Madeline’s Story.

I grew up under the massive thunderstorms in the rural farmland of Colorado prairie. When I was 18, I moved to NYC. Then Chicago, LA, and Pittsburgh alongside long stints of living on the road. I’ve spent extended transitory time in Montana, Wyoming, and Arizona. In recent years, I have returned back to my birthplace and now reside in Fort Collins, Colorado, close to what is now called the Poudre River in the ceded territory of the Ute, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Lakota, Apache, and Comanche, those who came long before me and knew what it was to authentically tend this land.

I know the US, top to bottom and side to side.

Each of these lands has guided me through different major lessons in my life, helping me to remember what it is to be human in alignment with all living things. While I still have much to learn, I owe a lot of who and where I am to these diverse lands.

Connected by the wind and water that moves across their thousands of miles, each of these lands has called me back to myself.

I feel most like myself when I am with these land kin - sitting at the river or on top of the prairie butte, and especially when the weather is unfavorable and encourages me to embody how truly alive I am.

I take active steps daily to be the same person as I am with the land as I am in our contemporary american society, walking in my power in alignment with all living things.

BACKGROUND

foundation in

philosophy + psychology.

I spent the first 30 years of my life developing a professional academic career in philosophically oriented psychology. 

Although it was not the initial plan, my two masters degrees laid a foundation of perspective, knowledge, and skills that I use as an animist practitioner, such as:

  • Unique understanding of the field of psychology and its challenges, offering perspective on how healing is conceptualized in contemporary America.

  • Orientation to working especially with young women, mothers, death viewed broadly, and arts based approaches.

  • Developed a sharp, fierce mind that dynamically processes levels of thought between the macro and micro. This foundation of my mind now works in conjunction with my ability to track patterns on an energetic and spiritual level.

  • Undergraduate focus in interdisciplinary studies - combining philosophy, psychology, religious studies, and studio art.

    Area of thesis - on confronting contemporary psychology's understanding of basic biological human needs to expand to include what I now understand as soul-based processes.

  • First masters degree in interdisciplinary studies - combining existential phenomenological philosophy with social psychology.

    Thesis - Death in Life: Approaches to the contemporary denial of death in theoretical and experimental psychology and continental philosophy.

    Area of expertise - Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of health, on levels of individual and cultural.

  • Second masters degree in clinical psychology.

    This program was human science oriented, which taught psychology from alternative approaches rather than solely from the medical model.

    I identified as a feminist phenomenological psychologist:

    • Worked as a psychotherapist

    • Conducted qualitative research through an a voice and arts based approach on paid-working mothers

    • Taught undergraduate psychology courses

    • Mentored undergraduate women in their pursuing careers in psychology

shamanism found me. 

During my second graduate program, I had an unexpected spiritual awakening. Through a series of incredible serendipities, I learned about the term ‘shamanism’ and knew immediately that I would spend the rest of my life dedicated to honoring this gift of awakening.

The week that I officially released my dream of becoming a psychotherapist, I stepped into The Cycle Teachings. I have spent the last six years as a student (in the spiritual sense) of Christina Lee Pratt and Langston Kahn of The Last Mask Center for Shamanic Studies. The English word that most closely represents my spiritual studies would be an ‘apprenticeship’ (to spirit), although this term falls short and doesn’t genuinely capture what these studies have entailed.

…

The Cycle Teachings are an non-traditional body of shamanic teachings emerging from Christina Lee Pratt’s initiatory experiences in response to the unique needs of our times. What this means is that the Cycle practices are not appropriated from other indigenous cultures and divorced from their cultural context - The Cycle Teachings are a shamanism specifically for addressing the ills of contemporary Western culture. The Cycle Teachings are taught through The Cycle of Transformation, an experiential training in shamanic skills and rigorous psychospiritual and psychoemotional development spanning across multiple years . The Cycle of Transformation involves healing and gaining skills for contemporary people to embody their authentic selves as spiritual adults, in order to manifest their unique gifts and purpose in service to Earth and all of life.

  • Energy Body Mastery, 2019 + ongoing

    Energy Body Clearing: The Foundation, 2019 + ongoing

    Energy Body Clearing Advanced Strategies, 2023 + ongoing

    Cycle of Transformation Year 1:

    • Masks of Illusion and the Authentic Self (2019)

    • Birth of the Healer (2019)

    Shadow Transformation Protocol, 2020 + 2021

  • Member of The Cycle Community’s Dream Team, 2021-2023

    • Working with a small but mighty group of people and spirit to bring forward the vision of The Cycle Community, a non-local animist community that centers true love as power

    Member of The Cycle Community, 2023 - ongoing

    Life Navigation with the Shamanic Journey by Jane Carr, 2021

    Birthing Your Wild Voice by Hanna Leigh, 2024

  • The Threshold Process (2022)

    The Cycle of Transformation Year 3:

    • Sacred Syzygy (2023)

    • Birth of the Teacher (2024)

    The Cycle of Transformation Year 4:

    • Laying the Bones to Rest (2024)

More than my academic degrees and years of shamanic practice, my experiences with these lands have aligned me with my true nature far beyond what I ever dreamed possible. These lands have helped me to remember who I am and why I am here. These lands have guided me to go to my depths, and then revealed to me that my being is even deeper, and even deeper still. These lands have loved me so profoundly they have broken open my heart and supported me in bringing my True Love as power into the world. These lands move and resonant me with my part of the Great Dreaming of the Earth.

It is they who make this work possible, and I am honored beyond measure that I can work with the land on behalf of myself, my family, and my community.

MADELINE’S STYLE

Throughout my life, people have described me as being warm and familiar, often associating me with a dear childhood friend or neighbor. In a way that may seem paradoxical, I am also often described as fierce, determined, and courageous. I aim to be honest, sometimes in ways that even surprise me. I care deeply. I am most energized when I am able to support people in the development of who they are. I find absolutely delightful the awkward everyday moments of being human, from typos in text messages to talking about the wide variety of mustards in grocery stores. I am dangerously obsessed with puzzles. I am a voracious learner, often succumbing to delicious years-long investigations into new hobbies - the most recent and robust of which have been weaving, woodworking and carpentry, vegetable and flower gardening, and tending medicinal plants. I love rock and roll and star trek. I am quite possibly the slowest hiker ever. Similarly, I am the kind of person who likes to sit in the same nature place over and over again as I find so much enjoyment in the diversity of life across time. I have been with my partner, a musician, for 17 years as near high school sweethearts. We have two sons, Hawk who never made it earthside, and Reno who is one year old. And it is my life’s honor to be their mother.