About Me - the shorter version

I am a beloved daughter of God.

I am a wife, mother, friend, confidante, artist, teacher, Truth seeker, messenger, servant.

I feel deeply and passionately, and love to laugh and cry. Caring for others is a calling I’ve had my whole life, and I’ve worn many hats trying to find my niche.

My formal education includes a Bachelor’s degree in Art from Gonzaga University, a certificate in Scientific Illustration from the University of Washington, and a Master’s degree in Art Therapy with Couple and Family Therapy from Antioch University Seattle. My informal education involves more workshops, retreats, and online trainings than I care to count - many of them a futile attempt to slake my thirst for God.

My most important job thus far is being a mother, and I use a lot of the same traits that inform my mothering when I sit with clients. I see my role as a healing practitioner as one who sits in witness, meeting you where you are and supporting your innate ability to grow in wholeness.

The longer version

I was born an observer, a watcher of the world, a restless heart ever curious for more learning, more understanding of this life and what it means.

I was gifted a loving family and an idyllic childhood that was mostly joyful, though with its share of pain and trauma. Beginning in Key West, FL, I grew up in multiple communities around the eastern United States before moving west and settling in north Idaho. I was fortunate enough to spend a year of college in Florence, Italy, where I met my husband - my life partner, kindred spirit, and best teacher. Our marriage has not always been easy, but working together through the difficulties has been one of the greatest and most fruitful joys of my life so far.

My search for Truth and meaning has been a driving force for me since I was a child. Raised in the Catholic church, at age 20 I succumbed to the ways of the world and left the church, rejecting God with a fury and resentment that didn’t make sense to me for a very long time (it does now, but that’s a whole other story). I wandered the morass of the New Age landscape for almost 3 decades, gobbling up ideas, beliefs, practices, stories; constantly searching for more, never being satisfied.

The birth of my daughter shifted many things in my internal world. After her birth, I almost died. Due to a retained and torn placenta, I hemorrhaged approximately half my blood volume. On the way to surgery, I lost consciousness and visited a realm unlike anything I’d ever experienced: colors of indescribable depth and intensity, a world full of exuberant celebration, music, beauty, and passion. I literally stood outside a gate, held gently on each arm by giant people-like beings (who must have been angels) and was completely engulfed by intense and intoxicating joy. I wish I could have stayed there forever, but I was abruptly returned to my body by the pain of an IV needle being inserted into a collapsed vein. Returning home and adjusting to life with a new baby, I didn’t think much of this experience for quite a long time.

Fast forward to recent years, my quest for spiritual health and wellness having run me around in circles, I came back to where I began: the Catholic Church. You can read my reversion story here. I feel like the reason I had a near death experience was to show me the feeling of joy that is from God, so that I could know the truth in that mystical moment when the Holy Spirit settled into my body, giving me a taste of that joy. Every morning, I turn my heart over to Jesus Christ, asking for guidance in following His will for my day. I am frequently overwhelmed by the love and mercy of God, and see the miraculous movements of the Holy Spirit in my life daily. The joy and peace I spent over a quarter of a century looking for is now mine. This is not to say that my life is perfect, I have no problems, or I have reached some state of completion — anything but. I am humbled by my not knowing. I am overawed by the power of submission. I am a deeply flawed human being, living in the hope that together we can feel the love from which we are made.