Opus Naturae grew from my own journey of remembering who I am.

 

Throughout my healing journey, I developed a deep desire to discover who I really was beneath the layers of family, society, circumstance, and the ways I had learned to adapt to them. I wanted to know who I was at my core. Not who I had been told to be, but who I was before I learned to shape myself around the expectations of others.

 

I was diagnosed with complex PTSD after growing up in an abusive home and carrying the effects of that trauma into adulthood. Years of overworking myself, and continually putting my own needs last eventually led to profound burnout and what I can only describe as a dark night of the soul. I reached a point where I could no longer keep living the way I had been. I had to make some radical changes and, for perhaps the first time, turn that care toward myself.

 

I wasn't looking for something to simply make me feel better or help me bypass the difficult parts. I wanted to get to the root. To face what needed to be faced, understand what had shaped me, and discover who I was underneath it all.

 

Healing and self-discovery have become a lifelong journey for me. I have explored talk therapy, EMDR, meditation, yoga, qigong, massage, Reiki, and other approaches to understanding myself. Slowly, piece by piece, I began finding my way back to myself.

 

Nature had been part of that story long before I understood its importance. Some of my earliest memories are of my grandmother's garden, spending time in the forest, hiking, camping, and simply spending time outside. That connection eventually shaped my work in horticulture and landscape design, where I became increasingly drawn to native plants, medicinal plants, ecology, and working with nature rather than continually trying to control it.

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That curiosity led me to herbalism and eventually to becoming a certified herbalist. It deepened my desire to understand our relationship with plants and the living world. Not simply what plants can offer us, but what it means to be in relationship with them.

 

Meditation became another important part of my journey. As my practice deepened, so did my experiences of intuition, energy, and things I couldn't easily explain. Reiki became an especially meaningful part of my journey, bringing a sense of calm, healing, and presence, along with insights that helped me understand myself in new ways. In 2026, I completed my Reiki training through the Master and Teacher level.

 

Studying astrology and my own natal chart, as well as the charts of others, became another lens through which I could explore myself, our patterns, natural cycles, and our place within something much larger than ourselves.

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I didn't make this journey alone, and I carry deep gratitude for the therapists, healers, teachers, family, friends, plants, places, and experiences that shaped me. That gratitude and curiosity is what led me to want to share the stories of other healers. To understand what brought them to their work, what changed them, and what they have come to understand along the way.

 

It takes courage to look honestly at the places where we have been wounded and to keep choosing to go deeper. I have a deep admiration for those who have walked this path themselves. The wounded healers who have allowed their own experiences to deepen their compassion, understanding, and connection with others.

 

Outside of my work, I am also the mother of three amazing and inspiring adult children, who have taught me more than I could have imagined. They have inspired me to learn, grow, and do my own healing work so that the patterns I inherited would not continue through me.