“Sitting here on the porch, watching the sun go down. Except there is no watcher, just the sun, setting, setting. From purest Emptiness, brilliant clarity shines forth. The sound of the birds, over there. Clouds, a few, right up there. But there is no "up," no "down," no "over," and no "there" ----because there is no "me" or "I" for which these directions make sense. There is just this. Simple. clear, easy, effortless, ever-present this.” - Ken Wilber.

I remember the first time I was taken into the sunset. That's what it used to feel like, the experience I've come to know as Oneness. I would watch the mosaic of the sky's last light many times as a young woman and become silenced by it's beauty. I would watch until it felt like I was no longer someone looking at the sunset as a separate entity instead I would feel like I had become it. That I always was it and that for those brief moments I had come Home. A reprieve from the harsh realities of childhood bullying and adolescent frivolities my intimate moments amongst the collage of the sky would haunt me and spur the life long search to understand these experiences. Since that young age I have not spent a day free from my longing for truth and understanding.

 
In 1997 my search lead me naturally to the University where, more than anything else, I was taught how to question, reflect and inquire into the nature of reality and myself.  I am forever grateful for my time spent at Augustana, a small liberal arts university in the heart of the Alberta prairies. I came to yoga with a local senior teacher, Dawn Kilarski, in my last year at Augustana and it gave a grounded and bodily anchor to my search. I've come to realize the unique and authentic nature of Dawn's offerings and how I have been profoundly affected by them. With every conscious breath and every mindful movement I became more earnest in my desire to know more about yoga and in 2002 I moved to Calgary, AB where I studied for a year at one of the city's largest Ashtanga Vinyasa style yoga studios. A year later I found myself in Trinity Yoga's teacher training program and after that at the Salt Spring Centre of Yoga where I began to live yoga and integrate it into all aspects of my life. This ashram was an intentional community deeply steeped in the 8 limbs and traditional Samkhya philosophy. My time at the Salt Spring Centre presented a depth to yoga that seemed to be far more immense than any physically oriented class or training I had taken up to that point. It was no longer enough for me to take others words for it that yoga can lead us to Freedom I had to know what that meant, why yoga was able to bring us to that, and if that Freedom was anything close to the intense unitive experiences I had in my adolescence and numerous times since.  After leaving the West Coast of Canada in 2003 and returning to my university town of Camrose, AB I began practicing with my original teacher, Dawn, and continue to still.  I began to teach classes at the same time and in 2004 opened a small studio called Shine – Centre for Yoga. During this time I was married to my first love, Michael, with whom I have journeyed to the center of my self and who has reminded time and again through his gentle ways to remain grounded. After three years of successful operation I began to feel a discontent with the amount of time I spent on the business end of things and continually dealing new students looking for a quick fix and a toned butt through yoga and decided to close the doors in 2007. Since then I have been teaching smaller groups of students out of my home and in the community. The decision to “go smaller” has been one of the best decisions of my life as it has enabled me to have a strong relationship with my students that is grounded in authenticity and a depth far beyond fixing or toning anything.  In the past few years I have been strongly influenced by Sandra Sammartino, Richard Miller and the philosophy of Ken Wilber. At a 2008 retreat with Richard I came to realize that when I felt like I was being taken into the sunset as a girl that in fact I wasn't taken anywhere, I was simply seeing through the illusion of the ego which declares us as separate entities from the rest of the universe.  In these moments throughout my life all that I took myself to be was demolished what was left was Just This. The Isness of all things, not-separate, not-isolated but One reality. 

In May of 2009 my daughter, and first born came to us two months prematurely. Rowan Elise was and continues to be the greatest test of my living yoga.  She is the crucible through which I have experienced my greatest joy and greatest challenge. At this point in my journey I continue to live my average daily life learning to celebrate all that I am. The darkness and the light. And so, I eat my mint chocolate ice cream while watching absurd comedies rather than banning them from my life. When time allows I love to drink beer in pubs with my beloved friends and as I can I sit before the vast sky and remember my Self, as Love. In the words of Heidegger I am learning to let Being Be. Every once in a while Grace moves in me and I feel the immense letting go of egoic striving -  in radiant moments with my young daughter, in the humbling moments of disagreement with my husband and in the quiet moments when I walk amongst the frosted trees of my neighborhood.  The call by Spirit is there constantly and every time I awaken, again, to who I really am the call gets louder. So I follow it, wherever it takes me, faithfully, so that I may live as Love.  

Most recently I am in the process of completing a Master's degree in Counseling Psychology, en route to Registering as a Psychologist in Alberta.  In addition, I have had the great fortune of entering a leadership program  with a the incredible spiritual teachers of Enneagram which continues to amaze and transform me.