Profile
Born in Los Angeles, California, I grew up in both the northern and southern parts of the state in a family of four children, following our father‘s career as a geologist searching for oil. My primary interest in youth was singing, and I studied opera through high school, until an early pregnancy ended that career and started me on a different path. After a divorce, I moved from Los Angeles with my two young sons to Marin County in Northern California where I remarried and had a daughter. When my daughter started pre-school I went back to college and continued to complete a Master’s degree in Counseling Psychology with an emphasis on Jungian Psychology.
I’ve had a meditation and yoga practice for over 30 years and for the last 25 years a private practice as a counselor and teacher, counseling individuals and couples. I create and lead week-end and week-long intensive workshops that focus on developing our understanding of who we are and how to find and follow our unique path in life. I also facilitate and lead weekly classes on meditation, the feminine, relationship, dialogue, dream analysis, and creativity.
In tandem with my counseling practice, inspired by the power of stories for growth and for healing, I began to write. In pursuit of the stories I both traveled to and studied other cultures, particularly ancient ones and found a wealth of wisdom to draw from. For years I was mesmerized by the ancient Minoans of Crete and then for several more years by the Maya of Mexico
.
As I came to know those ancient culture’s values what intrigued me was a very real sense of what we’ve lost; a loss of both heart and of soul. The world today is on the brink of disaster and it is not just an ecological one, but one in which basic human values have fallen into the unconscious. My interest is, and has always been, to recover the value and meaning of life and of who we are as true human beings. Writing historical fiction has allowed me to draw material up from the depths imagining a world not unlike our own where those values existed; as an enquiry for the reader to wonder, and hopefully realize, that nothing is lost that has ever been and that it is up to each of us to re-member what matters.
My first novel, “Time & Transformation,” is the result of the time I spent with the Maya and is set in the Yucatan during their classic period of history. It is both a thoroughly researched historical novel and a spiritual journey that explores both the beliefs of that culture and a great deal of what I’ve learned in my 30 year practice seeking answers to questions of meaning. The book’s publication date is April 1st, 2008. The novel that came out of my love of the Minoans will soon follow.
My fascination with both place and art moved me to pursue photography and with that added skill I wrote over 30 travel stories with photographs that have been published in newspapers and magazines across the United States and Canada. I’ve included a few stories about the Yucatan and an assortment of other romantic destinations in the “Articles” section of this site.
I’ve produced several solo exhibitions of my photography and often take part in group shows. The contents of the photography shows can be found in the Image Gallery.
Solo Shows
Dec. 1998 Alliance Francaise Gallery, San Francisco, The Mime, Bittersweet.
April – July 1997 Tea Garden Springs, Mill Valley, Ca. Life in Blue and Green;
photography, poetry, and sculpture.
Oct. 1996 Renzo Gallery San Francisco, Ca. Une Nuit a Paris, Call of the
Nightingale, photography and poetry
July-Sept. 1996 Image Works Gallery, Mill Valley, Ca. Une Nuit a Paris, Call of
the Nightingale, photography and poetry.
