Stress and Anxiety, Depression, Weight & Performance, PTSD, Insomnia and Sleep Issues, Fatigue, Pain, Body and Muscle Pain, Headache and Migraine, Fibromyalgia, ADHD, Life Success & Wellbeing, General Wellbeing, Career & Life Success, Personal Life Goals, Entrepreneur and Business Goals, Career Challenges, Pregnancy Care, Postpartum Support, Trauma, Healing & Support, Physical Recovery, Loss or Grief, Life Changes

The qualifications I bring for guiding and holding space for clients in my art sessions came to me through an unintentional, organic, non-traditional path of experiences over 30 years. Who can see the forest for the trees? Life has been the educator and often it’s messy and confusing, sometimes very dangerous, other times very weird, interesting and inspiring.

In 1990, I became a Medical Massage Therapist the same year I graduated with my B.A. degree in American Sign Language and Deaf Culture. These studies and practices were the very beginning of my career as an intuitive, visual healing practitioner, though I had no idea that that was happening at the time. Actually, the idea of intuitive healing didn’t occur to me until 2008.

The ability to allow myself to feel safe being seen and permit myself to use the natural gifts of visual art and intuition was a long, intense but hugely inspiring journey. It took me decades to become comfortable with being open enough to help others on their quest for understanding life and the personal path they walk. Right now is an exciting time to be alive. I’m grateful to support people to do just that, as the Earth herself changes into a new Earth in a new paradigm.

Alongside the career threads of massage, medical office work, and American Sign Language in the Deaf community, there were many years of formal training in fine art drawing and painting in my preferred medium of soft pastels.

Fast forward to 2012. I became an after-school elementary art teacher, intuitively creating fresh new curriculum that 100+ students would put their hearts to, every week. The very first steps of the current art healing process I offer began with teaching the children.

Soon after, I was inspired to use henna paste creating temporary healing tattoos as a way of reading clients intuitively. I was able to read the tattoos effectively enough that many clients reported they chose to have the designs permanently tattooed on so that they would always have that personal information with them. One day, a client came to me and asked that I simply draw it on a sheet of paper because they couldn’t go to work with a tattoo on their arm. This was the next step of combining my intuitive curriculum development skills with my reading-healing work in henna.

My medium to read with is soft pastels as they are highly responsive to how fast the visual information flows for me as I read my clients. The pastels don’t need to dry like paint does. Also, I love that my hands are in contact with the pigments directly (no brushes or other tools, just my fingers) and, because I blend the pigments on the sanded paper surface, some of my skin cells are sanded off into the painting. To me, this is a ceremony of dedication to my professional craft. In the process of painting, my client(s) and I are focused and listening together as I paint; it is a deep experience that never gets old for me. As far as I know, no one else does this particular work. It evolved through my life choices, organically.

A new branch of my healing path emerged in 2016, when I had made several new intuitive choices. 2016 was the year of Standing Rock. The call to become a water protector at the North Dakota Access Pipeline became a reality and changed the focus of my energy forever. One and a half years later, I was responsible for and healing six traumatized horses, while still working full time as a licensed Medical Massage Therapist. During 2018 I also began studying the ancient art of storytelling in Devon, England.

The most fundamental point of healing I am interested in providing is a safe space for people to experience being seen for who they are, acknowledged as never before, and welcomed into their own lives to live in authentic resonance with themselves. I believe that once one viscerally feels this, doors open that were previously unknown. Both of my businesses: Spirit Bird Intuitive Arts LLC, and Peaceful Horse LLC, are centered on this important task.

I myself have gone through this process with the art and with the horses, and I know what it is like to finally recognize myself, my worth, and to feel truly seen without labels. Anything is possible after that. I welcome you to my studio for an art session of witnessing your authenticity and to get clarity on some important issues you may currently have. If working with me and my horses is more your interest, you are welcome there too, to study your own heart and move through deep work at your own pace in a safely held space.

~ Erika