Lineage and Influences

Blessings and praise to all those who have taught me and continue to teach me. May the learning and remembering continue to make its way through with grace and ease to all those that need it.

First, an acknowledgment that this information will be inherently limited, since there is no complete way to name all of the beings that have influenced my practice. Knowledge and information move in organic and sometimes unseen ways, and tracing ‘origins’ is tricky business when all of life is interconnected. 

I have a Masters in Counseling, and the mentorship and training I received from particular teachers in my program continues to influence my work. Qualities from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Existential Therapy, and Emotion Focused therapy define some of this influence. However I now feel largely distanced from the industry of traditional counseling given many of its overarching patterns that still strongly reflect colonialism. It is no longer accurate to define what I do in “counseling” terms, as the work that happens in sessions with people moves beyond the scope and concepts of that industry.

I have a certificate in Ecopsychology. This certificate served to confirm many earth-based practices and orientations that I had come to know through experiences in food justice work and the radical witch community out here in the Pacific Northwest.

I completed a three year apprenticeship with Jai Medina at The Balanzu Way School of Shamanic Arts, whose indigenous Mesoamerican heritage informed our work together. Through that apprenticeship I also worked with a couple of Native elders, from the Shoshone and Chellagee (Cherokee) tribes. I am not claiming any expertise or made up status whatsoever as a result of those relationships, simply naming them as important influences.

I am in regular dialogue with spirits and ancestors who inform my practice as it evolves. Traditions connected to my Southasian ancestry play a particular role in the ongoing translation of my experiences with ‘presence,’ meditation, dance, energy work, play, and eroticism.  

Other influences: Steve Hoskinson from Organic Intelligence, Shirley Turcott’s Indigenous Focusing, Martin Prechtel, Bill Plotkin, Emotion Focused Therapy, Dare Sohei, Diego Piñón’s Butoh Ritual Mexicano, Viewpoints, Theatre of the Oppressed.

Additional trainings:

Systemic Constellations Facilitator Training with Collective Transitions

Certification in Indigenous Ways For Living (a shorter training put on by folks at Indigenous Focusing Oriented Therapy)

Warm Data Host through the Bateson Institute (Nora Bateson)

Equity Informed Mediation with Resolutions Northwest