Our Contributors

Our Food Expert:

Toronto born and bred, Sharon Tiessen is a visual artist and musician. Her passion for matters of health and food were born out of necessity when her own body came under attack from severe food sensitivities, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome and parasites picked up from travelling. After visits to numerous doctors and healthcare professionals, batteries of tests and a whole lot of money and frustration, she soon realized that help would not be forthcoming from conventional medicine and set out to educate herself on how best to enable her body to heal. Her journey to health has been transformational to body, mind and spirit, and finally, after many years of seeking and reading and trying many different things, she is feeling well, and the most grateful mom of a healthy, radiant little boy.

Our Spiritual Guru:

Dr. Alan Davey has been the lead pastor of Weston Park Baptist Church in Toronto for the last 18 years. He is also an adjunct professor at Tyndale University College teaching in the area of spiritual formation. Alan both practices and teaches meditation practices in the church and university environments. His extracurricular habits include scuba diving as a Master diver, and traveling the world to such places as: Bolivia, India, and Turkey. He is a lover of all things green and blue!

Our HypnoBirthist:

AnnaLynn Zinn de Vine, M.S., C.H.T. and PhD Candidate has been working as a Professional Labor Support Person for over thirty years, long before the word “Doula” came into prominence.  In her early years she taught Lamaze to women without partners, and attended them through their labors and deliveries. 

Ten years ago, AnnaLynn became a Clinical Hypnotherapist, and it was during this training that she was introduced to the HypnoBirthing Curriculum. Very pleased that someone else had done all the hard work of putting a curriculum together, she became a Certified HypnoBirthing Practitioner.

For the past ten years she has successfully practiced HypnoBirthing at her original Central Coast HypnoBirthing Center in San Luis Obispo County, and now at the Center For The Sacred Feminine located in Rancho Cucamonga, CA. She teaches women and their birthing companions how to successfully use hypnosis for labor and delivery. Her teaching style is professional, friendly, open and sometimes amusing! She has been called 'a rock' and 'an angel stronghold' by her clients. All have been deeply affected by her work. 

AnnaLynn's degrees in PsychoSpiritual Practice/Wholistic Mental Health have enhanced her work as a Clinical Hypnotherapist and HypnoBirthing Practitioner, and she is currently the only HypnoBirthing Practitioner practicing Hypnotherapeutic Labor Support in her area. Visit her website for more info: www.centerforthesacredfeminine.org or e-mail at hypnoangel@msn.com.