My Story

Intuitive Seerer. Joy Chooser. Courage Creator.  Mystic. Writer. Creative. Lover of Life, Magick, & Mystery.  

The Short Version

Over time I learned that I experience life in mysterious and magical ways.  My ability to nonverbally communicate with animals, to feel other people’s feelings, to see what was unseen, and to know about my great grandmother’s death before it happened were gifts that I learned to turn off out of fear at a young age or brush aside.  After moving to Cairo, Egypt in my 20’s seeking answers after 9/11, I found myself at the beginning of a spiritual awakening. As I backpacked the region, I tasted a life where the Divine was front and center, something I hadn’t realized I was hungry for until I felt it. Upon returning to the States I did the “adult thing” and got married, started a full time job in the government, and bought a house.  By my mid-twenties, I achieved the “American Dream” and was surprised to discover I felt unfulfilled, lost, and disconnected from myself.  

I embarked on a long, winding, eclectic spiritual journey to find myself.  I studied with spiritual teachers, healers, and mentors of diverse modern and ancient traditions.  Along the way, I went through divorce, battled chronic illness, I learned how to hold my own heartbreak with the power of my love, I stepped into my personal power, I found my voice, I recovered my joy, heard my inner voice, followed my calling, and reconnected with the intuitive gifts I previously shunned or hid from myself and others for decades.  Now I spend my days doing what I love, working with big hearted sensitive souls to own their personal power, tune into their inner wisdom, and live their truth.   I finally own the mysterious, magical, intuitive soul I am.

now that you've read the 21st century hurry up and tell me version, My story is richer than this...Here’s the longer version

PS.  There's still more...but this is a start for now.

As a kid, I experienced life in mysterious and magical ways.  

I had an uncanny connection with nature including nonverbal communication and connection with animals which meant I was followed by cats for years.  I lived for collecting rocks and crystals, looking them up in my favorite rock and gem book. I watched birds and knew their unique songs and colors.  I wrote stories in elementary school about the “wilderness girl,” a wild independent girl who was alone and one with nature. I hunted for wild carrots and blackberries in my backyard and hid away in my front yard tree like a hermit in a cave for hours.  I was scared of the unseen reality I often saw in my parents bedroom at night hoping it would go away since no one could explain it to me. I had “imaginary friends.”

When I had the strong sense one morning that we immediately needed to see my great grandmother and my parents told me to wait until the weekend, I was heartbroken and unsurprised when we received news of her death the next morning. I could feel when others were upset in my own body before they spoke or showed it.  I often knew I wasn’t alone when I was physically alone.  Over the years, I “coped” with my experiences by turning them off out of fear or brushing them off as “normal,” never discussing them with others.  Through social conditioning and learning, I came to believe that anything in the unseen world was scary and evil, even though my experience of it was otherwise. I slowly disconnected from these gifts peaking through.  I even convinced myself for a long time it was all unreal.

In many ways, my draw towards mystery never left me.  I loved reading Nancy Drew mystery books.  My favorite nightly tv shows were about solving crimes and murder mysteries.  By the time I reached the end of high school I was sure I would become an investigative journalist, but as fate would have it during a policy studies course my first semester, I realized I didn't want to write the news, I wanted to be the one creating it.  This started my journey towards what I thought would be a career in criminal justice as an FBI Agent understanding the inner workings of the mind.  The Universe had other plans. 

Enthusiastic, curious, and adventurous are part of my nature. I grew up in the Midwest where smiles while talking were part of the territory and waving to strangers was second nature. A creative at heart, I spent my youth engrossed in dance, writing, music, and the great outdoors.  I took my first overseas trip when I was 12 to tour parts of Europe and the US performing with a ballet ensemble. Then later at the age of 21 my soul called me to travel overseas again.  I moved across the globe to live in Cairo, Egypt after a fateful day of studying and opening the University newspaper to a page that said "Study abroad in Egypt." While I was looking for answers following the violence of 9/11, I later learned that the Universe guided me there to awaken me to who I AM.  My time in the region changed me.  No longer interested in domestic questions around violence, I became curious about the role of conflict and peace on an international scale.  I backpacked the region. I learned Arabic. I saw sights I never imagined I'd see.

I started asking questions about what I knew to be true.

After returning to the States, I spent years working in retail waiting for security clearances to go through.  Just when I'd given up hope on working in Washington, DC, a series of sycronicities led me to a career path I never planned for in international development.  This was the first pivot from the Universe away from my plan and towards Her's.  I spent the next decade working on and in all things conflict at USAID.  While working I completed graduate studies in Conflict Analysis and Resolution. I did the "adulting" thing, worked a stable job, got married, and bought a house.  To my surprise, by my mid-twenties I had achieved the American dream and felt empty.  

Disconnected from myself, stuck, and confused on how to move forward I started looking for myself.

Searching for answers I began a deeply introspective process of spiritual seeking.  I sat with some of the greatest teachers of many of the world's major spiritual and esoteric traditions.  I went on countless retreats, and most of all, I became determined to find peace and myself.  

Professionally, I found myself increasingly feeling burned out and overwhelmed by days and nights thinking about violence and conflict.  I worked with colleagues that were chronically stressed and overworked in an organization with little resources for staff care.  With one social worker on staff for thousands of employees, I joined several of my colleagues to start an employee-led movement to create stress management support, tools, training, and personnel.  For years I advocated for better staff care, developed cutting edge operational stress and resiliency trainings for staff deploying to dangerous environments, and created change that led to the Agency's first Staff Care Center and quiet/meditation rooms for staff in all buildings.

In parallel as an urban-dwelling mystic, my quest led me initially to convert to Islam, wearing a headscarf, and studying to become a Muslim scholar for many years while I worked at USAID.  I was enchanted with the Divine and spent most of my free time outside of work and academic studies engrossed in spiritual reading, praying, reflecting, and studying.  Thinking I was destined to become a teacher of Islam, I had one part right...I was meant to live a life of spiritual practice and teaching.  That path was not limited to Islam.

I was moved by the story of Rumi.  A Divine channeling poet who wrote words that transcend even the heart, I knew Rumi became the poet we know today because of his direct connection with his teacher Shams el-Tabrizi.  Something unseen, unspoken, and otherworldly had been ignited in him and I wanted whatever That was. I started searching for my Shams.

After many years without my Shams in sight, I found myself retreating in the local mosque during the final days of Ramadan on my knees in surrender.  I was exhausted, confused, and ready to let go of the endless search.  My marriage was struggling, my husband at the time was really depressed and I started to realize so was I.  Looking up to the heavens I told the Divine that I was handing the wheel back over and thought that maybe...it wasn’t my time to meet my teacher and fulfill what I thought was my destiny.

Two months later I met my Shams.  To my surprise, my teacher was not Muslim, he was...Buddhist and an energy healer.  Through personal study with him I was introduced to Buddhism, meditation, mindfulness, classical yoga, and energy healing.  Not the teacher I thought I’d study with, my studies awakened me to realize that my Mission on Earth was greater than any one tradition.  

These practices jumpstarted my own healing journey.  I started recognizing how unhealthy my marriage was at the time, how stuck I felt in my work, and how hard I was pushing myself in all areas of my life.  I started learning how to say "no," getting clear on what mattered to me, and unveiling a vision in myself for what a different future might look like.  

Time started to speed up once I turned towards my healing.  I met my first life coach who coached me for years and later mentored me to be the coach I am today.  I found myself surrounded by an amazing team of diverse healers and teachers when I went through my devastating divorce.  I went to yoga teacher trainings and became a yoga and meditation teacher.  I took a three month solo-cross country pilgrimage and moved to a Buddhist monastery to become a Buddhist nun and came back.  I found the path of the divine feminine and started learning about the magical power and mystery of being a woman.  I learned I was intuitively gifted and became a certified Reiki Master.  I embraced my ability to see into the unseen.  I allowed myself to be guided by the spiritual guides and teachers that appeared to me.  I remembered my past lives...I started to remember who I was...who I AM.

I quit my tenured government job with little money in the bank.  I pursued my passion for serving others by sharing my unique gifts with people with all my heart. I practiced trusting the Universe would provide.  And...it worked. 

I finally started living the life I was BORN to live.

Over time through thousands of hours of self-discovery, spiritual practice, and mentorship, I finally embraced who I am: an ever-evolving intuitive coach, healer, and mentor.  A spiritual teacher and magical being far more eclectic than I thought I was destined to be.  Through this process, I met the Marci that had been lost so many years before as a child and I never knew was there.

Now my days are spent doing what I love, working with big hearted sensitive souls to own their personal power, tune into their inner wisdom, and live their truth.  I work with organizations who see their employees as family and teach them skills in mindfulness, resilience, and meditation.  I hold circles with brave women who are ready to release distrust of themselves and others to feel held in sisterhood and Home in their own being.  I teach others how to connect to their most important resource…their Intuition. I lead public classes where I have the blessing of holding sacred space and sharing the teachings that changed my own life.  I teach and mentor future yoga and meditation teachers privately and as faculty on teacher trainings to embody the teachings in their own life they are here to transmit to others.

I'm reminded of joy each morning by one of the most powerful teachers in my life, Odi my African Grey parrot as she constantly approaches life as play and connect to my inner kid with the goofiness of my dog Juju.  I live with a gentle, loving, partner who is the divine masculine steadiness to my wild and mysterious feminine. I geek out on all things spiritual, occult, and esoteric.  I love to marry the metaphysical and the practical. I cherish long walks in any new city, people watching, listening to new music, and any amount of time in nature. I live for singing Shakira in the shower and dancing salsa in my bathroom in the mornings.  I thank the Universe every day for stopping me from pursing what I thought was my purpose and leading me to what I was destined to become. 

I am the product of and grateful for all of the teachers, mentors, healers, friends, family, students, clients, and strangers that have loved, supported, and taught me along the way.   Some of the living teachers that influence my work include, but are not limited to:  Salah from Iraq, Bodhi Heart, Shaykh Mokhtar Maghraoui, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, Imam Zaid Shakir, Shaykh Yahya Rhodus, Kelly Melsted, Lisa Erickson, Sri Dharma Mittra, Anam Thubten, Johnathan Foust, Katie DePaola, Lisa Lister, Paige Valdiserri, Asia Suler, Susan Hewitt, Daniel Foor, Grandpa Dick, Grandma MaryLou, my dad Rick, and my mom Dianne.

My Mission

I believe life is full of magic, wonder, and mystery if we open our eyes to it.  I believe we are always divinely guided in every moment if we listen in.  I know that joy, peace, happiness are our birthright.  Our authentic selves are our greatest gifts to the world.  All of us are psychic to some degree. Each of us have a unique purpose on this place called Earth.  And above all, each of us are far more powerful than we realize.  My life is dedicated to helping people to stand in their personal power, tune into their inner wisdom, integrate their shadows to be whole, and gather courage to be themselves to boldly live a life of authenticity.  To live the life they were born to live.

My experience

My curious and adventurous nature has led me to travel to 24 countries on five continents and counting.  The last 18 years of my life have been dedicated to understanding conflict and peace at both the intra and interpersonal level.  I have extensive experience in diverse modalities and spiritual traditions including:

• Mindfulness

• Psychology

• Life Coaching

• Energy & Somatic Healing

• Meditation & Breathing

• Ritual work

• Earth honoring teachings

• Dreamwork

• Past life and ancestral healing

• Metaphysics

• Cognitive Behavior Therapy

• Esoteric & Occult Teachings

• Classical & Restorative Yoga

• Stress Management and Resilience

• Conflict Analysis & Resolution

• Neuroscience

• Eastern and Western Philosophy

My formal education, coursework, and training include:

Psychedelics, Somatic Therapy and Trauma Resolution

Synthesis Institute Psychedelic Practioner Training (underway)

Trauma-Informed Plant Medicine Somatic Integration Program with Atira Tan

Psychedelic Harm Reduction and Integration Program with Numinus Wellness

The Plant Spirit Summit hosted by Entheonation

Psychedelics in Therapy Summit hosted by PESI

New Advances in Psychotherapy: Learning from Psychedelic-Assisted Treatment Conference hosted by PESI

An Introduction to Hakomi Mindful Somatic Psychotherapy with the Hakomi Institute

Restoring Relational Resilience with Dr. Dianne Poole Heller

Basic Principles of Somatic Experiencing with the SE Trauma Institute

Plant Spirits, Herbalism & Folk Magic

The Witching Herbs and Their Uses with Harold Roth

Animistic Herbalism with Occvlta

Poisonous Plants Levels 1 & 2 with Kathryn Solie

Herbal Apprenticeship Program with Ashley Litecky Elenbaas

Intuitive Plant Medicine with Asia Suler

Grow Your Own Medicine with Dr. Jacqui Wilkins

The Wild Soul School with Lara Vesta

Poppy and Baba Yaga with Liz Migliorelli

Intuition, Dreamwork, Past Lives & Ancestors

The Dreamworld Program with Manari Ushigua

Lucid dreaming, plant spirits in dreamwork with Occvlta

Foundations of ritual, animism, animist psychology, and ancestral healing with Daniel Foor

Winter Intuition School 1 and 2 with Asia Suler

Mindfulness, Meditation, Yoga, & Energy Healing

800 Hour Life of a Yogi Program with Sri Dharma Mittra

500 Hour Life of a Yogi Program with Sri Dharma Mittra

200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training with Yoga District

Certified Reiki Master

Social Psychology & Conflict Resolution

Doctoral studies in Conflict Analysis and Resolution (all but dissertation)

Master's of Science in Conflict Analysis and Resolution

Bachelor's of Arts in Policy Studies and Sociology

Plus thousands of hours in workshops, continuing education hours, retreats, private study, and mentoring.

What's Your story?

I believe we have the power to write our own story.  After years of feeling like life was writing my story without any say in the composition of it, I finally picked up the pen again.  

What's your current life story?  Is it the story your want to live?  More importantly, is it the story you were BORN to live?  Not sure?  Let's start a conversation about how you can pick up the pen of your life.