MY Story

I have enjoyed a multifaceted career that includes professional work as a psychotherapist, chef/entrepreneur, cookbook and fiction author, poet, meditation teacher and healer. I was an early contributor to the Huffington Post on the subject of Meditation and “Spiritual Practice in Daily Life.” I am married and have two grown children and three grandchildren. I divide my time between Chapel Hill, NC and Chilmark, MA.

The bigger question about my biography perhaps is how my personal life led me to this path. That of course, since I am in my seventh decade of life, is a long story. You will find posts about some aspects of that journey in the blog section here. But I can say that I was clearly born with a strong intuitive and heartfelt devotion to the world of spirit. Early on, this manifested in me through religious faith, and trust and protection in spirit. I often had dreams that connected me with messages from those who had crossed over. Later, my meditation practice enhanced my ability to provide intuitive insight, energy healing and guidance for others.

But it was in 2005, when I had gone to the office of a colleague at the Integrative Medical Center in Chapel Hill, NC where I taught meditation to receive a cranial-sacral massage. The therapist put on some music with a background rhythmic drumbeat while I lay on her therapy table. As she began her work, I found myself relaxing into a deep dreamlike trance. I suddenly found myself in the presence of a magnificent leopard. The leopard approached and crawled into my lap, letting me stroke his fur and wrap my arms around him.

I felt such love and affection for that leopard and from him in return. He “told” me that I should not be afraid of spiritual power or any personal power, but should in fact embrace it, just as I was embracing him. All of this was communicated without words.
Later, a friend explained that I had spontaneously gone on a “journey” during that magical session, probably led by that hypnotic drum beat. She suggested that I was being called to learn more about that practice and later taught me how to purposely “journey,” or enter similar states of non-ordinary reality by using the recording of a drumbeat.

That was the beginning of a path that led me to reading about anthropologist Michael Harner’s lifelong worldwide study of shamanism. In his courses, sponsored by The Foundation for Shamanic Studies I learned how to enter “non-ordinary reality” and find specific destinations to meet helping spirits and to retrieve helpers for others.   In those realms, I have communicated with a variety of spirits who appear as animals, angels, Master Teachers, indigenous warriors, ancestors…all compassionate helping spirits. And I learned ancient healing techniques. So now, in addition to the healing modalities I had learned and practiced for decades, I now journey on behalf of others who have unanswered questions, are in the midst of a personal crisis, or are simply curious to discover what lies outside the visible realm of ordinary reality and to “see in the dark”.