First, I give gratitude. I stand on the shoulders of many teachers. Thank you to the spirit of the mushrooms. Thank you to the indigenous communities who have stewarded sacred medicines and medicine ways for generations. Thank you to my own ancestral lineages and especially for my parents. Thank you to my patients and their families. Thank you to my holistic nursing mentors and peers. Thank you to all those have guided me or walked beside me in spiritual practice. Thank you to my husband and my children.

When I think back on it, all the elements of my practice were present in my childhood at summer camp - connecting with nature, sleeping, eating, and living communally, moving my body all day, singing together. I had many transcendent moments there. But there was one that always stood out - on the last night of camp were each given a candle in a little bowl and ignited our flames one by one while sacred verses were read, and placed the candle-rafts on the lake where they would create an incandescent river of light. Ritual. Elemental ritual. It moved me deeply.

I spent my 20s in NYC pursing life with passion - studying at NYU, partying, practicing yoga, making performance art, finding creative community, traveling, and experimenting with various ways to experience my consciousness. It was then that sacred medicine found me, in perhaps not the most sacred of contexts, but their messages guided me in a direction of service and purpose.

I became a nurse not for a love of healthcare, or data, or procedure, but because it gets you to the heart of real moments with real people. Transformative moments. I soon found what has been my home in nursing - hospice care. Hospice centers the human being and their loved ones. It is holistic. And it provides the opportunity to befriend the sacred portal that is death, something many of humans shield their eyes from, but which holds mystery and power.

At the same time that I started nursing I became deeply immersed in spiritual community. This is the part of my story that has influenced my current work the most significantly but also feels the most personal to share about directly. I studied, prayed, and at times lived within a group of students dedicated to living a practice of various spiritual traditions, with a focus on those of Turtle Island, under the guidance of a teacher. It once again connected those dots for me - nature, community, music, ritual, transcendence. I learned how to tend an altar, to hold sacred space, to carry a prayer. It was deep work and those principles of prayer and service live in my bones. At the same time, I also experienced the dangers and downsides of communal living, devotion to a charismatic leader, and the patchwork of New Age spirituality. I experienced at times a lack of integrity and safety. And I separated from the group and from the teacher in a manner that was unfortunately very painful. Ultimately I am deeply grateful to that time and to the people I walked with. I bring all the lessons of that time - the gifts and the cautions - forward into my current walk and work as group facilitator.

Along the way from there to here I earned a Doctorate of Nursing Practice in the speciality of Integrative Health and Healing, learning to bridge holistic healing and modern healthcare. I began speaking, writing, teaching, and developing the discipline of holistic psychedelic nursing including co-founding the Holistic Psychedelic Nurse Collective. I was a learning facilitator for many year long cohorts of Synthesis Institute's Psychedelic Practitioner Training program where I honed my group facilitation skills. I created and co-taught Return to Roots, a self-development course for psychedelic-inspired nurses where I articulated the principles guiding my approach to psychedelic care. 

I also met and married a beautiful man and birthed two glorious children. I could not do this work without my husband's deep support of the homestead. We live on land traditionally stewarded by the Catawba people near Charlotte, NC. We strive little by little to rewild ourselves, develop our land, and teach our children to walk in harmony with the Earth and the Spirit.

And it is here where my story truly deepens...where I harvest all the knowledge I have gathered in my studies and service both above and underground and create a vehicle of group transformation. One that spaciously honors cycles and seasons. One that embraces feminine and Earth wisdom. One that grounds the catalyst of sacred mushroom medicine in a sturdy container of group alchemy. This creation is Cacoon - A Year of Prayer, Practice, and Psilocybin. It is my offering to women seeking gentle but profound transformation that goes bone deep. Please consider joining us this fall, or referring a sister, auntie, or friend who could benefit from the work.

Thank you for receiving at least pieces of my story. I hope to do the same for you.