I started taking classes at Shamans Cave in 2007 and began teaching about five years later. I want to share my “Whys”: “Why am I a maker?”, “Why did I follow this path over other paths? “Why is this tradition so important to me?”

Most of these questions can be answered by looking at the very beginning practices that are taught at Shamans Cave, the self-healing practices. Self-healing is taught in the beginning because Makers know that one cannot move with power if one is not self-healed. The transformation I've seen in myself and many others who've committed to learning the Maker self-healing practices has been profound. It blows my mind that something so simple as the breath and head turn of the Recapitulation practice could be so powerful in healing the past.  I've healed pain in my past that I thought was not possible and where no other previous modalities had been successful. I've witnessed others transform their lives through these same practices. I've seen people go from feeling like victims and ones whose lives had fallen apart due to trauma in past events, to standing strong, empowered and feeling in control of their lives again.  I believe that just the self-healing practices alone, if practiced by more people, have the power to heal humanity and deliver us from the dormancy of our day-to-day lives that are just a hint of what they potentially could be.

Why did I follow this path over other paths? Unlike other paths, the Maker tradition has never asked me to believe or be anything other than 'who I am.'  It's helped me to clear away the debris that was masking the core of who I feel I am at my truest self and it feels great to be standing in a place that feels genuinely my own. It has been a frustrating and trying path at times because there is no one to follow other than myself.  I've received guidance and compassion but no one ever told me how to think or act. Tools and guidance are given in the courses; what the student does with them is their own choice, even if their choice is to drop out and walk away.

 I am a Maker because  they have shown me how to break free from cultural agreements and a learned helplessness that comes with those agreements. And beyond that, I was taught ways to better see the vast and complex world of energy we live in, something all humans can access if shown how. I've learned how to break through the conditioning of not seeing anything beyond the physical or to acknowledge that a layered reality even exists. This path has brought back for me, the childlike wonder of discovery of the world, a world so vast and beautiful, there is no way I  could ever get bored or expect to learn anything but a small bit in my lifetime. I teach here because it gives me hope that as more people reclaim their natural gifts and power, that we can use that power collectively to unweave time and transform ourselves as a species to be kinder, more humane to others and better caretakers of the earth.