Growing up in Los Angeles, I spent countless hours hiking in the Santa Monica Mountains with my mother, cultivating a deep love and connection with the natural world. So when I was twenty-three and she passed, I found myself seeking comfort, healing, and inspiration in the nature preserve just across the street from my apartment. I was attending art school in Ann Arbor, Michigan at the time, and spent every day in the Arboretum observing and reflecting. My mind would still, my body would calm, and I could feel the connective presence of all living beings. I was enamored with the inherent beauty and magic of the world. Instinctually I began collecting seed pods, flowers, branches etc. and bringing them back to my studio to admire. When a professor praised a collected seed pod noting that "There's nothing more perfect than this," a spark was ignited: nature itself could be my artistic medium. It was a quiet awakening through grief. One that has propelled me through years of artistic expression ever since.

Despite my artistic breakthroughs of that time, however, my health began to decline and by 32 years old I was bed bound and diagnosed with countless conditions. Naturally I did everything I could to try and heal. But after endless doctors visits, lab tests, supplement protocols, diet and lifestyle changes my symptoms persisted and my hope almost diminished.

But the most beautiful and frightening thing about chronic illness is that it is an invitation inward. Eventually I realized the answers wouldn’t come from “out there.” So I sought practices, education and support that would continually direct me back to my innate knowing — trusting that I had the answers within. Through various somatic techniques, nervous system regulation tools, and mediation practices my health improved little by little. I realized that the stillness and expansion I once felt in nature could be cultivated with in me. And that this embodied presence is the gateway to healing. Presence — whether experienced through art, noticing beauty, observing nature, or in meditation — is what unlocks the bodies healing capacity, connects us to our deepest knowing, reignites our creativity, reawakens wonder, and guides us into a life of joy, freedom and vitality. Healing is a homecoming. May this be a space that guides you back home.