Today, Mystic Mag is exploring the path of a spiritual director who found their calling through a transformative experience of darkness and personal transformation. We’ll delve into the services offered, the philosophy behind them, and the profound impact of guiding others through their own deserts.
When did you first know that being a Spiritual Director was your calling and how did it come about?
I spent many years cycling in a Dark Night of the Soul until it reached its peak and the life that I worked so hard to create shattered in my heart for no explainable reason. Life became a struggle, filled with mind numbing, boring, endless tasks of trying to survive. Nothing made any sense, nothing had any meaning. I lost my drive, my sense of self, the meaning of living. I became completely disillusioned with the outer world and no longer felt any nourishment from it. I had entered the internal ‘desert’ and it had grown to encompass all of my life.
Every habit, every motivation, every attachment, – it was agonizing warfare that led to a faith filled hope that I had never experienced before. I surrendered to it, consenting to my own nothingness. The desert was a place of repentance and purification of the areas of my life that were true wastelands. I found contemplative prayer and each time I would sit in that prayer, I was showing up, claiming all of my stuff, all of my fears, all of my heartbreaks, all of my difficulties, all of the burdens of the world.
I was bringing all of that to Spirit because I didn’t know what else to do with it. I was placing it in Spirit’s presence, and then simply sitting there in a state of receptivity and openness, waiting for Spirit to flow into my life and to deal with all this crap that I was holding. I sat there in that pain, sat there in that suffering, chopped into pieces, awaiting for grace, for Spirit to descend upon me, to pick up the pieces from the floor, and to turn whatever was left of me into something that could become my unique service to the world.
With my mind and body deprived of all my false securities, to my self-image, to my fears – I was able to explore the mystical terrain of personal transformation, empowerment, and ultimately divine grace. A process of spiritual homemaking began to happen between my soul and its creator. There was a calling that my soul had heard: to be a witness, to be a guide for those that are experiencing the deserts in their lives.
Whether the desert is large or small, chosen or forced, brief or prolonged – they all have similar terrain, will involve a degree of shattering and grief, and they all will have a spiritual significance. Everyone needs encouragement and support to honor what is dying in them and to bring new life into form. There is always a choice for personal growth but the true challenge that exists in every desert we encounter is whether we can engage our capacity to empower ourselves or give in to that fear.
What services do you offer?
Grounded in the fields of global mysticism, energy healing, contemplative spirituality, Jungian psychology, shamanism, organizing and activist work, and my time working in the U.S. education system, I walk alongside individuals as we build our capacity to be more present to our lives and to the wisdom our stories carry.
With that, I offer a few diverse services that approach healing and metamorphosis from an alchemical and mystical perspective that weave archetypal studies and inner work. Services include: Spiritual Direction, Jungian Life Coaching, Reiki as a healing energy, Rituals And Ceremonies, and when appropriate, End Of Life Doula Services.
These offerings aim to unveil the rich tapestry of images, symbols and psychological patterns that shape our lives, show us where Spirit is, and to help facilitate personal growth through their understanding and integration.
What does it mean to be a Usui Reiki Master?
Being a Usui Reiki Master is a truly wonderful and life-enhancing experience. For me, the Master level reflects your embodiment of Reiki – the embodiment of love, light, healing, harmony, and balance. Personal and spiritual development are essential.
Being a Master is more than just knowing how to attune someone, or teach someone, it is about knowing how to guide someone toward their own personal and spiritual fulfillment – without judgment or censure, but with love and compassion. I live with Reiki as an essential part of my daily life.
This divinely directed energy has the power to transform you and change your life, increasing your self awareness, grounding you into your intuition, and bringing a deep sense of joy and contentment. However, please realize that as a Reiki Master that does not mean that I know everything about Reiki. Reiki is itself a teacher, and as I travel further on my path with Reiki the more it teaches me about who I really am – it is a personal journey.
Could you tell us more about the Legend Of La Loba?
People ask me all the time – “Who is La Loba?” “What does La Loba Soul Support mean?”
In the book Women who Run with the Wolves, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés writes about the story of La Loba, the collector of bones.
She is the old woman, the crone, who carries a cure for everything. She stops and digs in the desert for a fragment of wolf skeleton and then, as night falls, she lays out the pieces of the fragmented bones. As she chants and raises her hands flesh and sinew bond to the frame and fur materializes. The wolf breathes into her resurrection. She leaps up and runs towards a horizon. Halfway there she transforms into a laughing naked woman who disappears into the wild.
The metaphors in this story reflect the process for bringing a person into their instinctual wildest Self – the whole Self. (Wild meaning your natural self that has innate integrity and healthy boundaries). Within each of us there is the old one who collects bones – the soul-bones of the wild Self. Within us is the potential to be fleshed out again as the person we once were and are meant to be. Within us are the bones to change ourselves and our world.
The sole work of La Loba is the collecting of bones. She collects and preserves that which is in danger of being lost to the world. I am here to be a guide for others – to find their way -to find those lost pieces of themselves that they have abandoned on their journey. To go back and reclaim those “bones” that were rejected, that have been buried or forgotten. Life is not about being perfect, life is about being whole. Wholeness does not deny or suppress certain aspects of oneself but rather acknowledges and integrates them to achieve a state of psychological balance and self-realization.
What can a person expect from your sessions?
In my practice, I embrace individuals from diverse spiritual traditions with an open heart and a stance of humble curiosity, welcoming them into the sacred sanctum of their inner landscapes.
As your spiritual companion you can expect: no judgment or agenda, deep listening, confidentiality, encouragement to gently nudge you toward the wisdom and love that is already pouring into your life, and support in finding valuable inner peace during difficult times.
All services that are provided are built on empathy, professionalism, and respect.
What do you love most about your profession?
In the modern world, death is the absolute last thing – we don’t want to think about it – people get uncomfortable with end of life conversations. And western medicine is all about these heroic efforts to hold death off at any cost. Death is the last thing anyone ever considers and usually the last thing they experience.
However, in the ancient way – death was in the middle of life because they understood the process of life as being initiatory. From that point of view – an initiatory process view of life is described as life, death, renewal. They recognized that life keeps renewing itself as parts of your life have ended.
I considered these endings or sufferings as invitations – as “graced potentials.” It hurts, it is a deep wound. However this is the crossroads and an individual has a choice. We can resist and deny and merely delay our pain, or surrender in a healthy way and receive the gifts that rise out of that grief, that wound … intimacy, transformation, compassion, and creativity. But that takes time, sometimes even decades.
In the Jungian system, when we use the word “transformation”, it means something very specific. It is an inwards spiral, facilitating the movement towards your soul; your essential self. This does facilitate an inner evolution, sometimes even a revolution, but not into something other than who you are and always were.
To move inwards, to change the way you relate to yourself, develop compassion and empathy for yourself, recognise your humanity, to learn to understand yourself and appreciate your unique individuality, is the most mystical journey that has taught me that the grace you receive from it is profound and can help prepare you for facing your future “deaths”. You learn to live differently in a way that can bless you and bless those around you by infusing them with a sense of freedom, with a sense of trust, with a sense of something that is infectious that can help them to face what is happening to them.
I feel grateful that I’ve been able to bring my love of archetypes, mythology, and sacred teachings of global mystics to be in relationship to the service of other people. The great mystics of all traditions have been teaching us for centuries that we are groundless. There are no solutions I can give a client. I can not give people ground under their feet in these tumultuous times. My service is to be a witness, to be a companion, and try to hold an individual in midair in a sense. This is transformational work…it is humbling….and I love it.
