Q 1: Please tell us about yourself. What is your connection to alternative ways of knowing?

I have always had a special “connection” to the spirit world. My first memory of this is from, at age 3, when I fell 3 stories down a stairwell. Amazingly, I survived, but broke both femur in several places. I learned recently in my shamanic studies, that this kind of near death experience is the portal to shamanism. 

Through my childhood, I could see and hear spirit. My parents are not spiritual people and, as parents do, discouraged me from talking about it. “You’ll scare your brothers talking like that!”  We had lots of ghosts in the house of my childhood. We lived on the site of an old Fort, restored from the War of 1812, where the land itself holds the memory of the war waged on its banks (the Detroit river). I was always fascinated with mysticism. I started doing yoga as a young child, learning from books, and studied ESP and psychic and paranormal phenomena…I used to force my brother to practice telepathy with me!  You know how it goes though, as we get older and are expected to conform, I pushed my spirituality to the back of my mind and went on with life, always feeling a little weird, and not wanting to be different from my peers. 

Q2: Tell us briefly how you found your Lost Art.  

I dabbled with tarot and other divination throughout my adult life, and started to take yoga and meditation seriously in my thirties. This is when the door opened wide and I really connected to the power of being present, still, and open to the communication from Universe.

Q3: How have you integrated your innate talent and your Lost Art practice into your life?  What challenges  did you face in this integrative process? 

I completed my yoga teacher training when I was 40, and this opened me to so much light and awareness, it was so personal that I didn’t particularly want to share! I mean, I didn’t want to face the chagrin of my friends and family for being into all that woo woo stuff…and I still struggle a little with that…the eye rolls etc. The thing is it was exactly all that woo woo stuff, like meditation, the law of attraction, manifesting, that brought the life I wanted from fantasy into reality. 

Q4: What does your Lost Art practice look like on a daily basis? 

My daily practice includes a clearing in the bath ritual in the morning, and yoga practice in the afternoon. My yoga practice is very spiritual in nature. I go to my mat every single day. I let my body be moved by my soul’s desire, and sometimes that manifests as just stillness. Other times it moves me to journey, and then other times it manifests in just an asana practice. I stopped making my practice about “exercise” a few years ago. My practice is about being present for spirit to move through me. 

Q5: What important lesson would you share with an earlier version of yourself, or to somebody who is just now exploring what a mystical path might mean to them?

The voice in your head is real. It’s not just imagination, it’s intuition. Honoring intuition is honoring God, the Divine, the Universe, and your soul. You can ignore it all you want, but eventually, it will bite you in the ass to get your attention. Follow your gut feelings and listen for your guides. Meditate. Allow whatever distractions come up, acknowledge them and let them go. The answers will come to you in meditation. Notice how your body feels when thoughts appear, if you are at ease, these thoughts are from source. If you feel discomfort, the thoughts are from ego.  

Q6: If there was only one thing a person could find the energy and resources to make a priority, what should it be? Meditation! 

Q7: What is your favorite inspirational quote? “Be Your Own Guru” is what I am living by at the moment!