Since I was a child, I have talked to Spirits.  I spent countless hours in the woods talking to the rocks and the trees, as well as other Spirits with whom I developed relationships.  Throughout my life, I interacted with the world with the understanding that everything around me was alive.  Growing up in the Northeast, I watched myself changing with the cycles of the seasons, and grew to appreciate the natural world around me and the way that I interacted with it.  At the same time, I was in touch with the unseen, and continued to communicate with the Spirits.

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In 2008, I took my first workshop with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.  The work of the Foundation and the intensive training in Core Shamanism provided me a context for my earlier experiences.  It also gave me the structure I needed to deepen my relationships with the Compassionate Helping Spirits and learn methods to bring the healing and wisdom I had experienced back to my community.

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In addition to the FSS residential programs (the Two Week Shamanic Healing Intensive and the Three Year Program in Advanced Initiations in Shamanism and Shamanic Healing, as well as the Harner Shamanic Counseling training), I have completed extended studies in Celtic Shamanism and Mongolian Shamanism, studies in Nepalese Shamanism, as well participated in cultural exchange by traveling to be in ceremony with with Shamans from the Peruvian Andes and the Lake Titicaca region of Bolivia.  I also work extensively with my own ancestors to integrate my own cultural traditions (primarily Ashkenazi traditions, but also traditions from the British Isles and Celtic lands) into my practice, as a way to honor the traditions of my own lineages. 

 

I have listed some of my training experience below.  It would not be possible for me to list every teacher or training program, so I have listed those which were longer, required the most significant amount of time or effort, and those which most inform my own practice.  While I have training in multiple traditional or culture-specific ways of working, my teaching is limited to Core Shamanism.  Every tradition I have encountered, Core Shamanism included, makes a distinction between those who can practice and those who can teach.  It is an honor to the traditions that I have learned to teach only that which I am authorized to teach.

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The practice of Shamanism has changed my life in ways I could not have imagined.  It has expanded my worldview, given me miraculous experiences of healing, and made me more able to live in harmony with the world around me.  I love nothing more than guiding other people in the process of discovery of this ancient and powerful way of living.