2025 brought to me a very intense late-life reintegration and spiritual upleveling as I entered my mid-60s. Sometimes it has felt pretty harrowing with... .....the arising of intense emotions and both positive and difficult memories from the past ....reexperiencing layers of grief from what has not yet been accomplished or reached (life partnership), past trauma, losses of loved ones and opportunities unexplored ...reevaluating shedding of an old trauma-based personal, profes

Shamanic healing is a profound and ancient practice that has been used for thousands of years across many cultures. It involves connecting with the spiritual world to promote physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. This ancient art is rooted in the belief that everything in the universe is interconnected, and healing comes from restoring balance within oneself and with nature. Understanding the origins and methods of shamanic healing can offer valuable insights into ho

What does it mean to say that a human being has a Light Body? Across many spiritual and healing traditions, human beings have been understood as more than physical organisms. We are embodied, certainly. We think and feel. We carry histories in our bodies and psyches. But spiritual traditions have also described dimensions of human existence that extend beyond what can ordinarily be perceived through the five senses. In my own spiritual practice and nearly two decades of work

My trauma-body awakened in February 1993. Ice poured down as if from the heavens. The season had already been brutally cold. It was February 1993. My husband’s and my small, cinderblock rental cottage stood on a 3000-acre horse farm in Albemarle County, 15 miles south of Charlottesville, Virginia, at least a mile from any major road. By the time the storm passed 2 days later, we could not open the front door. There was an unnerving stillness in the air and the sky remaine

Our world is currently an extremely violent place. There are ongoing conflicts in up to 40 regions. Russia has been pummeling Ukraine for almost 3 years. Israel and Hamas are at war with too many innocent civilians murdered in both wars. In the United States, mass shootings have been on the rise, particularly in schools where innocent children have been killed and injured. Western commentators have logged only 268 years of peace in a span of 3400 years. It is estimated that a

“Beloved, beloved Pachamama, mamakita, la Tierra Madre, Mat’ Zemlya, our great cosmic Earth Mother, oh, how much we love you!” -A multicultural prayer to Mother Earth I love to pray to Mother Earth in many languages when I do shamanic energy healings and as part of the mystical teachings and ceremony I offer as part of Awakened Heart Shamanism The fact that many peoples around the world use the word “mama” or “Mother” for the Earth is a testament to what human communities

Loki, my intelligent, beautiful, handsome Puggle (Pug/Beagle) crossed the Rainbow Bridge this past Wednesday in the afternoon at Bliss...

I love humanity. I love Mother Earth. I love to be in service to the healing of this world in cosmically chaotic times. At least once a day, I walk my dog, a Puggle named Loki, in the sweet residential neighborhoods of Del Ray in Alexandria, Virginia where I live. I always greet and smile at passersby. It is one way I acknowledge the goodness that I know is deep within every single human being, no matter their challenges and shadows. Yes, there are people all around the world

If you have ever had a sense that you are launching onto a new and more promising path in your life after being blocked or burdened for years with multiple challenges that always seem to get in the way of thriving, you are experiencing a shift in your destiny lines. If you have awakened out of the chaos of being buffeted about by internal and external conditions seemingly out of control and are experiencing a sense of empowerment, meaning and purpose, you have activated on an

There are experiences in life after which we may say, “I have never been quite the same.” Sometimes the change follows an obvious trauma: violence, abuse, the death of someone we love, war, betrayal, abandonment, or another experience that overwhelms our capacity to absorb what has happened. At other times, the loss is quieter. A child learns that a particular gift is unacceptable. Someone repeatedly suppresses an essential part of themselves to remain connected to a family o

In today’s intense and busy world, it is very important to have special places where we can recharge, come back into balance, and even heal. While we may find this in nature, we can also create sacred space with a shamanic altar or shrine. Shamanism acknowledges that everything is energy and that the divine Love-Light out of which all is created is everywhere and in everything. But at the same time, it can be accessed or felt even more easily in and around sacred places. For

My client, Lisa, the executive director of an NGO in Washington, D.C. is lying on the massage table, fully clothed, as I use my stones, rattles, breathwork, and feathers to encourage her energy body (that bubble of light surrounding and interpenetrating the physical body) to open. I then spin the most blocked chakras clockwise, so they release. After about 10 minutes, I journey into her subconscious to extract an unhealed trauma wound that is causing symptoms of anxiety and d

I am a carrier of a mesa, a beautiful, multicolored medicine bundle containing various crystals and stones used for creating a vibrational frequency of healing, harmony, balance, and abundance for myself and others. The tradition of this portable altar goes back to the ancient Inca and can be found today among the medicine people of the Andes, in particular the Q’ero, their descendants. In the past 20 years, many paqos, or medicine people, have been called by the spirits to o

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Shamanic energy healing is an effective way to heal symptoms of trauma from this and other lifetimes.

“ Beloved Condor Spirit and Spirit of Macchu Pichu, I am feeling stuck around manifesting the next step in my mission and purpose in life. Please give me guidance!” I was sitting in front of my mesa—the word used by the Q’ero people of the Andes in Peru for a power-packed medicine bundle. I said more—about what I had done so far, about my ideas and thoughts, wishes and dreams. But I knew once I opened Sacred Space by praying to the 6 directions—East-West, North-South—Mother

In my early 20s, I got myself into therapy. Talk therapy, that is. I had a lot to say and process. It was extremely helpful to have a compassionate witness and guide as I tried to understand the complexities of my complicated relationship with my narcissistic mother (though I didn’t have that word back then). My self-confidence was low, my anxiety high. Frankly, I didn’t know who I really was. This was the beginning of a long journey to heal from family trauma. Therapy was

All around the world for millennia, human beings have understood the power of the Solstices to magnetize highest visions and elevate consciousness. I have had the privilege to visit powerful sacred sites—some dating back to the Mesolithic ) (10-8,000 BC and Neolithic (10,000-2,200 BC) in places like Ireland and the island of Malta in the Mediterranean—that archaeoastronomers have definitively proven are aligned to the Solstices. I have walked among the stone shrines of the an

(This blog is part of an ongoing series in which I share intimate details about my life in order to inspire and educate my readers about trauma, healing and spirituality and what it has to do with helping this troubled and beautiful world heal into peace. Please excuse any repetition; I must write each piece assuming my reader may not have read the others.) When your natural, authentic personality and talents are not seen and nourished by those who are your parents or caregiv

Do you feel pain of the world and even how it seems to intersect with the wounds you have carried? Are you feeling weighed down by events...