Come Home to Nature
Come Home to Source
Life is challenging! Every day we come upon some new puzzle—an illness, a bumpy relationship, a murky road ahead. It takes all the creativity we can muster to navigate with a bit of grace.
Help is available! In my experience the most powerful help comes when we stay connected with Spirit, with the irrepressible source of life and joy that brought each of us into being.
Staying in touch with the Great Life welling up inside is a practice. It doesn’t take much—only a tiny shift of attention—to open to its wellsprings. But staying in that flow of grace takes a little practice.
I offer two services to help people navigate life from the center—to stay in touch with the deep Source. Both of them involve spirit journeys, or shamanic journeys. More information on spirit journeys below.
1. A Healing Journey for You
Are you feeling puzzled by some issue in health or work? Are you in a challenging time with a pet or partner or friend? Are you wanting to live closer to your life’s purpose? I can do a healing journey on your behalf regarding that concern, whatever it is.
If you are interested in a healing journey, please spend a little time putting your issue or question into words. Then contact me to communicate your concern and request an appointment.
We will connect by phone to get acquainted and talk about how the process works (30 minutes, free consultation). If we choose to move forward, we will set a follow-up appointment about a week away. If we decide not to move forward, there is no charge.
Over the following days I will do a healing journey on your behalf. During that time Spirit works to heal your body, mind, and heart and to provide insights that help connect you with your deep-welling Source of life.
At our follow-up appointment (about 30 to 60 minutes by phone), we will touch base, and I will convey any particular wisdom that Spirit shared with me for you. I will pass along any suggestions I receive to help you move through life with insight, grace, and joy.
Fee for a healing journey: $100 (sliding scale available; no one turned away for lack of funds)
2. Mentored Journey Sessions
If you would like support for your own path of connecting with Spirit, I offer a series of four mentored journey sessions (by phone).
Mentored journey sessions help you develop your relationship with your own Spirit Helper. Connecting with a Helper typically increases people’s confidence and joy and leads to a deeper understanding of self and purpose. You receive support as you practice the skills of listening in spirit and tuning your heart to your own Spirit Helper.
Mentored journey sessions are different from both therapy and spiritual direction. They have their own rhythm, tailored by Spirit for each person.
We do four sessions together, typically once a week for four weeks, so you can develop some confidence over time in hearing your Helper’s wisdom. Four weeks gives you a chance to assimilate new insights and allow them to take root in your life. Sessions last about 50 to 75 minutes.
If you’re wondering if mentored journey sessions might be right for you, I offer a free 30-minute consultation by phone to address your questions.
Fee for 4 mentored journey sessions: $400 (sliding scale available; no one turned away for lack of funds)
About Shamanic or Spirit Journeys
Connecting with Spirit takes only a tiny shift of attention—toward the Source of life and joy within. It’s an opening of heart and mind to the Living Spirit, the breath animating all, the irrepressible life unfolding within each of us and within every other being.
To prepare for a spirit journey we focus our minds on the largest possible good, and we open our hearts to receive impressions that arise in the quiet center. Impressions may come in any form: visual images, body sensations, feelings.
A spirit journey is a form of prayer, in that we are seeking wisdom beyond everyday knowing. It is a form of meditation in which we follow the impressions that arise, trusting that, once we have prepared the mind, those images will lead us toward clarity. In a spirit journey we make ourselves available to receive insights that come from larger-than-human wisdom.
Who do those insights come from? When our minds are trained on the highest good, they come from a Spirit Helper. Spirit Helpers are other living beings who share the particular wisdom that comes through them from the Source. Helpers may take the form of animals or trees or birds or water or other beings of nature, or they may take other forms as well. Or they may take no form at all, just a quiet presence inside.
For those who gave up on prayer long ago because it felt like talking to empty space, a spirit journey or shamanic journey provides an opportunity to hear the universe speaking back. When we enter into a journey, the Source of Life meets us in loving support to provide fresh perspective on whatever we may face.
And over time it is possible to develop and deepen a relationship with one’s own Spirit Helper. Opening to the warmth and support of one’s own Spirit Helper is a life-changing path and provides loving companionship for daily living.
About Me
I am a writer and spiritual counselor with a passion for helping people reconnect with the Living Source inside themselves and all of nature. I received a PhD in religious studies from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley and have taught graduate-level environmental humanities, feminist studies, critical thinking, and thesis writing at Prescott College in Prescott, AZ, and Naropa University in Boulder, CO.
Nature advocacy started for me years ago in Oakland, where I founded a small nonprofit land trust to preserve a nearby creek. In various places around the American West, I cleaned and restored urban creeks, fed baby birds in wildlife rehab, and cofounded a local rights-of-nature group.
My first book, Kissed by a Fox: And Other Stories of Friendship in Nature (Counterpoint, 2012), won the WILLA Award for Creative Nonfiction. Tamed by a Bear: Coming Home to Nature-Spirit-Self (Counterpoint Press, 2017) is a spiritual memoir of the first year of listening to Spirit’s voice through shamanic-style journeys.
My partner, Tim, and I live on Maui, where we are learning to know the life in the sea.
Contact
I would love to hear from you! Please get in touch, and I will respond soon.