In the beginning…
It was late September of 2014. My mom and I were sitting in the neurologist’s office waiting for her test results. I remember the doctor nodding in sympathy as he delivered the news. I glanced over to the social worker. Her eyes were red and filled with tears.

It was that “Oh Sh*t” moment. The first of many over the next couple of years.

Illness and Death were calling me in to their office to have a talk. I tried to ignore, plug my ears, run. But it doesn’t work like that, does it. Can’t outrun Initiation. Can’t.

And just like any good threshold moment, this time of transformation was marked by isolation, invisibility, staggering overwhelm, and complete disorientation. Nothing made sense. And I saw no way out. I remember feeling in my bones that I would never be happy again.

I reached for professional help and was met with prescriptions for depression meds, and a model of mental health rooted in the doctor/patient hierarchy that reinforced the idea that… I had a problem. And that there was a goal: To fix it.

But these were labor pains. What I needed was a midwife to help me face it all, and to reflect back to me that there was nothing wrong with me. That my pain, grief and loss were sacred.

Someone to witness alongside me the mesmerizing beauty, humor and magic that was unfolding in and amongst all the grief. Someone to witness me through a steady lens of wholeness. And to trust that I already carried the wisdom I needed, even when I couldn’t see it. And to help me discover the medicine that already existed innately, in my body, in my being.

I needed to learn practices for how to not bypass, but to turn towards and be with the pain. To build a relationship with it that was generative, healthy and powerful.

I needed ceremony to mark these moments of transformation and becoming.

New path…
In 2017 I moved to NYC and began my studies in spiritual care with the New York Zen Center. I’ve completed 1600 hours of hospital chaplaincy training, interning with the spiritual care teams at the Brooklyn Hospital Center and Seattle VA Hospital.

I am humbled to walk alongside teachers who’ve supported me in deepening, widening and maturing my stance. I’m forever grateful for the compassionate mirroring of Koshin Pailey Ellison of the New York Zen Center and Meg Villejos McCoy of Inner Life Creations. In the warmth of their teachings and care, I’ve learned some of my deepest lessons about the power of practice, cultivating kindness when looking within, and the transformation possible when seeing life through the lens of the sacred.

I’ve also learned that while no one can do our work for us, to have steady, brave companionship through the 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows of life, is truly everything.