As alchemists we discover that our nature emerges only to return. - Liu Ming

BRIEF HISTORY OF MY SPIRITUAL PATH

I moved into a state of non-duality in the Spring of 2020, although I didn’t realize it until a few months later when I emerged into a new state of being unlike anything I had experienced before. I had a Seeing that felt completely new, expansive and at first disorienting. Time was like silly putty - time still exists in my reality, but I see it as the arbitrary construct that it is. My mediumship went into overdrive, and I began to receive higher frequency channeled messages. The sky was brighter, my food tasted better, my sleep was suddenly more transcendent.

And ~ while all of that is true, at the same time none of it is "actually" true at all.  All those words are simply another form of limiting self-reflection.  This existence simply IS, and the I that I have clung to for most of my life is still the same, but my perspective had simply changed.  There is still an ego, a personality, a continuity of being … and yet what I knew as “Myself” has fallen away, allowing someone more universal to emerge.  

I’m writing this in the here and now in this style of “I” as a way to share a message of universal consciousness.  This is our birthright as humans, and we are living in a time of rapid awakening. There is nothing special about my story, nothing particularly interesting or unique ~ we are all here as One to lift each other up, to remind each other of who we are, to join together in a uniquely Human version of Being.  
 

This is why we are here. This is the Natural Heart Alchemy.
 

During my journey, I have been blessed with many mentors along the way.
 

I first sat with Ram Das back in 1993, after stumbling across Be Here Now during an out of body experience in a tiny hut in Belize the year before. The blessings of Ram Das and Neem Karoli Baba have been a continuously blooming flower in my heart ever since that time.
 

I sat with an amazing teacher of non-duality named Jon St. Andre.  He invited me to his small cabin high in the Colorado Rockies to study the making of rawhide drums and rattles.  We would sit and drink tea and stare at the aspen trees and mountains beyond. I would say, “OK, let’s get to making some drums,” falsely believing that was why I was there.  His calm demonstration of spacious unified awareness changed the course of my life in ways I didn’t realize for many years.
 

After my time in Colorado, I moved to the jungle in Southern Cameroon. I lived for almost two years in a small camp that was a 20 mile hike from the nearest road in the middle of the Congo Basin rainforest - the land of the Baka hunter gatherers. The Baka became my friends and guides in the forest, and while they taught me the ways of the trees and monkeys, birds and gorillas … they were also teaching me their deeply integrated way of life. They taught me the songs of the forest, the water, the rocks and the sky.  Their generosity and joyful spirit gave me a completely new understanding of what it meant to be human. They did not live in the forest, and use what it had to offer.  They were the forest itself.   The non-duality of their entire life experience has been one of the most profound teachings I have ever received.

For years, in the early 2000's, I studied with the Daoist teacher Liu Ming. I was a very poor student, but somehow managed to absorb the deep essence of his timeless being. Ming passed away in 2015, and around 2019 I began to feel his presence in a deep and powerful way.  To this day his guiding energy is one of the greatest blessings of my current experience, and I draw from his teachings more directly than any other source.
 

These are just fragmentary illusions and memories of this life so far. I can’t rightly say any of this is important, or that I am here because of any of these experiences.  

MEDIUMSHIP 

In the late 1990's I lived in the African rainforest for several years - 20 miles from the nearest road.   We were almost completely cut off from communication with the outside world.  It was in this place that I first realized I was a medium.   One day I started to have dreams about my Grandfather, and he was in my head "speaking" to me for several weeks.  About 6 months later, my Dad came to visit and told me my Grandfather had died ... and when I learned the date I remember nearly falling out of my chair.  It exactly coincided with when he appeared to me in that dream the first night.   

Since that time, it's been a long journey of becoming more and more comfortable with the ongoing communication that I receive from our Spirits, our Ancestors, our Guides, Mentors, and Angels or all types.   For me, I can almost always make contact with Spirit beings, departed family members, Ancestors, and other Guides ~ but what they choose to communicate is entirely up to them.  There are some Mediumship sessions where they are so eager to pass on their messages that they start feeding me information before the session even starts (this happens frequently, actually).   And sometimes it's the reverse.  I had one recent session where the Angels that were being called answered me quickly, but told me, repeatedly, "We're not going to talk to you.  We've been feeding her information and she's not listening!" (speaking about the person across from me in the room).  That said, most people I work with have quite a few different Beings that are lined up to support the unfolding of our Soul purpose here on Earth ... and most often we can have a flowing, beautiful, and soul-supporting "conversation."

AKASHIC RECORDS

When I was first introduced in a serious way to the Akashic Records, my first reaction was, "Oh, I know this place!"   I had been "playing" in the Akashic fields for years, I realized ~ using it as a source of Truth and Clarity.  

The way that I experience the Akashic Records, they are energetically a more "refined" energy band beyond where I receive Mediumship or Channeled information.    There is an infinite field of information to be revealed, so the practice is not "Can I get the information?" but rather "What information should I retrieve?"  

I am most aligned with retrieving information that is useful in your life right now.  Information that is revealed to align you with your Soul Purpose.  Information that is here to alchemically challenge you and therefore encourage your growth.   And information that is what you need to hear right NOW to activate the next stage of your journey.

AND BEYOND

I have studied Sound Healing and Gong Master training with Don Conreaux, Somatic healing, Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and much more with COR, Advanced Leadership with Authentic Relating, and leading meditation sessions with Jack Kornfield.  

I have an MBA from U.C. Berkeley and a MS in Ecology from SFSU.   I have worked as a tropical biologist, a chef, a photographer, cookbook author, a sustainability specialist, a newspaper columnist and a COO.   I have worked for Fortune 100 companies, and been in the board rooms and on the private jets of some of the largest corporations in the world.  My writing and photography has been published by National Geographic, The Sun, U.S. News & World Report, Gastronomica, Earth Island Journal, Natural History, Orion, Fungi Magazine, Wildlife Conservation, Grist, American Scientist, The National Audubon Society, and many others.

What is clear is that we are in a period of universal awakening, and that all of us are being called up to be our most aligned, alive, engaged, expansive, aware selves.  And I know that I am here on Earth now, at this time, so that I may offer my support to anyone who reaches out their hand with a sincere wish to expand, grow, and experience everything it is to be Human.