My Temple Garden
Parenting With Spirit
Community is fostered through the sharing of stories and life. It is through these stories that we begin to see our own reflections, and whether they be reflections of joy or pain, the knowing that we are part of something larger begins to take form. It is my deep desire to share my story of heartbreak and healing, and for you to know you are not alone. I have spent the past 20 years as a speech-language pathologist, working with small children ages 2-6 years, with a variety of developmental differences. These differences include social-emotional, sensory, speech-language, behavioral, and cognitive. I have worked with children who have medical/biological challenges, and children on the Autism Spectrum. I have listened to parents express their frustrations, grief, anger, love, and wonder at all of the above. I have a tremendous capacity to hold compassion for any situation regarding parenting and raising children. In addition to my professional experience, I am also the mother of two very special boys.
My children are older now, 16 and 14 years. It has been through my role as mother of these boys that my entire spiritual being awakened.
My older son came into the world with his own unique wiring. We began seeing language, sensory, and emotional differences as early as 1 year of age. He grew into an extremely challenging toddler and young child, and from there into a challenging older child and adolescent. He has had numerous speech-language, occupational therapy, and behavioral therapies. He has gotten a few diagnoses along the way. My boy was highly aggressive and tantrumed excessively from when he was a toddler into pre-adolescence. As a small boy he could not be left alone with his younger brother because of his aggression. Our neighbors moved because of the nightly temper tantrums that would last for hours. When he was 11years old, I worked with a Shaman to clear his energetic field of anything that was not his Divine essence. It was this experience of mothering my older boy that brought me to my knees.
My younger son developed a fever when he was 6 weeks old. This sickness progressed quickly into a diagnosis of meningitis and encephalitis. I was terrified, as I had worked with children who had meningitis as infants, who were left extremely developmentally delayed. My boy spent 5 weeks in the hospital. Family flew in from all over the country to help us with his care and that of our two year old. My boy slowly began to heal, and at the end of this 5 week period, he appeared as close to healthy as we could hope for.
I began noticing developmental differences around 1 year of age, when his language was slow to develop. Given my background, I began working with him, and at 2 years of age had him evaluated at the center I worked at. This began a long road of speech-language and occupational therapy that lasted for years. Shortly after turning 5 years of age, my boy began to display physical and vocal tics. It became very intense quickly, and he eventually received a diagnosis of Tourette's Syndrome. When it was time for him to go to elementary school, my boy went into a special classroom for children with learning differences. After 2 years, and at my insistence, my boy transitioned into regular education in second grade, with speech, OT, and resource teaching. This proved to be a wise decision, as he has thrived in school.
Beginning in 5th grade, we began to see compulsive behaviors such as opening and closing doors repetitively. By the beginning of 7th grade, this had bloomed into Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Many children with Tourettes go on to have OCD, as these neurologies are located in the same part of the brain. While my son’s Tourettes had decreased over time, the compulsions had grown. We got him a therapist who provided Exposure Response Prevention Therapy, and within 5 months he was able to end these sessions as his OCD was under control.
On my 41st birthday, my husband took my boys, who at the time were 6 and 8 years of age, to buy me a present. Knowing I loved to garden, he took them to a local nursery. They came back with a large goddess statue, one I did not recognize. I was in the beginning stages of my priestess training, and learning about so many different Goddesses and the different physical archetypes they presented as. This one I could not name, although she looked familiar. My husband told me both boys insisted she was the one. Here she is, in my old garden:
I absolutely loved her! My husband was told her name, but had forgotten. After a few days I insisted he call the shop and find out who she was. When he texted me, my world froze for a second: it was Kuan Yin, Chinese Goddess of Compassion and Mercy. Someone had given me a very small stature of Kuan Yin years before, and I had just pulled her out and begun to learn about her medicine. I did not immediately see the resemblance, as one was tiny and glass, and the other enormous and stone. My children, the source of so much pain, grief, and love in my life, had given me Kuan Yin as a birthday present.
I began working with Kuan Yin daily. The elements of water and surrender began to call powerfully, and I found myself leaving water bowls filled with flowers from my garden at her feet daily. I began to surrender deeply to prayer, crying for help to turn the anger I felt towards my older boy into compassion for a being who was also suffering. I went deep inside the inner chambers of my heart, where so many hard emotions around my family life were stored and ignored. It felt hot and angry, and so hard to witness, yet Kuan Yins water and grace soothed this space with such ease, my body began to crave these states. I kept returning to Kuan Yin again and again, flower bowl after flower bowl, until the inevitable happened: my heart cracked open and all the heat and anger rose like steam up into the cosmos for release.
My heart, now free of pain and anger, began to flood with the compassion so generously bestowed upon me by Kuan Yin. Wave after wave of watery grace began to fill me, and as my heart filled with water, tears began to stream down my face. I loved my boy, and I could finally feel that above anything else that was happening. The Divine began to fill me with love.
I have used a variety of spiritual tools over the years to help hold the space of mothering my boys, and it is these tools that I wish to share with you. I can’t say it all magically resolved simply because my heart cracked open. That was the gateway to the presence of the Divine within my parenting, and to the collaboration that has evolved ever since. It is an active process, and one that must be refreshed, renewed, and surrendered to constantly. The human body, both physical and emotional, requires this. We are simply too prone to trauma, anger, and grief, for healing family wounds to be a one or even two time experience. It is the courage of returning again and again, with the Divine as our ally, that allows love and light to transform the family story from one of pain to grace. I have done this enumerable times, and will continue to as long as I call myself Mother.
So what can I offer you?
Here is a sample of some of the offerings I have created when working with Spirit to heal my family space. Most of these I have done alone, or with my husband. Some of these practices my children have joined in.
(To see Parenting With Spirit Offerings, click HERE)
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(If you wish to skip Blessing the Golden Children and go right to Pricing Bundles, click HERE)
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Blessing the Golden Children
We have entered a time where more children are incarnating on Earth with a heightened sense of remembering their star seed origin. These Rainbow and Golden children are here on purpose-to bless the Earth with their wisdom, and to guide and lead humanity to greater healing, global community, and coming into right relationship with the Earth. We are all aware of the dire need to change our ways as a people and to honor the Earth as a living being, and our Mother. These star seed children are here to show us the way.
I see these little ones all around me. Their eyes and smile shine a light that goes straight to my heart, and fills me with joy. They love rainbows, unicorns, fairies and enchanted things. They love animals and nature and have a high need for the outdoors. They are heightened observers of everything around them. They are emotionally intelligent at a young age and seem wise beyond their years. They have a strong sense of community and justice and wish for everyone to be friends. Their imaginations are amazingly expansive and their pretend play vast.
Perhaps I am describing your very child.
I am fortunate to have known many young mammas who have been blessed with Golden Children. Some of them are still babes, yet the energy is vital and strong.
Nurturing these children and their families is part of my calling. All children, no matter the background or story, are blessed and are Golden at heart. All members of a family, no matter the struggle, are Divine in nature.
How can I support you?
Here are some of the practices I can offer to strengthen and nurture family bonding, and to support the Divine unfolding of the Golden Child.
(If you wish to skip this section and go right to Pricing Bundles, click HERE)
Parenting With Spirit Offerings
Here are examples of some of the ways I can support you on your journey of raising children during these incredible times of planetary change:
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Working to heal the energies around Covid. This is an unprecedented time on the planet where as humans we are being asked to handle a tremendous amount of loss, grief, and change. These energies can be overwhelming to both our emotional and physical bodies. I can work with the energies of specific family members or the entire family tribe to help heal, manage and hold this experience.
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Creating family altars, with intentions and prayers built into their creation. These can be done in various rooms in the house, or outside. These altars can offer immense nourishment of harmony and growth to the entire family system.
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Creating personalized meditations that nurture you, your child, and your family. These meditations can help center, align, heal, and bring love into the family circle.
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Creating ceremony that works with the various elements such as fire, air, water, and the Earth, to manifest various hopes, dreams, and ways of being within the family tribe.
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Exploring the family blueprint to look at how/why each family member has incarnated in this lifetime together.
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Rites of Passage Ceremonies for children. There are various times in a child’s growth that mark the transition from one phase to another. From birth, to moving into the tween years, to adolescence, to adulthood, each phase is honored and celebrated as the child’s unique experience of growth . Specific intentions, goals and dreams, can be alchemized, creating a powerful gateway that can empower each child into the next phase of expansion.
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Rites of Passage Ceremonies for siblings or parents. We are all interconnected as a humanity. This weaving starts with the connection we have to our family tribe. Honoring the phases of growth and change that occur as mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters, adds new layers and patterns to the weaving we call family, and can greatly enrich each person’s experience within the tribe.
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Making offerings to the land, or your altar, for the continued healing of your family. Calling on the elements of the land to assist in your parenting. I call on the mountain, the ocean, the redwoods and the bees when asking for support for my family.
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Calling on your ancestral line of love and light to assist in the healing of your family.
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Creating art that represents aspects of family healing. This can be kept, buried, or burned depending on the intention.
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Calling on Source/God/Goddess/Higher Power, or whatever word you use, to connect the higher selves of each family member for greater love, peace, joy, wisdom, healing and ease.
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Clearing energy fields of each family member so they can live as their highest potential. Each child is Golden in nature. Each family member has a Divine Blueprint that is waiting to come alive.
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Exploring and clearing Karma within the family structure and between family members.
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Personal mentoring for each family member around whatever areas they wish to experience healing, growth and change.
And there is more. The healing possibilities are endless. Our ability as creators and manifestors of reality are endless. We are powerful and potent and capable of so much healing and transmutation, not only within our own family system, but our global family as well. As within, so without. As without, so within. We just need the courage to proceed on this path. It is my Diving Calling to nurture and support you on this journey we call Family :)
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Parenting With Spirit Pricing Bundles
Bundles 1 & 2 are on Zoom or in person at my home temple space once things become safe to be in person. Bundle 3 can include a personal visit to your home or property for ceremony or healing work for those that live locally.
Bundle 1
1 session
$275
One 2-hour session where we will hold space for your personal family, and their hopes, dreams, and desires. Intuitive exploration of your child’s Soul Path/Divine Blueprint or your family’s Soul Path/Divine Blueprint can occur in this space. Healing can happen organically during the session. This can be an initial session or follow-up session to Bundles 2 & 3.
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Bundle 2
2 sessions
$450
One 2-hour session and one 90-minute session. For those that wish to go deeper in establishing meditations or ongoing rituals as part of a regular practice. Intuitive exploration and healing can happen organically during these sessions.
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Bundle 3
4 sessions
$800
(plus additional costs of travel or live ceremonial work)
One 2-hour session and three 90-minute sessions. For those that want deep healing, intuitive understanding, and/or personalized rituals or ceremonies for your family. This can include a live visit from me to your family home once the Shelter In Place is lifted.