SPIRITUAL COUNSELING

Welcome!

I am a spiritual counselor and board-certified, inter-spiritual chaplain.

My approach is liberation-oriented and trauma-informed, centering the innate wisdom of your being with attunement, presence, and compassion.

I offer spiritual companionship through life, death, and other thresholds on an ongoing or as-needed basis. 

Sessions available online (anywhere) or in-person (Portland, OR).

OFFERINGS

I offer support in

  • Life transitions
  • Grief
  • Illness, accidents, loss
  • Death and dying
  • Trans/gender journeys
  • Awakening to systems of oppression
  • Integration of expansive states (meditation retreats, plant medicine, ceremonies, near death experiences, etc.)
  • Facilitating connection to/with something larger than the “self”
  • Tailored guidance in meditation, prayer, sacred song, and other spiritual technologies
  • Establishing spiritual practices attuned to your needs
  • Ritual planning and facilitation

For those who are

  • Spiritual but not religious
  • Figuring it out
  • Rooted in spiritual or religious traditions
  • Reclaiming their own ancestral spiritual or religious traditions/lifeways
  • Those who have experienced religious trauma

Guided by

  • Trauma-informed and liberation-oriented practices 
  • Extensive training and experience as a board certified chaplain and spiritual counselor in hospice and hospital settings
  • A queer and trans lens that brings a familiarity to liminal spaces and resiliency to the impositions of materialism, rationalism, and binaries
  • 17 years of study and practice in Theravada Buddhist and Insight traditions and decades of Earth-Based intuited practices

ABOUT ME

I am a board-certified inter-faith/no-faith chaplain, spiritual counselor, singer-songwriter, and facilitator based in Portland, OR--the lands of the Multnomah, Kathlamet, Clackamas, Cowlitz, Tualatin Kalapuya, Molalla, and other Chinookan peoples. 

Drawn to liminal spaces since I can remember, a series of early experiences set me on this path; from bringing awareness to my social locations of whiteness, class, and able-bodied privileges, to surviving a near deadly illness as a youth, to my journey with queerness and gender as a transmasculine person, to the intimacy with grief, death, and transition I've experienced in my closest relationships. 

I've practiced and studied for 17 years in Insight Meditation and Theravada Buddhism including over 7 months of silent meditation retreats. Raised in the Catholic Church, I maintain values of ritual, service, justice, contemplative practice, mysticism, and song. My pre-Christian, Earth-based roots are ever-present in relating with this Animate world and the sacred within All. The teachers and lineages that have shaped my path are many, but Matthew Brensilver, Rev. Dr. Daijaku Kinst, Gil Fronsdal, Mushim Ikeda, Ayya Anandobodhi and other lineage holders of Ajahn Chah's Thai Forest Tradition are some among them.

I hold a Master of Divinity from Starr King School for The Ministry, chaplaincy endorsement through Spirit Rock Meditation Center, and board certification through the Association of Professional Chaplains. I was trained in Clinical Pastoral Education amidst the height of the Covid pandemic in palliative care, and in the intensive care and Covid units at Kaiser Hospital in Walnut Creek, CA (you can listen to my podcast about it here). I have since served as a spiritual counselor and chaplain in hospice, outpatient palliative care, and hospital settings.

Music has been a form of expression and prayer most of my life and, after recording and touring for many years, I offer music in more contemplative and ritual settings. I'm a contributor to the anthology Transcending: Trans Buddhist Voices. 

My spiritual counseling practice is deeply informed by my previous career in the fields of social justice and social-emotional education with children, youth, and adults. I worked as a facilitator, consultant, and curriculum developer through the National Conference for Community and Justice St. Louis, The Mosaic Project, and Soul Shoppe. I studied with Leticia Nieto Psy.D., LMFT and am a trainer in her Beyond Inclusion, Beyond Empowerment model of liberation.

I currently serve as a hospital chaplain, facilitate a monthly contemplative song circle, and lead meditation groups for young people through Spirit Rock Meditation Center. I offer spiritual counseling online or in-person in Portland, OR. Oh, and I laugh, play, dance, love and sing a lot too--I personally can't afford not to!