I hear the voices of nature, the ancestors, and other unseen beings. When these abilities first emerged along with visions at the age of 26 during an internship in India, they caused fear and confusion resulting in hospitalization. Diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I now leverage my experiences with altered mental states to support others to come into their own relationship with their own experiences of hearing voices or unusual beliefs.
I am certified in intentional peer support for mental health, which means that my approach is to understand the worldviews of the folks I work with, walk along side them as they find their own right relationship with their mental health experiences and share from my own experiences in ways that might be informative or inspiring. Peer support is not about having the answers, I do not have them, it is also not therapeutic, I'm not a licensed therapist, but it is about sharing our experiences in ways that open new levels of acceptance which can emerge into resilience, hope and possibility. I am also trained in the Maastricht interview protocol by the National Paranoia Network, which is a process of understanding voice hearing and unusual beliefs that cause paranoia. These interviews result in the creation of a document that can be shared with other health professionals as a tool for self-advocacy within the mental health system. They often result in significant personal insight into these experiences and highlight approaches to gaining more resiliency. I view my own experiences as "spirit contacts" but others may view their own experiences differently. Working with me does not require that we share the same worldview - I support each person in finding their own meaning and relationship to their unique experiences. I work on a sliding scale basis to make this work accessible. Please contact me or set up a time for an initial consultation to start working with me in this way.
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I’ve been thinking about creative life cycles with this full moon. We have just passed the cross quarter Celtic/Pagan holiday of Lughnasadh or Lammas, which celebrates the harvest (especially of wheat). For those of you that remember way back to the cross quarter holiday of Imbolc in February, this was the “quantum activation” of the growth process that has become the harvest that we now pull in from the proverbial fields of our lives. And February is Aquarius season, so with this Aquarius full moon we are having a hint of new beginnings even as we harvest the fruits of this abundant season.
I’m reminded of the critical nature of the soil as birthplace of new plant life. There are some gardening techniques that really honor the biodynamic nature of the soil and some that even work to preserve the mycelial network in the soil. To me the microbiome and the mycelial network in soil are very Aquarian. They are like little neural networks of communication about the health and fertility of the soil and are critical for any new growth. Aquarius is an air sign, so not readily associated with earth, but I can see how it holds the communication aspect of air in how these networks of beings hold wisdom about the larger creative process of the larger whole of the land and its fertility. Be prepared to work on grounding the energy of this air/ether and fire moon/sun combo! The full moon in Aquarius is bringing us the energy of something more than air, it is the energy of ether. Ether is the vibration of electrons flitting in and out of quantum reality. It is the quick exchange of information as knowingness flits between realities. We are living in what is called by some the Aquarian age and this describes the way that we are connected to each other and ideas through the electronics that weave through our lives. Aquarius energy lives at the root chakra and is the place of quantum activation of the new cycle of creation. We are now seeing the fruits of what was planted during Aquarius season back in February. The sun in Leo brings the harvest of those seeds. Leo offers a maturing sense of fire, this is fire in a more adult form, energy moving to the crown chakra and our sense of spiritual connection or knowing. Leo is a flashy energy that demands attention, but also can be very connective, illuminating the beauty in all that beholds its fire. A mature Leo will have a clear sense of their sovereignty not as rampant individualism, but as in how they relationally interweave with the community around them, supporting all to emerge into their shining best selves. This sun/moon combo is almost as if just as we start to take in the harvest, we start to glimpse the beginning of the next creative lifecycle. We have to simultaneously tend to the roots as we take in the fruits. Pay attention to what this moon is telling you about where your energies might turn to especially in 2023. So this is a great time to reflect on what has been growing or fruiting in you. What are you harvesting in your life? What passions are burning in you? And what whispers on the wind are you hearing for your mid-range creative endeavors? And remember to bring these reflections into the body, perhaps using breath to move ideas and impressions down into your belly or doing this reflection while walking or hiking. Whatever you can do to remain earth-bound will be helpful for this full moon! In a recent discussion with Daniel’s Foor’s Practical Animism cohort for Ancestral Medicine and guest speaker Siv Watkins (www.microanimism.com) we touched on an idea that illuminated some of my bipolar experiences from a microorganism perspective. I have heard for years that gut health and mental health are intimately related including claims that people have completely resolved their bipolarity by managing the flora in their gut along with taking certain micronutrients. But what was new for me in this recent animism discussion was to look at the initiatory aspect of the microorganism world from a consciousness-raising perspective. It is fairly commonly acknowledged that entheogens can be used to not only shift consciousness on a short-term basis, but that they can assist people in widening their conscious experience of the world even after the immediate effects wear off. What if instead of looking only at plant medicine for consciousness expansion we also looked at relationships with microorganisms as similar “medicine”?
This idea particularly intrigued me as my own psychotic episodes were directly after bouts of sickness from either a virus or a parasite. Part of my medical narrative has always been “my system was already weak from sickness and so that is why I think I responded so dramatically to xyz input from my life, which ended me up in the hospital.” What is shifting for me now is that I don’t think it was just a simple matter of weakened system, but I think there was a larger shift in my consciousness precipitated by becoming a host for a new entity. When I was in the hospital I was tested for drugs, but I was never tested for parasites (which in later years I did do and they showed up as prevalent in my system). I had always felt that my time in India (which was where my first bipolar episode took place) was psychologically intense, because of the culture, but what if a large contributing factor to my experience of psychosis was due to a microorganism? I mention my psychosis in the flow of consciousness expansion, because my bipolar episodes have all resulted in a rebirth for me in how I perceive and understand the world. It was like filters I had on the world were reduced or taken away. I could perceive energy and eventually developed my animism practice out of my new found sensitivity as it allowed me to perceive things, including the “voices” and “perceptions” of other beings (putting on the mind of the other being), which wasn't part of my conscious experience before. I think these are all skills that anyone can develop, but that they often emerge suddenly in initiatory experiences and when we are not ready for that emergence it can be diagnosed as psychosis. And I believe that my ability to perceive other beings definitely extended to my ability to perceive the consciousness of the smalls in ways that I have not been aware of until now. During one bipolar episode (also in India years after my first episode there) I remember trying to communicate with a consciousness which I perceived as causing the episode, but wasn’t sure who or what it was and the way the consciousness presented in our exchange would fit a virus or parasite. It felt alien to me at the time and I remember trying to speak to it of the feeling of love and it was very confused by this concept (a very mammalian one connected to our relationship with oxytocin among other things). That particular episode occurred when I was doing a homeopathic treatment that most likely from my symptoms was affecting my gut. I think that what I was taking was disturbing the symbiotic relationship I had with the smalls and it resulted in what felt like psychosis to me, but could have been a strong conscious reaction from the beings I was host to. I’ve had similar reactions to certain brands of my medication and I am curious as to if the fillers in certain medications affected the beings in my gut in a negative way. All I know is that I would have very persistent feelings of “I have got to stop taking this medication, it is poisoning me” until I found a brand that was “cleaner”. There have been scientific studies that look at Toxoplasma gondii and schizophrenia and bipolar and have shown a link with this particular small’s effects on the central nervous system and immune dysregulation. There have also been studies that have shown recovery from bipolar linked to treatment of other parasites and this is becoming more studied in regions that have challenges with sanitation and diseases from flies and mosquitoes. But from my experience I would say that if we looked at things from a pure scientific explanation that we would miss something that taking a more animist perspective of things provides. As I said before, I really feel that my bipolar episodes (and even ongoing navigation of this aspect of my psyche) was incredibly initiatory, as in it initiated me into a new perception of the world around me. I love Siv’s microanimism work, because it honors these entities as the oldest living consciousnesses on the planet. To “commune” with them (and becoming a host for them is certainly an intimate way to deeply commune with them) is to commune with a very direct lineage from the origins of all life… and death. My bipolar experiences have brought me psychologically into deep relationship with the forces of death. I believe this is why the suicide rates are so high for bipolar, it is common with this diagnosis to feel life and death in the extreme. In fact, one of the medications I take simply helps me to narrow the range of shadow and light (life and death) that I feel in myself and the world around me, so that I can navigate reality in a way that feels comfortable and normal. I do dream of a day where I can handle those more extreme states of awareness without that narrowing, but am aware that it would take a higher level of conscious integration physically, mentally and emotionally than I am currently at. Talking about the initiatory aspect of relating with the powers of life and death reminds me of the book “Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women.” In this book the initiatory experience is one of descending to the death realms, which is also the birthplace for all new life. It follows the myth of Inanna, a goddess of fertility, who descends to the underworld to visit Ereshkigal who rules there. When she returns from the underworld (after being killed and reborn), Inanna now has the power to not only give life, but she also has the power to send the soul of the first person she looks at to the underworld. This story of gaining new initiatory power through death and rebirth rings true from my own bipolar experiences. And what if one way of initiation could be facilitated by microorganisms and the more conscious relationship with them as primordial intelligences of life and death? I have a curiosity that this may have been the case for me. I know that the death and rebirth process can take place in a multiplicity of ways (through entheogens, shamanic or spiritual techniques or life events including trauma, the loss of a loved one or illness), but the influence of the smalls might be a less explored source of initiation, one that could have therapeutic implications in how we assess and treat mental health issues. This full moon is in Capricorn. Capricorn is the most fundamental of the earth signs, what I translate as metal or stone, the bones of the earth. It gives structure and form to the landscapes of our lives. When I first learned of dragon lines as places where you can often see stones emerge from an earthy landscape like a meadow and how they are known for the energy they bring to a place, it made me think of the fact that energy in the form of water and even dirt is directed by stone. These bones of the earth dictate the shape of the landscape and how the forces of life move through that landscape. Capricorn has a similar force in that it is very preoccupied with building the structures that shape our lives. It is deeply grounded, sometimes can get a little stuck in its groundedness without the ability to easily shift with changing currents. It can also be goat-headedly stubborn, literally dictating my way or the highway.
And yet the truly evolved Capricorns are also in touch with their oppositional sign, Cancer, which is the sun that this full moon is reflecting. Cancer is the womb-like waters that life emerges from and what we can truly call home. The cancerian energy is especially responsive to the shifting currents of the energetic makeup of the relationships in their lives. Cancerians are often very preoccupied by home not so much as a space, but as a place where the people within the space - family members, roommates, event house plants and pets - interact. They are very relationally oriented, seeking a sense of harmony that I think comes from an innate understanding that we all come from the same primordial waters. So a really evolved Capricorn will be in touch with an understanding of where they come from and how they are relationally connected to others in what they build for their lives and the world. This full moon can be a great opportunity to take stock in the structures that are supporting your life and take a look at how these are informed by and strengthened through the relationships that weave your sense of community, your sense of home. This full moon in Sagittarius is an especially yummy one for me. My natal moon is in Sagittarius and I feel this placement helps to fire my spiritual knowing as well as my love for travel, for exploring the inner and outer worlds with a fiery zest. Sagittarius is a fire sign and it marks the start of the alchemical cycle of the zodiac where the elements are expressed as a “becoming” - as in Sagittarius has “become” fire, spirit, that thing that creatively moves through all life in an eagerness to explore and become… heart becoming more heart in a deep and creatively explosive way. Aries is the raw new exploration of fire as we experience in our youth and Leo is about an adult mastery of fire, but Sagittarius is the wise embodiment of the element that an elder would show. It is also ruled by Jupiter, which adds to its expansive energy of joy and richness.
This moon reflects a Gemini sun. Gemini has similar elements of seeking and exploration, but is much more on an intellectual level, represented by the air element. Where Sagittarius plays with spirit, Gemini plays with ideas. And ideas can be full of paradox and uncertainty which actually serves to create new possibilities and inventive forms of thought. This season has shown me that nature holds no permanent form - blossoms wilt and all of the amazing greening we see around us now will eventually go back to the earth. What I have been surprised to learn is that the truest expression of an undistorted Gemini energy plays with these paradoxes from a deep sense of devotion, a heart and mind that is open to the world with a profound desire to touch the ineffable. It is like Gemini is the space between things, the primordial void where all possibilities are held, and Sagittarius is the spirit that emerges from the void into the dance of spiritual creativity and exploration. Ruled by Mercury, the messenger, who has an independent flare, but is extremely relational, albeit sometimes in a superficial way. Mercury holds a curiosity about all things that can be gossipy at times, but at the heart of the matter is a dedication to the possibility that existence holds. We are also in the time when the hawthorn have been blooming. They represent the threshold between human and faery realms. It is through the mind, more specifically the imagination, that this threshold is crossed. Gemini knows how to play in these imaginal realms and Sagittarius has the spiritual heart to navigate them. There are tales of musicians going to the faery hills to learn new songs and this full moon is imbued with the energy of this kind of cross-boundary exploration. This particular moon has a particular influence from Neptune (square the moon), which I’ve been experiencing over the past few days as a cloudiness, haziness and even fatigue. I’ve been wanting to be in the dream world more than normal. During our authentic movement session yesterday (shout out to Rebecca) our collective work helps me fine tune this haziness and hone it into a creative dreaminess. So tuning into the body and allowing the more subconscious, flowing, dreamy parts of ourselves come online can be supportive to your experience of this moon. This full moon holds a lot of passion, creativity and possibilities. Our work may be to open ourselves to the play of this energy while grounding it and embodying it. Enjoy the exploration! At a time when the collective issues are so stressful, I imagine that many healing professionals are seeing more and more clients who are exhibiting symptoms that are from the collective trauma field. I've found in my work with the ancestors that these collective trauma fields often activate ancestral wounds. Ancestral wounds also often show up as the kind of polarization we witness in the world today.
To address this, I'm offering an introductory talk specifically for healing professionals on ancestral lineage healing. More info below! FOR HEALING PROFESSIONALS June 16th, 6pm PT - Ancestral lineage healing: An exploration for healing professionals Our lives are reverberations of family inheritances, of patterns of being passed on to us through spirit, blood, and bone. In many cultures there are active practices for tending to those who have passed on with the recognition that they are an extension of the living. In today’s modern world many people have lost these practices, sometimes for thousands of years, sometimes leaving the ancestral field in disrepair. In this introductory talk for healing professionals you will:
Not a healing professional? Contact me and I'll keep you posted on future similar talks for the general public. Register: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZIqd-irpjorEtXUm2JhVNbYT_8Z_QxBPXGY Share on Facebook: https://fb.me/e/1Qmwx3OMe Happy full moon to you! This full moon in Scorpio is accompanied by a full lunar eclipse. To me, Scorpio, being a water sign, is like the deep deep waters where the detritus settles, full of silt, decaying mineral, plant and animal life. It is these places of death that provide the nutrients for new life. So many places in the world rely on the nutrients from annual floods to create the conditions for farming. Scorpio holds the fecund power of death and rebirth.
Scorpio is also connected to the deeper sexual animal instincts. This is the time when the Hawthorn blooms and I was told by a mentor that the flowers of the hawthorn hold the same chemicals as is found in human sexual and menstrual fluid… literally the life force and death process of our reproductive system. This tree is mythically known for connecting the human to the faerie realms. The faerie realm is also said to be opposite seasonally from the middle world we live in. So they are in Scorpio season when we are in Taurus. There is something hugely potent during this time around animal sexual instincts, fertility, death and rebirth and nature spirits hold intimate knowledge of this wisdom. So if Scorpio is the deepest part of a body of water, this partial eclipse (on Sunday around 9pm PT) is like a dredging of the bottom of this body of water. Think of things being stirred up and cleaned out. How do you need to tidy up your mental, emotional, spiritual houses? What deeper, maybe unconscious parts need to be incorporated in new ways in order for you to come into wholeness? This moon reflects the Taurus sun. I have been thoroughly enjoying Taurus season this year. She has been teaching me about being abundant with my creative energy. I look at the trees full of flowers and realize that nature is not stingy in how it spends its resources. She is bold and oriented to an ostentatious beauty that tantalizes the senses. I recently attended a talk by my ancestral medicine teacher where he discussed the importance of being able to ask for what one wants but also stay resilient when there is a rejection or a “no” given to one’s request. I see the flowers around me as open requests for pollination - there is a fertile hope there. But not every bud will become a fruit. Opening one’s self vulnerably to the world is a call of nature and knowing that not every call will be answered is also natural. To me this is a bit of the Scorpio opposition during this time of fecundity. Blossoms wilt, not all calls are answered, and the energy put into each created thing eventually becomes compost for the next creative cycle. So on this full moon, I feel we are invited to play with the creative cycles of death and rebirth. Where is my creative energy abundant and what is actively composting? What is hidden in the deep waters that wants to come to the surface in service to the larger creative force of my life? I went through a huge process of growth when I was living in India. It changed me at a core and foundational level. But this inner work was not easy for me to integrate. Some aspects of what my soul had opened up to left me with so many more questions than answers that I spun out into a state of non-coherence. I had trouble finding my inner compass again.
Some of this confusion and lack of coherence was part of the transformation process... we often have to go into the wilderness of our being to find a truer sense of self. But part of this experience was also due to trauma I had experienced and I needed to re-orient towards the goodness and wholeness in me. I fortunately had the gift of meeting a mentor, Jennifer Johnson, who trained me in a healing modality called Resonance Repatterning. The method uses muscle checking to guide a session where we identify and shift negative patterns in ourselves that we resonate with and positive patterns that we do not. Then we use simple energetic techniques to shift these resonances. We also identify positive actions that one can take to support the shifts in the longer term. I use this work regularly as a "tune up" when I realize that I am spiraling into negative thought or behavior patterns. I find the work especially supportive for people who are going through big transitions or are doing such deep healing that they feel a bit unmoored. It helps find that inner compass again, so the navigation through challenging times gets a bit clearer. I have also used this work to support deeper healing. There are ways to bring in intergenerational patterns into the work. I have also had things come in from past lives where I have been able to do some soul tending of patterns that have been with me over many lifetimes. If you are interested in exploring this work with me, you can book here or schedule a free initial consultation with me! I recently did some thematic harmonizing work with my female lineages. I came to the work feeling at a bit of a discord between myself and other women in my life. There has been a common theme throughout my life around not feeling in harmony with other women and I have been curious about the ancestral roots of this phenomenon. So I took it to my ancestors and they recommended that we do a harmonization process between my mother’s mothers, my mother’s father’s mothers, my father’s mothers and my father’s father’s mothers. All 4 of these lineages are in good health, each bringing a unique strength. In my process I started with my mother’s people and then worked with my father’s people and then with all 4 together.
From the stories passed down from my mom, I had a sense that her two lineages did not get along. When I brought them together there was a great sense of each needing to be seen in its strength by the other. When that recognition took place, there was a feeling of great mutual respect that flowed from them into me. It was a sense of an ability to be with the greatness of the other without giving up any of your greatness. This hit home with some of my feelings with other women. I have felt like I have to become smaller to make them feel comfortable or have felt small in relationship to their greatness. To experience the greatness of my lineages stand in their fullness and recognize each other in that fullness gave me an imprint for how this can look and feel in an embodied way. I feel their coming together as a salve for a deep wound I have been playing out with other women. My father’s lineages were a bit more in harmony from the start. It feels like the women in the two lineages are kindred spirits, each with their own strengths and insights, but with a common heart for the earth and the cosmos. When I brought all 4 lineages together there was a sense of the feminine really coming home. Each lineage holds a piece of the larger tapestry of the feminine in a way that, when combined, they form a powerful expression of the larger feminine mythos that I can see play out in tangible ways in my life, but also in a larger cosmic scale. Some of the traits of this combined energy are deep earth relationship in ways that can predict and manage resources, as well as relationship with the celestial cycles, and additionally a tending of the feminine wounding by the patriarchy in a way that brings profound wisdom and healing to broken places. I am a small part of a much larger work happening on this planet and in the larger universe (and multiverse). By coming into alignment with the wisdom of my ancestors, I can step into my part to play in a fuller way. One of the gifts of my lineages is a wisdom around timing. We are part of a much larger cycle of learning and growing happening on the planet and part of what we are learning is how we create connection and work in harmony with each other. I don’t expect my lineage work to immediately alter all of the female relationships I have, but I do see how it adds a positive perspective and energy to those relationships, which moves all of us towards a larger direction of healing. I look forward to witnessing the patient unfolding this work is a part of. If you are interested in exploring the wisdom of your ancestors and assisting in the healing of your lineages and the larger collective, you can learn more here! I’ve been asked by the nature spirits I work with to start to co-create essences (energetic medicine) for each of the zodiac signs over a year-long process. This month I started this work with Aries, the sign that begins what is traditionally thought of as the new cycle of the yearly circumnavigation around the zodiac. In my work with the essence I am making I have come to know Aries in a different way, in a way that brings what we traditionally think of a very independent sign back into relationship, which makes it more reflective of its opposite sign, Libra.
This full moon in Libra reflecting an Aries sun allows us to explore these paradigms of individuation and interconnection in a way that can be nourishing to the soul. One of the lessons of my work with Aries has been that while it holds the energy of hope, courage, perseverance, and individuation, in its highest form it does so with a deep sense of interconnection, of connection to and partnership with the larger forces of creation. In some ways we are all portals for the forces of creation to act through us. In my cosmology there is a primal essence, which I associate with the void, which all emerges from and returns to, that speaks through all of creation. I associate this with the Tao or the Buddhist sense of the emptiness that is the true nature of all things. In this way the Aries sense of becoming “me” is rooted in a profound sense of my connection with the source that is all things. There is no final individuation, only a sense of becoming more of my part of the whole. I’ve come to understand that when we start to entrain with the forces of nature, like the rotation of the earth around the sun and the seasonal patterns that are expressed through that rotation, then we start to come back into more intimate relationship with the primal force that speaks through all things. It is a way to “remember” in a world of forgetting. Aries can often play into the “forgetting” with its wild individualism and Libra brings us back into a sense of relationship. As someone who often feels outside of social norms, Libra can be challenging for me. She asks me to see the primal forces of creation in the people around me. I can see this more readily in the non-human people I interact with, especially in the nature realms, but to see this in humans or in society in general is trickier for me. My feeling is that we have lost our entrainment to these primal forces in a way that has encouraged rampant individualism at the expense of interconnection. So in some ways this full moon in Libra is an opportunity to come back into alignment in a way that is needed both on an individual and a collective level. May you feel the primal forces working in you and your life during this particular passage of time and may this ripple out in larger ways in your life and those around you! Meditation Breathe in and out in a relaxed way, noticing the way the in breath and the out breath bring balance to your body and mind. This is the balancing nature of airy Libra. The inner and the outer are intimately in tune with each other through the breath. As you breathe in, you are intimately connected with the air around you and all the plants and animals who have breathed this air. And as you breathe out, you contribute some essence of yourself to this larger web. Take a moment to be in silence with this breath of interconnection. Now notice the inner fire that enlivens your being. The warmth of your body. This is the fire of Aries. Take a moment to feel the liveliness of your heartbeat. As it beats, inwardly whisper the phrase, “this is my heart”. Bring a sense of gratitude to the expression of heart that you uniquely bring to the world. What does your heart dream? What does your heart love? How does your heart love? And feel into those toughened places in your heart that life may have caused to constrict and bring some compassion to how even these places are a unique expression of the whole that is you. And also bring attention to how your heart is formed from strands of DNA passed on from generations of lives, made of building blocks that are found in wild nature as well as the stars above. There is a way in which you are uniquely you, but you are also interwoven from all of creation. Take a moment of appreciation for your unique expression of life and its interconnection with the past, present and future of all things. |
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