ABOUT ME
Hi There. If you're on this page, you're wanting to know a little bit more about me.
I'm originally from the States and I've lived in Canada since I came here for graduate school almost 20 years ago. My home base is Cortes Island in B.C., though I live & work between downtown Toronto & Cortes. I am very grateful to work in such diverse urban & rural settings and to make my home on these territories that for thousands of years have been tended to and cared for in Ontario by the Huron Wendat, the Seneca and most recently the Mississaugas of the Credit River and, near the Salish Sea- the We Wai Kai, Kwiakah, Homalco, and Klahoose First Nations.
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Astrology is a practice that helps me live my spirituality in an embodied and visceral way. Astrology became a language for understanding the archetypes and energies that have always spoken to me in Nature, where I have always felt my deepest sense of belonging.
Astrology is becoming so popular (again) and we can learn a lot from quick social media astrology clips. But for me, being an astrologer is a life-long endeavour that requires discipline & years of sitting with the archetypes and learning them from the inside out. It also requires understanding history & cultural studies, because as much as Astrology comes to us from the cosmos and intuition, we use it to understand these human journeys.
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I have studied a lot (9th house Moon that rules my chart). I have several degrees, including a PhD in Comparative Literature & certificates in Expressive Arts Therapy, Evolutionary Astrology and a 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training Program. I continue to study and enrol in different modalities of healing and meaning making when I have time. My approach to astrology is absolutely informed by all my education, teaching & coaching experience. In addition to years of self-study, I studied with three wonderful wise women & Evolutionary practitioners, Patricia Walsh, Rose Marcus & Laura Nalbandian.
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I am a teacher. An astrologer. A professor. A scholar. A partner. An artist. A woman. A survivor. A lover of animals (that's Gus & Babes over there). A person deeply committed to decolonizing my own inner world and the practices that I put out into the world. I survived a childhood full of violence and those experiences are part of the path that led me to offer healing work to others. They are also what lead me to know that many of western psychology-based approaches & theories do not serve those of us who are most marginalized & silenced. All of my work supports constructing & imagining survivor-centred pathways. I know these pathways are so beautiful & fulfilling. For me, astrology is a key part of building these pathways and supporting others on their healing journeys.
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In my university life, I am a professor of media & cultural studies and a feminist trauma theorist. I've worked with survivors in community and I write and publish about cultural trauma theory, art & spirituality. This is very important for my practice in astrology & spiritual astro coaching. Astrology, like every other field of meaning making touched by humans gets weighed down by biases bred by patriarchy & colonialism. And it gets (very!) shallowed out by pop culture. I love astrology for its depth and un-ending fields of interconnected meaning making. I love to work with others and open up their charts with them. I'd love to work with you.
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The Madrona Tree
The Madrona Tree, better known as the Arbutus Tree in Canada, is a tree indigenous to the Pacific North West often found on ocean bluffs. The Madrona has a rich history in Indigenous culture and its Latin name translates as the "Strawberry Tree" for the bright red berries they grow.
For me, the Madrona speaks an ancient langage, one that all of nature speaks, but for some reason it was the Madrona that helped me to remeber my own intuitive connection to this earth, to my womanhood and to see the integrated beauty and wisdom that comes from laying bare our own knots and twists out into the world, just as this tree does. Spending time quietly by the ocean with the Madrona has taught me much about what it means, for me, to be a woman. In the way their branches curve, knotted and twisted as they are, the marks and scars and shedding of skin-like bark, I see so many stories of womanhood. The way the light catches their leaves and the vibrancy of their red berries. Simply put, they are beautiful.
When I first moved to the Pacific Northwest in 2007 and lived in Washington State, I immediately fell in love with the Madronas and the rhythm of life that they and the ocean reawakened to my conscious self. It felt as if I were seeing family members I had not seen in quite some time. The pulse of the Madrona that I felt then and continue to feel in my body and psyche, for me, sounds out the intuitive gifts of wisdom I believe we all have access to and sometimes need support remembering how to call up from the depths our society and personal experiences teaches us to banish intuition to. My calling to teach is to offer this support and to help others learn to see the absolute beauty in laying bare and integrating their own knots and twists and supple beauties of self into holistic and honest presence, just as the Madrona tree has taught me to do.