THE PATH OF SACRED ALTARSHIP
A Journey of Remembrance & Service
The Invitation:
This is an invitation to become a steward of the altar, both the ceremonial altar as well as the altar of life.
This path is for those who’ve felt the unmistakable call: Not just to serve, but to steward the sacred, protect the unseen, and humbly approach the unknown.
It is a summons to stand with presence at the threshold where Spirit meets matter and becomes form. It is a sacred tending to all that must dissolve, and a witnessing of the possibility left in its void.
Altarrship is a living, initiatory path that must be approached with reverence and precise guidance.
To tend the altar is to enter into deliberate and conscious union with Spirit, yourself, your guides, the plants, and with nature itself. It is a path of sincere devotion for those who have heard the unmistakable call to serve and steward the unseen and to hold vigil in sacred moments of profound vulnerability.
This program will be offered and held within the protection and guidance of our church, The Numinious Sanctuary: A Path of Sacred Remembrance.
Our work is rooted in the Shipibo lineage and shaped by the embodied teachings of eastern philosophy, Western psychology, devotional practices, plant medicine, and the teachings of the Pathwork.
This is an appprenticeship program that will train you to become not only a highly skilled ceremonialist but also, in time, an "onaya," a wisdom carrier that serves the altar of life.
Who This Is For
This training is designed for Space-holders and ceremonialists, psychedelic practitioners and integration guides, therapists working with expanded states and, students interested in learning to navigate the threshold between the seen and unseen
You will be well-suited for this work if you are:
- Ready to confront your resistance, fears, and blind spots in ceremonial space
- Looking for lineage-rooted training with real-time feedback and accountability
- Become trauma-informed and equipped to meet challenges with steadiness and compassion
- Wanting to learn how to clean yourself energetically (and in subsequent semesters, others) by learning to chant in Shipibo
- Seeking to gain a deeper understanding of Shipibo plant medicine technology and cosmology
- Drawn to a high-integrity shamanic path rooted in a living wisdom practice that emphasizes inner clarity and service
- Are ready to study the 1:1 practice of Soul Retrieval in a ceremonial container
- Ready to face yourself and your own edges through studying and applying the psycho-spiritual teachings of the Pathwork
- Working with plant medicine and stewarding safe entheogenic states
- Space-holders and ceremonialists seeking lineage-rooted structure
- Psychedelic practitioners and integration guides who want deeper integrity and lineage based training
- Therapists and facilitators working with altered states
- Devoted students who are willing to face their own shadow before serving others
- Value accountability over performance
- Drawn to structure, clarity, and real practice over ambiguity
- Are willing to commit to a full year of disciplined integration
Who This Is Not For:
- Not for those seeking quick certification or shortcuts
- Not for those approaching the path with curiosity but without genuine commitment
- Not for those wanting authority without discipline, humility, and patience
- Not for those seeking to guide others without first committing to deep inner work
This course is for those ready to learn how to steward the sacred altar—through study, ceremony, direct feedback, and a sincere desire to meet with their own edges. Students develop both the spiritual competence and embodied readiness required to support shamanic altars in high-resonance ceremonial work.
This immersive facilitator training is a rare offering at the intersection of traditional shamanic apprenticeship and rigorous pedagogical teaching. Led by Robin York (Mananxawe Joni)—a Shipibo-trained maestro in the Mahua family lineage and a master educator with over 25 years of teaching experience—this course delivers deep ceremonial wisdom in a structure that fosters clarity, accountability, and authentic transformation.
Rooted in the Shipibo tradition of the Peruvian Amazon and guided by the wisdom of plant teachers, this training prepares students to hold ceremonial space with integrity, presence, and alignment with spiritual law. The program is co-taught with Alicia Marie York (Ani Kaya), a skilled healer and intuitive guide. It includes guest teachers offering modules on trauma awareness, voice work, advanced Shipibo chanting, spiritual cleansing, and energetic protection.
What You Will Learn
- Altarship: How to serve and protect the sacred altar, both spiritual and ceremonial
- Ceremonial Readiness: Grounding, centering, holding, and aligning in altered states
- Shipibo Chanting: Introductory and intermediate chanting courses for self-clearing, plant connection and singing to other students
- Energetic Stewardship: How to clean, track, and support others in shamanic space
- Master Plant Connection: Form a relationship with a plant spirit ally
- Spiritual Protection & Permission: Core hygiene, boundary, and right-relationship practices
- Shamanic Vision: Begin the process of learning to “see” and perceive energetically with clarity and integrity
- Psychedelic Integration: Tools and frameworks for integrating ceremony into life
You will leave with a stronger energetic spine, a clearer voice, a direct plant ally, and a more honest relationship with your own limits and gifts as a ceremonial steward.
Course Structure
Each trimester is 12 weeks, building sequentially in depth and practical skill. The course is delivered online, with required in-person ceremonial weekends at its heart.
- Live Group Classes: Every other week (6 total, 1.5 hours each)
- Shipibo Chanting Class: Alternating weeks (6 total)
- Private Mentorship: Two 1-on-1 sessions with Robin York, one with Alicia Marie York
- Urban Bobinsana Dieta: 4-week guided dieta mid-trimester
- Guest Teachers: Voice, energetic hygiene, visionary development, and protection
- Required In-Person Weekend: A ceremonial gathering led by Robin and Alicia York. Students are invited to sit in deep ceremony, receive reflection from teachers and peers, and integrate through structured group processing.
- Schedule: Wednesdays at 7 PM PST (Zoom)
This in-person weekend is a vital element of the training. It is where all the teachings are applied. Students are guided to confront their inner material, work at their edge, and integrate feedback through direct ceremonial experience.
Urban Bobinsana Dieta
Midway through the trimester, students will enter a 4-week guided dieta with Bobinsana, a master plant known for heart-opening, emotional softening, and dream cultivation. This dieta supports:
Opening the Voice & Building a living relationship with a plant spirit ally
Learning how to sing to a plant and receive from it
Strengthening inner vision and energetic clarity
Preparing to diet Noyarao in later semesters (by invitation).
Students are guided closely through this process with dietary, energetic, and integrative support.
The Ceremonial Weekend
A cornerstone of the training is the required in-person weekend gathering. Students come together to sit in a held Shipibo-style ceremony facilitated by Robin and Alicia and invited co-facilitators. This space is designed to push each participant to their spiritual and psychological edge—in a container of safety, skill, and reverence.
Participants receive:
- A deep ceremonial experience amongst their cohort
- Real-time tracking and feedback from Robin and Alicia
- Integration circles to process, clarify, and receive reflection
- Practice in presence, stillness, and service under pressure
- Becoming “ponte” (or “straight” in Shipibo) in your ability to distinguish your own personal “stuff” from your role as a shamanic facilitator
This is where altarship moves from theory to lived experience. It is an essential cornerstone for the training.
The Path of Sacred Altarship
Sacred Altarship is a year-long initiatory path for those who feel called to steward the altar — both the ceremonial altar and the altar of life by helping others to integrate the profound gifts of the numinous path into their day-to-day lives.
To tend the altar is to enter a deliberate relationship with Spirit, with plant intelligence, with your own unconscious material, and with the unseen forces that move through ceremony. This path asks for humility, discipline, and devotion. It is for those who know that before tending others, they must become stable within themselves.
The foundational year of Sacred Altarship unfolds from July 2026 through June 2027. It includes:
- Guided dieta
- Pairing ceremonies and relational discernment
- Shipibo chanting foundations and intermediate practice
- direct mentoring and feedback sessions
- A required in-person ceremonial weekend
- Private mentorship and year-long containment
This is not fast.
It is not performative.
It is paced intentionally to protect your nervous system, our lineage and your soul's evolution on this path.
The Sacred Altarship training is held under the guidance of our Church, The Numinous Sanctuary. Our work is rooted in the Mahua lineage of Shipibo healers and shaped by embodied devotion, our connection with Noyarao, the Sacred Tree of Light, our plant spirit allies, our roots in Christic consciousness and our own psycho-spiritual training.
This year stands on its own as a complete course. However, those interested in deepening their studies will be invited to apply for our second year training. Advancement into the second year apprenticeship will be assessed via readiness, alignment, and personal evolution.
If you feel a calling to walk a path of humility, discipline, and service that is rooted in a traditional lineage, this apprenticeship may be for you.
Highlights: Year One and Year Two Programs
Investment: $7700
Applications Open: Feb 18th, 2026
Cohort Begins: July 24th, 2026
Location for in-person weekend: Ojai, CA
- This apprenticeship includes:
- $500 discount on the In-Person Master Plant Dieta in July in Ojai, CA
- Three 12 Week Trimesters
- Includes: group classes, chanting, 1:1 mentorship, Bobinsana dieta, trauma-informed training, and much more.
- Cohort limited to 14 students
- By application only
Ministerial Apprenticeship Track:
Graduates of this training may be invited to apply for the Numinous Sanctuary Ministerial Apprenticeship, a longer-term path for those called to serve sacrament and co-facilitate within the consectated structure of our Church.
- Multi-year ceremonial mentorship
- Deepening into Shipibo dieta, altar service, and spiritual law
- Learn Soul Retrieval in a highly structured and safe conatiner
- Ordination as an associate minister of the Church (case-by-case discernment)
- A path toward serving sacrament with full initation, Church protection and oversight
Completion of the Stewarding the Sacred Altar course is a prerequisite for application into the Second Year Apprenticeship.
The internal value of these combined offerings exceeds $12,000.
However, we are offering students who have been studying with us and devoted to this work a very special opportunity to receive a discounted price for this apprenticeship. Please book a call for more information.
Note: The tuition adjustment honors those who commit to the year-long course, rather than individual offerings.
Scholarships Offered.
Book Call
What Others Have Experienced
BE INSPIRED
“I came into this course not knowing any Shipibo or anything about how to create an Icaro and I walked away with being able to fully chant my own Icaro and the foundation to build a new one on my own at any time! Robin has a wealth of knowledge - not just in how to create an Icaro but also in how to actually use it for spiritual shamanic purposes. Robin is incredibly patient and kind and a thoughtful and generous teacher. He goes above and beyond for his students - always giving more of his time, energy, and knowledge even after the normal class time has ended. I really enjoyed this course and highly recommend it to anyone looking to deepen their understanding of this technology.”
- Christina R.
‘I’ve been working with the medicine for a few years, but this course revealed the profound connection between the Shipibo language, the íkaros, and the medicine itself. I now understand how íkaros are constructed and how they work energetically to support healing across body, mind, and spirit. We began with foundational vocabulary, and Robin guided us step-by-step in forming phrases, sentences, and full verses, which made the process grounded and accessible.
Though centered on chanting, the course also deepened my relationship with spirit through reflection, prayer, and practice, helping my confidence and connection to my diets and the plants grow. Hearing stories of Papa Gilberto and the Mahua lineage brought the teachings to life, and learning Shipibo and íkaros has given me a clearer understanding of how chants guide ceremony and support self-liberation. I’m truly grateful and honored to have received these foundational teachings.”
"Robin's class is absolutely invaluable for anyone interested in chanting in Shipibo. Robin's warm and welcoming attitude creates the perfect environment for singing in front of new people. I had some experience trying to cobble together an ikaro with the few words I knew, and this class not only vastly increased my vocabulary and understanding of this technology, but also enriched my experience of singing in ceremony. There is a new resonance in my voice and a deeper connection with the plants while singing. Absolutely magical."
Maestro Robin York
Robin is a traditionally trained Shipibo Maestro with over 18 years of experience dieting master plants in the jungle.
Robin combines his many years of training with the Mahua family of Shipibo healers with his own deeply compassionate perspectives that support individuals in a return to wholeness, authenticity, and creative purpose. Learn more about Robin's work
Alicia York
Alicia is an intuitive healer and a seer. Through her study of Pathwork, depth hypnosis, PSI, and her extensive shamanic training she has developed a special skill for hearing the unspoken dialogue of the subconscious and bringing it into conscious awareness. Learn more about Alicia's work
