My Approach & Philosophy
At the core of my divination offerings is the belief that each of us is unique: and, to come forth and burgeon, the uniqueness we bear requires a tending of the fire of ancestors, attending to the tendrils of our relationship with the other worlds, and deep seeing by community.
In community, we become, we thrive. Offering divinations is one way in which I build community. It is also a way of showing up for my communities.
Through this demonstration of audacity (it is audacious to carry messages between worlds!), my hope is to lend a hand in kindling and rekindling the gifts and purposes of many, so that we may each & all become healers, warriors, lovers, poets, priestesses & priests, wildened of nature inside out: in service of our planet-home Earth and her waters as well as our extended kinsfolk—human and nonhuman.
My wish is that what is regenerated: is goodwill, reciprocity, and love.
I want each of us to show up in our full power and to shine. The flame in our being is so bright, imagine what could happen if we allow our light and sense of purpose to unfurl in the world!
In community, we become, we thrive. Offering divinations is one way in which I build community. It is also a way of showing up for my communities.
Through this demonstration of audacity (it is audacious to carry messages between worlds!), my hope is to lend a hand in kindling and rekindling the gifts and purposes of many, so that we may each & all become healers, warriors, lovers, poets, priestesses & priests, wildened of nature inside out: in service of our planet-home Earth and her waters as well as our extended kinsfolk—human and nonhuman.
My wish is that what is regenerated: is goodwill, reciprocity, and love.
I want each of us to show up in our full power and to shine. The flame in our being is so bright, imagine what could happen if we allow our light and sense of purpose to unfurl in the world!
Laila Espinoza, "Impeccable Tongue"
I want each of us to know the darkness inside ourselves. The dark is loam for latent gifts, strengths, tenderness, relationships, powers
~ being & becoming benevolent
In the divinations I offer, I extend a deep invitation to every part of you, every tone of you: light and dark, stuck and moving, grieving, confused, at home or journeying, intact, and tattered—and all those textures that lie between “normal” and “not normal”.
~ being & becoming benevolent
In the divinations I offer, I extend a deep invitation to every part of you, every tone of you: light and dark, stuck and moving, grieving, confused, at home or journeying, intact, and tattered—and all those textures that lie between “normal” and “not normal”.
Be Welcomed.
And Those That Came Before Me...
Back in the spring of 2013, I first encountered the Dagara worldview in a graduate class co-taught by Dr. Malidoma Somé. The swoon and surrender that came was gradual but intent on arriving. I had to discern whom I would henceforth be accountable to, and what the parameters of my participation with those ones were to be.
The Dagara, a people that live in Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast, and known by others in the region as the Tribe of Concealment and Magic, have so far sent two representatives to the West: to teach and to invoke a remembering about community, ritual, and magic. Both Malidoma Somé and Sobonfu Somé have now been living in the US for several years. Though I have studied and worked more deeply with Malidoma, I have also had the good fortune of participating in and assisting at three grief rituals with Sobonfu.
Elders can teach you in ways that go far beyond formal trainings, but trainings can trigger openings to portals and initiations.
My ancestors come from the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains. They come from the dry sandy tracts in northwestern India.
The plateau of Ranchi is my birthplace.
I am naming them here to remember that whatever I do, I am never far from them.
The Dagara, a people that live in Ghana, Burkina Faso, and Ivory Coast, and known by others in the region as the Tribe of Concealment and Magic, have so far sent two representatives to the West: to teach and to invoke a remembering about community, ritual, and magic. Both Malidoma Somé and Sobonfu Somé have now been living in the US for several years. Though I have studied and worked more deeply with Malidoma, I have also had the good fortune of participating in and assisting at three grief rituals with Sobonfu.
Elders can teach you in ways that go far beyond formal trainings, but trainings can trigger openings to portals and initiations.
My ancestors come from the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains. They come from the dry sandy tracts in northwestern India.
The plateau of Ranchi is my birthplace.
I am naming them here to remember that whatever I do, I am never far from them.
Winding path, Ulsoor Lake
|
This is also the moment to express my tremendous gratitude to the many teachers, mentors, keepers of magic and sacred mysteries, and co-journeyers I have encountered and continue to encounter on this path.
This path. Flowing parallel to my 'other' vocation: poetry... ...is perhaps only another dimension of the same source! |
Radical Inclusivity
I honor diversity and difference. I strive for deep inclusivity, including by offering a sliding scale for POC. I educate myself about appropriation and cultural competence and am always open to learning more. I seek to be self-reflexive and self-reflective so that I may know my shadow, know my soul, know myself. I hold myself accountable to ancestors and to the spirits I work with, and to the abiding values of justice, equality, fairness, and love that are at the core of what makes us human.
Play, laughter, and dancing nourish my inner child!
Play, laughter, and dancing nourish my inner child!
& how we may
each
arrive
into that space of deep
freedom
inhabiting