About
I help spiritual orphans like you connect in down-to-earth ways to your innate resilient center, and to clarify your next right step in alignment with your sacred purpose.
Hello!
And blessings to you and your kin! I’m Kate. I’m a christian-pagan priestess, psychic and mentor for the spiritual fringe. I help spiritual orphans re-access a sense of home, harmony and divine connection within their own being, body, and the web of life. Through this I aim to nurture reluctant leaders on their sacred Priestess path. I’m so honored to connect with you and yours.
I teach learnable, accessible, layered skills that support you to:
Root
Connect to the Earth, the elements of the season, fellow pilgrims, and your own body-spirit ecology to experience greater balance, stability, and resilience.
Rest
Pause in sacred rest and reset your nervous system and internal compass to a baseline of ease.
Receive
Gently open your innate receptive capacity in order to access true nourishment;
Reflect
Sense into your innermost wisdom and desire, beginning with the compass of your physical body.
Recalibrate
Clear out old blocks and stress responses. Get back in sync with the rhythm of life. Attune yourself to the next right thing.
My Story
I was a wandering spiritual orphan for almost two decades. As a queer woman raised in the Catholic Church, I know that being ‘different’ while inside or opting to live outside dominant religious institutions can extremely lonely and challenging. I also know that it can also be full of beauty, opportunity, creativity and freedom.
After coming out and leaving my Catholic faith tradition of origin in my early 20s, I got deep into the Goddess tradition of Kashmir Shaivism. It was here that I first experienced myself and my body being in 'divine image'.
In 2013 Spirit gave me the name “priestess” (which made me gag!) and then in 2015, Jesus came unexpectedly back into my life--not as triumphant victor, not as dewy-eyed shepherd, but as a tender lover. I could not have been more shocked (or annoyed!)
"I had been searching for so long...working with Kate was actually life-changing."
- Beth S., 1:1 Client + Circle Participant
"[Working with Kate] was a reset button that truly brought healing."
-Stacy Nikolaisen, Retreat Participant
"Kate...you are an inspiration! I love your authenticity, your depth and your intelligence."
- Meag, Circle Participant
From Powerless to Priestess
Then my life turned upside down. In 2016 I experienced debilitating depression and panic attacks, precipitating a mental health medical leave. Within the next year I would: start psychic school; lose my job and a community I had spent years building; start seminary; and start apprenticing in the emerging field of animist/cultural somatics.
Amidst this I felt totally lost...except for a subtle current of energy pulling me that felt like a trail of bread crumbs left by Spirit! So if you're unsettled by life on the fringes of certainty, I get it!
In 2019 I founded the Sanctuary Northwest, a center for trauma resilience, spiritual care, and cultural restoration. Forgoing traditional ordination, the community of the SNW is my primary location for serving as Priestess.
Listen... I know first-hand how lonely, confusing, uncertain a life on the spiritual fringe can be.
I also know that belonging is your birthright--you are a citizen of the earth.
You have a direct line of communication and connection to Earth/Source/God/dess/the Cosmos. All it takes is a persistent commitment to removing the things that block your original intelligent belonging.
As we find ourselves on the brink of global collapse, with crises mounting on every front, I believe the way through depends on us all finding our way back home to ourselves and to the diverse and interdependent web of creation.
I'm here to help us do just that. Welcome.
YOUR FREE GIFT
Earth Magic
3 Simple Celebrations of Spiritual Nourishment
• Seven videos, between 5-15 minutes long
• Simple prompts to put your insights into action and integrate your learnings
• Joining access to my online FB community, where you’ll get ongoing resources and support for your spiritual path
You're safe with me. I'll never spam you or sell your contact info.
Blessings and Acknowledgements
A deep bow of gratitude to the earth that is my home and teacher. Thank you to the web of life, the visible and invisible, human and more-than-human teachers, guides and allies that have inspired and sustained me and this work.
Blessings and acknowledgements to the Coast Salish peoples, gentle stewards of the land I occupy, and to the land itself.
Thank you to my spiritual and biological ancestors, to my teachers and the communities of practice from which this work emerges. These include:
- Tadaaki Hozumi and the now-dissolved Ritual as Justice School
- Larissa Kaul, Dare Sohei and Animist Arts
- Najeea Leslie
- Nancy Rebecca and Intuitive Mind
- Kathleen Bellefeuille-Rice and Diane Whalen of the Holy Wisdom Inclusive Catholic Community, and the Roman Catholic Women Priest movement
- Denise Benitez and Seattle Yoga Arts
- the community of now-dissolved Samdhana-Kanara Yoga
- the scholarship, mentorship and intellectual labors of Dr JP Kang, Dr Kj Swanson, Dr Jennifer Fernandez, and Dr Angela Parker
A deep bow also to the wisdom communities and lineages from which this work arises, which include:
- Non-dual Tantric Yoga of Kashmir Shaivism
- Druidic Celtic Christianity
- the Christian mystical tradition
- Traditional Chinese Medicine
- animist earth-based communities worldwide, known and unknown
- the more modern fields of trauma-informed yoga, interspiritual contemplative practice, intercultural pastoral care, and psychic energy medicine
It is with gratitude to each of them, all my teachers and guides, and all of the stewards of the wisdom traditions worldwide, known and unknown, that I make this attempt to respectfully hold, share from, and evolve my small piece of the puzzle. May it be one small offering of restoring/returning my own Christian lineage back to the composting earth.
A note about Race, Power and Healing
Most of my work happens on the ancestral lands of the Coast Salish—the Puyallup, Dkhw’Duw'Absh, Duwamish, and Suquamish tribes, aka, the Puget Sound region. I offer a deep bow of gratitude and honor to the stewardship of these tribes past, present, future.
I know my presence here is inextricably linked to oppression and erasure of native peoples. I labor to be responsible co-stewards of this land, honor indigenous sovereignty and build authentic relationships of solidarity and allied struggle towards liberation for all.
I also recognize that as a white practitioner, I am a part of the legacy of imperial colonialism that has violently ravaged and stolen cultural and material wealth—including most of the healing modalities available to us, even ‘Western’ ones,—from black, brown and indigenous peoples. I practice living in the tension and responsibility of this painful reality.
This is an imperfect process. My sincere prayer is one of gratitude and recognition to the various teachers, healers, peoples and lineages of practice that inform this work, those we can name and those left unknown to history; as well as a prayer that I may do best to be honest and responsible about the violent heritage I and my ancestors participate/have participated in.
I am not separate from the continued harm being done to communities of color and disparity in access to sources of well-being and healing practice. I practice being committed to the labor of mitigating harm and resource redistribution.
To this end, much of my work is oriented towards 'detoxing' from dominant culture ways of being. Also, I offer a Restorative Culture Sliding Scale for my group programs, and why I’ve committed 5% of profits to support local Black, Brown and Indigenous healers and justice initiatives.
Organizations we have given back to include:
- The People’s Assembly
- Whole Body Pregnancy
- Native Re-Entry
- Black Lives Matter Seattle
- Honor the Earth
- Queer Nature
I hope to integrate what I have learned from my teachers with care, honor, and in pursuit of mutual liberation. This is an area of perpetual growth, dialogue, and spiritual discipline for me.
This statement is not enough, nor the end, but may it be a humble prayer of intention and ever-beginning.
YOUR FREE GIFT
Earth Magic
3 Simple Celebrations of Spiritual Nourishment
• Seven videos, between 5-15 minutes long
• Simple prompts to put your insights into action and integrate your learnings
• Joining access to my online FB community, where you’ll get ongoing resources and support for your spiritual path
You're safe with me. I'll never spam you or sell your contact info.
