I currently live and work between the East and West Cascades of Oregon and Washington, traveling up and down along the body of the great Columbia River where I was born – Nch’i Wana – Big River, the one who gathers in and connects all the watersheds that make up Salmon Nation, or the Cascadia Bioregion. I spend most my time on 88 acres of forests, oak savannas, gardens, creeks, and meadows belonging to a community land trust and education center in the Southern Willamette Valley, where I specialize in local and regional relationship building, supporting regenerative models for education, community resilience, and self-governance. As you’ve found here, I also offer private coaching and education services as a holistic health guide, weaving both ancient and modern understandings and tools for healing, or becoming whole.
In my free time and I am journeying, studying, singing, writing, dancing, being with family and community, gardening, foraging, brewing and fermenting, making medicine, napping, conversing, playing, or courting waterfalls, rivers, and oceans…
Vision & Mission
I am an artist, guide, witness, muse, and midwife for the soul’s journey to wholeness.
My vision is to weave bridges between worlds, times, and cultures for the purpose of individual, community, and ecological regeneration. My mission is to make the way for the seventh generation coming through modeling and teaching how to care for Life as individuals and communities. This involves both holding space for that which is ready to die or be transformed, as well as tending to the seeds and soil of new possibilities that are ready to take root.
In my private practice as a guide or coach, I work mainly with systems of healing and regeneration on the level of the body and individual, so as to activate and empower people to show up in wider circles of care. If we want to change the world or to serve Life, we must start with ourselves!
I also develop community workshops and events in the domain of culture-building, community coherence, and place-based relationships. This includes workshops and gatherings for the exploration of the ancestral arts (song, dance, story, sacred fermentation, etc), neighborhood work parties and local organizing, cross-cultural diplomacy, and community-based rites of passage.
Through a blend of Indigenous/ancestral wisdom and Western science, I seek to understand and align myself and my clients to the laws and wisdom of nature. From my personal artistic practices of writing, poetry, music, and dance, to the cultivation of community resilience and place-based culture…
from custom healing protocols to custom home funerals…
the principles of regeneration, relationship, stewardship, and sovereignty inform all that I do and am.
The Lightning Path
Like so many others working in my profession, I was initiated onto this path of natural healing in 2017 through the gates of suffering – a personal healing crisis.
I healed myself from a devastating illness, repeated medical misdiagnosis and error, and major depression working purely with the medicine of Nature: food, fasting, plants, and full immersion in nature and community. For the past 9 years since, I have continued to deepen my knowledge in regenerative detoxification and other natural healing modalities. For the first few years, that meant thousands of hours watching youtube videos, listening to podcasts, and otherwise reading or researching privately. In 2022, I became certified as a Regenerative Detoxification Specialist with the International School of Healing Arts and began to help others. I also became certified as a Resilient Heart Traum
The initiatory lightning struck once again in 2018 with the loss of my partner in a sudden accident. Once again, crisis became the avenue through which my entire life was shifted into a more deeply aligned, fulfilling, and service-driven path. After a few years spent integrating both the trauma and profound gifts of this experience, I decided I wanted to be more equipped to help others navigate death and grief. This led me to pursue a comprehensive certification course as an End-of-Life Doula as well as the “Resilient Heart” Trauma-Sensitive certification from the HeartMath Institute. I currently offer end-of-life doula services by donation and request only.
Our bodies can be prisons,
temples for the holy,
& everything in between.
Even when riddled with pain and dis-ease,
the body is, in fact, working for us, speaking to us…
She is our faithful ally & partner on the path to freedom and wholeness,
She is the love of Mother & Father made manifest, bearer of soul,
union of matter & spirit, heaven & earth…
Education
Though you will find my degrees and certifications below, I am foremost and forever a student of Nature. Nature is constantly self-regenerating and re-organizing, and we are that. The innate intelligence and living wisdom of our bodies and souls is capable of far more than we’ve been led to believe; nature knows how to heal itself! Crises such as the ones I have experienced are truly gifts of liberation and renewal — if we choose to open our hearts, rise to the occasion, and accept the invitation to step through the threshold.
- BA Psychology. I graduated with highest honors (Summa Cum Laude) from Webster University Vienna in 2020.
- Thesis work: Community-Based Rites of Passage for Modern Western Youth as Informed by Indigenous Science
- Regenerative Detox Specialist, Course and Certificate from the International School of the Healing Arts.
- End-of-Life Doula, Course and Certificate from Going with Grace.
- Permaculture Design Course Certificate from Lost Valley Education Center.
- The Resilient Heart: Trauma-Sensitive HeartMath Course and Certification from the HeartMath Institute.
- Shamanic Facilitation course with Elke-Maria Nozinyanga Waclawiczek
- Other courses, seminars, and trainings:
- Rites of Passage Guide training from Rites of Passage Journeys.
- Coyote Mentoring with Wilderness Awareness School.
- Traditional European and Scottish Folk Songs: online courses with Weaving Remembrance.
- Extensive formative experience in Indigenous and ancestral communication and healing technologies, primarily in the Andes of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru (2+ years full immersion in communities + mentorship with elders).
- 9-month internship at Lost Valley Education Center and Meadowsong Ecovillage, which teaches and models community self-governance and regenerative ecological stewardship.
- Plus an additional 3+ years of experience visiting and living in Western community models focused on cultural and ecological restoration in Austria, Iceland, Scotland, Italy, and Portugal.
- Plus an additional 3+ years of experience visiting and living in Western community models focused on cultural and ecological restoration in Austria, Iceland, Scotland, Italy, and Portugal.
HeArt & Soul
I take a whole-systems approach to natural and regenerative medicine. This approach takes into consideration the multidimensionality of one’s lifestyle and focuses on balancing relationships – to oneself and one’s body, to food, to other people, to the natural world, and more.
I consider this work to be an art form, in which the power of story, voice, and soul are imperative for true transformation and healing to occur. Cultural revitalization and art are also essential components in our collective fight to reclaim sovereignty and unity as whole peoples and place-based communities, as well as to facilitate reciprocal and ethical cross-cultural pollination and exchange. I am especially fond of story/council, song, and traditional dance as means for doing cultural work.
In the end, I simply do what I can to meet each person where they’re at, to empower them towards self-healing and co-creatively address the imbalances in their lives. I believe healing is possible and sustainable for anyone, at any level. Even in death, there is cause and case for beauty, healing, and celebration. Life continues, as does our journey to wholeness. May we embrace mystery at every turn and each new spiral of life!
It brings me exceptional satisfaction and joy to witness others experiencing deeper states of connection, freedom, joy, and love for themselves, each other, and all of Life.
This is why I am here…