I got into an Art Therapy master’s program in Ireland! After starting my master’s degree over 10 years ago and taking an emergency medical leave, I once again felt a calling towards this work, to this program, and to an ancestral homeland.

I make this humble request knowing that there are so many worthy causes to send your money towards. I was encouraged by my loved ones to make this, with the gracious acceptance that if you can, you can and if you can’t, you can’t; and thanking you with deep appreciation.

I am raising this money for the upfront costs to get me there, which is the entire tuition at once.

I’ve also decided to raffle off some of my ceramic sculptures and other miscellaneous art. If you would like a piece of artwork, please let me know—I will send an email out to those who have donated when the raffle is live.

If you would like to read more about my journey and connection to this work. I have included my admissions essay below.

Life lead me here just over a decade ago, at 24 I entered Drexel University’s Art Therapy Master’s degree program. At that time, I did not know the trauma my body held or how unstable my support structures were. What I did know, immediately, was that this path felt aligned and purposeful. Sometimes, however, we must take a break in order to recapture the vision. I left this master’s program shortly after entering, due to an emergency medical leave; I spent the following 13 years in varying methods of self-work. I let the path of life work on me its will. Trusting all the twists, turns, and returns of this winding river, which has repeatedly led me where I need to be. After years of ongoing therapy and further development of my artistic and interpersonal crafts, I have landed here once again.

I am called to soul work. I thrive in depth, in art, and in relationship and I believe deeply in the transformative powers of these life ways. Healing is born through relationship and community, through art, music, dancing— through re-ensoulment. I have been a practicing artist, mental health, and care worker throughout my life. These ways of relating are so deeply ingrained in my psyche, they are critical infrastructure of my being. I hold an intuitive and embodied knowing and practice of art as healing. It is a natural mode of my soul.

This return is the next journey in my soul evolution. And going to Ireland for this coursework is deeply entwined. There is a calling for those of us who have lost culture and have been and in turn performed colonization to find our ancestral life ways. There is deep importance and vitality in ancestor work for all of us, especially those of us within nations doing the greatest harm. I feel this call, to this work in communion with land, in deep belonging—so that I might serve the collective from a wholly embodied place.

We are a part of a world in turmoil, and we need more embodied individuals. I am reminded in this vein that the most important thing we, as individuals, can do is make sure we use our gifts to the best of our abilities—as doing so will inform our collective future. If we are not giving ourselves in our fullness, we are doing a disservice to this earth and to our humanity.

I have circumambulated back here at a deeper layer with more understanding, strength, and compassion. I have attuned to my needs. And I am committed to this path, to help re-enspirit and rehumanize others—and in turn this world.

I am not here to help people feel contentment in these systems we live and operate within. I am here to remind us that these systems do not hold us. I am here for personal and collective transformation—for alchemizing our wounds so that we may be more whole and in turn find wholeness within and without. I am here to participate in the collective liberation of each of us, of the collective, of this earth.

ancestral wounding

           runs deep in the americas

      the foundation, the roots

              built atop blood and bones

                       a core that is rotting

           with the curse of colonization

our legacy

     but the tide turns

           and the water

at times gentle, meandering, rippling

carves new pathways slowly and with intention

and the water  

other times raging, wild and destructive

                       changes landscapes in an instant

let us be water

           let us reclaim who we are    

  worry not

                the land is still wild

                       her heart still beats strong

           I am here (hear)

                       for the unearthing

                            for the underworld

                                   for the mycelial networks

                                               composting and connecting all

           I am here (hear)

for the soil

                           for the composting

                                   for the renewal

                                   for the regrowth after a long winter

                                               for the alchemy

may we alchemize all this pain

and may we be a people who caretake

              may we be a people who make reparations

                       may we be a people

                                   who know

                                               justice

                                   who tend

                                     to the soul

                                               to the mother

                                     of us all