Cure yourself with the light of the sun and the rays of the moon.
With the sound of the river and the waterfall.
With the swaying of the sea and the fluttering of birds.
Heal yourself with mint, with neem and eucalyptus.
Sweeten yourself with lavender, rosemary, and chamomile.
Put love in tea instead of sugar, and take it looking at the stars.
Heal yourself with the kisses that the wind gives you and the hugs of the rain.
Get strong with bare feet on the ground and with everything that is born from it.
Heal yourself, with beautiful love, and always remember: you are the medicine.
– MARÍA SABINA MAGDALENA GARCÍA
My Approaches
I believe it is possible to heal and to live a life of full authentic expression and joyful embodiment. In my guiding and facilitation, I incorporate many traditions and practices into a multi-dimensional approach:
Earth-based Depth Psychology
My heart’s work is in creating opportunities for people to fall in love with the natural world around them as a source of belonging, healing, and a return to authentic expression and embodiment. I work with individuals and groups in wild places and medicinal gardens, creating space to engage in deep inquiry, meditation, healing ritual, and connection to the living Earth.
This work is informed by my training in Clinical Psychology with a focus in Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute and my Master’s in Clinical Psychology at Columbia University, as well as Earth-based Buddhist traditions, Wilderness Rites of Passage (through the School of Lost Borders), and Ecotherapy. I am deeply inspired by the writing of Robin Wall Kimmerer, Marie-Louise von Franz, Francis Weller, and James Hillman on animism and the healing of a re-ensouled world.
Psycho-Spiritual Counseling informed by Buddhist Traditions
Meditation can open doors of inquiry into the nature of mind, support the cultivation of more beautiful mind-states, and deepen one’s relationship with the unconditional love of awareness. Through my extensive ongoing study in Buddhist traditions, I support others along their paths of meditation and inquiry. This includes support in: first-time meditation instruction, sustaining a daily practice, deepening a meditation practice, or integrating from silent retreat.
I draw on nearly a decade of personal practice and study with close teachers in the Buddhist traditions of both Tibetan Vajrayana and Insight Theravada, and nearly 100 nights spent in meditation retreat or at Buddhist practice centers.
Herbalism and Plant Spirit Medicine
I see plants as allies and guides along the journeys of healing and wisdom-seeking. In the Wise Woman Tradition of Herbalism and spoken by my teacher Marysia Miernowska of the School of the Sacred Wild, one seeking healing speaks, “I seek support so I can let go to my depths.” The healer replies, “I’ll play with you in the sacred garden.” I take folks into healing medicinal gardens to make direct connection with herbal medicinal plants and facilitate ceremonial space to formulate their own herbal medicine in the forms of teas and tinctures. My area of expertise is in formulating herbal medicine for mental health symptoms including: stress, mood, adrenal fatigue, attention and focus, sleep, dreaming and dreamwork, and support for meditation and intensive retreat.
I am a trained Herbalist through the School of the Sacred Wild. My connection to plant spirit medicine is also carried by my training and work in the Brazilian Amazon in the village of Mutum, in service to the Yawanawá indigenous community where I lived for several weeks supporting the land and learning from herbal and medicinal plant wisdom keepers including Chief Rasu Yawanawá and Kenewma Yawanawá.
Somatic Experiencing
Trauma moves with our bodies in the form of our stuck, repetitive, reactive responses to what we perceive as threatening. The SE approach uses body-informed dialogue and active imagination to release reactive patterns stored in the body from emotional, physical, and early development attachment trauma. I offer tools to support feeling safe in coming back into the body fully, step by step.
My work draws upon my training in Peter Levine’s 3-year Somatic Experiencing Practitioner training as well as my own personal therapeutic work in somatic healing.
Energy Healing
Reiki can be translated from Japanese Zen as “Universal Life Energy.” I see energy healing as an extension of the attuned, present, wisdom-compassion states cultivated in deep meditation into the interpersonal relational realms. Offering loving awareness in the form of gentle touch and attunement to someone’s physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual state can facilitate deep healing.
I am certified in Level 1 & 2 Reiki by Reiki Master Lara Elliott, in the Japanese Zen Buddhist Tradition of Reiki through the linage of Dr. Usui Shiki Ryoho. My energy healing work is also informed by Tibetan Energy Medicine from the Yuthok Nyingthig lineage of the Medicine Buddha, under my teacher Dr. Nida Chenagtsang.
Dreamwork
Wisdom traditions across the world and throughout history have seen dreams as sources of wisdom and communication – from the deepest parts of ourselves, from the consciousness of the Earth, from our ancestors and guides. Each night we are gifted with medicine, insight, and healing. I see dreams as sacred wisdom keepers that we can build relationship with. My approach to dreamwork is to guide people back into the images, felt sensations, and knowings of the dream, that can continue to unravel deeper layers of insight and inquiry over time. We explore dreams and waking visions through dialogue, Active Imagination, parts work, and embodiment techniques.
My training in dreamwork has come from both my graduate studies in Jungian dreamwork as well as from my training with Sarah Maclean Bicknell, who carries the lineages of dreamwork of her Lakota and Druid teachers, as well as Tibetan Dream Yoga as instructed by Dr. Nida Chenagtsang.
Mind-Body Chronic Pain Reprocessing
Chronic pain is an epidemic and among the most poorly-understood phenomenon in modern medicine. My approach to chronic pain explores the connection between physical pain and the brain’s fear response. Visualization techniques and CBT can be powerful tools in reducing and eliminating both the anxiety associated with chronic pain as well as the actual physical symptoms of pain.
In addition to working through and healing years of chronic pain in my own body, my training is in Pain Reprocessing Therapy (PRT), a system of psychoeducation, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), and somatic techniques that retrain the brain to interpret and respond to signals from the body without fear or hypervigilance in order to break cycles of chronic pain.
