Liscensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor, writer and process painter
I have been blessed with good, wise teachers, not the least of which is my mother who left me her very secret writings, stuffed into my gutted childhood record player box with it’s black handle and latch. My name was scrawled all over it shouting from the shelf where she’d left it for me. For Nora. For Nora. For Nora…Many things stand out, but as an old woman myself now, this is most precious. “The most important thing in life is the Mystical.” Those words felt old and full of vibration. A lineage. A koan I’ve followed since she died when I was thirty-nine. It rang true in my bones. Her words were like a hand on my back, guiding me deeper.
Now
As an old woman my passion still is exploring the restoration and feeding of the Soul and Spirit in our impoverished culture. Many writers have distinguished Soul’s direction and towards the earth, while Spirit’s is the heavens. While they can never be severed, I find this distinction helpful. Soul descends, Spirit transcends. The full human being and culture attend and honor both sources of wisdom realms.
As an old woman, my passion is understanding Grief as a path to deep compassion and open heartedness. Grief is not a pathology or a problem to be solved. Grief is part of love and it hurts. It hurts terribly. The shattered heart needs respect through witness and holding in order to be integrated into life after loss without losing the tender heart it reveals. Grief is seeded with its own deep intelligence.
My beloved, Allan G. Johnson, died in 2017, after thirty-seven years together, plunging me into an apprenticeship to the deeps of grief where I have lived for many years. My foundation crumbled and I descended, as willingly as I could, to the depths of soul, mourning his life, and the life I lost when he died. Since Allan’s death, I’ve been writing and process painting my way on the never ending path of living with grief. I’ve studied The Bodhisattva way with Natural Dharma, engaged in Megan Devine’s It’s OK that You’re Not OK, writing group, studied grief education with David Kessler and participate in Mirabai Starr’s and Willow Wild Heart, understanding the thresholds of grief as a Spiritual Path.
While I am not a medium, I have studied in intensives with Suzanne Geisemann and have an understanding of mediumship. I am currently compiling writings and paintings into a book whose working title is Abiding at the edge of Mystery. In 2024, at seventy-five, I moved to Keene, New Hampshire to be near my beloved niece, and an active progressive community.
I live a simple life, slowly putting down roots, seeing a few clients, writing and painting and practicing meditation. I am currently part of a Sangha (community) with Anne Dellenbaugh practicing Mystical meditation work on behalf of all beings and the Cosmos. I am licensed in New Hampshire as a LPC, Licensed Professional Counselor.
Then
I have practiced depth psychotherapy for near forty years, studying traditional theory and practice at Wesleyan and Antioch Universities with postgraduate work in body oriented gestalt therapy, self psychology, women’s developmental theory, feminist therapy, Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, and Working with Spirit Craniosacral Therapy with Michael Boxhall. I have also studied Wise Woman healing and Women’s Spirituality for 20 years, in intensives, tutorials, apprenticeships, and at Women’s Mystery Schools. For many years I worked with Vicki Noble, studying Women’s Spirituality and Tibetan Buddhist practices for western women. With Lama Tsultrim Allione at Tara Mandala I have studied the Chod practice, completed the Kapala Training, and am certified in the Feeding Your Demons practice. Since 1998, I have worked with Deena Metzger on the discernment of spiritual guidance through the integrated practice of divination, story, dream, event, and life experience. This work has been profound in shifting my healing focus from ego to soul, from human centered to All Our Relations. I have also worked with Patricia Reis for many years in the soulful work of diving into the dream narrative and story. In 2010-2012, I was a student at the Orphan Wisdom School studying The Mandatory Arts of Living and Dying Well with Stephen Jenkinson. Beginning in the ‘90’s, for thirty eight years, I offered Women’s Full Moon and Holy Day gatherings, Dark Goddess study groups, and Dakini circles. and in 2003, following Quan Yin’s instruction in a dream, my partner and I, with the help of community women, built Women’s Temple, In Her Name on our land in Canton, CT. Where, for many years, I gathered women for Holy Day ceremonies, various workshops, guest teachers and Sunday morning gatherings. It was a truly Holy space, made so by women’s devotion, prayers written in the walls and on the foundational structures carried our intention to make a safe space for women to revere the Holy Mother, learn women’s history , engage in transformational practices and honor The Mystery.