Gatekeeper Apprentice Training
“When the student is ready the teacher will appear” – Buddha
Journey around the Medicine Wheel composed of 5 Elemental Bodies – Fire, Water, Earth, Nature, & Stone.
BEZA’s Medicine Wheel
Apprentices devote their activity and attention to the power of one of Mother Earth’s Elemental Bodies over a two-month period.
Each Elemental Body has particular energies or “medicines” related to every manifestation of mind, body and spirit – thoughts, emotions, aspirations, abundance, sustainability, health and freedom, etc.
- Each Elemental Module – 80hrs
- Apprentice Gate (by application) – all 5 Modules = 400hrs
- All of The 5 Gates offered in the Guest Track
- Zen & Elemental Meditation Guidance Training
- Advanced Circle of Connection Training
- Personal Divination sessions
- Regular Mentoring sessions
- Personal development within a spiritual community
- Integrative training supported by student facilitators
- Schedule designed to accommodate the working parent
- Spacious time between modules for Integration
- Modules track 2 moon cycles (approx. 56 days of assimilation and dissemination of illumination)
- Inclusive of supportive embodiment modalities: meditation, mentoring, talking circles, divination, yoga, qigong, breathwork, creative arts, movement, non-psychoactive medicinal plants
- All for your DANA Payment of R3000 / €450 (valued at over R10,000 / €1500 per Module)
- Scholarships available (to be completed with Gatekeeper Apprentice Application)
Grounded EARTH Module
Way of the Heart
26 June - 10 August 2025
Never before has "Knowing Thyself" been so vitally important. During the Grounded EARTH Module (the third Elemental Gateway in the BEZA Medicine Wheel), we learn practical and spiritual skills to reconnect with Mother Earth - and consequently our True Self.
Zen Master Daido Loori Roshi once said, "To be born as the earth is not the same as being born. It is to realize that these mountains and rivers and the whole earth itself is our true human body." This will be the theme of this Module. Gatekeeper Training in the Earth Element is an initiation into Self. We have all been on a long and winding journey, ultimately searching for ourselves. This is the journey homeward - the Great Return: a Homecoming.
During this Module we learn how to remain centred during these extraordinary times of revolutionary change and powerful transformation. Anchor into the abundance available within your grounded, present self. Become open and available (no matter the situation) with an ever expanding heart while the truer you emerges. Reclaim your sovereign uniqueness as you learn to embody your inherent enlightenment. Study how abundance and karma are related and how to orient yourself at the various stages and cycles of growth. Embrace your healing power as you open to Mother Earth's Love. Celebrate the diversity of all dualities and manifestations as you connect to the unifying, common ground of community, home, identity, and otherness.
Not yet Ready for Apprentice Training?
Why explore Shamanism?
I want to learn various shamanic practices
I want to expand my consciousness
I want to access my inner wisdom
I want to know what my unique spiritual gifts are
NATURE-BASED WISDOM TALKS (NBW)
2 x R1000 monthly payments (Africans)
2 x €150 monthly payments (Internationals)
Listen in live to 4 x online Nature-Based Wisdom (NBW) talks delivered in the Advanced Training Modules (12 hrs of Elemental Teachings)
Create and perform your own customised transformational rituals alongside Apprentice and Student Gatekeepers
The 5 Gates
Enter BEZA’s Gateways through any of our daily, weekly, or monthly offerings:
Student Gate
by invitation
Facilitator Gate
for committed students
Who are the Gatekeepers?
Gatekeepers are shamanic practitioners whose function is to purify the energies they let in and out of their being.
By attuning, cleansing, and bringing these energies into balance, Gatekeepers become the Wisdom Keepers of the World.
Gatekeeper’s are initiates of the 5 Elemental Bodies of the Medicine Wheel. We are the body of Mother Earth from whom we originate.
A Gatekeeper upholds integrity and responsibility in all relationships – professional and personal. They serve the transformational power of love for the benefit of all beings.
Lead Mentor
Ekan Nangaku Leisching
Ekan Nangaku Leisching, a student of Seido Suzuki Roshi of Tōshōji Training Monastery in Japan, is working with the first generation of students to establish a Sōtō Zen training center on the African Continent.
Nangaku, the founder of Born as the Earth School, is a Zen monk who has taken vows to liberate all beings. He is an initiated elder & shaman, meditation teacher, mentor, diviner and writer, and has studied with Zen masters, indigenous shamans, psychotherapists and mythologists for over 35 years.
Spiritual awakenings took Nangaku on a quest across the globe to find the golden thread uniting all spiritual traditions. While living in the USA he ran several environmentally sustainable businesses and founded Earth School. After returning to South Africa he began offering authentic spiritual training in the Stanford area of the Western Cape where he has planted over 10,000 trees.
He has guided students in reclaiming their natural sovereignty. A lifetime of experience allows him to meet students at any stage of their journey and offer appropriate tools to birth their full potential.
Apprentice Mentor
Raine Waring
Since July 2021, Raine has worked closely with Ekan Nangaku in the creation of BEZA. Supported in her student relationship with Nangaku she has embarked on a path of spiritual awakening and transformation. Raine has travelled deeply into her medicine gifts. Having journeyed around BEZA’s Medicine Wheel several times, she is honing her awareness and embodiment of each Elemental Gateway. Marrying her inner- and outer-landscapes, she is committed to practicing an integrated, holistic life of truth, sustainability and oneness.
Raine offers a grounded, open-hearted and generous hand. Holding BEZA’s ethos and guiding principles in her core, and supported by her study of End of Life Companionship, She weaves death practices into her facilitation work, guiding people through the important process of grief, loss, and letting go. Through movement, embodiment and creative practices that focus on authentic, creative expression and storytelling, her 10 year career in Performance Art provides the skills needed to return people to the sacredness of their bodies.
Raine carries her responsibility as a Student-Facilitator with reverence and care. Guided by love, intuition and sensitivity, she is honoured to devoutly support people along their own path to liberation.
Apprentice Mentor
Gill O’Sullivan
Gill has a deep curiosity about the interconnectedness of emotional, physical, and spiritual health, and has delved into various personal growth and healing modalities, including studying psychology, aromatherapy, homoeopathy, embodiment, dance, and PSYCH-K.
Her meditation journey began 25 years ago, and she has deepened and expanded her practice since joining Born as the Earth Zen Academy in January 2023. Gill has always had a close connection with nature, and believes that her health and healing and the health of our beautiful planet are interconnected and intertwined. Her Gatekeeper Apprentice training with BEZA has fostered a greater understanding of the natural elements, and she is inspired to continue her training and deepen her connection to nature and, in this way, herself.
Gill is committed to this journey of mindfulness, self-knowledge, healing, growth and sustainability, and feels privileged to be mentored by Nangaku and the Born as the Earth Zen Academy community.
Topics covered on your journey around the Medicine Wheel
Transformation of Self
Discover your true potential and regain sovereignty over your spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical intelligence.
Buddhist & Indigenous Wisdom
Learn timeless practices passed down through generations from an initiated elder, Buddhist priest and shaman.
Connection with Nature
Reconnect with the essence, diversity of expression, and limitless wisdom of Mother Earth. Open the gates to the natural guidance of your innate wisdom.
Elemental Mastery
Remember deep insights into the five elemental bodies of the Medicine Wheel, unlocking profound wisdom and understanding.
Zen Buddhism
Through the Buddhist teachings of the 4 Noble Truths, Eightfold Path, Precepts and Zazen Meditation open to the infinite enormity of your particular originality and immediacy of presence.
Shamanic Practices
Experience transformative and holistic shamanic practices through ritual, initiations, community council, practical spirituality, ancestral healing, and divination.
Energy Purification
Learn to purify and balance your energy and the energy that surrounds you and become a Gatekeeper of these sacred teachings and their healing potential.
Upcoming Elemental Modules
Every 12 months we complete and restart a cycle of apprentice training around the medicine wheel.
Medicine of NATURE Module
Way of Medicine
21 August – 5 October 2025
Read the signs around you. Meet unpredictability with authenticity and curiosity. Trust your medicine to meet revolutionary moments with truth. In this Module we study medicine gifts; transformation; the trickster; authentic expression; transformation; shapeshifting and truth.
Creative STONE Module
Way of Story
23 October – 7 December 2025
How to effectively communicate – teach, lead and create the systems necessary to connect with others. Express your life’s purpose and build supportive networks. Work with communication; power structure; manifestation; motivation, goals & quests; and story keeping.
Visionary FIRE Module
Way of the Ancestors
2026
Work with what inspires – your dreams, aspirations and passion for life. Transmute all that stands in the way of your spiritual potential. Channel your purpose into realities that align with your truth. In this gateway you work with light & vision; alchemical illumination; dreams & myth; divination; and ancestral healing.
Compassionate WATER Module
Way of Balance
2026
Learn harmonising techniques – how to sense and relate to others. Access your emotional intelligence. Navigate the complexities of human and non-human relationships. Acquire the skills of meditation; compassion; resonance; resolving dilemma; and shadow work.
We plant a tree for the first event / training you attend. We help restore your inner- and outer-environment.
FAQ’S
What is "Dana payment" and why are we asking for it?
True Wisdom teachings are priceless. The Wisdom Teachings you will receive are beyond commodification. They have taken years of study and verification to compile and have been received at great personal cost by BEZA’s Lineage. They are generously offered to you as BEZA’s gift to you – it is our DANA.
Is this program academic or theoretical?
Not at all. While there will be profound guidance transmitted to you via an online live presentation, the 2 month-long investigation is hands-on, practical and self-directed. It’s important for you to have an embodied experience – direct contact with the nature of the Element. The entire training is designed this way – not to transmit information, but rather invite self-discovery through personal exploration of yourself in relation to the Element.
What happens during the private Heart Mentoring sessions?
You get to ask any questions you like… about the element, how it functions in your life, how to work with it, how it is manifesting in your life at present. The facilitator will use the context of the elemental training to guide you to work with the Element directly. The mentoring session is there to open the gates for your personal journey into the Element’s medicine and learn how to use it in a practical way in your life.
What is divination?
Divination has been around as long as we humans have. We use divination to make the invisible world visible. The invisible world holds what is not yet known. Through divination we receive this wisdom – it is made available for you to integrate into your journey. Nangaku uses sacred talismans, bones, stones and other amulets which become the vocal chords of the Other World. He spreads them over an Elemental Medicine Wheel. Where and how they land in relation to other items and the mandala reveals profound information for you to ingest and metabolise.
Earthen Zen
The Elemental Journal
Ordination in Africa
The Transformative Power of Talismanic Art
