I picked up Melody’s Love is in the Earth and my first tarot deck, the Mystic Tarot, at a crystal shop in New Mexico during a college internship in January of 1993.  My intuition had always spoken loudly to me as a child, and things like reincarnation were as acceptable to me as my “imaginary friends.”  It seemed the universe was awakening me towards a path of spirituality, but it took me many years to pave that road. Later that year, I committed to a vegetarian lifestyle, and began studying macrobiotics and the alternative healing methods of herbalism and Ayurveda; my studies were strictly focused on the body (MATTER) for the next several years. 

I finished college in 1995 and headed for the lush, healing lands of Oregon to complete a summer internship in urban farming and sustainability, where I dove head-first into herbalism, urban farming, and aromatherapy. My eyes were opened to how deeply plants can help the body heal. This would be a foundation of my work to come. After that internship I moved into Eugene, Oregon, where a synchronous encounter at a Saturday Market lead me to my first mentor, Sara Fellez.  I took a ten-week metaphysical course with Sara and discovered the first of many spiritual masters for this lifetime, Merlin, who has been my doting spirit guide ever since.  He has walked me slowly through the healing wonders of the crystal mineral world, and his knowledge in the crystal and herbal realm is immense.

In December of 1996 I moved to Scotland and spent the next 12 months working on myself: clearing past lives, continuing the practice of yoga and learning the practice of meditation at a Buddhist Center, while studying the traditional Scottish practices of Herbalism under private tutorship at the Glasgow Apothecary. I also was accepted into the Morris College of Journalism, from which I would ultimately receive a distant learning certificate in Travel Writing and Photography, leading me to my work with my husband Craig for our company Access Anything. 

In April of 1998 I moved to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, a spiritual hotbed with four magical fault lines and the healing waters of numerous local hot springs which once provided sacred meeting grounds for the Ute Indians.  Here continued my studies, met my soul mate, and have been infinitely inspired by the beauty of the Yampa Valley until the world started to change… I received the message that the time was now, and we began the journey to find our new home in Tennessee in 2021. More on that here: Shambhala Collective and @Shambhala_TN

In the early years, it seemed hard to raise my vibration to compete with the many fault lines and energetic intensity in Steamboat – especially after how easy it felt in Oregon and Scotland. I felt I was back to square one, releasing my own spirituality as if almost from a state of spiritual amnesia.  Eventually I was led to Cordelia Maasdam, a local guru of crystals, numerology, and tarot, and again found the light in the most unsuspecting corners of this tiny town.  Not yet openly metaphysical, Steamboat did not seem to nurture the eclectic, I was led to Boulder to get my Mastership in Crystalogy from Karen Kuk-Nagle, one of Melody’s TAOMCHI Instructors in 2002.  The gates flooded open after that, and I began mastering the ancient practices of Reiki, Numerology, Palmistry, and the laying-on-of-stones. 

In 2006 through 2009 I co-hosted Steamboat’s annual Holistic Fair, bringing our holistic practitioners together, and in 2010 I turned my practitioners list over to Josh Nass to start publishing Steamboat Body Works, a publication just for holistic practitioners. For many years, my focus was on accessible travel, writing, photography, self healing and sustainability as I diluted myself a little too thin…. 

In 2012 I was turned back to an “old friend,” the Celestine Prophesy series, in preparation for James Redfield’s latest release, The Twelfth Insight. By the end of that year I was motivated to return to teaching my Crystal Healing class, and in 2013 I began teaching a new series, Manifesting with Synchronicity, based on Redfield’s books and the many he read to write those books.  I feel these two classes help me to continue my dharma in helping others “awaken,” and bring us closer together to a place of understanding that we are all connected, and we can create our own reality. In the same fashion that books have found me, buried in a stack of inherited astrology books, Petey Stephens’ Opening the Psychic Self helped me launch my first online series, Awakening the Psychic Within, in 2015 – a go-at-your-pace course of helpful, short daily lessons to help elevate your connection to your internal knowledge and light source – it’s hard to explain on paper, but it’s truly an igniter!  In 2016, launched a new class I’d been dreaming on for a long time, Doing your Dharma, which helps students find their true purpose for incarnation this time around through 4 deep dives into their Astrology, Numerology, Myers Briggs profile and Clifton Strengths test.  All my classes are available on the WORKSHOPS page.