Staff and Interns

White Eagle Medicine Woman (Suraj Holzwarth):

Executive Director, Drum Keeper and International Healer, Teacher and Ceremonial Artist.

White Eagle Medicine Woman’s (Suraj Holzwarth) adventurous life began early, when at the age of 19 she moved to Alaska and became the youngest woman to climb Denali, North America’s highest peak. With a deep love for the earth, she spent most of her early years in the wilds and guided wilderness expeditions throughout the world for over twenty years.

Michaela Baumgartner, MA:

Tour Manager, Cultural and Healing Arts Teacher, Ceremonial and Performance Artist

Michaela Ashaneya Baumgartner,

Michaela Ashaneya Baumgartner is an International Healer, Teacher, Author and Performance Artist. She is the Co-Director of the 501c3 non-profit organization The Whirling Rainbow Foundation and Grandmother Drum International Peace Project.

Michaela is a Certified Bowen Practitioner, Certified Master of Shamanic Arts and Certified CSM Practitioner & Instructor. Born and raised in Austria, she now makes her home in Homer, Alaska. Since 2010, she has toured in 16 countries with the foundation, touching hundreds of thousands of lives as a Cultural & Healing Arts Teacher, Musician, Tour Manager & Program Coordinator.

Anita Christie: Seamstress

Anita started out sewing Barbie doll dresses at her Grandmothers house at age 4 years. Now at 60 her passion as a seamstress continues as she designs custom cases and coverings for sacred item’s of all kind’s.

She is happy to be joining the Whirling Rainbow Foundation contract artists sewing both our hand drum and Community Drum cases from her yurt in Homer Alaska along with her best fury friend Logan.

Melinda Morningstar Patterson: Ceremonial Artist, Drum Maker, Herbalist

It was almost 40 years ago when Morningstar first developed a passion to work with herbs, and their abilities to support health. Along this path, she has explored the uses of both wild and cultivated herbs. She has the philosophy that “the plants you need, grow where you live”. In addition to her knowledge of plants, she incorporates in her healing practice her many years of working with pure grade essential oils. As part of her ongoing relationship with plants, she manages a home garden with hundreds of indigenous and culinary herbs, more than a dozen varieties of berry bushes, and many fruits and vegetables.

Morningstar first became part of the Whirling Rainbow Foundation in 2016, when she built her Community Mother Drum “Sanctuary of the Heart” and became a trained Community Mother Drum Keeper for Anchorage. Since then, she has taken numerous trainings within the foundation’s Cultural and Healing Arts programs. In addition to creating some of the foundation’s Living Arts herbal tinctures and salves, she is crafting many of the foundation’s ceremonial arts (drums & drum kits, rattle and rattle kits, community drum sticks etc). Morningstar recently completed a yearlong training and is now one of the foundation’s certified Crystal Skull Method Level 1 & 2 Practitioner. She has a private healing practice in Anchorage.

Dave Patterson: Product Engineer, Carpenter and Drum Maker

Dave is a long time Alaskan, at least since the age of 10 when his family moved up to the Far North. He has always had a fascination with how things work and how they are made. After his formal engineering training at West Point, and his career in service to our country, he and his wife Melinda Morningstar settled back in Alaska for good where they both focus on serving their community.

Dave has been a volunteer for the Whirling Rainbow Foundation since 2017 and was instrumental in the funding and completion of the foundation’s Eagle & Condor Cabin Project, Grove Cabin and Decagon Greenhouse.  Dave used his engineering skills to then design the Portable Community Mother Drum stands available to Grandmother Drum International Peace Project’s DRUM FOR CHANGE Global Network. . Dave recently completed the yearlong training and is now certified as one of the foundation’s Crystal Skull Method Level 1 Practitioners and is currently in his year of training for Level 2.

Salila Kubitza:

Ceremonial Artist and Puppeteer.

Born in Germany where she received a Bachelor’s degree in early Childhood Education, Salila was trained as a Waldorf Pre-School-Teacher and worked with children with special needs.

Working with Marionettes and Fairytales in a therapeutic setting and creating plays with Rod Puppets and Hand puppets was part of the daily schedule in her work. Later she went to India to study and practice meditation, to be trained in Meditative Therapies and to live in a community based on meditation.

Ashira Gurfinkel:

Tour Performer and Sound Healer

Born in the holy land of Israel with the name “Shiri” which in Hebrew means “Sings”, Shiri grew up around singing. As a young child, listening to her grandfather’s singing she got exposed to cantorship singing.

With him she explored, for the first time, the feeling of spiritual elevation through praying and singing. She believes that her medium is within her voice – to heal and open the hearts of humanity and deliver a message of peace. Shiri graduated Tel-Aviv University with B.A in acting studies, and M.F.A in directing, in the research area of ritual theatre.

Timna El Sharon:

Israel GMDRUM Tour Coordinator, Community Mother DrumKeeper, Teacher and Medicine Woman

Timna is a medicine woman, practicing Native American medicine for the past fourteen years. She trained with a Navajo medicine woman and has been receiving communications and guidance through visions and dreams, from the spirits of the animals, the four directions of the ‘Medicine Wheel” and the Elders throughout the years.