Ancient Healing Ways
with Pip Bondy
My path as a guide, teacher, and facilitator was born from a deeply personal journey. In early life, I developed a twisted spine and lived with extreme anxiety. In the mid-1980s, I discovered the Alexander Technique—a profound method that helped reconnect me to the wholeness of my body and opened a gateway to my soul. It became a foundational practice in my life, transforming pain into presence and initiating a life-long journey of healing.
​From the age of thirteen, I was drawn to the mystical and visionary. Life revealed itself as a weave of shadow and light, I learned that by facing my fear sand sorrows, beauty and understanding could emerge. Nature was always my refuge. As a child, I would slip away into fields and woodlands, merging with the trees and grasses, feeling a vast love I didn’t yet have words for. There, my chest would open like a book of joy. Loneliness lifted. I knew, even then, that no matter how painful or strange the world seemed, this secret place within me was unshakable.
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I began training as an Alexander Technique teacher in the late 1980s, my work evolved to support those suffering from physical and emotional trauma. I carried this work into hospices and the homes of the dying, where I learned to meet people—and myself—beyond illness or identity. The raw truths of life and death became sacred teachers.
In the mid-1990s, I embarked on my first Vision Quest with Roshi Joan Halifax in New Mexico. This age-old ceremony of rites of passage showed me that something was missing from my life and culture. It raised questions about what it means to truly grow up and take responsibility, with nature being my teacher and guide. I was completely blown away as I connected again to a source within the land and myself that I could never have dreamt possible. After many more Vision Quests, I trained with Joan and later with Steven Foster & Meredith Little, at The School of Lost Borders. California USA.
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More steps on my path and training
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During this period of my life, I joined the Zen Peacemaker Order with Bernie Glassman and Joan Halifax. With them I experienced my first Way of Council in Auschwitz and was moved deeply by the depth and truth of this powerful Practice. I did my first Council training with the Zen Peacemakers.
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Later I came to train and then introduce ‘The Way of Council’, an individual and group practice of deep listening and speaking from the heart. My mentor was Gigi Coyle in the tradition of the Ojai Foundation. I love the way Council initiates peoples’ own authentic voice. The Way of Council is a spiritual practice for me, a way of life. I’m moved and honoured by the simplicity and the depth, to meet and be met in the present moment.
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I then created a unique program based on a synthesis of Council and Alexander Technique.
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The work I offer now is the fruit of a life lived with commitment to truth, healing, transformation, and care. I follow the questions of my soul, walking the edge of my own becoming, and accompany others who find themselves standing on their own thresholds—those seeking deeper connection, clarity, and meaning. And ultimately a deep care for our planet.
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Along the way I am mother, a grandmother, a lover of wild nature and adventure, a lover of art and poetry, William Blake & John Keats in particular, and a lover of animals. I’ve also worked as a cleaner, a waitress and lived on the streets as a young person. I trained as a dream therapist with Marion Woodman and have studied with Natalie Goldberg, a Zen writing teacher. I also hold a wilderness first aid qualification. And have practiced meditation for more than forty years and much more.
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People drawn to my courses include therapists, caregivers, educators, and those navigating pain, trauma, or profound life transitions. My aspiration is to support authentic connection, awaken the sense of inner worth, and help others remember their place in the living web of life.
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I live in the wilderness of North Wales where I offer retreat courses and Vision Quests. I also travel to share the work across the UK, Europe and the USA.