Deer Ryder

Upcoming Offerings

  • Free Advanced Webinar: Workshop Your Eco-Soul Centric Community Vision

    April 16, 2025

    11-12:30am MST, 1-2:30pm EST

    5 People Max

    Workshop and get direct feedback about your eco + soul-centric community vision.

    Learn More

  • Full Day In-Person Course: Feral Mindfulness

    April 27th, 2025

    9AM-4:30PM, MST

    Four Corners Area of SW Colorado

    $90 USD with $25 Deposit

    For those local to the Four Corners region of Southwest Colorado, Joe and Deer are offering a unique, in-person, full-day immersion in Feral Mindfulness.

    Learn More

  • Online Half-Day Course: Feral Mindfulness

    May 4th, 2025

    7AM-12:30MST, 15:00-20:30 CET

    $60 USD/€55 EU

    A half-day, immersive online introduction to the practice of Feral Mindfulness

    Learn More

The Honey Cave

Deer’s Substack Publication:

Oral Stories, Ritual Art, Dynamic Essays, and Poetry on Myth, Mysticism, and the Holy Wild.

Working 1:1 With Deer

Dreamwork: Somatic + Soul

Has a dream shaken you up? Sense there is an important message within a dream? Has a series of dreams left you scratching your head or even spinning?

The wisdom and reveleations within our dream worlds will be ignored at our detriment. Sometimes, dreams knocks so loudly we feel compeleld to listen, but don’t quite know how. In these times, guidance can be vital.

Drawing from years of dreamwork training from the somatic and soul-centric lineages of the Animus Valley Institute, Ancient Greek Dream Incubation, the ancestral practices of Solea Anani, Meditation, Mindfulness and eco-somatic psychology, this offering is a mix of guided trance-based dream exploration, somatic inquiry and embodiment, ritual exploration, somatic symbology and nature-based depth work.

  • Work 1:1 with Deer to be somatically guided into your dream(s) vs. surface-level interpretation.

  • Reveal hidden layers of your dream

  • Embody the somatic wisdom inherent in your dream for personal and soul-centric transformation

  • Work with and gain clarity on your own unconscious psychological parts and patterns to support personal healing and empowerment

  • Receive practices, ceremonies, and invitations from the dream session for intergration and further growth.

  • Receive tailored guidance on how to enhance your personal relationship to your unique dream world.

  • Receive potential clues to your soul’s unique expression and path.

  • Understand the potential archetypes and symbols unique to you.

60-75 mins |  $70-90 sliding scale

Two-Session Bundle (Reccomended): $120-160 sliding scale

Storytelling Mentorship

You have a story to tell–a story that wants to move through you. It’s not enough that this story is just “good"–it is hungering to be infused with the depths of you, and perhaps, the more-than-you.

Stories are embedded in our human nature. We are all storytellers. Yet, there seem to be people that are particularly “captivating” when they tell a story–why? There are many reasons, but two important ones are: craft and authenticity.

In this storytelling mentorship, we will first go to the roots of your story, the roots of you, and the roots of the energy/spirit driving both. From there, we will learn how to court and conjure the story that is known or unknown to you, and began to support its most potent and authentic expression told from that unique vessel that is you.

  • Work 1:1 with Deer to create, conjure, and/or craft a story that feels important.

  • Grow your live storytelling skills and learn your particular ways to spellcast with story.

  • Get direct feedback and editing on a written story (if desired) and/or receive support translating a written story into an authentic, unscripted live oral story.

  • Identify some/any blockages to your storytelling and receive support on how to unblock for greatest flow.

  • Be in authentic relationship to your Self, the Earth, and Soul with your story.

  • Potential guided deep imagery journeys with drums, rattle, and/or voice to investigate the story’s unique spirit and wisdom, your unique storytelling gifts, and any blockages to your storytelling.

Individual Session: 60 mins |  $70-90 sliding scale

Two-Session Bundle (Reccomended): $120-160 sliding scale

Three-Session Bundle (Ideal): $170-210 sliding scale

Holistic Mentorship

You sense it is time to shed–another layer of growth is waiting ot be born; a path is emerging but you are not sure where to step; your unique gifts scream to be seen but something is blocking them. Where to go? What to do?

We almost always benefit from support and mentorship, particularly when we feel like we are on the threshold of something big or when life feel uniquely “challenging” or “juicy.” One question is: who is the right support person for this ripe moment?

This 1:1 offering essentially encapsulates all offerings and all possibilities–dreamwork, soulwork, eco-depth, somatics, therapeutics, ritual artistry, healing and wholing, and psychological/spiritual support. We will work together to see what is most emergent in your field of need and guide you towards the most authentic and empowering place within it.

  • Work 1:1 with Deer in a unique relationship adapted to you, your needs, and the wider needs of the world.

  • While the realms of soul, creativity, personal development and healing are common realms of mentorship, it can truly be anything that feels important for you right now.

  • Deer “tracks” your personal and soul-threads to offer evolution and continuity of support.

  • Guided imagery journeys, creative ceremony, meditations, dreamwork, eco-depth work, somatic practices and more are all possible and likely modalities to explore.

Note: because having a consistent mentoring relationship is so much more impactful, multiple session bundles are signifcantly discounted.

Individual Session: 60 mins |  $70-90 sliding scale

Two-Session Bundle (Reccomended): $120-160 sliding scale

Three-Session Bundle (Ideal): $150-180 sliding scale

I am so grateful for the opportunities I've had to work with Deer! He crafts such delicious spaces that are safe and inspiring . . . which allow me to go deep and retrieve what I need most! He has an exquisite relationship with Mystery and a unique ability to listen to his intuition which supports me to meet my own. I really appreciate his depth of care and listening . . . moving at just the right speed always and helping to harvest important gems of my experience. He offers the kind of mirroring that let's me really feel seen and heard and provides heart-crafted invitations to let me sink even deeper after session.

— Bubs Buselli, Eco-Somatic Love & Intimacy Coach

“. . . Their guidance helped me to find the connection that I lost with a realm that has been my companion for many years. Thanks for making me realize how much I need this spark to light my path."

— Memo Santos

“It is incredibly powerful to be a part of a community of dreamers while connected with the land. I highly recommend working with Deer in the dreamscape! His insights are not only valuable but deeply transformative at a soul-level.”

— Caroline Lewis, Psychologist, Energy Healer, Wilderness Guide and Leadership Coach at Root Awareness

Additional Testimonials

  • "The Walking in Wild Prayer Pilgrimage with Deer Ryder, Boundless (Joe), the pilgrims who were called to join, and all the seen and unseen beings who call the Wild Mesa home completely transformed my life, and that is not an exaggeration. . . "

    -Briana Halliwell

  • "...Deer and Joe role-model this presence that they're teaching so well. It's clear they practice what they preach.."

    -Abigail Coughlin

  • "Thank you for reminding me to ask, out loud, nature for permission, support, guidance... Once I remembered this, I began to get responses. Shooting stars at just the right moment, surprise discoveries during wanderings..."

    -Chris Cottrell

  • "So wonderful! I am extremely grateful for you! I was reflecting on how safe I feel in this space - and I often don't feel that around men so thank you for the beautiful energy you put out into the world."

    -Cassidy Powell

  • "...at first I was really doubtful about two gringos giving a retreat on spiritual matters, but this was one of the first opportunities I've had to explore inside myself. I love the kindness, love and sensibility of Deer and Joe as instructors... it opened my heart to explore and dig more into my questions... Their guidance helped me to find the connection that I lost with a realm that has been my companion for many years. Thanks for making me realize how much I need this spark to light my path."

    -Memo Santos

  • "The time in silence and meditation... was delicious and life changing. I feel completely rejuvenated, refreshed, rested and clear minded. I feel more in touch with my true self than I have in a long time. So many worries and fears simply faded away as I connected to the wild..."

    -Rachel Wallace

  • "Thank you for creating such a beautiful offering to the community... The heart that each of you put into the retreat was obvious, and the space was poignant as a result. My experience was quite profound, and much of that is due to the container that you both created."

    -Stephanos Calligas

About Deer Ryder

Deer is an Eco-Depth and Underworld Guide, writer, dream worker, and poet-storyteller rooted in the American Southwest. He creates, facilitates, and supports offerings that help kindle the reverential, mystical, and reciprocal relationship to land and soul for his local community, nationally, and internationally.

For the past 7 years, Deer’s primary lineage has been with the Animas Valley Institute, a nature-based mystery school where Deer trains as a Soul Initiation Guide and facilitates the Nature Based Map of the Psyche, SoulCraft™, trance states, eco-somatics, guiding wilderness fasts and rites of passage.

Deer is a founding member and Lead Guide for LifeWays Conscious Wilderness Institute and spent two years as a senior field guide for Open Sky Wilderness Therapy; he is a certified Wilderness First Responder, certified wildlife tracker, and certified in nature-based practices and eco-psychology from the Eco-Dharma Centre in the Catalan Pyrenees.

Deer has been a dedicated meditation practitioner and facilitator for 10 years, primarily in the Vipassana/Insight traditions, and is fascinated with exploring the sacred ecological roots of contemplative practices.

Lastly, Deer received his Permaculture Design Certification from The Permaculture Academy and applied its teachings while living and working on dozens of eco-projects and communities around the world, including ancestral land practice at Navdanya Earth University in northern India. He has his BA in Literature and Creative Writing from UCLA and is a student of worldwide mythology, storytelling, and traditional cultures.

You can read and listen to his multimedia work on myth, mysticism, and the wild on his Substack Publication: The Honey Cave.

Questions or Something Else? Get in touch.