Rena Carolyn Yount

Rena Yount passed away on January 23, 2021, at Brooke Grove Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Sandy Spring, Maryland. Rena was born on September 25, 1948, in Washington, DC, the second of four children of Everett Ray Yount and Mary Elizabeth (Carpenter) Yount.

Rena became active in civil rights, anti-war, and feminist organizing while attending Michigan State University (MSU). After graduating from MSU in 1970, she returned to the DC area to join Source, a living-working collective that produced resource guides for community organizers on topics ranging from health care and tenants’ rights to women in prison. At Source, Rena was known as "the rock," emanating a calm, clear presence in the midst of collective editing sessions and other experiments in group process.

In 1979, Rena took an administrative assistant job in Computer Services at the Urban Institute, a progressive DC think-tank. She was a Technical Writing and IT Communications Specialist when she retired in November 2018. Rena’s co-workers admired her as a person of great integrity and as a master wordsmith. They appreciated her discretion, wry sense of humor, lively political discussions, and institutional knowledge. In the words of one of her supervisors, she was "a protector to those who needed protecting and a caring soul to her family, friends, and the world at large."

Rena’s life changed in the early 1980s when she encountered the book The Way of the Shaman by Michael Harner. An anthropologist, Dr. Harner had lived in different indigenous communities around the globe and discovered common practices for seeking spiritual healing and guidance which he called “core shamanism.” His mission was to help Westerners learn these techniques for shamanic journeying. Rena attended Harner’s five-day training in 1984, and discovered a new spiritual path. She began journeying regularly and taught others, including her sister Kay, to use these techniques.

When Michael Harner announced a three-year program on shamanism in 1989 through his Foundation for Shamanic Studies, Rena immediately applied and was part of the first group to complete the training.

Along with Dana Robinson, Rena and Kay founded the Washington Area Drumming Group (WADG). WADG met regularly from the late 1980s until 2015, and was one of the first shamanic journey groups in the Washington DC area. Rena's work as a healer, ceremonialist, and teacher of shamanic healing had a profound effect on many lives. She continued to do healing work even as her own health was failing.

Rena provided emotional and practical support for her sister Kay throughout their lives.

Rena was a gifted artist: writer and poet, songstress, reader of oracles, composer, and occasional illustrator. She published articles and poems in several publications such as Circle Magazine; SageWoman; Women, A Journal of Liberation; and Hot Wire: A Journal of Women’s Music & Culture. In 1984, she published a Clarion award-winning science fiction story, Pursuit of Excellence, which was anthologized.

Rena and Kay wrote a number of songs for their shamanic work with WADG, some of which can be found at circlesongs.yolasite.com.

Preceded in death by her parents, brother John Burton (Jack) Yount (1998), and sister Kathryn Ann (Kathy, Kat, Kay) Yount (2020), Rena is survived by her brother Everett Ray (E. Ray) Yount, Jr. and wife Kathleen of Front Royal, and a niece, two nephews and spouses, a grand-niece, and a grand-nephew. Rena is also survived by many beloved long-time friends. All will miss her dearly.

Contributions in Rena’s name may be made to the American Civil Liberties Union or Planned Parenthood—two organizations she supported for many years. To share a memory, see her tribute wall.

Rena and Kay were inurned in the Columbarium at the King David Memorial Gardens, Falls Church, VA, April 16, 2025.

You will never be left without a song

You will never be left without a song

For the song that's singing through you

Is older than the stars

And the music goes on and on.

"You Will Never Be Alone," by Rena Yount