The journey that brought me to this work begins with my roots.

My ancestry is a mix of German and Irish, and I grew in up central Pennsylvania surrounded by the Alleghany section of the Appalachian Mountains. My family practiced farming and seasonal food preservation, which cultivated my deep connection to Mother Earth. But it took me 35 years of coping with one health condition after another before I learned I’d lost that connection.

For as long as I can remember, I had asthma. One of my earliest memories is hiding my symptoms to avoid the horrible-tasting medicine. Throughout my youth, I was prescribed steroids and antibiotics for allergies that lead to infections and chronic bronchitis. After college, I started seeing patches of skin discoloration, known as psoriasis. It worsened, and in 2006 I started on aggressive autoimmune suppressant pharmaceuticals. Blood pressure issues followed. By 2016, I was taking over $100,000 worth of drugs a year, but I felt terrible in my body and my mind.

At the same time, I was feeling unfulfilled in my career as an auditor, so I reached out to Kim Townson of Elllabird Life + Spirituality Coaching. Unexpectedly, this is where my healing journey really took off. After a few years of working with Kim, the voice that told me I was ‘too much’ and needed to be constantly criticized so I didn’t get too big for my britches was gone from my head. I started feeling better in my mind, but that only revealed how terrible I felt in my body. This led me to a brilliant naturopathic doctor, Dr. Luke Gonzales, ND at Deep Roots Family Medicine, whose treatments included Contemporary Reichian Therapy, nutritional counseling, massage, and constitutional hydrotherapy. I had already been seeing a gifted acupuncturist for many years. Even with all this care and nourishment, something foundational was missing

After more than a few nudges from the universe, I started attending a New Moon Circle, which led me to a wildcrafting group that connected women with the land and cycles of Mother Earth. Something deep within ignited. I started exploring witchcraft by myself and through group ritual with my witch friends. Using spellwork, I was able to reprogram toxic thought patterns that were keeping me in sickness. My connection to magic and energy continued to grow as I helped others move stuck energy and tap into their innate intuition. I hosted and led my first Cutting Away Ceremony, which led to many more.

I performed a spell next to the Breitenbush River that dropped a ball of anxious energy out of my core, and I have felt better in my body ever since. This is why I believe spellwork and significant experiences with ritual and magic can transition our internal relationships with our minds, bodies, and spirits to a state where healing is possible and ongoing. Though healing is an on-going state, at this point I had stopped taking all pharmecuticals and was able to manage my symptoms with natural medicine.

As I healed, it became increasingly clear I was out of alignment with my job. I knew that I needed to take a break from checking email and writing reports. Like so many others, I spent the pandemic year of 2020 trapped in a box (computer) in a box (guest room) in a box (house). My health I had worked so hard to restore started to slip. So I summoned all my bravery and trust in the universe to walk away from my 10-year audit career. I don’t know if I will audit or consult again, but for right now my compass is set toward freedom and building a new path with my husband. So far, to my surprise and gratitude, the universe is paving the way.

Looking back on how I got to where I am today, I realize it wasn’t what I was doing, but how I was doing it that was keeping me feeling terrible in my mind, body, and spirit. I followed all the restrictive diets and detoxing protocols; I drank all the water and moved my body. I have access to some of the best healers in the world. Yet it wasn’t enough. The two cornerstones to my healing were creating a beautiful personal ritual to ground daily with Mother Earth and slowing down my internal landscape through meditation and magic to access to my own intuition. The challenge has been following through on what my intuition is telling me.

To truly heal, you must brave your own shadows and connect with your intuition.

You must open your heart to hear what is right and good for you. Magic helped me to do this, and this is what I want to share with you. With awareness of energy, mind/body/spirit connection, and the universe and her cycles, you can create space for your own intuition and magic to experience significant shifts that result in new ways of being and experiencing this life.