For the past twenty six years I have worked to help others optimize their potential, seek their own truth and bring their gifts forward into community.
I earned my Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Cincinnati in 1982 and went on to do postdoctoral training in Gestalt Therapy at the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland. Carl Jung provided a road map of the psyche that helped guide my work. I loved the depth and mystery in Jung; the sparkling here-and-now emphasis on experience in Gestalt and integrate both into my work.
I wrote my doctoral dissertation on Androgyny, The Integration of the Masculine and Feminine Principles in One’s Psyche. This life long quest for the inner Sacred Marriage, the balance and synergy of the masculine and feminine, continues to find a place in my work.
The Summer Day
Who made the world? Who made the swan, and the black bear? Who made the grasshopper? This grasshopper, I mean-- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-- who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do With your one wild and precious life?
Mary Oliver
Teacher:
For many years I have had the pleasure of teaching some of the subjects that I love the most. As an adjunct faculty member at the University of Cincinnati, I taught a graduate level course on Carl Jung: Theory and Clinical Application. At Xavier University I taught Psychology of Diversity to psychology graduate students. I love the interaction and the questions the students bring forward.
Coach:
In 1995, I was invited to join a thriving management consulting firm as an external consultant. I coach pairs of work partners to optimize their effectiveness and their working relationship.
The quick paced, action oriented coaching practice appeals to me. I love hearing my clients’ stories, their core values, passion and sense of purpose as they bring these to the work situation.
Another element of this consulting work is inclusion, building bridges across diversity dimensions of gender, race, ethnicity and culture. My life long love of and curiosity about other cultures, other religions, other ways of viewing the world serves me well. This work gives me a place to actualize my commitment to social justice and inclusion of all people in our circle of concern.
Komtomble’ Merged Stick Diviner
In 2002 I stepped onto a path of spiritual seeking that took me to the Heart of African Shamanism. After studying and preparing for two years with Malidoma Somé, a group of 18 Westerners traveled to Dano, Burkina Faso to live with Malidoma in his family compound and work with the local Shaman.
I stepped through an ancient African gateway to the invisible world of spirits and ancestors.
Sometimes
Sometimes, when a bird cries out, Or the wind sweeps through a tree, Or a dog howls in a far-off farm, I hold still and listen a long time.
My world turns and goes back to the place Where , a thousand forgotten years ago, The bird and the blowing wind Were like me, and were my brothers.
My soul turns into a tree, And an animal, and a cloud bank, Then changed and odd it comes home And asks me questions, What should I reply?
-Herman Hesse
Shamanic Coach
I firmly believe there are many paths to the same central truths, to guidance and grace from that numinous web of being we call God – Creation. In my shamanic coaching. I respect these different paths and at the same time draw specifically from the spiritual technology, practices and rituals of the Dagara people of West Africa, and the Q'ero of Peru.
I use the term Shamanic Coach to express the integration of these strands in my work:
• divination, a method of connecting to the invisible world of spirits and ancestors for guidance
• training in depth psychology, both Jung and Gestalt
