I discovered the healing powers of āyurveda and yoga years ago along my own journey of healing and discovery.  I began to realize that I was unwell in my early 20's.  Already a young practitioner of holistic wellness and interested in herbs, I reluctantly sought care from a western physician due to financial access constraints.  After seeing this physician for way too long with no improvement, I asked him about dietary suggestions.  When he responded that, "diet has nothing to do with this", I knew I would never see him again.  I left the office that day, without a follow-up appointment, and exactly what I needed - A new found determination to learn how to heal myself.

I saved money until I could afford to see a holistic nutritionist that my employer recommended. Though I did get better fairly quickly, and felt quite well through my mid-20's, I became much more ill in my later 20's.  While I did find the resources I needed to address the initial symptoms holistically, I had not addressed the root cause.  By the time I found āyurveda in my later 20's and early 30's, I was in a state of constant pain, inflammation, fatigue, and general distress.

When I say that I experienced some immediate relief after implementing a couple of basic āyurvedic practices, I am not exaggerating.  It was minimal at first, and required commitment, but I could feel the beginnings of healing and hope very early on.  I knew these ancient teachings based on the elements of nature and the simple concept that like increases like, and opposites balance, were my medicine.  And so I began to study on my own and apply what I was learning, one breath at a time.

After studying on my own for many years and with some very helpful guides, I was called to attended The Kripalu School Of Āyurveda, where I received my Āyurvedic Health Counselor Certification. Support from my community in southern arizona and a partial scholarship made that education possible, for which I am ever grateful. By continuing the study and daily practice of āyurveda and yoga, my understanding of the macrocosm and microcosm through the lens of the five elements allows me to share the teachings with others and practice the principles in all aspects of life.

I worked at The Āyurvedic Center Of Vermont for several years following my training at Kripalu.  I was part of the clinic team, offering body treatments and health consultations to our clients in addition to serving as cook and office assistant.  I served as Program Director and Teacher for the Āyurveda Integration Program and was an integral part of creating the program that is offered there today.

My practice continues, and I remain committed to a personal practice in addition to continuing my education.  I have had the privilege of studying with amazing teachers in the classroom and clinic; Rosy Mann, Anusha Sehgal, Jyothi Bhatt, Claudia Welch, Allison Morse, Vasant Lad, Sunil Joshi, Robert Svaboda, Scott Blossom.  I have also had the sincere privilege of learning alongside my clients and devoted students, as well my daily encounters with either, air, fire, water, and earth. 

My commitment to a life deeply rooted in inter-generational community has offered the gift of being with several beloveds through their deaths.  Companioning some more intimately than others, each of these incredible humans has shaped the person I continue to become.  As a doula I am continually honored in this way, learning and transforming with each transition I witness.  I have come to see that this role called death doula has always been a part of my being, patiently waiting for me to mature into it.  Beloved community has helped me to see that I am, and have always been a doula of many things.  

As a teenager, I remember sitting in a school room with other teenagers as we learned that a fellow classmate and friend had died by suicide.  Imagining their family finding them, and thinking of my own parents, the pain of being alive that I myself carried felt somehow less deadly.  Talking to folks who were closer, more intimate friends with them than I was, offered me the opportunity to doula well before I even knew how to care for myself.  Their death may have saved my life, and the only way I know how to pay that forward is to continue to be willing to talk about suicide and the pain many of us feel by simply existing.

I have watched family members be placed into the ground, carried the weight of a casket while grief filled the air, and laugh-cried as we remembered them in a house with covered mirrors and way too much food.  I can still see my grandfather, sitting on a cardboard box, wearing ripped clothing as he mourned the sudden death of his wife, my grandmother.  I have sat awkwardly with my family as we tried to figure out how we were "supposed" to be in these moments.  None of us knowing, all of us unsure.

I have been with pets through living and dying, some whom I consider soul mates.  I have made agonizing and heartbreaking decisions of how to care for and honor them.  Sometimes choosing to hasten their death, and end what I perceived to be suffering, by means of euthanasia.  I have laid their bodies to rest in the earth with intimacy and care as tears wet the ground and sobs filled the air.  The kind of burials and ceremony I would like to see more often for our human kin.  The kind of ceremony I would like you to give me, and to help offer to you, if that is what you want.

I have seen many different kinds of death, and each one has been a teacher for me.  The death of living beings, known and unknown.  The death of relationships, the death of earth and water, the death of self through different phases of life and re-birth, the death that exists through significant life transitions, my own and others.  Just as I have seen all this death, I have seen equally as much life.

Though I had been serving unofficially as a death doula for many years, well before hearing of this term "death doula", it was Lois's death in December of 2020 that guided me to sign up for the first in person death doula training with Alua Arthur and the Going With Grace team in the fall of 2021. Lois was a dear friend and feisty community elder. I am grateful to have been able to accompany her in life and through her final breath, as well as care for her body and offer space for our community to grieve during the height of the covid19 pandemic.

Prior to that, in addition to community care in all its forms, I had been providing in-home care to elders in conjunction with my work as an āyurvedic health counselor. I feel that I was guided by Lois, along with our other living community members through an invisible door.  A door that I had looked through many times, and had been left open so the air on the other side could brush my skin and gently enter my being.  But until then, I did not know that I was worthy of crossing the threshold.

Since that first training with Going With Grace, I started to more formally incorporate death care into Stable In Self in the form of working with clients one-on-one as well as creating community space to talk about death and grief in all its' forms. In addition to my work through Stable In Self, I am an instructor with the  University Of Vermont's End Of Life Doula training program, where I have the privilege of guiding aspiring death doulas into their own process of becoming.

In 2007 I moved to a small, rural border town on land that was forcibly taken from the Tohono O’odham people, colonized, and renamed arizona. At the time, I had no idea I was embarking on a deeply personal and spiritual journey. For the better part of 16 years, I existed in this militarized, migration corridor with all of its ugliness and profound beauty. I often say that the desert has been my greatest teacher. This includes the land and the animals and the air and the sun and the glorious night sky. Life in these borderlands taught me what humanity looks like.

Out in the middle of nowhere, in the shadow of the baboquivari mountains, where the natives tell us is the place where all life begins, I learned the true meaning of hospitality, humility, solidarity, compassion, safety, and risk. The borderlands taught me the difference between inconvenience and struggle. I learned about anger, fear, and guilt. I learned about the kind of hate that will eat you alive if you let it. I also learned the transformative, life saving power of meditation and collective action.

Amongst prickly cactus and venomous snakes, I learned what love looks like. My classroom was a dusty, ramshackle humanitarian aid station, with the mingled sounds of murderous helicopters, coyotes, hushed whispers, and exhausted laughter. The borderlands taught me how to love, how to receive love, and how to be love. It was there, in the heat of many scorching summers and life giving monsoon rains, that I learned how intricately my own life entwines with every other beings, near and far, and out into the ether.

The desert holds my grief and the grief of countless beings. The earth is soaked with all of our tears, sweat, and blood. I have had the humble honor to support the families of people whose loved ones have died or gone missing during migration along what is considered to be the u.s./mexico borderlands. I have searched for the missing and dead in those borderlands, and in doing so, searched for answers that were sometimes found, and more often remain unanswered. The people themselves; sometimes found, but more often remaining unfound. Beloved parents, children, siblings, friends become part of the desert landscape as their bodies and bones are embraced by the earth where they took their final breath.

The desert taught me about the many shades of life and the many shades of death. It taught me about community, and what it means to find a home. I learned how to trust and be trusted. I learned how to show up for myself so that I could show us for others, in a way that nourishes all of us. I am a better friend, adult child, sibling, auntie, compañerx, co-worker, teacher, student, guide, support person, human because of the experiences these borderlands, its inhabitants, and visitors have shared with me.

There is no amount of gratitude that I can express nor amount of sorrow that will ever be enough to compensate for those who made it and those who didn't. I continue to do my best to carry and live into these teachings as a way to honor the humans who lost their lives and who carry the scars of a journey no one should ever have to make.

Though I am far from the desert these days, the border is everywhere, and I will carry on with the work until my final breath, or until no more humans are disappeared, tortured, and murdered at the hands of oppressive, governing forces. I will continue until all the walls come down - border walls, prison walls, and the walls of our own minds and hearts.

I believe in the power of community. I believe that individuals (microcosm) and communities (macrocosm) must take care of themselves and each other for the benefit of all beings. The word yoga means union, and while I support autonomy, and greatly value my ability to make decisions for my own care, I do not live in a vacuum. Nor would I choose to if that was even an option. Solitude and alone-time are vital to my well being, and this is where my practice of yoga begins. But community is equally vital to my well being and supports my growth as a human person in this lifetime. I choose a practice that honors and cultivates this yoga in a mutually, sustainable way.

Something that I am clear about, even though there is very little that I actually know, is that community has saved my life, over and over. As a person willing to continue to show up to and for community, in all of its beauty and messy discomfort, I will continue to be nourished, held, and cared for through and beyond this body's' final breath. When we care for ourselves, each other, and the greater collective of beings known and unknown, we all receive mutual, reciprocal benefit. This expressly includes the other-than-human beings, which make up most of our world.

I believe that this kind of collective care for our fellow humans, plants, insects, animals, and spirit world is in our bones and our blood. It may be buried so deeply beneath layers of binary, separatists, and hierarchical brainwashing that it is difficult to tap into, but it is there. I believe that people, like you, me, and us, want to and will continue to learn how to show up for each other with generosity, compassion, and curiosity becasue that is how we are meant to be and move in the world.

This kind of care asks us to take risks and allow space for discomfort. It asks us to move beyond the walls and borders of our own minds and hearts, and the kind of thinking that tells us our needs are more important or deserving than another's. Mutual aid means we all benefit mutually. Community care means the entire community is cared for by our decisions and actions. It does not mean we all agree or are all happy all the time, but it does mean that we all have what we need not only to survive, but to thrive. As we give freely to each other, we receive more than we could ever imagine. I must be continually reminded of my commitment to this practice, even though I experience the abundance every day. The human mind is a fickle entity.

This world we live in is weird, and beautiful, and awful. It is full of love and compassion and it is full of hate and bigotry. If I want to transform the unjust culture in which we live, I must do the work in furtherance of my own transformation. If we are willing to be uncomfortable together, to inquire, and mess-up, and be compassionately accountable together, maybe, just maybe, there is a path forward for each and all of us. This is a continual, many lifetimes long practice, and one I want to keep coming back to however often I may falter.

Community care and mutual aid exists in kitchens, living rooms, street corners, playgrounds, bus stops, free markets, clothing swaps, and potlucks. It can be found in skill share workshops or when you freely offer to teach someone how to cook or install a ceiling fan. When you stop to say hello or simply make eye contact with a "stranger" who appears to be struggling, you are practicing community care. In order to thrive together, we must first acknowledge each other.

Mutual aid exists when we are willing to give up some of our own comfort in order to ensure more comfort or safety for another. When we are willing to speak out, instead of turn a blind eye to whatever inconvenient truth sits in front of us, we become part of the tapestry of life. Mutual aid is not charity, and it does not come from outside sources. Mutual aid is us - people supporting each other with no strings attached.

In the spirit of community care, mutual aid, solidarity, and transformative justice, we keep us safe. We keep us well. We keep us accountable and humble. Within this context we are responsible for navigating conflict, including harm and injustice together, in furtherance of transformation rather than blind punishment. When we move from a place of mutual aid - we acknowledge that we are all in this together, and separation is an illusion of convenience and fear. By entering into a shared knowing, that we carry within us everything we need, and a willingness to share, rather than hoard, we become a powerful force that no government, military, or oppressor can destroy.

There are many ways to support each other in community as we move toward a more just and equitable world. Mutual aid and community care for the benefit of the whole breaks down barriers that capitalism and “business as usual” have created in order to keep us shackled to a machine that many of us don’t even realize has, and continues to cause immense harm. There are no simple answers, and I don’t presume to have the best solutions, but I can make a choice to be different and to make different choices, one breath at a time. I believe that I have an obligation to do my part if I want to live in a different world, and I invite you to explore along side me, what this means for yourself.

And so, dear one, I leave you with this question:
How do you want to be and move in the world when the risks are real and rising?