The Wild.

Maine

I grew up in rural northern Maine with winter blizzards, spring floods, and log cabin summers. I recall the raw, earthy bearing of loggers, farmers, and indigenous Americans. Ours was a diet of lobster, venison, garden veggies and buckets of wild strawberries. Nature and life were one and the same.

Haiti

More recently, I lived eight years in a bungalow on a deserted beach in Haiti blessed with plentiful fish, crabs, and corals and plagued by malaria, scorpions, risky currents and hurricane seas. I provided my own solar electricity and portable water.

In such places, nowhere near a hospital or doctor, one pays heed to the wild.  Nature is the most profound of teachers -- the wild is authentic, direct, and true, and you must be the same.

Authenticity is key to true communication and to staying alive.

Studies.

Interspecies Communication with Dolphins

I studied a few years in Paris, earned a BA in Montreal, then an MA in Consciousness Studies in San Francisco  --exploring interspecies communications with dolphins through empathic mergence.

I attempted to explore communication from the perspective of another species -- to see if I might get a fresh look into authenticity and deep listening.

Communication from a Fundamental Place

For my doctoral studies I ventured deeper into the mysteries of communication.

I studied subtle modulations in feeling tones and variances in the body’s energy vibrations in order to better comprehend how consciousness emerges and how the seeds of communication begin.

I was looking for the beginnings of conscious connection.

My doctorate was nearly complete when, unfortunately, it was interrupted by family obligations.

Over the years I continued molding a train of thought - 

the search for a penetrating communication that comes from a fundamental, natural place.

Shaman.

Caretaking and the Mind

As an undergrad I moved to Haiti to care for my grandmother with dementia. It was a time of curfews, secret police, roadblocks, and searches. Later, for ten years in Montreal and San Francisco, I cared for my husband with undiagnosed, un-medicated bipolar disorder and all its challenges. Then, I cared for my mother with Parkinson’s disease until her death.

Serendipitously, I was studying the power of mind, body, spirit, and nonverbal communication. It was inevitable that these studies in human consciousness crossed over into my caretaking experiences.

Initiation

I observed firsthand the breakdown in a person’s equilibrium as a breakdown in their communication with life in its largest sense.

And so, combining my studies with my personal experiences, I first worked with my own energy to restore the person’s ability for deeper communication and deeper connection with both their inner self and their environment. This was the beginning of my experiences in “empathic mergence”.

Later I made of myself a conduit and opened up a channel of direct energy with Earth. This is profound listening. And it was my initiation as a shaman.

Teachers

It’s a risky, dangerous process to make the journey, to traverse those barriers of perception without the preparation afforded by years of learning. Shamanic work as any discipline takes time, hard work, and dedication. It took me much time, danger, and terrible pain to appreciate that.

It was my good fortune to have had four excellent, soulful teachers/healers to whom I owe my life:

Alex Feng, a Taoist Chinese shaman, healer, and acupuncturist
Luisah Teish, a West African Yoruba shaman raised in Louisiana
Eric Peper, a university professor, biologist, and healer from northern Europe
Therèse Roumère, who combined Haitian Guinea shamanism with Hindu yogic teachings

Work.

Some years ago, I left my work in the nonprofit environmental sector in the Bay Area of SF for Haiti where for 15 years I was administrator of a family real estate management company.

I worked in the Caribbean “wild west”. A volatile marketplace of indescribable poverty and endless mayhem that required I have a pioneer temperament to restructure the company’s finances, oversee renovation of commercial buildings, and manage very contentious legal entanglements.

In order not to lose myself in the turmoil of this beautiful, sultry island laden with dysfunction I reminded myself to listen to my natural environment and center my actions accordingly. Surprisingly, I survived and even succeeded.

Then, in 2010, an earthquake obliterated 15 years of work and more, in 35 seconds.