The Sanctuary

The Sanctuary is a quiet space within the Mariposa Realms, set just beyond the pace of everyday life—where the sound of a nearby stream, the scent of lavender, and the movement of light and air create room to tend to grief, loss, and times of transition.

For me, grief, loss, and transition have taken many forms over the course of my life, even from a young age. But in 1997, it entered in a way I could never have prepared for.

In August of 1997, my firstborn daughter, Lauren, died of SIDS during an afternoon nap on her third day of daycare. She was four months old. In a single moment, everything changed—how I understood life, motherhood, and the world itself.

There is no clean way through something like that. No formula. No timeline that makes sense.

What I have come to understand, over many years, is that grief is not something we move past. It is something we learn to live with, to listen to, and, eventually, to carry in a different way.

In the years following Lauren’s death, I became deeply involved in SIDS grief support, education and advocacy. I later became a certified grief educator and have spent years sitting with others in their own experiences of loss—sometimes acute and recent, sometimes long held and quietly carried.

Grief takes many forms.

It can come through the loss of a child, a parent, a sibling, a partner, a friend
It can come through illness, unexpected change, or the slow recognition that something in life has ended or shifted.
It can also exist beneath the surface—unspoken, unacknowledged, but still present.

The Sanctuary embraces all of that.

Over time, my work began to evolve.

While my foundation is in grief education and lived experience, I found myself drawn to a deeper layer of understanding—one that includes meaning, pattern, and the language of archetypes. Astrology became an important part of that exploration.

Not as prediction, and not as something to explain away pain—but as a way to understand the larger patterns we are moving through. A way to hold experience within a broader context. A way to gently ask different kinds of questions.

In this work, grief is not something to fix.
It is something to witness.
Something to honor.

And, when the time is right, something that may begin to reveal meaning—not as an answer, but as a quiet unfolding.

The Sanctuary is not limited to loss. It also holds:

life transitions
identity shifts
moments of uncertainty
experiences that don’t have a clear place to land

You do not need to have language for what you are feeling.
You do not need to be “ready.”

You only need a willingness to sit with what is present.

If you feel drawn to explore your experience—through reflection, through the writings here, or in conversation with me—you are welcome here. This work is held within an archetypal lens, but always grounded in your lived experience.