About Me

In 2011, I was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. This abrupt initiation into the underworld required me to drop my sense of identity and all of my plans to embody the teachings I had received over the previous decade. For two years, my full-time job was navigating my way through a labyrinth of conventional and alternative treatments and practitioners along my journey of recovery. Thanks to numerous healers and guides who supported me along my way, I regained my health.

I have an undergraduate degree from UC Santa Cruz in Literature. I’ve trained and apprenticed with seasoned practitioners teaching both traditional and novel approaches to integrative healing. This has included years of training and supervision in the therapeutic application of expanded states of consciousness. I am a Certified Hakomi Practitioner, have studied parts-work in the tradition of Voice Dialogue, and completed advanced training in Jon Eisman’s, “Re-Creation of the Self” model.

Simultaneously, I’ve continued my Buddhist training with Vajrayana and Taoist teachers and currently study with Jennifer Welwood, who integrates Tantric Buddhist teachings with Western psychotherapeutic techniques. I am ordained by Two Rivers Sangha as a Buddhist minister and co-lead meditation retreats a few times per year. I regularly take time for personal retreat to integrate and deepen my practices.

From 2022-2025, I was a core staff member and instructor for the UC Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics’ Psychedelic Facilitation Certificate Program, where I served as the Program Coordinator and Practicum Supervisor with a focus on ethics and state-level legalization developments, specifically Oregon’s Measure 109 psilocybin regulations.

My ancestors came to North America as early settler colonialists from England and Scotland, and later as immigrants from Ireland, Sweden, and Germany. I live with my partner and two dogs in Mount Shasta, California, on the ancestral lands of the Shasta, Modoc, Ajumawi, and Wintu peoples. As one small way to acknowledge the history and support the restoration of this land, I pledge monthly support to the local Winnemem Wintu who are working to reintroduce salmon to the local McCloud river and restore wild salmon runs in the Shasta area.

In addition to my work with clients, I love to cook, hike with my dogs, write, and enjoy the potent elemental energies of the local wilderness.

Born in San Francisco, California, I spent much of my youth seeking refuge in the surrounding wilderness. I devoured books on Eastern spirituality and spent as much time in nature as I could. Upon discovering psychedelic plant medicines, I began a passionate exploration of my psyche and soul with these powerful teachers.

At nineteen, I traveled to South America, which began a decade of study with indigenous and mestizo healers in the Ayahuasca tradition of plant healing. I subsequently studied with teachers in the Mazatec mushroom tradition. I concurrently traveled through Southeast Asia and India, pursuing spiritual studies, immersing myself in the Buddhadharma, and attending numerous teachings and retreats in the Vipassana, Zen, and Vajrayana traditions.