I was 6 years old when I left my body

In the middle of that darkness, I formed a connection to Spirit. Somehow, alongside the experience that nearly broke me, I became aware of something greater than myself.

That connection became the foundation of everything I do now and catalyzed my devotion to this path.

My body kept the record my mind had sealed

I had no conscious memory of what happened. I had blacked it out so completely that for decades I did not know those experiences had occurred. Yet my body knew.

For roughly fifteen years, the memory surfaced as rectal spasms so severe I could not walk. They came only during my deepest sleep, each one carrying the most terrifying fear I had ever known. Whenever I tried to understand where that fear came from, there was nothing there. No image, no story, no explanation. Only blackness.

Eventually, I saw one of the best gastroenterologists in the country. He could find nothing physically wrong.

Of course he couldn’t. My body was holding what my conscious mind had sealed away in order for me to survive.

Much later, I would understand that insight can only take us so far. We can know what happened, recognize the patterns it created, and trace them back to their beginning – and still carry the wound in the body.

That deeper layer had to be reached in another way.

I spent years trying to find

the way in

For the next eight years, I explored nearly everything I could find that might help me heal: traditional and nontraditional therapy, acting and improv, energy and clairvoyant training, yoga, EFT, NLP, inner-child work, archetype exploration, Watsu, sound work, theta healing,  alpha healing. Each one gave me something.

Therapy, in particular, helped me understand what had happened and how it had shaped me. Pieces of my life began to make sense.

Yet the spasms continued.

Something deeper was still asking to be met.

Then I sat with the Plants

Then I sat with the Plants, they guided me straight to the root cause of my traumas.

It was around my fourth Ayahuasca Ceremony that I had a dream. The night before, I dreamt I was six years old walking down a hallway. A closet door opened; someone familiar pulled me in, shut the door, and everything went black.

I woke in another spasm, yet this time there was something else – a flash of my tormentor’s face.

The following day in Ceremony, more began to surface. Memories came in flashes and details, connecting me to the truth of what had happened and creating space for my body to begin releasing what it had carried for so long. That was the beginning of a much deeper healing journey. Over time, the spasms stopped completely.

That experience changed the direction of my life. Alongside my own healing came a deep calling to be of service to others.

I wanted to understand what had happened. I wanted to understand the Medicine, the plants, the healing traditions surrounding them, and what it meant to carry this work with integrity.

What began as my own healing became a path of study and devotion.

The transition to a life of service

Over the years, I traveled repeatedly to the Peruvian and Brazilian Amazon to study plant medicine, ceremony, prayer, song, and the healing traditions held within these cultures. I gave myself to intensive Dietas with the Master Plants—extended periods of discipline, isolation, prayer, and direct communion with the plant spirits.

Among them was Marosa, sometimes called the hospital of the jungle. My relationship with this Plant opened a profound body of teaching around ancestral healing that continues to inform my work today.

These Dietas taught me the importance of Ayni, the Quechua word for sacred reciprocity, and the importance of receiving permission to carry this work. Within that permission comes a responsibility to honor the work, the teachers, and the lineages it comes through with reverence and support.

My training has been rooted in the work traditionally carried by Curanderos within the Shipibo tradition. I don’t hold that title as a credential, I hold it as a responsibility. That responsibility is rooted in relationship with the Plants—relationships cultivated over time through Dieta, prayer, ceremony, discipline, and direct experience.

A Dieta is not simply a diet. It is a sacred commitment and a direct relationship with a Plant teacher. When that relationship is tended with integrity, the Plants become teachers, allies, and guides in the healing work.

Through these Sacred relationships, I have been blessed to receive Medicine and wisdom that I now carry into my work.
I carry what has been shared with me with deep gratitude and responsibility. These traditions are not mine. I have been invited to learn from them, to be changed by them, and to carry forward what I have been given with respect for the people and lineages they come from.