ABOUT
At a Health Crisis;
Where We Hit the Bottom.
Hello and welcome - a thousand heartfelt welcomes to you. I’m Sky; a writer, shamanic practitioner and an animist.
What Brought Me Here
Some years ago now, after the birth of my son (now 15), I went through that early harrowing period of new mama-hood when my baby didn’t sleep for 3 years. We woke up every 45 minutes, 24-7, no joke! Severe sleep deprivation turned into postpartum anxiety, that evolved into OCD. I was counting, counting, counting things. I was having recurring, obsessive visions of carnage and violence happening to my family. I had a hard time leaving the house. I had a hard time with anger. I had a hard time with everything.
Then at year 3, when we had finally started sleeping through the night regularly, my health bottomed out. I was diagnosed with Graves’ Disease, an autoimmune malfunction. I spent the next year laid up on the sofa, incapacitated, not able to walk down the block.
Somewhere in there, in the insanity that was 2012 mania and my inner landscape, I built a small altar space on the top of my piano and began praying. Hard. I had not spoken to any spirit or God for years and years – a lifetime really. At my altar I prayed for a deeper connection to something that would anchor me in the storm - a ballast. I came in earnest (and a little desperation) day after day, left offerings, spoke out loud. Eventually a teacher appeared in my life. This is how I came to the path of shamanism and how things began to change for me.
My health crisis reminds me of the story of Humpty Dumpty. I have always said, having a baby shattered me into a thousand tiny sparkling pieces. What I didn’t realize at the time was, I needed to break.
It’s been 12 years of study since then, with several teachers and lineages. Throughout this time, my goals have changed and evolved. Initially I needed to pursue my own healing. Then, establish a spiritual path that could sustain that healing. More recently and in light of world events (naughts so far amiright?), I’ve felt the, perhaps inevitable, pull to step onto the path of service.
The beginning of that new path is here.
“The doors to the world of the wild are few but precious. If you have a deep scar, that is a door, if you have an old, old story, that is a door. If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door. If you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door.”
My Studies
Credentials, Teachers, Mentors
Formal Training
⇢ 2025
Rhodes Wellness College - Wellness Counsellor Diploma
2020 - 2022
7 Threads Folk Medicine Practitioner Training with Angela Prider / Shamanic Counselling, Energy Medicine
2019
Usui Reiki Level I & II with Fleur Choy
2016
Vancouver Hospice Society / 30 hour hospice-volunteer training
2016-2018
Seven Threads Animistic Arts Apprenticeship with Angela Prider / Initiate, 3 years, Celtic Shamanism. Hearth Carrier.
2015
Certification 200 HR Yoga Teacher Training with Karma Teachers / Vinyasa, Yin, Meditation, Yogic philosophy study.
Certificate 50 HR Yin Yoga with Jolene Bayda / Anatomy, History of Yin, teaching methodologies, practice.
Workshop - Trauma-Sensitive Yoga Theory with Nicole Marcia
2012-13
Medicine Wheel, Peruvian Shamanism with Nikki Hainstock / One year immersion. Full Mesa Carrier
2005-2007
Langara College / AA (Associate of Arts), Fine Arts Diploma
Hey Do Our Stars Line Up?
These are my personal maps:
▻ INFJ
▻ Enneagram Type 4: Individualist
▻ Manifesting Generator AF
▻ Pisces Sun, Aries Rising, Gemini Moon
Past & Ongoing Studies
Norse Witchcraft (Seidr), Witchcraft and Celtic Studies
Tarot and divination, Rune studies
Traditional and folkish witchcraft, folk-medicine/shamanism
Herbal medicine, gardening, food medicine & cooking
Yoga practice of 20+ years
Regular meditation, pranayama, mantra, journaling and connected breathwork practices
Lineages & Philosophies
Animism
Astrology
BioHacking
Natural Health, Alternative & Energy Medicines
Neopaganism
Norse, British, Celtic, Scottish, Cornish shamanism, folklore & fairytales
Peruvian shamanism; the Q’ero people
Polytheism
Traditional Chinese Medicine
Yoga & Ayurveda
My ancient ancestors are primarily Germanic and Celtic, from Scotland, England, Cornwall, and more recently, the USA by way of Salem MA, to Canada for the past 5 generations.
WELCOME TO THE DEEP DARK WOODS
My Work is an offering, to you, to the Land and to the Good World.
In Reciprocity
I offer my Work to your true self, your deeper spirit yearning to come out and come back to the forest. That part of you that you miss but you can’t even put your finger on it? That’s your spirit — that place in you where your soul and nature intersect. You know you miss it. I can assure you, Nature undoubtedly, categorically misses you.
I offer my Work to the denizens of that natural world - those cousins that we have ignored and forgotten, in this and the Otherworlds. Flora, fauna, devas, elementals. May we humans come back into right-relationship with the planet and all of nature, our Home.
I offer my Work to the archetypal Good World - that Narnia; a place of eternal green and roving forests, where the destruction on this earth never happened, and we humans are healthy and well and deeply linked to each other, and to every tree, animal, bird and stone, at the heart.
FAQ & Tasters
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The medicine bundle in the Andean tradition is called the ‘mesa’, meaning altar. In my current lineage (eclectic Celtic folk medicine/shamanism) we work with a similar bundle called the ‘hearth’ - a bundle of personal power objects and stones, ceremonially activated over the course of a year or two. In the Andean tradition the stones are known as ‘coulias’. In the Irish-Celtic they are called ‘Lia’. In both cases, the mesa/hearth is considered the centre of your personal power. As my Teacher has said to me, “Your hearth is your heart.”
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The term “shaman” is problematic. Over the past 400 years or so, it has become the term widely used in anthropology and society, and adopted by many indigenous people in areas like Peru, Mexico and more, to describe a specific kind of healer that practices a set of practices in a community context, that are similar globally.
Cultures worldwide have or had a healer such as this who performed similar acts of healing - and each culture has different names for this healer.
In modern times, the practice of shamanism has branched out to include ‘shamanic practitioners’ (those who are not named Shaman by their community but have instead been trained by teachers) and those who practice shamanism or who are shamanists (a personal spiritual path).
In some Western circles there’s an effort to move away from the use of the root word shaman and all of its forms (shamanic, shamanism, shamanist) in order to steer clear of cultural appropriation. Some say a new term for the practice is needed.
Some have used 'healer' ‘medicine worker’, ‘spirit-worker’, ‘energy healer’, ‘animist’. None of these terms encapsulate everything that shaman means, but Folk Medicine Practitioner perhaps comes the closest.
Moving away from the term and any harm it may cause may be slow process, as so many disparate and varied peoples world-wide have used this term for hundreds of years, and it is easily recognized and understood in many cultures. So that we can all understand each other and what we practice, and until there’s a better universal term, a harm reduction approach may be needed to avoid further harm by insisting that indigenous groups suddenly not use the term they have adopted for multiple generations (ie: my shaman from Peru calls himself shaman and insists on the term.)
On this website I endeavour to move away from the term, though at times it is interchangeable with Folk Medicine Practitioner when I feel shamanism encapsulates concepts more succinctly.
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Donna Eden says, “Energy runs through everyone, like electricity in a building. It keeps us moving, animating our muscles and bones and heart—everything. But unlike electricity, this life force has incredible intelligence. It is the foundation of all the body’s physical systems—the immune system, the respiratory system, the reproductive system, all of them—directing them in the amazing ways they keep us alive and thriving. Energy medicine is the practice of tapping into this brilliant energy and mobilizing it for your health and well-being.”
Folk Medicine/Shamanism is the study of and right-relationship with these life-force or “living energies” that surround us and make up our world. The term ‘medicine’ in this context can be thought of as clusters of energy within the living energies that surround us, that have their own flavour, essence or vibration. Everything has its medicine. The Folk Healer, through training and practice, becomes aware of medicines and learns from them (crow, bear, river, plant, person).
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In short - not personally no. However “Witchcraft” is simply a skill-set that can be employed by a practitioner, much like any other. The skill-set itself isn’t inherently ‘good’ or ‘evil’, any more than modern medicine is. Nor is it a religious term. Any morality, personal belief or ethics employed in the use of these skills, resides soundly in the practitioner. I loosely use the term ‘white witch’ to distinguish myself from baneful or black magic practitioners who use their skills for revenge or control over others, or to curse & hex. Though these practices may have their own place in the way of things, these are not my areas of expertise. In fact in my studies we are taught how to unravel such unfortunate predicaments.
As for as any devil worship, well certainly that was a part of things back in the day when witches were hung and burned - though it was a lot less prevalent than most people realize. Most of those poor women and men were God-fearing Christians with shitty neighbours.
In the modern world though, most witches will tell you straight up if they work with a Devil, are devotees of Lucifer or study Satanism (yes these are all a thing, and also not inherently evil philosophies). And, if that’s not what you are seeking then, go hard in the other direction.
If you know some Wiccans, which is a religion btw, they will tell you that the Christian Devil has nothing to do with their religion and, in fact they don’t believe in that concept, nor the duality of heaven and hell. So, asking them if they are devil worshipers is akin to asking a Hindu if they are baptized or a Buddhist if they pray to Allah at dawn.
Be my pen pal.
Let’s slooow down a bit together and get off socials. I’ll send you inspo in your inbox instead. You can read with a cup of joe when you have down time. Seasonal, moon-time, nature cycles, spirit-talk.
