At the beginning of everything was a clear and lonely knowing: I am meant to live a life dedicated to spiritual practice. I want to live in community with others who share this dedication, and to do so as quietly as possible. Nothing about the “mundane world” ever interested or motivated me other than feeling deeply aware of suffering on a global scale and needing to know why & where it came from.

I joined my first meditation course at 13 and it instantly became my greatest hobby. I started studying Buddhism intensively and travelled to Plum Village shortly after turning 18, already eager to take monastic vows for life. The reasons this did not end up happening are many-fold — the main one being that my sense of spirituality is entirely Earth- and nature-based, and it did not feel like Buddhism emphasised this to enough of an extent such that I could commit to following it exclusively for life.

In the monastery, every action in every moment of every day becomes a meditation practice in its own right. It taught me to have an expansive understanding of what “meditation” is — a way of being, rather than a specific activity to do in specific ways. I still love leading group meditations, reciting & recording guided meditations, and supporting individuals to invite more meditative moments into their daily life in ways that are sustainable and nourishing in their unique personal context (aka: “mindfulness coaching”).

at the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy ~ (2021)

From my earliest memories to the day I joined this training, I believed there was no other modern urban human like me who not only recognised the animacy and relational agency of all land and place beings, but whose life centred around caring for those relationships. I came to this training wanting to learn how to be able to talk to other humans about what being me is like without “sounding crazy” — and became initiated into a set of practices that are now increasingly being identified as ecosomatics.

I learned how to invite others into this way of being through embodiment practices that bring awareness to how our human bodies are in constant reciprocal exchange with other embodied beings in our environments. As my training started during the height of covid-lockdowns, I quickly discovered that I had a talent for bringing embodied nature connection practices into contexts typically thought of as “unnatural”: backyards, balconies, indoor spaces, zoom meetings.

I typically guide full forest therapy walks online (with everyone joining from their own outdoor environments around the world) or in urban parks. Mostly, I use the practices and methodologies from this training as a foundational orientation for everything else.

with Sámi noaidi Astrid Ingebjørg Swart ~ (2022)

While living in Norway, I had the beautiful opportunity to connect with the ecology & cosmology of the indigenous Sámi peoples of the far north. While not of Sámi descent, my body has always recognised the mountainous far north regions of Earth as its most resonant place to be — as its true physical home. Mentorship with Astrid helped me embrace the nature of my path as two balanced halves: one who connects humans with land spirits (“shamanic practitioner”), and one who connects the spirits of different human-inhabited lands around the world with one another (“cultural ambassador”).

My ancestral lineage is one of migration, primarily towards & between major world cities. I do not embody the deep knowledge of any specific local ecosystem refined over generations, which traditional shamanic practices are based on. I typically do not journey on behalf of others or directly “translate” any communications between a person and the spirits of their local ecosystem. You most likely know your local ecosystem, and can learn to communicate intimately with its resident spirits in their native languages, way better than I ever will. I can share with you techniques which may help you to navigate these communications more effectively, and stories from personal experience of intimate exchanges with land beings all over the world.

with Mariana Luna ~ (Level 2, 2024)

Before Mariana, I had taken both levels 1 & 2 twice, with 2 different teachers. It never managed to resonate with me, but I was motivated to keep trying, due to consistent feedback from people around me that they could see me as a “reiki person”. Eventually, I decided to search for a Reiki Master with explicit lived experience of queerness, immigration and racialisation. Receiving attunement from Mariana, everything finally fell naturally into place.

I see reiki as primarily a way of life — in some ways similar to training as a Buddhist monastic — the more we embody commitment to living gently, with gratitude and reverence for the smallest things, the more we are tuning the instrument of our bodies in such a way that our gentle & reverent touch may transmit healing to other bodies.

In simpler terms: reiki supports the body’s natural healing mechanisms, through entering and sustaining a state of deep relaxation. It can be difficult to get there by yourself. In a reiki treatment, my relaxed body is directly communicating with and guiding your body to join me, so that we may together enter into an even deeper relaxation.

As reiki is a lineage of direct embodied transmission, my lack of resonance with the [non visible-minority] embodiments of my previous teachers had a profound impact on my resonance with the practice itself. I am currently exploring training as a Reiki Master so that I can contribute to making this practice more accessible in less-represented populations.

at The Relateful Company and ART International ~ (2024)

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with Kat Mertens ~ (2025)

with Stacey Griffin ~ (in progress: 2025)

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at The Institute for Relational Harmony Studies & Research ~ (in progress until 2026)

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