As a Coach

In 2016, I continued the leadership coaching I had begun in The Heroes’ Narrative. I found that I have a gift for it and I took a leap, doubled down on coaching and got certified by the Deep Coaching Institute (an I.C.F. certified program.) My clients included the King County Council and the county’s Office of Performance, Strategy and Budget; the City of Seattle, and many more. I coached elected representatives and candidates for office, executive directors and department managers and consultants.

During this time, I created Leadership M.A.G.I.C., a complete leadership development program that builds strength, confidence and healthy power for progressive leaders. And I kept noticing persistent themes around burnout, especially among women, queer and BIPOC leaders. I saw that the burnout from our unpaid labor is both the foundation of our movement and the greatest threat to the change we must make.

I saw that it’s not enough to name the patriarchal model of leadership. It must be replaced by something older, wiser, more powerful and more fun: witchcraft.

As a Witch

During the years of working in progressive politics, and getting more and more creative and witchy in my approach, I was studying witchcraft. I think I’ve always been a witch – growing up knee deep in creeks and talking to tadpoles means I’ll always have a dorky and reverent nature girl inside me. In 1993, I learned that there was a name for my understanding of the divine and held my first ritual on Mt Rainier. Even though I have since led rituals of hundreds of witches singing in the woods, been initiated in the Reclaiming tradition of witchcraft, and taught at dozens of witchcamps and retreats, that first ritual will always be among the most powerful.

As a Descendant

I identify as a femme, cis-gender, white woman, a fairy tale nerd, single mom, nature geek and TV addict. I honor my lineages through my pleasure and my work. I push my own edges to use my privilege and my voice for  the Great Turning (thank you Joanna Macy) toward a just and life-sustaining society. I have community that calls me in when I fuck it up and I keep learning. I believe that shame is the enemy of justice, not a tool for progress, and that the way we make the change is the change we make.

I live on the stolen land of the Coast Salish people, which is also called Seattle. I worship the trees and the rain and also get so sick of it by the time the pagan holiday of Imbolc (February 2) rolls around. I honor and work with my ancestors who want to be part of healing and repair, mostly Cornish and Welsh peoples. I call in those, way far back, who had an intact relationship with the land, as I seek to do my work from that place. (Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. This human experience!)

I am striving to be a good ancestor to all of our descendants and kin– human and beyond human. I am supported and inspired by the intelligence of the natural world and the witches who have gone before.  

MY VALUES

I believe in LOVE. I choose this world, creeks and crises, children and communities, frogs, and all the fabulous gifted artists and activists, witches and queers, elected officials and priestesses, organizers and executive directors and parents and optimists who keep one foot planted and what is really happening to this world we love and place the other foot in the future we are authoring, together, now, a place where our cities are safe for all our children and frogs. Why frogs? Because I love them with all my heart, I grew up making creek-deep palaces for tadpoles, and because they are masters of miraculous metamorphosis and the change we need right now seems like a miracle sometimes and also because if our cities are safe for all our children and frogs- if they are in relationship with the land and made so the most fragile among us can thrive– then they are safe for everyone.

This is wisdom. I believe in WISDOM by Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ definition from her wonderful book, The Dangerous Old Woman. She defines wisdom simply as “what works.“ She is an elder to me as I become older and more dangerous every day. Dangerous to the Story of Normal and wise to its lies that this crossroads change moment isn’t ours. It is ours. It belongs to the Wise. We are the future elders of this transformative movement of love and belonging and we know that what works matters as much as love and belonging. We are the elders of this future, and all our teachers stand behind us, from the ancestors who have done their healing to the living leaders of our times. I acknowledge my teachers – Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Johanna Macy, Starhawk and my other many elders in the Reclaiming tradition of witchcraft, adrienne maree brown, Natalie Goldberg, John Brazaitas, Resmaa Menakem, Mary Oliver, Lindsey Mack, Mary Greer, and so many more.

I honor their work by acknowledging them. I believe in HONOR, in living my values of justice and truth and honoring all my lineages. My teachers, my ancestors of blood, spirit and craft, including those ancestors who want to make repair and those who once had an intact relationship with the land. Honoring my values and lineages means learning, failing and working with the shame and fear and anger that is part of learning in this river of blood, shored by bones and skin, that is my body. I honor my body. I honor my identities. I strive to see my own cisgender whiteness ever more clearly and reduce that harm while making my absolute best offering for this world I love. I believe in answering my calling as a transformative priestess and storyteller in a lineage of priestexes and storytellers. We are in service to all our descendants in the time of the Great Turning, which is Joanna Macy’s term for this crossroads moment in which we turn toward a just and life-sustaining society.

This is transformative, and it is magic. I believe in MAGIC. I believe that we are capable of the miraculous transformative change that we need now. I know that our bodies are intimately connected to the web of life and the intelligence of the wild and the wisdom of the land. I believe in the magic that comes when we link that wisdom together: my full wild intelligence with yours, with theirs, with the cycle of the seasons. There IS time. There is time for rest when we let intuition tell us which work is bullshit and a waste of time that we could be spending naked in the lake or sitting close to the bonfire. Anyone wanna come closer to the fire? There is magic in this gathering. There is a magic that you were born to make. With this magic together, we can meet this moment, and we can do it with pleasure.

I believe in standing with what is, in holding, and witnessing and healing the pain, and I believe in PLEASURE, which is our bodies’ navigation system, our compass guiding us towards life. Let us gather in ways that make our eyes light with laughter. Let us feel the ache and release of healing – together instead of alone. Let us be guided by what is most weird and wonderful. Let us love the miracle of frogs and whatever it is that you love, in your secret and also not-so-secret heart as we all go places we have never gone before for the sake of all our descendants in the time of the Great Turning.

These are my values and this is one way of telling you who I am.. These are my values and they are a spell. This is a spell that I cast for the world that we love.

As a Progressive Leader

Over nearly 30 years, I have worked with thousands of progressive leaders, activists, elected representatives and funders. My clients have included national and local non-profits like the Ocean Conservancy and Climate Solutions; publicly elected bodies and agencies like the King County Council and the Office of Performance, Strategy and Budget; activist and political groups like NARAL Pro-Choice Washington and the Washington State Democratic Caucus; and foundations like the Aspen Institute, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Progress Alliance of Washington.

From field director for Jay Inslee for Congress to campaign director to consultant, I’ve worked in progressive politics at nearly every level for almost 30 years.

In 2010, I led creation of “The Heroes’ Narrative,” a collaborative communications strategy that was adopted by thousands of advocates and elected’s in Washington state. It has become a national model and continues to this day. I used the power of storytelling to make change- not just by winning campaigns but by helping progressive advocates work together as inspired authors of a common vision. I began to understand how working with story creates healthy authority. (See testimonials here.)