Owl (aka Stephen Kavalkovich) knows his soul’s purpose in this current earthly incarnation is that of healer. He was born on 2/22 @ 4:44 in the morning. Astrologically, this indicates there was much celestial “alignment” at the time of his birth. In recalling his childhood, he has vivid memories of interacting with spirits. At the time he believed them to be his imaginary friends, as they were consistently loving and made him feel safe. However, his collective years of experience have shown him that there has always been a lot more than meets the eye.
He grew up in a strict Russian Orthodox Church environment. He was immensely inspired and mystified by the ceremony, traditions, and a sense of loving power that he could not see. He also didn’t feel he “fit in” with other kids and was often ostracized for being “different.” Feeling like a square peg in a round hole certainly resonated from a young age.
After a significant life event as a teenager, Owl’s soul guided him to the bookstore for hours on end, reading eastern mysticism, paganism, magic, and beyond. He would spend the next 25 years studying, practicing, and experiencing many of the ancient techniques that he utilizes to assist others today.
Owl spent his teenage years as a volunteer EMT and eventually became a career paramedic. He was a compassionate provider drawn to helping others. Through this work, along with integrating ancient techniques, he came to find self-compassion and deconstruct his own unhelpful patterns. He then worked hard to develop new patterns and build a framework for the life he was meant to have.
Healing is an individual journey. Not everyone responds to the same treatment, for the body and for the soul, in the same way. Finding true healing is about locating the source of imbalance and then working to restore it. In recent years, Owl has reawakened the shaman inside of him for his own continued healing and as well as for others.
Owl has spent the last few years bringing his message of healing and recovery to the world in the creation of the pioneer, groundbreaking podcast for First Responders that focuses on mental health topics. That led him to speaking around the country at conventions, symposiums, and conferences as a highly sought after authority on these topics. While he truly loves that work, he has found that he is most fulfilled when working one on one with people. He feels honored to share his gifts to help connect others to their own sources of pain and transmute those energies into healing and metamorphosis.
Any and all healing is spirit driven and therefore not one size fits all. Healing doesn’t work like that.
In utilizing the practice of shamanism, Reiki, and a combination of the multitudes of modalities he has studied and worked with over the years, Owl assures you that a session with him will be one of a kind and transformative.
In Shamanism, it is a common traditional practice to change one’s name. Of course, this name is one that holds specific meaning to the individual practitioner. It also is done to symbolize the death and rebirth process that the shaman experiences as he goes through his journey as one who walks with “one foot in this world, and one in the spiritual world” Stephen was given this name based on his spirit animal being an Owl, his favorite color that represents his view on life, and fire symbolizing personal refinement through the burning away of impurities.
Training and Experience-
Peruvian, Celtic, and Native American Shamanism
Teacher- Owl White Feather
Traditional Usui Reiki 1 and 2- 1998
Teacher- Elsie Kerns
Traditional Usui Reiki Master- 2020
Teacher- Dr. Chujiro Hayashi
Ayurvedic Medicine Practitioner
SKY Breath/Sudarshan Kriya- The Art of Living
Taiwanese Pai Hur Chien- White Crane Chi Kung
Grandmaster S.L Martin- 2003-Present
Traditional Wing Chun Kung Fu- Master Keith Mazza
NJ Certified Peer Recovery Specialist
Harvard McLean Hospital’s Deconstructing Stigma Project- Storyteller https://deconstructingstigma.org/
Cast Member of This is My Brave- Philadelphia July 2018- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ht214Z8sUL0
Rutgers University Center for Alcohol Studies A Journey To Wellness Companion Guidebook- Co-Author- Journey to Wellness Guide | Center of Alcohol & Substance Use Studies (rutgers.edu)
Recovery Coach
CCAR- Center for Addiction Recovery 2019
Former NJ Paramedic 2002-2013
9/11/2001 WTC Rescue Worker
Evesham Township, NJ- Planning Board Member- 2021- Current
Evesham Township, NJ- Community Celebrations Committee- Current
Burlington County, NJ LACADA- Local Advisory Committee on Alcohol and Drug Abuse- Current Member
Certified Clinical Hemodialysis Technician
Nephrology Nursing Certification Commission 2017-2021
Certified CCMA(Medical Assistant) , CET(EKG), CPT(Phlebotomy), CEHRS(Electronic Health Records),CPCTA(Patient Care Tech) through National Health Career Association- 2019-Current
Philadelphia Inquirer January 2022 Feature-
https://www.inquirer.com/life/shamanic-practitioner-shaman-owl-grey-fire-20220111.html
Stephen Kavalkovich serves on the planning board of his Burlington County hometown, where he also became an emergency medical technician, began his recovery from opioid addiction and founded a shamanic practice called Ancient Healing Pathways.
“The word shaman means someone who sees in the dark. I’ve had a lot of dark, and my own healing journey has groomed me to find ways to help other people heal,” said the 40-year-old Evesham Township resident, who’s married to a teacher and has a son and a daughter, ages 13 and 10.
“To be a shaman,” Kavalkovich said, “you don’t have to be some mystical guy who lives on a mountain.”
Raised in the Russian Orthodox church — he was an altar boy at Assumption of the Holy Virgin in South Philly — Kavalkovich is a state-certified recovery specialist who works with individuals re-entering the community after incarceration.
That’s his full-time gig. As Owl Grey Fire (“I have always felt connected with owls”), he offers shamanic healing sessions. He said this time-honored spiritual practice, which combines elements of ceremony, light-touch massage and talk therapy, can facilitate what he calls “soul retrieval.”
Shamanic practice is compatible with more conventional approaches to mental and physical wellness, he said, and it has nothing to do with the so-called “QAnon Shaman,” Jacob Chansley, who was among those who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
A soft-spoken man with a ready smile and an alert gaze, Kavalkovich was born a triplet and believes the death of his brother Matthew, 24 hours after their birth, was the first of several “woundings” he suffered. An attempted sexual molestation by a youth group leader, and a former high school girlfriend’s death in a traffic accident, also traumatized him, as did his 15 years of living in addiction.
“Shamans were the original trauma therapists,” he said.
After stints in rehab, an arrest for drug possession in Kensington, and an overdose that brought several of his former Evesham Fire-Rescue colleagues to assist him at his parents’ home in Marlton, Kavalkovich’s recovery journey began in 2016.
The disease cost him his career as a paramedic, as well as his first marriage. Medically assisted treatment “gave me somewhere to start from,” Kavalkovich said.
“My previous training and certification in the Reiki healing practice helped prep me for the healing work I do today, and my recovery, and especially, the lockdowns at the start of the pandemic, reawakened my interest,” he said.
Kavalkovich trained under the guidance of a local shaman for nearly a year and began offering his services last May. Sessions last for one to two hours, and fees vary but generally run between $75 and $100 per session.
“When someone comes to see me for the first time, I evaluate their energies and do my best to balance them. Some clearing of stagnant energies can be done on the massage table,” Kavalkovich said.
“I use drumming to get the person into a different state of consciousness for the shamanic journey. We’re trying to bypass the rational mind, get into the subconscious and bring up stuff. It’s like tracking in the woods. I’m looking for original wounding. I’m tracking for places someone’s soul essences may have been damaged by traumatic incidents in childhood, for example.”
Last July, two months after he launched his practice, Kavalkovich was appointed an alternate member of the Evesham Township Planning Board.
“It’s a quasi-judicial board, and to serve you have to be a resident of the township, a good citizen and willing to undergo (state-required) training,” said Heather Cooper, Evesham’s deputy mayor. “We’re happy Stephen wants to serve. He has a passion to give back, and he has an awareness of development” and its impact on the township.
Members with different backgrounds also can provide the board with “a different lens” to view issues that come before it, she said.
“It’s a new experience, getting to see the workings of local government and how things happen in town,” said Kavalkovich. “I bring the perspective of someone who has lived in this town for more than 30 years. I’ve seen where it came from, and I can be a small voice in the process of where it can go.”
Kavalkovich has long been civic-minded; he was among a group of young township EMTs who volunteered to be dispatched to Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001. After his recovery was underway, he launched a podcast called Rescue the Rescuer.
Although he’s taken a break from podcasting, Kavalkovich continues to be a public advocate for mental health and recovery. He tells his story on the website deconstructingstigma.org, a project of the Harvard Medical School-affiliated McLean Hospital.
He’s also spreading the word about shamanic practice with a Jan. 4 interview on YouTube’s Readily Random channel. And last November, he spoke to a continuing education class at Camden County College in Cherry Hill.
Kavalkovich is well aware that despite the interest in alternative spiritual and wellness practices among many people, some regard shamanism as charlatanism.
“If someone said that, I would say, ‘Shamanic practices have helped me. They’ve helped my family. They help other families. But you’re entitled to your opinion.’”
He also believes the pandemic has sparked interest in alternative spiritual practices of all sorts.
“Right now we’re in a place where everything is being challenged and people are seeking out things that are not the norm,” Kavalkovich said. “We’re in a great awakening period.”
