My ancestors are from Lithuania and central Ukraine and I was born and raised on Treaty 1 territory on the traditional lands of the Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and the homeland of the Metis nation (Winnipeg, Manitoba). Throughout my 20’s I worked as a birth and postpartum doula offering support, care and advocacy for families seeking culturally appropriate consent based
care. In 2012 I travelled to the land of the Cherokee Nation (Asheville, North Carolina) to study holistic midwifery with Whapio Diane Bartlett, an independent elder midwife and educator. The immense vulnerability, strength and community care I witnessed over my years apprenticing with birth helped me to cultivate the art of holding safe(r) space centred in consent, non-judgment, patience and humility and planted seeds of reverence for the wisdom in the body. My intrigue with Craniosacral Therapy began in 2010 after witnessing a prairie midwife support our client by growing quiet and holding her sacrum with gentle, non-invasive skilled hands. I watched as she listened deeply and supported the labour to move forward without intervention. Three years later, after seeking every possible support to relieve neuralgic pain, the gentle and profound touch of Craniosacral Therapy was what my system responded to best. I continued seeing a Craniosacral therapist for many years and have benefited immensely from the ways this modality has helped me generate a foundational relationship with my body based in awe, curiosity and care. In 2017 I began an intensive study of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy with The School of Body Intelligence and in 2019 I opened my practice at Heart and Hands Community Health Clinic on the lands of the Lkwungen speaking peoples (Victoria, BC). I closed my practice in the summer of 2021 to drive up with my partner to live on Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in territory (Dawson City) where I now live and practice. In the spirit of working within a greater movement of healing justice, I acknowledge the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in peoples who have taken care of this land since time immemorial. I am committed to continuing to educate myself on the ongoing violence of colonialism, to hold up my indigenous family, friends and neighbours, to support big and small movements working toward justice and to connect with my own ancestry so that I may walk on this territory with awareness, accountability, gentleness, and respect. BCST sessions are offered on a massage table fully clothed so please come to your session in whatever you will be comfortable in and as scent free as possible. You will be asked to remove your shoes, hat, belt & glasses. During a session, you may experience moving between waking and sleep states, temperature changes, a sense of expansiveness, subtle involuntary movements, slight sense of pressure, brief sharp or dull aches, surfacing emotions, and many other unique expressions as your system settles, releases and integrates.
