About Joe

Joe Noonan is a fun-loving facilitator, dolphin whisperer and shamanic nature guide who is living a life of grand adventure, following his passion where it calls him the loudest. He started Ecstatic Earth to remind us that life is outrageous, its a gift to be alive on this magical world, and for those who feel the calling, its time to wake up and roar!

Joe reflects back to us that this world is already a Heaven on Earth, and that the beauty, magic and joy are around and within us, when we are focused on seeing/touching/feeling it.

He reminds us to join with the love of nature, bringing that love fully into our lives. He champions the remembrance that life is a dance, harmonic and flowing, and that we are all ‘fingers of the same hand’. He invites the playful in us, to see God in all things, particularly ourselves and each other.

Joe grew up seventh of eight kids on a farm in southern Maine; hunting, trapping and fishing. When he was fifteen, amidst a family counseling session over the suicide of a brother, he had a life-changing recognition that it is only our unconscious beliefs that limit us.

During much of his childhood he struggled with pain in his belly. As a teenager he was diagnosed with colitis. To facilitate his own wellness, he studied acupressure, yoga and reflexology, began fasting and successfully healed himself. In his junior year of high school he sold enough drugs to pay for a Transcendental Meditation class, a practice he continued for decades.

In his early twenties, after hitchhiking from Maine to California and Mexico to Canada, he moved to the north Maine woods, cut down a bunch of trees, built a small two story log cabin and lived off-grid three miles down a bumpy dirt road for one very long Maine winter. One winter was enough! From there he moved to Boston and delighted in the many spiritual groups that shared his passion for love and healing, including the Swampscott Church of Spiritualism, where he received training in healing with the laying on of hands.

Over the next decade he had a part time healing practice using shiatsu, reflexology and flower essences, and volunteered as a healer using the laying on of hands in local churches and hospitals. He was greatly inspired to recognize that anyone with loving intent can help shift the energy of a sickness or conflict into a healthy situation.

In his thirties, upon realizing that 90+% of our physical illnesses originate from our thoughts and beliefs, he started a private psychotherapy practice using the psychosynthesis model of consciousness (body, mind, feelings, spirit). He also worked part time as a wilderness guide for several Outward Bound schools, leading sailing, camping, canoeing and hiking trips around New England and Florida. It was through Outward Bound he learned the power of kinesthetic group transformation through their teambuilding exercises, and combined it with his facilitation skills to create powerful individual and group transformation.

After leading corporate teambuilding programs for multiple Outward Bound schools, he started his own adventure based experiential consulting company, the Quantum Leadership Project, and taught leadership and teambuilding programs for colleges, universities and Fortune 500 companies including Harvard, MIT, GE, HP, State Street and more. Joe has taken executive teams to multi-day leadership retreats around the world, including Hawaii, Jamaica and the Bahamas. He provided life coaching to a select group of executives, helping them create a better quality of life for themselves and their families.

Combining his wilderness skills with his holistic facilitation skills, he started Planetary Partners and began leading self awareness adventure workshops and retreats for individuals, couples and groups.

In 1995, while visiting friends in Hawaii, Joe had a life-changing encounter with a pod of wild dolphins and stepped out of the water a changed man. Since that time, he’s been bringing groups and families to swim with wild dolphins and whales in different parts of the world, primarily Hawaii and the Bahamas. He’s called the ‘Dolphin Whisperer‘ for the way dolphins respond to him.

His work with the dolphins brought him into a deeper relationship with the ocean. He’s an avid freediver and spearfisherman. Inspired by the work of Dr. Emoto, who popularized the recognition that our love and thanks affect the crystalline structure of water, Joe began leading Water Ceremonies at different spiritual and community events around the world (5 continents and counting). The water he uses has been collected from many sacred springs from around the world and now carries the love and blessings of thousands.

In 2008, he was invited as a guest to a retreat led by a group of Ojibwe native elders on Isle Royale in Lake Superior, where he was given the name Nimbesh aka ‘Merman’, recognizing him as the return of the Mer-people, those who bring together the people of the land and the people of the sea.

Joe offers workshops and retreats to awaken our love of life. He’s a masterful coach, shamanic nature guide and facilitator, and has been a guest on Oprah, National Geographic and many other shows.

He sees these times as the culmination of a great Planetary Awakening and invites you to jump in 100% and join the celebration with all your love and passion!