My Background
I was introduced to shamanic practice in 1985 and discovered a life path that transformed my relationship with myself, my struggle with severe depression, and my life. It empowered me to heal as nothing else was able. It re-awakened my awareness to the unseen energies, beings, and realities that exist. My world and the support I had access to expanded exponentially simply through my recognition of its existence and learning skills and disciplines to access it. Bringing this healing to others is a blessing.
Over most of the last three decades, I have studied and collaborated with my mentor and dear friend, Sandy D'Entremont, co-author of Path of the White Wolf and Journey of the White Bear. I spent 10 years in a rigorous course of study and personal transformation with Christina Pratt of The Last Mask Center. Most recently, I received training and certification as a Death Midwife in July, 2022 from Angie Buchanan of Earth Traditions. I wish there was room here to offer to each individual the deep gratitude I feel for the teachings and wisdom gained from these connections. Whether they be hard or sweet, they have all been beautiful and deeply important in shaping my skill as a therapist and healer. While all of these human teachers and guides are hugely important, my primary teachers and guides in this work have always been my helping spirits.
Since 1996, I have been a guide for people to discover and align with their authentic selves through initiatory, healing, and transformational ceremony; trainings in self-defense, dance, ritual theatre, drum-making, and warrior/amazon archetype. I co-taught, with Sandy D'Entremont, year-long personal-mastery programs in Sacred Medicine Shields and Sacred Firetending.
I received my Bachelor of Arts degree in Acting with a Dance Minor from Ithaca College. I completed my Master of Arts in Psychology with a Specialization in Systems Counseling at the Leadership Institute of Seattle, Saybrook University. I served my internship hours for my degree at Seattle Counseling Service, specializing in working with the LGBTQ population. I use this education in contemporary psychotherapeutic modalities and in accessing the body's innate wisdom to support the awakening and transformation that comes from shamanic practice and healing.
I have three years experience in crisis intervention as a leader and trainer for an anti-violence organization.
My Approach and Philosophy
None of us travel alone despite intense loneliness many feel when struggling. We all know or seek guides and allies whose wisdom and understanding reflects the learning and support we need whether it is in God/dess, Creator, spirit being, totem, creative muse, an ancestor we believe watches over us, or living beings – human, animal, insect, plant, stone, or Earth. In illness, it is easy to forget or deny those inner and outer guides exist or to believe we are abandoned. Separation from and devaluing of the natural and etheric worlds and denying our internal divinity keeps many people from realizing these guides at all and from experiencing a sense of the gift in this life that has been granted to our soul.
As a guide and ally on your healing journey, I see the work as a collaborative dance between my knowledge and guides and your unique understanding of your self, the system surrounding you, and your guides. I believe everyone has medicine within them and their relationship to all that is for the healing that they seek. Accessing the power of those unique healing gifts is challenging. For many of us that knowing has been culturally dormant for generations. Powerful internalized messages of being helpless, unloved, not good enough, insignificant or unworthy silence it. I work with you and your guides to help activate your creative and singular medicine, helping you to move into embodying your own power.
I support you in giving voice to that which is calling for change or healing, in clarifying your vision and goals, and encourage you to continue to say 'Yes!' to the hard work ahead. We creatively discover how you live and embody that vision, lighting the fire within that can fuel shedding the old way's skin and inspire joy and playfulness. I encourage expression of the emotional life of the problem and the internal landscape that supports it and discovering the gifts that the dark, as well as the light, aspects of self offer you in order to move toward an integrated state of being. Reclaiming self from the toxic fractured state many of us live in trying to control the uncontrollable and measuring ourselves by impossible yardsticks. We work on how to ground new understanding and wisdom and bring you and it into right relationship with your family and community. I seek to help you remember other guides and allies that you can lean into and learn from. I am sacred witness to the being that you are and that you are becoming, supporting you in reveling in the present moment and embracing your evolution.
