I have been fascinated with spirituality, magic, and mysticism for most of my life. My earliest memories of a conscious awareness of the connection with something greater than myself occurred when I was about four years old. I grew up with an agnostic mother and a proclaimed atheist father. However, my father was probably just mad at God. He felt a deep connection to nature and carried a surprisingly full bag of superstitions with him throughout his life. My parents and their parents prized education and my family culture was focused on intellect, reason, science, and a liberal arts view of the world. Despite little exposure to religion, spirituality, or the occult, I explored many religions and philosophies, and finally, in the early 1980s, found my spiritual home in NeoCeltic Wicca.

My family were all dancers. My parents were musical and loved to dance with one another. My siblings and I grew up with music and dance. I discovered Belly Dance in high school and felt an immediate connection to the spirit and energy of the music and moves. In 1980, I joined a group of four other women and formed The Caravan of Dreams, a belly dance troupe. Our troupe name was suggested by my husband, Ron, who was reading a small book by the same title authored by Idries Shah. Shah was an educator of Westerners on the power and depth of Sufism. He was a mystic and a scholar.

Parallel to these callings to spirit and movement, was a clear awareness of an equally strong summoning to be a healer, which had arisen when I was eight or nine. I eventually completed a master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling in 1994 and opened a private practice in Belgrade, Montana. I was trained in Cognitive Behavioral therapy. My professors strongly reinforced excluding religious or spiritual elements in our therapeutic interventions. Body work was also not to be included in treatment. The purpose of these standards was to prevent the kind of ethical violations that were rampant in psychotherapy. As a dutiful student, I separated my spiritual path, my dance avocation, and my work as a psychotherapist.

Despite years of my conscious resistance, however, my soul’s wisdom prevailed, and psychotherapy caught up. I came to understand that all healing is energetic and spiritual, particularly healing the psyche. Somatic, or body-based, psychotherapeutic interventions are now well-documented and embraced by the psychotherapy community as preferred treatments, particularly for trauma. Mindfulness and other Buddhist practices have become standard fare for most psychotherapists, because of the efficacy of these practices in bringing peace, self-love, and healing. Psychotherapy has integrated the spirit and the body back into best practices and standards. I recognized I could do the same in my work.

My interest in dance had also evolved over time, expanding into the study of World Dance – the interweaving of dance from cultures around the world with a particular emphasis on dances of indigenous cultures. The evolution of my spiritual pursuits had led to a special focus on manifesting and Law of Attraction practices and principles.

In Fall 2023, I got a clear and unmistakable message from Deity that I needed to move from psychotherapeutic healing modalities to supporting others in manifesting a diverse and healthy world. After 29 years and 9 months, I closed my private practice. My dance, my spiritual calling, and skills developed in my psychotherapy practice intertwined into the elements of the Caravan of Dreams as it is today. I received my Second Degree ordination in Teithiol Serrenos Coven on March 24, 2024, and I am eager to serve the community of spiritual seekers around the world, empowering my clients to find their personal manifesting and spiritual practices to consciously create a world of beauty, peace, and diversity.