I was ordained and earned a certificate in spiritual direction from the Chaplaincy Institute, an Interfaith Seminary, in 2022. My call to ministry came as I was struggling with my own eco-anxiety and grief, and my ministry is to accompany and serve the earth and all its beings, including us humans, through these times of climate chaos and transition.
My own spirituality and theology is rooted in nature, and deeply influenced by the happenings of my own small patch of earth and garden and by my Pacific Northwest home of mountains and sea. I acknowledge that I dwell on the traditional lands of the Steh-Chass and Nisqually peoples, and that I have a responsibility both to reparations and to good stewardship of this land.
I grew up without religion but with plenty of New Age spiritual practices and eventually identified myself as a Wiccan. Then I found Unitarian Universalism in my teen years and began attending church there. I have now been a Unitarian Universalist for almost 30 years and have served as a Religious Educator for a UU Congregation for 14 years. I earned master level credentialing as a religious educator from the Unitarian Universalist Association in 2014.
I also have a Bachelors of Science and a Masters in Teaching from The Evergreen State College, having been set to pursue first medicine and then to be a high school science teacher. Both plans were way-laid by circumstances that involved a spouse being deployed to Iraq with the National Guard and having my two children, who are now teens and young adults. My training as a teacher stood me in good stead as I became a religious educator, however, and Teacher is still part of my identity.
Now I am called to authentically share all that I am in service to a world that should be both celebrated and healed. I humbly offer my gifts and time and efforts in service of justice, liberation, wholeness, and ever expanding and abundant love and care.