Art.
Truth.
Connection.
Change.
As a lifelong student of mysticism, Indigenous knowledge systems, and cultural transformation, I help people reconnect with their purpose through trauma-informed somatics, ancestral wisdom, imagination, and relational practice.
Why I choose this life.
Members of the Waorani, Kichwa and Shuar tribes sign an intertribal peace agreement with Ixchel as part of her peacemaking work with Ya’ax ix’im Ek Balam. 8 years ago I was living a life that I thought was my dream: I had a great art career, was an executive at a values driven nonprofit, married to someone I loved and had a good relationship with my family. Yet I was deeply unhappy.
During that time I had my first profound mystical experience. Something inside me spoke with a clarity I had never known. Over time I learned to trust that voice more. It took me to the Amazon, Nepal, Siberia, tribal territories throughout North and South America and, most importantly, it took me inward.
I know the pain of feeling lost and like nothing is working, or nothing has meaning. I don’t want you to feel that alone.
I have found some practices that work. They are practical and meaningful. And if you are here I have the feeling they may work for you also.
Your time and attention are your most valuable assets. Thanks for spending some of it getting to know me. It is an honor. I love you.
Change your story, change your life.
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Sessions are conversational, experiential, creative and collaborative. Depending on a client’s needs, our work may include: somatic awareness practices, mindfulness, communication exercises, arts-based activities, guided reflection, nervous system regulation tools, and relational inquiry.
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I see moments of challenge as opportunities to get to know more of who my clients are and who their soul wants to become.
Rather than thinking about periods of transformation or rupture as failings, I see them as gifts that are waiting to be understood.
Together we work to unlock these gifts, regulate the nervous system, strengthen communication, cultivate self-awareness, and build a new infrastructure for your bourgeoning self.
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I have seen visible and astounding transformation in the individuals and communities I work with. I use qualitative surveys at the start of work with new clients to help establish a baseline for initial conditions.
Then over time, I compare how a client or community is progressing based upon their original concerns and desires.
With consistent work, most people see significant improvement in mood in 6 months, dramatic change in 9 months and remarkable transformation in 2 years.
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MFA Columbia University with emphasis in trauma, community and collective transformation
EdM Harvard University with emphasis in movement culture strategy and informal pedagogy
5+ years of somatic training (Somatica Institute®, Hakomi Somatic Practice and Polyvagal Theory)
trained in Tibetan Buddhist Philosophy (Kopan Monastery)
acomplished arts-based and community action researcher (3rd Action Space and Center for Urban Pedagogy)
award winning visual artist (Soros Land, Memory and Art Fellowship)
My constellations:
In Nahuatl the word altepetl can be used to describe a place or community. But ancestrally it was used to describe a people linked by a mountain and water system.
To understand me is to understand who walked before me and showed me the way and the land that teaches and informs me.
I am rooted in the kingdom of Hawai’i, my mountain is Mauna Kea. I pay homage to Mauna Loa and the spirit of Pele here.
My primary teachers are Dr. Renda Dionne Madrigal(Turtle Mountain Chippewa) and by extension her late husband, Luke Madrigal(Cahilla) and Dr. Yumiko Banchan Bamba(Japanese).
My sangha is Braided Wisdom, and my primary spiritual teachers have been Akiko Sasamoto (Zen Buddhism), Elizabete Gomes, Lama Rod Owens, and the monks at Kopan Monastery in the tradition of Lama Thubten Yeshe.
My cultural and blood lineage is Uto-Aztecan form North Eastern Mexico (maternal) and Gaul / Celt from Northern Europe (paternal).
My primary indigenous teachers come from the Amazon (Waorani, Kichwa, Shuar, Yawanaw and Shipibo), Mexico (Zapotec, Wixrarika, and Nahuatl), and Guatemala (Maya Kiche). I additionally greatly informed the 6 tribe Haudenosaunee Confederacy and the Great Peace (co-presenter at the University of Buffalo Storyteller conference, 2024).
My work is shaped by the teachers, communities, and traditions that have welcomed me.
I am a somatic practitioner, board-certified sexologist, spiritual counselor, visual artist, and cultural strategist. For more than fifteen years I have supported individuals and communities through healing, relationship work, systems change, and creative transformation.
My practice has been shaped through extensive training in Hakomi, the Somatica Institute®, mindfulness practice, trauma-informed care, Buddhist philosophy, Indigenous psychology, ritual practice, narrative strategy, and embodied communication. I continue to see myself first and foremost as a student.
For the last seven years I have worked closely with Indigenous communities in the upper Ecuadorian Amazon supporting culturally grounded peacebuilding and relational initiatives. I am the founder of Xi’im Ek Balam, an Indigenous-centered cultural strategy and educational organization exploring consciousness, systems change, ancestral knowledge, and relational intelligence, and I serve as the founding spiritual director of an Indigenous church.
My work is deeply informed by the teachers, communities, and lineages that have welcomed me. Alongside my formal training, I remain a lifelong student of Anahuac and Highland Maya knowledge systems, Buddhist practice, and Indigenous philosophies of relationship and reciprocity.
I am currently pursuing doctoral studies in Wisdom Studies at Ubiquity University, engaged in independent research through the School of the Ecocene, and serve as a group leader for the Somatica Institute®. I hold a masters in education from Harvard and a masters in visual arts from Columbia.
Read my full bio here.
Who I Work With:
