• MA Counseling Psychology

• LiveMore ScreenLess Digital Wellbeing Training co-developer

• Cognitive Behavioral Interventions for Trauma with a Native Lens Facilitator

• First and Second Degree Reiki

• Death Doula Intensive Certificate Training, Sacred Crossing Institute

• Sholom Home Hospice and Death Doula Volunteer

• Tending Grief to more fully live

• Navigating complex life transitions and systems

• Building connection to one’s highest-self, others, the Earth

• Caring for aging parents

• Facing fears around death and dying

• Intergenerational healing and repair

• Shifting from outer to inner authority

• Shifting from “making a living” to building a life centered around the unique gift/medicine you have to offer the wellbeing of the world

I seek to be a catalyst for connection and awakening and an instrument of healing and repair.

I’m a middle child, mother, friend, spouse, licensed school counselor, facilitator, mentor and guide. I come to this practice of Death work not because I have intimate experience with losing loved ones close to me - I come to Death work because I know what it feels like to not be fully alive. Death and life are two sides of the same coin. 

Most of my life I felt like a caged tiger, trapped in an unseen cage and fighting against forces seen and unseen. At my core, I felt anxious, empty and…trapped.

I’ve always loved and been fascinated by people - our passions, eccentricities, curiosities and the contradictions we hold. I was a history major at Carleton College - drawn to history because I felt the humanities offered a broad lens from which to understand people and cultures. 

I trained to be a School Counselor and worked both as a middle and high school counselor in Boston and Minneapolis Public Schools for close to 15 years. I loved my training at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA,  getting my masters in Counseling Psychology with others who were pursuing their mission of “Let’s Wake Up the World.” 

I loved so many things about being a School Counselor. The daily work with students and collaborating with families and educators  was creative, intense and fulfilling.  Unlike many people, I love teenagers - I appreciate their curiosity,  complexity,  and questioning of their identity, values, relationships, society and what kind of life they want to live. 

I was able to serve in this role until I had a child and the unsustainable nature of my giving 200% to my students and the job forced me to face the question: “Am I OK with giving my best self away to others and not reserving any for my child and spouse?” The other large aspect of the role that didn’t fit me was the myriad complaints I had about “the system” at the district and national level. I felt like I was fighting against so many forces and policies that I had no power to change. It felt like I was exerting so much energy in a battle that I didn’t know how to fight well (and had no power to change despite my efforts).  

I sought out a guide who I went to in desperation, searching for answers: “How do I continue to do…all of this?” She allowed me to see that my heart already knew the answer: that in spite of my love for so many aspects of the job, being a School Counselor, a healthy human and a kind, patient and present mom and spouse wasn’t do-able for me. 

I had been hearing an inner siren call to pursue work that combined Mind-Body-Spirit but,  I didn’t have any role models beyond yoga instructors as to what that could look like. This guide looked at me and asked: “What do you think about being a Death Doula?” Key life moments came flashing before me - my joy of creating space for young people to talk about their losses, a workshop I attended with a palliative care doctor who shared her lessons learned from dying patients, a desire to learn tools to cope with my own fears about death and dying, and responding skillfully as my dad lives with Parkinsons.  I felt a softening around my heart and every cell in my body seemed to sing  “Yes!” I exclaimed. This mentor gave me permission to give voice to my deep sorrow and acceptance and that I needed to shift direction. 

With deep sorrow, I left being a school counselor in the summer of 2021. At that point, I focused “just on parenting” and healing myself. My younger self wouldn’t have guessed the amount of solace and grounding I gained from slowing down and tending to the basics of life - walking my child to and from school, cooking nourishing food, being present for myself, my child and my loved ones. After a restorative fall, I took a job at LiveMore ScreenLess, a MN nonprofit promoting Digital Wellbeing for and with young people. For three years, I worked in a dynamic, creative, entrepreneurial environment focused on innovative solutions for big, complex problems. It felt great to be out of the box! And, I learned about balance, healing, letting Go, and how to make a fulfilling life.

Part of my journey is from independence to interdependence. I grew up on Independence Rd in a sheltered, small town in New England. My heart was hardened by the time I reached kindergarten. The air I breathed was infused with elitism, entitlement, greed, violence (the town mascot holds a gun), “othering” and fear. It also was infused with tremendous natural beauty, a reverence of history, seekers and mentors.

Experiencing yoga in college was the first time my mind, heart and body knew moments of stillness and peace. There is a yogic teaching that we need to “root to rise” that rings very true for me. Remembering my own ancestral and energetic roots is a key part of my practice.

While I was contemplating a name for this practice, I was turning over this teaching of “root to rise” in my mind. I knew that name wasn’t exactly right. As I stepped outside my back door, pondering, I spotted an eagle soaring in the sky! That’s it! Soar is the word that depicts the sensation my heart longs for. 

Even though it makes for a rather long name, the word “together” insisted upon being in the name. Since the myth of the rugged individual is so deeply woven into our dominant culture’s consciousness, it felt very important for me to uphold a different principle that I came to remember: that we are all connected and deeply interwoven into the web  of life.

I am deeply relational. I love people. It is thanks to my teachers and mentors along my journey that I have been steered toward nourishing my soul’s quest for freedom and fulfillment.

It is my eclectic orientation, where I am a generalist, not a specialist. The thread of my learnings are with this lifelong quest for wellbeing and uncovering creative ways to deeply connect with people.

I offer my clients my steadfast anchoring.  I trust in them - in their inner beauty. That each of us carries a sacred medicine or gift to offer the world in these troubled and turbulent times. That we live in “the long dark” and need to build communities where we can tend to our grief and sorrows individually yet together.

Join us!