About

Because her native language is Spanish, she struggled to write in English at that time. By the age of 11, I was editing all her papers. It was fun and easy: I loved to read and write.

My parents made friends with many of the foreign students at my mother’s university. One of her Latino friends carried around a colorful deck of cards and laid them out in interesting patterns to tell the future. This didn’t seem strange to me because I had grown up learning about Latin America’s many traditions of folk healing and magic.

Diviner

One day when I was a little older, I saw an odd-looking deck of cards in a local bookshop. They reminded me of the cards I’d seen my mother’s friend use. I was fascinated. I bought them and devoured the booklet that came with them. Immediately, I began reading for myself with my new tarot deck.

I soon began to see these cards as a kind of early warning system. Whenever I turned over a card that had appeared many times before, I sat up and took notice. Eventually, I realized that my best course of action wasn’t to ask about the future. Instead, I started looking at the choices and patterns I had created in the past and how they were shaping my future. I learned to ask how I could make better choices.

Over time, I became very good at using tarot to look at the big picture of a person’s life. I learned to scan the past and present, searching for patterns and better paths for the future.  I learned to redirect myself and others towards better choices. I spent years developing this approach while honing my research and writing skills in college and then graduate school, where I began studying archaeology and anthropology.

Scholar

As the years passed, I deepened my ability to guide and inspire by teaching classes in medical anthropology, human ecology, expository writing, women’s and gender studies, and urban health. I also began studying Wicca, Buddhism and shamanic approaches to healing; eventually, I began leading my own intuitive study groups.

Meanwhile, my dissertation research led me to study the health care experiences of HIV+ Puerto Rican women living in the greater Newark, New Jersey area. I eventually published what I learned from these remarkable women in a scholarly book released by the Rutgers University Press: Surviving HIV/AIDS in the Inner City: How Resourceful Latinas Beat the Odds. It tells the stories of the brave women who taught me how to be more resilient.

Teacher and Coach

In 2005, I earned my PhD in anthropology at Rutgers. After graduating, I worked with a respected family medicine scholar and researcher. I also started coaching paralyzed and overwhelmed doctoral students through the writing process. In 2012, I began directing an interdisciplinary PhD program in urban health, where I learn to design a multi-year educational program that kept students sane, centered, and productive. I also began teaching and coaching my own urban health students.

I’ve used my scholarly skills and Buddhist/Wiccan training to create over 30 workshops and several weekend retreats at non-academic gatherings and conferences across the East Coast and Midwest. At the same time, I’ve taught academic courses and delivered conference papers at universities around the country. Today, I teach courses focusing on spirituality and divination. My classes support students in developing their own spiritual and intuitive practices, especially those that improve their day-to-day lives. Every class is designed to align my students with their highest good.

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I look forward to hearing from you. Schedule a free call with me to talk about what you want to do and be, and how you want to shape the world.