Meet Emily
I am grateful to come from the tender care of sweetly-scented cedars, moss-covered firs and rain-dripping pines of the Pacific NW. These old growth forests along with rushing rivers, glacial streams, snowy-topped Cascades and the wide, inviting expanses of the Oregon beaches are beautiful elements of what make up my spiritual home – one filled with wonder, gratitude and delight!
Franciscan Values
My Catholic faith has always been an important part of my life ever since I was a young child learning to say prayers with my parents before bed.
The core of my faith is being grounded in God’s unconditional love.
Through the 8 years of directing a Franciscan nonprofit program, I fell in love with St. Francis and St. Clare of Assisi and the Franciscan spirituality. It felt like I finally found language to describe how I lived out my faith. I appreciate so many of the Franciscan values: honoring each person’s innate goodness, seeing every part of creation as brother and sister, accompanying those who often are marginalized by mainstream society, taking action to promote justice and liberation, offering radical inclusion for all, celebrating diversity, promoting interreligious dialogue and peace, and living with intentional simplicity and humility.
Through my Franciscan heart, I strive to embody a sense of joy grounded in my everyday, experiential oneness with God and my deep desire for authentic relationships.
A Mystic’s Heart
My spiritual journey has also deepened through learning about mysticism, which made me recognize my own mystic heart. I realized that I had my own mystical experiences in the past where I had the felt experience of being in communion with God, feeling God's unconditional love and embracing the beauty of Divine Mystery. I quickly realized that a lot of the spiritual writers and teachers that I was naturally drawn towards were modern mystics themselves.
Through the wisdom of these writers and my own inner work, my view of God is continually expanding (for example, I have discarded the masculine pronouns for God), my capacity for paradox and appreciation for mystery is growing, my relationship with the Divine is deepening, and I am learning how to listen to the Spirit’s guidance and daily invitations more fully. All while being human and making lots of mistakes and having to retry and restart again.
Creative and Contemplative
Spiritual communities focused on justice work and a collective deep listening to the stirrings of the Holy Spirit are nourishing parts of my faith life.
I draw closer to God through immersing myself in creation and through contemplative, creative and embodied spiritual practices.
I also receive great wisdom and insight from a variety of different spiritual paths, especially the mystics of different faith traditions. As my spiritual journey twists and turns, I have had a variety of different spiritual practices that have resonated at different times, such as reading spiritual books, journaling, lectio divina, imaginative prayer, the examen, centering prayer, painting, meditation, visio divina, writing poetry, etc.
As someone who is always seeking to grow and learn, and become more fully my authentic self, my spiritual path has included so much wisdom from other fields of practice.
Mind-Body Healing
Mind-body healing techniques and somatic practices for my chronic migraines and other physical symptoms continue to teach me to truly honor my emotions, reclaim the power of my voice and to practice a sense of equanimity.
High Sensitivity & Neurodiversity
Discovering I am an HSP (highly sensitive person) and empath has opened doors to self-compassion and understanding how modern society with all of its rushing, loudness and onslaught of stimuli was not created with me and other HSPs in mind.
It’s okay to honor my unique needs, choose a different pace of life and celebrate my HSP gifts that many may misunderstand.
Systemic Racism & Implicit Bias
Learning more about systemic racism, implicit bias and social injustices with deep historical roots, has made me strive to view the world (and my spirituality) through a justice lens and take a generative approach to helping birth new ways of being in community with each other.
Rest, play, joy and celebration can all be acts of sacred resistance to the systems perpetuating intense harm and marginalization.