who i am

I am a queer, nonbinary , polyamorous, neurodistinct (neurodivergent), naturally systems-thinking human who lives in Southeast Portland, Oregon. I grew up in a combination of small-town central New South Wales, Australia, and Tucson, Arizona in the States. I have a beautiful support network of loving and incredible family members, two loving partners, friends, mentors, and chosen family. I have lived in Portland since 2011.

I studied English literature, math, and physics in college. The class I remember most from my undergraduate study is a philosophy of science class about the Copernican paradigm shift, as illuminated by Thomas Kuhn. This was the first time I was in contact with what would become my life’s passion and a part of my life’s work. I also attended law school, became an attorney, and worked for a national animal rights organization for several years. This was a wonderful experience for me in many ways, though there also came a point when I needed to move away from this career because it was not truly my life’s work – not really what I felt called to do.

During the time I was an animal rights lawyer, I experienced the catalysis and integration of an ongoing spiritual awakening process into my own conscious evolution. The process truly had already begun, and there is a way in which I can trace my awakening process back to the moment of my birth, but there was a couple of moments of key importance – when I crossed certain thresholds, that are essentially impossible to un-cross. First, in 2016, I was laid off by the organization I worked for. I spent a painful and beautiful three months with the picture I had painted in my head of my life – the identity I had created and convinced myself was me – shattering all around me. I re-connected with the truth I held that I had never actually wanted to be a lawyer, and that there was no way to be a lawyer and be my true self in this life. Yet, I was uncertain as to what I wanted to do – I had no idea at all, in fact. While feeling utterly lost, and in a sense at a type of existential “rock bottom,” I began to truly find myself. I began painting. And I began journaling – a LOT. These continue to be integral parts of my process. I got a different position at the same organization that had laid me off three months later, but I was permanently changed by my experience of those three months, and my process would lead to ongoing healing and spiritual evolution over the years to come.

Beginning in about 2014, I started working with psychedelics as a continuing and integral part of my process of healing and evolution. In 2016, this work increasingly began to show me information about my life path and purpose and brought me into ever more consistent contact with my energetic (or spiritual) guidance system. With time, psychedelics have become a smaller, yet still important, part of this process. I was shown how energy works and given information about the nature of the universe. Mushrooms assisted me in healing many of my own past traumas including childhood and teenage trauma from moving between countries, sexual trauma, teenage suicidality, self-medication, addiction, bullying and othering, and being nonbinary. Furthermore, this psychedelic work assisted me in being able to understand and work with my recent diagnoses of autism and ADHD–previously misdiagnosed as bipolar disorder.

In 2017, my work with psychedelic medicines began to take me more and more into ancestral healing, larger patterns and visions of potential futures, and deeper understandings about myself and my highest life purpose. I was guided by synchronicities , I was learning in my dreams as well as in psychedelic journeys, and I was journaling and meditating regularly. I found my first teacher and mentor, Laura Rowe. As we worked together, my awakening intensified, until late in 2018 I was in a state of spiritual emergency, as identified by Stanislav and Christina Grof.

Thankfully, I had a therapist who knew about the spiritual awakening journey I was on, and about all of my work with psychedelic medicines, and she was able to work with me to understand my experience through this lens, rather than that of being bipolar (which she had also worked with me to get out from under this label and diagnosis over the years). I also had Laura as a spiritual mentor, and I began working with Paul Levy around this time as well, who was able to further assist me in understanding and integrating my experiences – so my awakening continued, though it has continued in an ever more stable and integrated way.

Ever since, I have lived an ongoing spiritual integration and awakening, which continues, I believe, until the end of this lifetime and beyond. I have healed layers upon layers of personal and ancestral trauma. I have studied many spiritual pathways, integrating these with my own direct experiences and knowledge, principles of systems science and my understanding of the dynamics and qualities of living complex adaptive systems to develop my own metaphysical framework – one which is compatible with most spiritual belief systems. As a part of continuing to learn about how I work with energy through my hands, I studied Reiki and am certified at level one and two. To learn more about systems science I audited two graduate level courses at PSU – one in agent-based modeling (of complex adaptive systems), and the other about organizations (as complex adaptive systems). This work also brought me back to paradigm shift and the concepts that I had first seen in my undergraduate philosophy of science class. I found that I still owned the books from that class, and they became a part of my ongoing study.

I left my time as an animal rights lawyer in 2021, to focus more fully on developing myself and my practice as a spiritual mentor and integration coach. At the beginning of 2023, I completed nine months of trauma informed psychedelic integration coaching training with the Plant Spirit School. I also completed a year-long program with Jai Medina called “Healing the Wounded Healer.” I have been called by Cannabis (the energy or spirit of the plant) to step into service through holding containers for others and working with cannabis as an ally to healing, integration, and evolution. I have also gained experience co-facilitating plant medicine ceremonies with Sacred Heart Medicine Sanctuary, a 501(c)(3) church, of which I am also a board member. I am currently engaged in personal study, research, and writing on paradigm shift dynamics and a nested quantum complex adaptive systems metaphysical model that bridges science and spirituality and provides a systems science theoretical framework for understanding ourselves and our place within the universe.

I now work as a psychedelic and spiritual integration coach and transformational mentor. I hold trauma-informed, non-judgmental space for others as they move through their own journey of healing, awakening, and ongoing evolution. I work with cannabis , consciously and ceremonially, both as a part of my own practice and with clients. My own process continues to include regular meditation, journaling, painting, and plant medicine work. I also support integration coaching and mentorship clients in person in Portland, Oregon as well as virtually via Zoom.