I am a w@nderer. I am a child of the Southern black church in the United States. I also describe myself as “mystic” to point to my experience of being permeable, of having tangible experiences of the Spirit. And my creative work is often made by pulling out what is hidden based off of what comes to me from the Spirit.

I ground myself in the embodied focus on moving in the Spirit (the “What is this?!”) that comes from my lineage. I connect to the Spirit most through singing, dancing, nature, and mystery. I spent many years of my life enclosed by Christian doctrine, even spending time in ministry with college students in my 20s to early 30s. Then I found I had to give up what I thought I knew to receive back what is real. As I’ve done that, I’ve seen something wonderful in the many spiritual layers of my lineage, which can neither be fully enclosed in or separated from our journey with Christianity. If you’re from where I’m from, you know the ways we take joy in innovating and intentionally disrupting the English language. I’ve found it is my birthright to do the same for Western spirituality in the United States.

Approach

I engage in spiritual direction as personal and collective, formal and informal, mystic-positive, and oriented toward liberation. As a mystic with a dynamic and constantly explorative spirituality, my practice involves moving with, sensing, and listening for where the Spirit is active and responding authentically with our whole selves. I value sifting, integrating, and expanding the ways in which our upbringings have packaged our understanding of Spirit, ourselves, and our sense of what is and can be real.

Education & Experience

Though significant parts of my development as a spiritual director came from informal mentors, I hold a Master’s in Spiritual Direction from Loyola University Chicago where I centered my studies on spiritual practice in communities actively working toward equity and liberation. Some of my other areas of study and experience are: paying attention to the body, authentic communication, decolonizing/ re-imaging faith, embracing paradox and wildness, and integration of divergent spiritual experience.