Honoring my Sacred Lineage
Steeped in the wisdom of my teachers and infused with gratitude
Each of my teachers has pulled on a cosmic thread—unraveling and reweaving it through the truth of their own lived experience.
In that sacred undoing and becoming, and the discipline to lean into their paths, they have created brilliant bodies of work from the tender places within that once lay buried, unmet, or underdeveloped. By turning inward they listened, tended, and transformed until they themselves became the teaching.
I was guided ~ to listen to the body’s wisdom, minister to the universal rhythms and cycles of creativity, fertility, birth and life, follow the breath, trust the healing gifts of the plants, and immerse myself on a humble path of recovery. I am rooted in the teachings of those who came before me. May the teachings continue to nourish all who come to this circle.
Meet the Sacred Lineage
Melissa Michaels
For over 35 years, Melissa Michaels has been creating movement-based, cross-cultural, cross-class, and intergenerational experiences that educate and guide people through the thresholds inherent in the developmental cycles of life. Melissa is a first-generation student of the 5Rhythms®, Founder and Director of SomaSource training programs, Golden Girls Global, and Golden Bridge not-for-profit. Her work has been trauma-informed and somatically rooted long before such language existed—an embodied knowing of how to guide that lives within the bones of her teaching.
I first met Melissa 30 years ago in the basement of a library where I was gathered with a group of birth workers. By grace, she reached out and invited me to come dance with her—an invitation that would overtly change the course of my life.
I came to Melissa as a deeply dysregulated young single mother, aching for a way back into my body and meet my life. I was overwhelmed at a cellular level, longing to understand what was happening, and searching for a path that could help me make sense of it all. More than anything, I was yearning to find a way to welcome myself home. Melissa awakened and supported my ability to deeply inhabit my body, express my heart, and to walk toward the ancient call of my soul. My life, parenting, sense of myself, work in the world ~ continue to be profoundly influenced by the teachings and mentorship of Melissa.
Shelley Torgrove
Shelley is an active clinical herbalist, trained fertility awareness instructor, certified massage therapist, body-mind medicine practitioner, and women’s health and fertility expert. Her work is rooted in earth-centered healing traditions.
Shelley helped me weave the strands of who I am and what I came to offer the world. My time with Shelley has been a returning to my roots, believe in my ability to heal, and renew my commitment to the deep reverence for the sacred passages of a woman’s life. She taught me to tend to the forgotten places, awaken vitality and resilience, and remember my gifts.
Tamara Slayton
Mother, artist, educator, and founder of the Menstrual visionary founder of the Menstrual Health Foundation and Womankind.
Her teachings profoundly shaped my path, teaching me that the awakening of fertility can be held as sacred ground, offered to young people in ways that are beautiful, respectful, and life-affirming. Through her influence, I learned to meet the blossoming of our youth with wisdom, tenderness, and developmentally appropriate guidance.
Wonshe’
Wonshe’ reminded that the work of a midwife is “to be life-supporting and death-accepting.” From her I learned to trust birth —the wild intelligence of it, the mystery and magic that cannot be captured in stages of labor, protocols, or models of care. She taught me that birth is something to witness, protect, and reverently accompany. The intelligence, unpredictability, and profound mystery of birth asks us to stand in awe and acceptance at the threshold of life and death.
Brigitte Mars
Brigitte Mars is an herbalist, author, professor, nutritional consultant and more than 60 years of experience integrating natural health and wellness into her teaching. Brigitte inspired a trust in the wild wisdom of the plants to support, restore, and transform us on our healing path. “Nature is the original pharmacy; every plant an imprint of the divine.”