We are a global re-villaging community of healing artists, creative educators and community weavers
A lively bunch of Musical Ecology elders, guides, apprentices, artists & facilitators gathered in Cape Town, South Africa for our regenerative learning retreat “Musical Ecology Camissa 2025”.
(From left to right: Ntando Mbatha, Sarah Sun, Kholofelo Naftali Mphago, Zintle NeahtYah Mbuyazwe, Bruce Copley, Liesl Haasbroek, Meri Kenaz, Zoxolo Mcobo, Tanith Christi Scott, Joel Karabo Elliott.
Our coordination team . . .
Joel Karabo Elliott
Joel is a musical composer, performer, arts educator and community regeneration guide based in southern Appalachia, USA (Asheville, North Carolina) and southern Africa (South Africa and Mozambique). As the founder of Roots Grown Deep world music & healing arts ensemble, he has produced and released12 albums of music and offered his multidisciplinary gifts in 17 countries around the world, serving children, adults, communities and professional institutions with practical tools for the expansion of personal and collective enlightenment. He holds an M.A. in Consciousness & Human Potential from Maharishi Int’l University.
Joel is the visionary architect of The Fellowship and has been employing the paradigm of “Musical Ecology” for over a decade as a method of realizing higher states of consciousness, as a movement for regenerative community, as a lens for alternative education, and as a Way of Being in harmony with life at the confluence of silence, sound, artistic practice and grounded service. Joel integrates the many diverse personalities, communities, and geographical nodes of the Fellowship into a cohesive global community.
Merike Meiring
Merike serves as a coordinator of The Fellowship in Southern Africa. She is a beloved musician and singer-songwriter (known as Meri Kenaz), experienced arts educator, and founder of the community networks Regenerative Culture Works and Grow Healthy Communities. Merike is also a health coach through her unique Humony Sound: Vocal Somatic Resonance training and method. Merike resides in Cape Town and has assisted Musical Ecology movements in South Africa since 2019. She is an activist for community resilience, food as medicine, and re-naturing.
Cait O’Neal
Cait is a lifelong learner, traditional midwife, and passionate advocate for whole-family wellness who has spent over two decades walking alongside families as an alternative educator. As a homeschooling mother of five, she has lived the philosophy she teaches — that education is not confined to four walls, but woven into every moment of life and through every relationship. Her journey has been shaped by a deep reverence for the wisdom children carry and the transformative power of trusting them to lead.
Rooted in the sacred work of birth and the rhythms of family life, Cait brings a holistic vision to everything she does. Her background as a traditional midwife has given her an intimate understanding of life’s most profound thresholds and a steadfast belief that when families are supported spiritually, emotionally, and physically, entire communities are strengthened. This whole-person, whole-family approach is the heartbeat of her work as an educator and mentor. In the Fellowship, Cait serves as a Guidance Counselor to apprentices and a Community Relations Coordinator.
Lauren Vermillion
Lauren serves as an Organizational Architect and Minister of Musical Ecology, bringing more than a decade of experience in nonprofit pioneering, program development, and leadership. Her work is deeply rooted in devotional practice that informs every dimension of how she listens, serves, creates, and leads. Her experience includes co-founding a church and spiritual development programs in Santa Rosa Beach, FL; founding and directing a nonprofit supporting cross-cultural humanitarian aid workers; developing holistic health coaching programs and protocols for survivors of sexual trafficking; and serving as Director of Community Care for Asheville, NC-based social health nonprofit SeekHealing.
Drawing from her experience as a yoga and meditation teacher, exercise therapist, integrative health coach, social health facilitator, and spiritual counselor—with specialized training in trauma and transpersonal psychology—Lauren supports apprentices in their healing, embodiment, and spiritual unfolding. Her mentorship centers deep listening, authentic expression, and a felt sense of connection with the Sacred woven within and through all creation. She supports apprentices in developing personalized practices and rhythms that create the inner conditions needed to embody integral leadership across all dimensions of life.
Ntando ‘Basslyn’ Mbatha
Ntando is a musical composer, poet, music educator, and social activist for the revival of the centrality of music in all aspects of life. He worked as a school teacher and administrator for Cefane Arts Academy (Engcobo, Eastern Cape, South Africa) and is a member of the Roots Grown Deep world music ensemble and contributor to Musical Ecology missions since 2015. Ntando is the founder of the Beat Box Campus jazz hip-hop ensemble which is well known in Pretoria where he attended the Tshwane University of Technology.
Muna Askar
Muna's journey has taken her from the city of Chicago to the corn fields of Iowa where she is now pursuing her Bachelor's in Regenerative Organic Agriculture. As a descendent of the Amazigh mountain people of Libya, she is drawn to the stories of the land as a source of remembrance of our true nature as stewards of beauty on the Earth. Over the past several years, she has dedicated herself to the development of consciousness through deep meditation and the study of indigenous and ancient knowledge traditions at Maharishi International University, where she now serves her community as Student Body President. Her work explores the meeting place of inner awakening, ecological stewardship, and cultural remembrance. She firmly believes some of life's biggest questions can be explored on a barefoot walk.
Muna will join The Fellowship as the first apprentice in September 2026 and will serve as youth architect of the emerging apprenticeship program. Her Primary Mentor relationships are with Emberlight Center for Conscious Living & Dying and Roots Grown Deep world music ensemble.
Kholofelo ‘Naftali’ Mphago
Naftali, as most know him, is an acclaimed singer-songwriter, entrepreneur, and a social activist for youth empowerment in the arts and sustainable agriculture. He is the founder of Embewu Arts & Culture Forum in his home of Ekangala/Bronkortspruit in Mpumalanga, South Africa, and is the creator of the healing indigenous herbal product known as Kaputla Tea. He is an original member and co-founder of Roots Grown Deep world music ensemble and has been a part of Musical Ecology missions in Southern Africa since 2014. Naftali is an Afro-centric representative for the centrality of ancestral wisdom in the healing process for our modern communities and world systems.