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I am a...

  • Rites of Passage & Wilderness Guide   

  • Hakomi Trained Somatic Therapist 

  • Psychedelic Integration Guide

  • Life Transition/End of Life Coach

  • Trauma Integration Coach

  • Certified Waldorf Teacher

  • Mom, step mother

My Journey

The Wilderness has served as my home for learning, teaching, facilitation and grounding for over 40 years.  Beneath the forest canopy, high on the tops of mountains, exposed in vast deserts, I have supported adults, teens, elders and children to learn, listen and transform.

 

I was born and raised in Palo Alto, CA, home to the likes of Joan Baez and Jerry Garcia (for a while), Steve Jobs and David Packard. It was quite a place to grow up: creative, intellectual, progressive, successful. I was blessed with parents who, while not always easy to be a child around, nonetheless appreciated the outdoors, and the mountains of the Lake Tahoe area felt like my real home. There I felt freedom to roam and discovered the wisdom of the earth.  

 

Since then I have traveled several paths.  I went to college at UC Berkeley. I raced bicycles and played ultimate frisbee for fun. I lived on a Quaker inspired farm in Vermont and sat daily in silent group meetings.  I got married, divorced and married again. I am a mother of two adult children, a step-mother of four.  I have served professionally as a wilderness guide, a classroom teacher, a music teacher, a naturalist, an environmental engineer, a mountain bike coach, a team-building facilitator, a public speaker.  I have witnessed death, experienced injury, held space for the grieving.  I have moved through life as a deep-seeing soul, a tender of the earth, a sensitive listener.   My lifelong depth practices include silence in nature, writing, dancing, yoga and music.  

 

I would not change even one of my life experiences, as difficult as some of them have been.

 

My practice is now focused on those who have traversed an arc of life’s journey, and wish to integrate and embody their experiences to form new perspectives moving forward.  It is my calling to support the navigation of transitions, look into the path of life that lies ahead, and clear the path forward.  My inspiration is found through my own travels with grief, joy, struggle and trauma, finding the depth and wisdom that lies within these experiences.  My approach is through trusting the wisdom of the body and of the earth.  

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... Heather will help you re-enchant your life on your own terms... she'll do so with strength, softness, humor, and reverence.  Expect her to be honest, to challenge you, and to lovingly support you on your path! 

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-J.C., Psychedelic Assisted Therapist

Credentials & Certification

My training specific to this work includes:

 

  • Hakomi (Mindful Somatic Inquiry) through the Hakomi Institute 

  • Manuela Mischke-Reeds’  ISITTA Somatic Trauma Integration

  • The Conscious Dying Institute’s End of Life Coaching and Sacred Passage Doula

  • Guiding Rites of Passage and Wilderness Quest through The School of Lost Borders

  • Life Coaching through No Barriers

  • Restorative Justice Facilitation

  • An apprenticeship in guiding and supporting expanded states journeys.

 

I carry Wilderness First Responder certification to maintain physical safety, and  practice Non-Violent Communication (NVC) skills to support emotional safety.

Acknowledgments

I first experienced somatic work 27 years ago through the work of Peter Levin, then later through the work of Ron Kurtz, who integrated Gestalt theory and other psychotherapeutic approaches with  principles of Eastern philosophy, primarily Buddhism and Taoism, emphasizing concepts such as mindfulness, loving presence, and empathy to create the Hakomi Method. My approach to trauma processing comes through Manuela Mischke-Reed, who combined her background in dance and movement therapy with mindfulness, psychology, somatic psychotherapy and years of work with refugees, survivors of torture, fire-fighters and more to create a unique and impactful method to support people to living full lives, learning to “come back from trauma to impact the world in a positive way”.

 

My work with expansive medicine comes through the Mazotec lineage of Maria Sabia, Eugenia Pineda Casmiro through Francoise Bourzat and finally to my teacher and mentor.

Influences

My world view and thinking is, of course, informed by the many many conversations, life experiences, classes and reading I have engaged in over the years.  A few names stand out as more influential than most.  Clarissa Pinkola Estes shares such a unique blend of grounded interpretation of myth, Jungian depth and archetype psychology, belief in dreams and the mystery that I feel richer for just hearing her voice.  I am grateful and deeply informed by her work.  Stephen Jenkinson’s practical look at eldering and end of life work brings out of me both outrage and determination to be in support of deeper and more fulfilling later life experience for myself and others.  Steven Levine and Francis Weller’s work around grief, and life after grief, have been pivotal for me in processing my own grief.  They also bring perspectives on grief as a teacher, a depth bringer to inspire greater connection to living.  Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi’s (Reb Salman) seminal work on Saging inspired the life changing, spiritual and influential movement, “Saging International”, brings practice and purpose, visions of news ways to engage as we grow older.  The writings of Pema Chodron, Joan Halifax, Robert Pirsig, Richard Bach and so, so many others shaped my to dive deeper, look more closely and breath.

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Finally, my (and that of many other’s) Aman Cara, Grace Butler, taught me to be myself, express myself, and to never hide what I am.

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