of homelessness in New York City and to rethink her professional life on the front lines. Elle shifted her work toward her other passion: environmental justice. Elle went on to pilot local action programs that supported sustainable development in New York’s Hudson Valley, at the same time working for environmental organizations Scenic Hudson and The Nature Conservancy.
During this time, frustrated by the magical and superstitious thinking of many branches of alternative healing, Elle began developing her own shamanism program that integrated psycho-dynamic process, depth psychology, non-duality theory, the Buddhist dharma teachings of Trungpa Rinpoche and the work of A.H. Almaas' Diamond Approach. In 2013 Elle moved to Portland, OR to grow Rising Fire, a unique school of shamanism with her good friend Rosemary Beam to carry on this work.
Most recently Elle's practice has turned fully back to the The Three Jewels of Buddhism, while continuing to integrate psychological theory and relational practices into her work with students. In 2019, Elle began training with Terry Real (Relational Life Institute) and she has added Terry's elegant paradigm into her practice with couples, families and organizations within her company Coaching Cascadia.
Elle currently lives off the grid on the Northwest Coast of British Columbia, Canada with her husband and fellow sailor Dan Razzell. She works on Zoom with clients worldwide.
"Elle is known for a compassionate and honest approach that facilitates deep personal transformation and expanded awareness. She brings her love of the wild, of the human condition, and her devotion to reality to the Work."
All through her life, Ellyn (known affectionately as Elle) has been an explorer of both her inner landscape and the outer world around her. Her courage and love of exploration is key to her journey. Like her life history, Elle’s bio is very full!
Elle grew up in 1960’s Brooklyn, New York in a working class neighbourhood rife with race, class and gender conflict. Much of her early exploration in psychological theory, history and the human condition centred around making sense of the suffering and injustice she experienced and witnessed.
Many theories, readings, teachers and professional experiences are woven through Elle’s inner journey toward freedom.
Throughout her life, being in nature and in the wilderness was an important healing balm. The natural world offered a guileless presence that first allowed Elle to begin to open and trust a process of direct experience that would feed her life’s devotion to sustainable living and psychological wholeness. Elle began meditating and studying Buddhism in 1972 (really? this is 50 years ago!!) At the same time -- it being the '70's -- she immersed herself in sacred plant medicine, healing ceremonies and vision quests. She has apprenticed and studied with little-known and world-renowned teachers around the globe for five decades.
Meanwhile, Elle began college as an adult and became immersed in economics, sociology and anthropology as a way of understanding the human condition. While going to school and working full time, Elle continued on to attend the City University Graduate School and had the opportunity to train with many ground-breaking anthropologists studying dependency theory, World Systems and the effects of colonization on gender, race and systems of oppression (Eleanor Leacock, Eric Wolf, June Nash, Rayna Rapp). She was very affected by her anthropological field work in the rainforest of Puerto Rico, where she lived in the radicalized squatter community of Villa Sin Miedo (Town without Fear).
Elle worked as an anthropologist with homeless and low-income women in New York City. In her social justice work, she co-developed innovative programs with and for marginalized women, including community businesses and entrepreneurial ventures for The Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corp. and others. She created New York’s first non-profit restaurant, One City Café, a social venture and experiment in municipal socialism. The project garnered international attention for its innovative approach to employing formerly homeless people and training low-income New Yorkers for high-end, well-paying jobs, breaking an industry-wide exclusion for marginalized people of color.
In 1991, Elle had the privilege to birth Chloe Louise Goldberg into the world, bringing to her life the joy, play, devotion, love and many other related challenges and glories of family intimacy.
Then, at the age of 39 Elle had a heart attack that required her to step back from the grueling demands of homelessness in New York City and to rethink her professional life on the front lines. Elle shifted her work toward her other passion: environmental justice. Elle went on to pilot local action programs that supported sustainable development in New York’s Hudson Valley, at the same time working for environmental organizations Scenic Hudson and The Nature Conservancy.
During this time, frustrated by the magical and superstitious thinking of many branches of alternative healing, Elle began developing her own shamanism program that integrated psycho-dynamic process, depth psychology, non-duality theory, the Buddhist dharma teachings of Trungpa Rinpoche and the work of A.H. Almaas' Diamond Approach. In 2013 Elle moved to Portland, OR to grow Rising Fire, a unique school of shamanism with her good friend Rosemary Beam to carry on this work.
Most recently Elle's practice has turned fully back to the The Three Jewels of Buddhism, while continuing to integrate psychological theory and relational practices into her work with students. In 2019, Elle began training with Terry Real (Relational Life Institute) and she has added Terry's elegant paradigm into her practice with couples, families and organizations within her company Coaching Cascadia.
Elle currently lives off the grid on the Northwest Coast of British Columbia, Canada with her husband and fellow sailor Dan Razzell. She works on Zoom with clients worldwide.