Get to Know Cycles & Shadows

My name is Holly, the heart behind Cycles and Shadows Healing and bringing attention to the miraculous within the mundane is my focus. It shatters my heart daily that there is so much life, beauty, support, and abundance (food, water, shelter, etc.) around us at all times, but greedy, fear-based, controlling societal zeitgeists over the course of modern history have led to a present moment where though we're quite literally globally connected, we are somehow more isolated, depressed, economically imbalanced, wasteful, anxious, and sick than ever before.

 

I've realized through experience, research, sacred texts, and my own teachers, that the disorder in the external world is a reflection of the conglomerate of billions of disordered individual human lives. Fortunately, I know that each one of us has a set of gifts, strengths, and sacred callings that, when accepted and shared, are the key to creating global harmony.

 

I've always naturally seen the beauty and gifts in the people I meet and am repeatedly perplexed at how difficult it is for them to see themselves with that same unconditional acceptance and celebration (to be clear I've felt , and still feel, my fair share of complete self-doubt, loathing, and unworthiness) so the hunger to find out how to solve this conundrum is a large part of what brought me to the work I do now. Going back in time however...

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I grew up with my belly in the soil, admiring and befriending the plants and animals in Vermont. Before I knew what I was doing or that many people might call it weird, I was talking to plants, praying to spirit, contemplating my thoughts, and reading like my life depended on it. I was a nerdy, hippie kid with a lazy eye who unknowingly felt everyone else's emotions even though I didn't understand my own. My inner world was intense, chaotic, and confounding.

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With a long family history of mental and physical health issues on top of that, including my sisters childhood Leukemia and my dads now 11 year health battle with diabetes, strokes, kidney failure, depression, and more (whew) I was desperate for a better way.

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Overtime, the desire to help myself live differently and support others to do the same led me down several winding roads of self-healing, formal education, plant-medicine experiences, trainings. certifications, and miraculous life experiences landing me where I am now, in the belief that all people (yes, YOU) deserve to, and can feel at home within their own skin, and that your greatest powers to transform your emotions, relationships, habits, thoughts, and reality lay in the intersections of a harmonious body, mind, soul/spirit, and environment. 

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I've always had an insatiable curiosity. As a student to whatever my intuition highlights, I've been able to experience and gain wisdom from a variety of backgrounds. Some of these include a B.S. in Psychology from Tufts University with two minors: German and Urban Studies, 20+ years of dance (with 10 of those also as a teacher), horticulture and gardening with a comprehensive knowledge of native, non-toxic & regenerative landscaping practices, manufacturing & green tech engineering, marketing, nonprofit work, herbalism, therapeutic crisis and trauma intervention, 400+ books (lifelong bookworm), photography, poetry, singing, surfing, mentorships with Ana Sanjuan, Gail Jones of Claim Your Worthiness, and Emily Eliza Moyer, and a 200hr YTT through School Yoga Institute facilitated by Mindi and Nadine of Transance. I am thrilled to bring all of this experience and more to my coaching and other offerings, and to continue to learn in all the ways that call, including from the people who show up to work with me.