My Story
I wrote this detailed narrative for those who are seriously curious about my background.
My story sheds light on who I am, what I do, and how it is that I seamlessly synthesize science and intuition into results-based healing. It’s a bit of a wild ride, and you might find it entertaining. My Story shows how life experience and education become integrated. Feel free to skim it and look for bits that catch your eye:
Inspiration for my life work began in high school. In molecular biology I attempted to research the bio-physiological processes of emotion. I wanted to know how and why the body causes moods. For example, why do mood disturbances accompany PMS? What other ways do our bodies make us feel, and why? Finding nothing in the library, I explored the UW library science stacks. So little was in print that my teacher suggested that I write a paper on slugs instead. My paper on the mating rituals of slugs was fascinating and got excellent marks–but left me unsatisfied.
By the time I was in a pre-med program at The Evergreen State College a book on biological psychiatry was available. It contained obtuse scientific speculation, and formulas like chicken scratch; scarcely a hint of practical application. I did take from it the fact that vitamins, enzymes, co-enzymes, and minerals are the building blocks of the chemical pathways that produce the neurotransmitters responsible for mood. Without them, these pathways do not work properly. I realized that improving nutrition would alter mood. A professor objected that I came to this conclusion in the absence of quotable studies. I began to experiment with diet, noticing and charting the way food impacted mood. I gave up the idea of becoming a neurophysiologist. Proving merely what industry was funding, through biased methods, instead of taking practical action to improve daily life did not appeal to me. Now it is common knowledge our biological messenger systems are made from what we eat and digest.
My studies next emphasized math for the sciences, chemistry, biology, anatomy, physiology, psychology, and other social sciences. In a sociology class we were given an assignment to do something socially deviant and see how people in our environment responded. We also studied both sociological and paranormal phenomena by getting involved with groups or individuals who were doing things we did not understand. The class would come together and discuss what we experienced and what motivated the people to do it. The program I was taking also explored the leading edge between physics and mysticism. Three decades later this is becoming popular with “What The Bleep” etc.
I studied depth psychology and Jung. It was not enough to read about it; I wanted experience. I painted mandalas, learned how to dream, recorded dreams, and kept a journal with sixteen sections for different varieties of experience. I brought forward and expressed sub-personalities, exploring the interplay between varied aspects of personality. For a year and a half I charted on graph paper eighteen different factors such as diet, sleep, hormonal cycle, affability, mood, moon phase, and so forth. I wanted to know to what extent these factors were related. My initial interest in knowing exactly how and why specific emotions emerge remains a consistent theme.
I began to study symbol-based systems of thought that have been used to organize and understand what we call reality. I neither believed nor disbelieved in these systems but wished to see whether or not they pointed to any ultimate truths about life. Toward this end I examined advanced math, tarot, astrology, Joseph Campbell’s work, and Jungian psychology, transpersonal psychology, and dream phenomena. I was studying the interface between the unconscious mind and social reality. Astonishing experiences of synchronicity, mutual dreaming, dreams that would actually take place the next day, and precognition began to take place during these intensive studies. These paranormal experiences frightened me. I had gone from being so science-based and narrow-minded that I would outright reject anyone who mentioned astrology to being so sensitive to energy frequency-signatures that I could recognize the astrological signs of strangers. I did not do this to categorize experience but to learn how to work with the mind and to understand life.
Meanwhile I was consistently using my body as a lab. My boyfriend at the time taught courses on bowel ecology and cleansing. He also taught Greek and Latin. He ate raw foods exclusively. I did fasts on water and on vegetable juices, tried out different diets and took note of exactly how I felt, and studied herbs and nutrition. I tried liver and gall bladder cleanses, cultured my own kefir from goat milk, grew sprouts and wheat grass, soaked seeds, and made amazing salads. This was a radical departure from the all-junk-and-three-cups-of-espresso diet that preceded it!
Said boyfriend had a close friend who was studying healing by living for months among different tribes in Africa and learning their secrets. He turned up one day in nothing but a loincloth, white-blonde hair to his waist. I wanted to recoil in shock but froze to the spot. His almost grave manner and strikingly intense presence commanded attention and respect. Primarily through touch, I learned a great deal about energy by interacting with this man. For several weeks that summer I ended up in Hawaii with him, living outside on mangos. I accidentally encountered Krishnamurti, giving a talk outside in nature, and sat down to listen. I also attended talks by Swami Sachadananda, who I later saw and hugged by a waterfall. I soon found myself living on the property of a Sufi Sheik whose teacher was in the middle of a forty-day silent retreat on the premises.
My host the Sheik, whose inner light was literally palpable, gave me personal practices to open and awaken my heart. While I had spent several years involved with a Quaker church, I had been rejected for asking serious and sincere questions, which were sadly interpreted as a challenge. Sufi sound and energy practices rapidly initiated me into spiritual life. Between college and ‘real life’ I lived on this beautiful and deserted land alone for more than three months during which I read Hazrat Inayat Khan, Ouspenski, and Gurdjieff. The entire tenor of my life began to change from an intellectual to an intuitive base.
Under unusual circumstances I met amazing healers. These healers demonstrated to my benefit what I felt were almost miraculous talents, alerting me to what was possible. I was so sensitive to energy that friend who had been learning Polarity Therapy would practice on me so I could tell him where the energy went and what it did. Drawn to healing as I had been to nothing in my life, I still rejected the idea of practicing healing. I took the art seriously and knew I could not yet stay consistently present enough to serve well at that point in time.
Returning from Hawaii I became involved with the Sufi Order–an actual mystical school with roots from before Christ. Mysticism is a funny word because its actual study clarifies life. In addition to prayer and daily practices using sound, breath, intention, and energy, I learned useful and practical techniques such as how to coordinate breathing with walking and with the heartbeat to harmonize the body’s major rhythms to change the state of consciousness and improve health. I learned to sense energy in individuals and groups and to work with different frequencies of energy and light. Most importantly I learned how to connect with my heart, how to use my mind constructively, how to bring forth deeper values, and how and when to draw upon and trust guidance. I began learning how to sense and manage energy, insight, and intuition.
I was involved with the Sufi Order and associated orders intensively for eleven years. During camps, retreats, and seminars I was frequently on staff, often cooking or managing the kitchen. During one retreat working with the Aramaic prayer of Jesus I planned and executed a menu to specifically support the type and level of energy best for each progressive phase of the workshop, from internal meditation to joyous celebration. Several years later I was personally selected by the international head of the Sufi Order to cook for him for a month at a silent retreat in the French Alps. I did bodywork with him as well, and Interfaced between him and the community.
After Hawaii I had taken up landscaping to allow my mind to quiet down after reading too much in college. I did internal spiritual practices while performing manual work. To finish off my last quarter of credits at T.E.S.C. I studied Horticultural Therapy. This method involved using horticultural activities to assist in physical, emotional and mental rehabilitation. Courses on Disabling Conditions and on working with different types of mental problems were part of this program. For my internship I initiated a gardening project in collaboration with a local mental health facility. During this period I was exposed to Permaculture, organic gardening, and ecological pursuits.
In my late twenties a mentor who practiced Orthobionomy and offered subtle, profound healing to fellow veterans, had suggested that I practice bodywork for a living. I attended an Advanced Mind-Body Studies course in Switzerland for a month. The course was for experienced body workers. I had already taken massage courses and been exposed to various techniques and body-based practices, Tai Chi and Aikido.
Course work started at 6:30 AM and went on until 8 PM, six and a half days a week. The instructor specialized in psycho-neuro-immunology and homeopathy. In addition to rehabilitating those injured in extreme accidents, and helping athletes to achieve sports goals, he specialized with AIDS. Through the course we used subtle internal as well as obvious external movement to analyze postural dynamics and body function. We learned to see and correct idiosyncrasies in gait, repattern body movement, to address muscular blocks with deep tissue work, to address mental and emotional patterns associated with these blockages, to support emotional release, to sense and work with different types and depths of body tissue, and more.
An auto accident a year after the Mind-Body course forced me to give up landscaping for a living. Weak ligaments in my neck prevented me from doing heavy work, even after eighteen months, massage, and several types of chiropractic care. I chose to pursue massage professionally, and took a tutorial to assist with license exams. This intensive centered on anatomy and physiology. At this point I did not need a massage diploma to be licensed in Washington State, but took so many advanced classes I accumulated enough hours to be awarded a diploma without having to relearn basics. I studied and practiced several brands of deep tissue massage, injury work, whiplash, work with feet, more postural and structural alignment, more emotional release work, all levels of Reiki, reflexology, Eating Disorders, Russian Sports Massage, Baker Points, Neck and Pelvic Stabilization, Sports Massage, Stretching and Strengthening, hydrotherapy, cryotherapy, Touch For Health, Shiatsu, Bodywork Teachers Training, and many other courses related to body therapies. Later I added three types of cranial work, visceral manipulation and advanced work, Thai massage, TMJ treatment, Flower Essence Therapy, Empathology, cadaver anatomy, and Mind/Body Teacher’s Training. I worked for the State massage board for several sessions administering practical exams. I considered myself a technician, not a healer.
Challenges–perhaps more than interests and studies– served to alchemize my transformation from technician to healer. Issues that resisted conventional treatment led me to seek creative solutions and unconventional methods, many of which are now and becoming popular. Some of the issues I have overcome include rape, bulimia, diesel, heavy metal and pesticide poisoning, chronic gut issues, and allergies.
Structural maladies also impacted my life. While landscaping I got sciatica so badly I could not sit for more than ten minutes. Various physical therapies and ultrasound did nothing to alleviate the pain. When it was at its worst I tried homeopathy. At first I noticed systemic changes but no relief of pain. Later a remedy suggested by a friend totally cured the sciatica in three days–after eighteen months of pain. I also suffered a spinal disk injury, probably initiated from being thrown off a horse as a teen. Each of these maladies contributed to my understanding of healing, and put me in a position to speak to clients from personal experience and compassion. My attempts to find effective help were educational, and motivated me to attend cutting-edge workshops.
Over a period of years I saw a vast range of practitioners including at least five different naturopaths, osteopathy, ozone therapy to correct mal-formed cervical cells, Chinese herbs and different types of acupuncture including techniques that go five inches deep, injections into acupuncture points with bee venom, injections of procaine into scars to alter nerve response, nasal specifics (they put small balloons into the sinuses and inflate them to realign cranial bones and open blocked eustation tubes), a number of bizarre machines that stimulate organ function or reprogram mental/emotional responses, Ionic foot baths that draw toxins out through the feet, EAV machines, several kinds of laser therapies, Aurevedic herbs and oil treatments, Biological Terrain testing, Feldenkrais, the Alexander Technique, Somatics, several full courses of Rolfing, Heller Work, and Myfacial Release Work, rebirthing, and an assortment of energy-based therapies, some requiring physical contact, some that do not, and several from a distance. I also traded extensively with friends who practice D.N.F.T., T.B.M., and other subtle means of realigning the body or getting the body to communicate with itself more gracefully.
I have been exposed to and attended workshops based on various therapies including couples and group therapy, gestalt, dynamic expression, EMDR and Lifeline therapy. The therapist I studied with the most learned directly from Fritz Perls and cutting-edge thought leaders. I also traded skills with a brilliant woman who teaches Thoughtfield Therapy. As I continued to develop I found that working with skilled energy healers was frequently quicker and more effective than any form of therapy. For on-going development I consult three advanced healers with unique styles of work.
In my thirties a spiritual teacher in Boulder sent one of his students to find me in Seattle. I had not heard of him, nor he of me–but he knew where I was located and that we had work to do together. The seven months during which I took direct instruction from this teacher was the most intense period of my life. I gained an unusual degree of objectivity and substantially increased my capacity for commitment and concentration. I learned both how to release my will and how to direct it when necessary. I credit this work for my capacity to do energetic testing with unusual accuracy. The last part of our work together had been about being able to do business. When we concluded our work he sent me to Seattle to start a business.
In Seattle, after this period of inner work, I met a powerful business consultant. He used to charge $5000 a day in the late ‘80s. He was doing an eighteen-month, monthly training seminar to advance department heads and other motivated employees in a seventy-person company. This man invited me to apply my skills in these seminars. My job was to help participants get in touch with and overcome obstacles to personal growth, and to help integrate new insight into the physical body. After the first few months I also worked seventy hours a month with the whole company, increasing self-care and decreasing absenteeism. I gave workshops on CTS (Carpal Tunnel Syndrome) and other topics, checked work-station ergonomics, wrote an in-house self-care manual, and practiced conflict resolution, as well as working individually with employees, both physically and in the role of coach. The business consultant asked me to attend the Forum, The Six Day, and Mastery of Empowerment courses, the later two of which I did back to back. I also took the Vitality Seminar, and a course on Time and Productivity Management. This work addressed impeccability, accountability, communication, contribution, and commitment. I have more recently taken an extensive course on giving teleseminars, including internet marketing, using social media, and high-level coaching.
During the same period I worked in the office of a non-force chiropractor who I met at a workshop on Natural Breath Technique. He used to bring me along as staff to workshops on bioenergetic techniques such as B.E.S.T., N.E.T., and Neurolink, and loaned me videotapes of workshops on Contact Reflex.Analysis–one of the first techniques using body reflexes to determine nutritional requirements. The chiropractor and I taught a class together. I also helped him rewrite and rework his office procedures.
I studied classical homeopathy from books—Kent, Hannuman, Viltolkus– and an extensive tape series from the John Bastyr library by Robin Murphy, an internationally recognized homeopath.
At this point I wanted a break from workshops. I did not get one, but my work took on a new direction. One flier in my stack of mail I was unable to throw out. I kept putting away and coming back to it again. I knew I had to go. This was the first of countless times I flew out of town to attend workshops. This workshop exponentially multiplied my abilities to determine energetically what was going on inside the body. Dr. Martina, a European doctor, had designed a way to use homeopathic vials to evaluate the body’s level of toxicity, the ability to release toxins, and the ability to regenerate, both as a whole and organ by organ. This technique was cheaper and more portable than machine-based methods. It did not rely on electricity, and was at least as accurate if practiced competently. Dr. Martina taught techniques for determining the causal chain between organs, to address causes instead of effects. I every class he offered and some from his colleagues. Dr. Martina taught: INTEGRA, Metabolic Optimization, Allergy and Advanced Allergy Resolution, Emotional Congruence, Advanced Emotional Congruence, and The Path of Inner Peace and Healing. The homeopathic company that sponsored Dr. Martina sponsored other workshops that I also attended, on drainage and detoxification, energetic evaluation of organ function, regeneration, blood sugar regulation, and other clinically hot topics. Naturopaths, acupuncturists, and chiropractors primarily attended these courses. A few cutting-edge doctors turned up. Each workshop or seminar offered the opportunity to practice techniques, ask questions, and often to troubleshoot tough cases. I learned a great deal about the interrelationship between different types of problems in the body.
Meanwhile, I attended all twelve of Kam Yuen’s Chinese Energetic Healing courses, and showed up to watch him work at demonstration sessions he offered to the public as further training for his students. Kam Yuen had taught David Carradine everything the star knew about martial arts. It interests me that both Dr. Martina—who had a nine-month waiting list–and Kam Yuen had very advanced martial arts training. Each doctor had mastered the art of sensing energy in the martial arts and gone on to apply their expertise in the realm of healing.
My extensive background in bioenergetic techniques allowed me at this point to gain entry into workshops that usually excluded massage therapists, such as David Denton’s work with Vector Point Cranial Analysis, Cranial-Pelvic Stabilization Technique, Advanced Cranial, his Neo Work on detoxification, and several other workshops. It was also a natural step for me to attend a national conference on Bioenergetic Medicine hosted by Energetics.
By this point I had become less reliant on analysis and more capable of drawing insight from the compost of life experience. I began to synthesize readily and rapidly between different techniques. My responses to clients were no longer based on exclusively on specific techniques but also upon intuitive perception. I still use techniques. But perception of what to do and when to do it was largely intuitive. In an hour I could accomplish what used to take five or six hour-long sessions. I used to think it was just fine-tuned perception blended from an expanded perspective.
On the spiritual front, I became close friends with a man who had as child experienced astonishing mystical and paranormal experiences. His experiences centered around a world spiritual leader and true spiritual Master, Meher Baba. After gradual and critical evaluation, I involved myself deeply for seven years with this spiritual group. I met and spent time with amazing people in their eighties who had spent their entire lives following Meher Baba, who had died in 1969. During four trips to India I was privileged to do body work on a number of the people making up his inner circle, including his sister, Mani. I also traveled to the tombs of a number of genuine Masters and saints. On my journeys I was exposed to the teachings and holy places of Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists. Back at home I hosted and facilitated an intensive, committed, reading and personal-development group for three several years. This was based primarily on the teachings of Meher Baba. I did not interface this work directly with my practice. Being available for others relies on honoring their existing beliefs.
In my early forties I went to and then began trading and cross-referring with a powerful clairvoyant, clairaudient healer. I discovered rather quickly that I was able to perceive the things he saw and heard—I just hadn’t known how to tune in or what to focus on. For more than half of our several-year association we spoke almost daily, and I learned to help him as much as he was helping me. We dealt with all sorts of bizarre energy phenomena I had never heard of and did not want to believe in. But our interventions worked when nothing else would work, so I dealt with it. As my skills developed I began to be able to see and “read” energy, including energy from people who are not physically present.
Another great opportunity came to me in my early forties. I became friends with the president of Biotics N.W., a large nutritional company that markets exclusively to professionals. I used to call Gray Graham up asking what various products did, wondering why they tested well for a specific client, and he would tell me. Using the product test kit without a written reference I was flying blind as I began. With Gray’s guidance I found that I was consistently picking products appropriate to my clients’ needs. I learned that this particular line of products worked really well, and Gray came to respect my accuracy and intuition, providing much-needed validation as I was beginning to use nutritional products. When I called with questions this international nutritional trainer and some of the reps and techs from nutritional and homeopathic companies would tell me, “You have more training than most docs!” As it turned out the product line needed a reference guide. I offered to play scribe. Thus I came to author the Biotics Clinical Reference Guide. Writing down what and how and when each of several hundred products was used or should not be used gave me direct one-on-one training. As partial compensation for my work I was invited to attend extensive nutritional training workshops, including Foundations Of Functional Nutrition. I did the required testing for certification as a nutritionist and continue to take interesting workshops, including Dr. Gary Lasneski’s Nutritional Reflex Technique, and Dr. Dick Versendaal, who started Contact Reflex Analysis.
Also during this period I took courses in Natural Force Healing and ARC (A Return to Consciousness; healing using energy frequencies) and studied Feng Shui.
In the last ten years I attended both the “old version” (with homeopathic vials) and the new (“vial-less”) version of the Jaffe-Mellor technique, an energy-based system focused on arthritis, autoimmune conditions, fibromyalgia, and related conditions. I also studied NeuroStructural Technique (an offshoot of Bowen Technique) and the Advanced Course, which I took in Germany. I have been studying with Datis Kharrazian, an overwhelmingly educated and brilliant doctor. His workshops have included Functional Endocrinology, Liver-GI Toxic Wind-Up, Autoimmune Physiology And Nutrition, Functional Blood Chemistry, and Neurotransmitters and The Brain, and others. I ‘talk shop’ regularly with an accomplished pharmacist who specializes in drug-free alternatives.
After meeting and doing some work with Nicki Scully, I read her books on “Alchemical Healing” and “Egyptian Mysteries.” While I am not drawn to Shamanism in general, Nicki brings to her work presence, clarity, love, expertise, and humility. I went to Egypt on one of her tours, taking fourteen Shamanic initiations in twelve days. Also in the Shamanic tradition, I trade regularly with my friend Leona Gallant, a Cree Indian elder who teaches the Virginia Satir method and practices Family Reconstruction Therapy. I have been studying Qi Gong and internal cultivation, Energetic Boundaries, Practitioner and Teacher Training, etc. for about seven years with Guan-Cheng Sun, who I revere. I facilitated for three years an ongoing spiritual and self-development group working with energy, awareness, group dynamics, and perception. Part of this work is based on E. J. Gold’s book, “Practical Work On Self.” I am currently learning Total Body Modification (TBM). I attend NIA classes whenever I can, as my preferred form of exercise.
Although I have quite a number of them in an old notebook, I never paper my walls with certificates and rarely pursue certifications. I prefer to support you by demonstrating practical understanding of your issues and showing you avenues to optimize your overall health. Base your experience of my work on whether or not interventions get results.