I grew up in Portland, OR, and have lived in Brooklyn, Oakland, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, and Humboldt County, CA. I was drawn to the healing arts early, and have experienced a great deal of liberation and symptom reduction through this journey. This process has included the modalities above, as well as, importantly, feminist and queer self-discovery and anti-racism education. Learning from indigenous perspectives, doing my own ancestry work, and studying decolonization are active and important in my life. I have dealt and worked personally with depression and the freeze response, anxiety, fear, shame, fawning/internalized patriarchy, rage, and creative blocks. I began my education in bodywork, movement and qi gong in 2007, in Buddhism and mindfulness in 2012, and in somatics and trauma resolution in 2013, and have been learning with leaders in the field since then (read more about my educational background below). I identify as queer and femme, and am white and middle class. My spiritual background involves longterm study and practice in a tradition that synthesized Daoism, Chan, and Nyingma Buddhism, and my intention for some years was to continue on with the goal of ordination into the priesthood. I left my (beloved) lineage in 2020, out of a commitment to integrity regarding my evolving beliefs, and to let go of association with any form of fundamentalism. I am a champion of "the fawn response" and the representation of appeasement/people-pleasing in somatic education. You can read the article I wrote about this and other writing here. I reside in ancestral homeland of the people of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Rhonde, along the Willamette River in Milwaukie, OR.