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, brewing and fermenting, napping, conversing, playing, or courting waterfalls, rivers, and oceans…
Vision
My name is Vanessa and I am an artist and a guide –
here as a witness, muse, and midwife for your deeper, more soulful nature and journey to wholeness.
My vision is to weave bridges between worlds, times, and cultures for the purpose of individual, community, and ecological regeneration. I aim to embody what I teach by thinking, speaking, and walking in alignment with true freedom, balance, and beauty. My art and service find expression through the cultivation of life-sustaining seeds of food, culture, and knowledge for the seventh generation coming.
I am an advocate for health freedom and self-sovereignty, for bold, ancient & new pathways for a truly sustainable and regenerative culture…
one human-iverse at a time.
Like so many others working in my profession, I was initiated onto this path of natural healing through the gates of suffering – a personal healing crisis.
I healed myself from a devastating illness, medical error, and depression working purely with food, fasting, and plant medicine. 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.
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…
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 one I experienced with my health are truly gifts of liberation and renewal — if we can rise to the occasion, accept the sacred invitation, and step through the threshold.
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. Whether that’s through the art of relationship and community building, cultural education and decolonization praxis, or writing personal health protocols, the principles of regeneration, stewardship, and sovereignty inform all that I do.
Education
- 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 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 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. That is why I am here!