Greetings from San Diego, California, unceded land of the Kumeyaay People! I attempt to be a good mother, poet, freelance writer, ghostwriter, word lover, yogi, and friend. My debut collection of poetry, She Bleeds Sestinas, was published by Atmosphere Press in August, 2023.

The year 2025 gifted me multiple opportunities to read and write reviews for Mom Egg Review. Shining compositions by a wide variety of poets and authors lit my days with hope and awe. Such a treasure of words, thoughts, imaginings, visions, and provocations charmed my days with magic. With sincere intent, I am cultivating inner peace. Dark times find me practicing with creatives who enter shamanic journeys and connect through the Creative Self Within. Moments of infinite quiet and deep rest and restoration keep me aware of what is truly important, what is real, what is everlasting.

Amidst shadows and tree limbs, I enter a phase of solitude and deep work with Himalayan Singing Bowls. Is this healing, meditation, creative innovation, escapism, witchcraft, bliss? I am over being curious about outcomes. My compass points Due North to victory over chaos.

As Yogiraj encourages us “Earth Peace Through Self Peace.” Within my heart and mind, I am building libraries, sanctuaries of silence, cities under the hush, and nations dedicated to still quiet Peace Inside. Inside, I grow gardens, groves, orchards, forests. Here, we find titles, such as The Dictionary of Self Peace, The History of Earth Peace, and the Epic Resonance. There is also a rare volume entitled: Essence of Cymatics. My home is a sound healing sanctuary, a spiral of singing bowls inside a luminous crystal ring. A team of invisible sound gnomes, called aushreevelluums, invisible luminous beings of microscopic size. Their purpose and joy is to craft the patterns that sound waves create inside this human body. These angelic analysts venture inside the cells, dance with the release of hormones, and restructure DNA; additionally, they go and return from the Inner Mystery.

Every strike of the bowl tolls, rings, and resounds all about and inside and out. Someday, I will be learned at striking and rubbing to heal. Once again, returning as a Beginner. Eager to learn. Listening. Eyes are wide and heart seeks knowingness.

For years leading to today, I have studied and practiced yoga philosophy, Sanskrit, and decolonial approaches to contemplative expression. My interest in deep internal inquiry and potentials of human consciousness and creativity began when I was an introverted child. A trove of fiction, essays, poetry, book reviews, and memoir resonate inside this mind. For fun, I play hang drum and piano. Lately, I invite Bowls to sing for me, and this may sound crazy, but not only do they sing; they dance, too. Like gnomes, undines, sylphs, and salamanders, Aushreeveluums radiate joy, delighting in their handiwork.

Completing a Master of Arts degree at Columbia University in East Asian Languages and Cultures proved to be an exciting and fulfilling time in my life. Through study of Chinese Language, I fell in love with the premodern ghost-story master, Pu Songling. From here, my life gets more mystical.

For years after completing my M.A., I taught English as a Second Language and Yoga and wrote. I have over 1,000 hours of training and experience as a yoga and meditation teacher. I traveled to the Himalayas in 2017 as a ghost writer who learned esoteric practices and became “a friend in death.” I have created a conscious expression learning curriculum that helps contemplative writers use the Ashtavakra Gita as a guide for daily internal inquiry to gain self knowledge. This practice is called “Sestina Sadhana.” I share this esoteric creative journey with anyone who is interested in serious, internal inquiry that uses both yoga and formal poetry for daily practice of authentic humility combined with bold self expression. If you are an independent thinker with a yoga and expressive practice, please reach out. We’re kindred spirits!   

For several years, I worked for Embodied Philosophy as a Learning Navigator and Community Storyteller. I also served as a member of the Board of Directors for the San Diego Writers and Editors Guild. These days, I serve as a volunteer newsletter editor for the National Charity League Seaside Chapter, as well as Communications Chair of the La Jolla High School foundation. I continue to write poetry and book reviews. I am also a volunteer docent at the Kumeyaay-Ipai Interpretive Center in Poway, California. 

If you are an author with a book that you would like reviewed, please reach out to me. I love to support independent authors.  

Throughout the pandemic, I facilitated a weekly offering through the San Diego Writers Ink called “Meditate and Write Flash.” I still offer this experience for those who are curious. I enjoy combining meditation practices from a wide variety of wisdom traditions with the practice of writing because I feel that writing from a contemplative place gives an artist access to more expansive internal material than writing from traumas stored in the unconscious mind. 

I have written book reviews for the The US Review of Books and The Feathered Quill. I have also written jazz previews for Earshot. My work has appeared in a variety of print and online publications, including TARKA, SD Writers, Ink Anthology, The Guilded Pen, Literary Mama, SD Poetry Annual, and others.

Best of all, I am raising two daughters. They are brave, musical, funny, and wise. In all my life adventures, nothing tops hanging out with my daughters. Our favorite things to do together include reading, traveling to Chicago and Guangzhou, China to visit grandparents, walking our dogs (Homer and Stuart), cooking, cleaning the kitchen, goofing off, watching movies, and playing five crowns and Mahjong.   

Thank you for reading this blog. All of my written content is sourced from my NATURAL intelligence. This content is free of any AI. And is free for you to read, but I would love support, so please purchase She Bleeds Sestinas.