My Story

For more than forty years, I have listened to the voices of the plants with reverence and deep trust in the medicine that lives within us all.

I Am Wakana.

Rooted in lineage, guided by spirit.

I am Wakana White Owl Medicine Woman. I walk this path with the plants and the star beings as my guides, channeling the voices of the Medicine as it speaks through them. The wisdom is not mine to claim — it belongs to none, and it belongs to all. My role is simply to walk beside others, to honor what unfolds, and to trust the learning that flows for those who are willing to listen.

For more than four decades, I have been in relationship with the Medicine plants. I have devoted my life to holding sacred space in Ayahuasca ceremony. I was born into a long line of Indigenous medicine keepers and magic, and the lineages I serve and carry—Shipibo, Maya, Cherokee, and Lakota Sioux—weave together with reverence and respect, creating a medicine rooted in their combined wisdom. My lived experience as a BIPOC lesbian, mother, and grandmother informs the way I listen, relate, and walk beside others in this work.

My devotion to this path was not chosen lightly, but forged through fire. After a series of massive strokes and a parasitic illness that doctors told me would take my life, I turned back to Ayahuasca for healing. In ceremony, I witnessed my brain come alive again, and over time the medicine not only restored my body but transformed my spirit. This miraculous healing deepened my gratitude and led me to vow my life in service to this work.

Ayahuasca gave me back my life, but she did not do it alone. She came with the hands and hearts of teachers, shamans, and allies who reminded me to stay humble, to listen, and to return to the work even when it broke me open. The gift of that improbable knock on the door has unfolded into my life’s work: to walk as a medicine woman, carrying this lineage forward with gratitude and awe.

Read My Full Story

I serve as a bridge between the visible and the invisible worlds, as a witness and storyteller of what I see, sense, intuit, and perceive.

A Carrier of Owl Medicine.

Weaving light and shadow together.

My totem animal is the White Owl, and I carry owl medicine—the courage to trust inner wisdom, the ability to see beyond illusion, and the strength to embrace the dark rather than fear it, finding the beauty in what we often resist or cannot see. Owl medicine teaches me to weave light and shadow together, revealing the perfection of the light. During a sacred part of my shamanic initiation, this name was given to me by my elder teachers and guides.

Born into a lineage of indigenous medicine keepers, I weave together the wisdom of my ancestors, the teachings of the plants, and my lived experience to hold space for true transformation.

Common Questions I’m Asked.

  • A medicine person is one who weaves together the gifts they were born with, the gifts they have cultivated, and the values they choose to stand for and believe in; rooted in an unwavering dedication to their own healing and growth, carried with humility and lived in service for the benefit of all. These gifts often include deep knowledge of and connection with medicinal plants and other substances, a holistic understanding of health and illness, and a recognition of the interconnection of mind, body, spirit, and environment.

  • People don’t simply decide one day to become medicine people. Medicine people are born.

    That said, choice does play a part in the unfolding. 

    It is much like the artist. A person may decide to take art classes, study techniques, and practice painting. They may even produce beautiful pieces. Yet unless the seed of artistry was always present, they will not find the same joy, resonance, and deep purpose that a true artist feels when creating. Artists are born. They are recognized first by the stirring within themselves, and then affirmed by the recognition of others. Classes, study, and practice help refine the gift, but the seed was always there. 

    So too with medicine people. I did not choose to become a medicine person. I chose to accept that I am a medicine woman becoming. When I did so, the guidance my maestros, maestras, and mentors had been offering finally became clear. Gifts I had not understood as gifts revealed themselves, and I was given a choice: to step into service with what had always been within me. I chose, and in choosing, life began to make sense in a way it never had before. 

    Before that acceptance, my life as a medicine woman becoming—unconscious of the role—was confusing, frustrating, and filled with mystery I could not name. After I chose to consent to this path, it became no less mysterious, but the mystery turned from frustrating to fulfilling. What was once bewildering became deeply satisfying, an ineffable unfolding that continues to this day. 

    I cannot say that I stepped onto this path out of some noble calling to help others or from a conscious desire to serve. That came later. First, I had to accept who I am. Once I did, I chose to center my service in deep care for others, in cultivating kindness, and in walking with a steady commitment to be of service. That was, and still is, the only way any of this makes sense. 

    With Ayahuasca specifically, my relationship with her began  before I consciously stepped into medicine woman becoming. She saved my life over many years in ways both visible and unimaginable, as I had the privilege of witnessing her do for others as well. Choosing to devote myself to her was a clear choice, though I did not know it would lead me here, serving as I do today. 

    Some choices in life keep paying forward. This is one of them. Its reward is not what I receive, though I receive much. Its true gift is what it allows me to give.

  • Each lineage I walk with—Shipibo, Cherokee, Lakota, and Maya—carries its own sacred ways, born from the lands, languages, and stories that shaped them. The Shipibo teach through the songs of the plants and the language of vibration; the Cherokee through balance, water, and the spirit in all things; the Lakota through prayer, humility, and right relationship; and the Maya through alignment with the stars and the great cycles of time. Each holds a distinct medicine, yet all point toward the same truth: that healing arises from connection—with the Earth, with Spirit, and with one another.

    Over the years, these traditions have woven themselves together within me, not as a fusion but as a living web of reciprocity and remembrance. Though their ceremonies and cosmologies differ, they share a single heartbeat—one that reminds us that all of nature is alive, that gratitude is the bridge between worlds, and that true healing is found in relationship. Read More.

  • My approach to working with people in the medicine is informed by the truth that not a single one of us is broken—we have not been, are not now, and never will be broken.

    Spiritual healing is not fixing something shattered—it is realigning and reintegrating perspectives, transforming energies, and releasing things that aren’t ours, aren’t us, and that we have mistakenly carried as if they were and are blocking the expression of our true essence.

    Sometimes we have been so insulated by all of this baggage that we don’t even feel our own vibration, our essence. 

    I take the time and care to see not only where someone is on their path but who they truly are—their unique light underneath the mountains of pain, trauma, and disconnection. When someone  discovers, even more,  the light and love that they are, as it is witnessed and held  in sacred reflection for them- this is one of the biggest blessings of my life … Because this is medicine for both of us. 

  • I receive this question often, and it comes in many forms.

    Ayahuasca is about walking in an ongoing relationship with healing and with life itself. The medicine doesn’t erase my humanity or remove the challenges I face; it teaches me to meet them with openness, humility, and love. My progress isn’t measured by what’s been “fixed” or “done,” but by how quickly I return to center, how gently I stay open in discomfort, how deeply I can love what is, and how fully I embody my humanity. The work never ends because life keeps unfolding—and for me, that continual unfolding is the true gift. Read More.

We’re Always Learning.

I learned first on my knees, with my head in a bucket — as so many begin in an Ayahuasca ceremony. And my learning has not stopped there.

I continue to learn every day from the people I walk beside in this work. I learn directly from the medicine herself (often still with my head in that trusty bucket). I learn through reading and study, through sitting in dieta with teacher plants, and in deep consultation with my ancestors and guides.

Join The Path of Discovery.

A newsletter that meets you where you are.

Every month I share a newsletter created to meet you where you are on your walk with the medicine. Whether you are just beginning or already deep in the work, this offering is meant to support your path with clarity, care, and community.

We find self-love by releasing enough energetic baggage that is not ours - in doing so, we can see and experience the love that we are.