LINEAGE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I grew up on a sheep & cattle property in outback Australia, a childhood in communion with trees and animals. An upbringing that has informed how I see & move through the world.

My personal ancestral lineage is English, Welsh, North Germanic and Eastern European, who came to Australia as early immigrants and post-war refugees.

I completed my post-graduate studies in psychology, keen to better understand the human experience. Disenchanted by the hierarchical & medicalised approach of talk-based therapy I sought ways to make greater impact. I travelled abroad & found myself in the International Development & Humanitarian Assistance field working for women and refugees for a decade.

I experienced significant burn-out in that field, and a ‘dark-night of the soul’ in a bleak and brutal country & marriage, but through the experience of falling pregnant and birthing my daughter the world of feminine embodiment found me. It was through somatic healing and embodiment practices that after many years of disconnect, I felt myself truly back at home in my body, my heart, myself.

My professional lineage has been influenced by the mytho-archtypyal realm of Jungian Psychology, the Western Science of Psychology, Neuroscience and Human Behaviour Kashmir Shaivism and it’s modern offshoots of feminine embodiment primarily as a student of Michaela Boehm, my studies to become a Ashtanga Yoga teacher, and the critically, the expanding field of trauma and the nervous system, primarily impacted by the teachings of Peter Levine, Stephen Porges, and Kimberly Ann Johnson.

But it is the Earth and the wild, soft animal body that remain my greatest teachers.

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I live on the Ancestral and unceded land of the Jagera, Giabal and Jarowair people, and recognise them as the Traditional Owners of the country, and recognise their continuing connection to land, waters and culture. I pay my respects to the Elders past, present and emerging.

This land that I live, work, and raise my daughter on isn’t mine but has been under the care and stewardship of the Australian First Nations people for at least 40,000 years who in recent history experienced violence and colonialism.

I acknowledge this history and pay my heartfelt respects to the land, this country I create on, and her ancestral caretakers.