Threads of Lived Experience
The communities I've learned with have radically shaped my way of sharing my wisdom. Because of these experiences, I am unbraiding myself from a system where wisdom is shared as a trained professional to one where we each share our medicine as part of the fabric of life.
Inter-spiritual Community Living
1-year resident at Lama Foundation, NM, an inter-spiritual intentional community.
Soul Pilgrimage
A women's soul pilgrimage into ritual landscape, wild shrines, and sacred hearth--Braided River-Carolyn Hillyer
Lunar Living
The Womb Room educational membership platform, Qiddist Ashé
Group Coach
Facilitator for 9-month Wild Women Soul Journeys through Mbodied Studio–Michelle Baker 2022
Canoe Guide
Canoe Guide, logistics guide for soulful retreat trips on the Green River, UT, River’s Path –Lauren Bond
Eco-Ministry
1-year certificate program from Seminary of the Wild—Victoria Loorz
Forged From Professional Experience
With appreciation and respect for the organizations and teachers who have contributed to my professional training, education, and experience which has deepened, honed, and enriched my natural wisdom.
Art Therapy
- MS, ATR-BC
- Attachment-based therapy
- Trauma therapy via Instinctual Trauma Response (ITR) method and Internal Family Systems (IFS)
- Experience in private practice, family in-home services, residential, alternative school, and hospice settings
- Eastern Virginia Medical School
- MS in Art Therapy and Counseling
- internships in alternative education, residential treatment, and in-home hospice
- American Art Therapy Association (AATA)
- Professional organization
- Art Therapy Credentials Board (ATCB)
- ATR-BC (board-certified art therapist)
- Trauma Institute/Help For Trauma
- CTT (certified trauma therapist from 2018-2022)
- Shenandoah Art Therapy, LLC
- will always be my “home” art therapy practice!
- Compass Youth and Family Services
- in-home structural family therapy/art therapy
- Past Supervisors and/or mentors
- Laura Tuomisto, MA, ATR-BC, CTT; Christy Pagels, LPC, ATR-BC, CTT; Dr. Gregory Czyszczon, PhD, LPC; Charles Shepard, LPC; Dr. Cheryl Shiflett, PhD, LPC-ACS, ATR-BC, ATCS
- The Making Space
- Co-founder; a free community art studio in the Shenandoah Valley
Somatic Therapy
- 60 hr certificate in Somatic Attachment Therapy; Inner Relationship Focusing (IRF), Embody Lab–Dr. Maureen Gallagher et. al
- 16 hr certificate in Integrative Somatic Parts Work, Embody Lab–Fran Booth, LICSW
Personal Roots
With love and gratitude for the nest of safety and abundance given to me from these roots. Roots that also nurtured the sacred in me.
From Here I am Born
- My Families Burkholder and Blosser of the Shenandoah Valley
- The Shenandoah Valley herself
- The Mennonite Church
- B.A. in Art from Eastern Mennonite University
IMpact from My Path
With a deep bow
*I acknowledge the peoples of Turtle Island including the ones whose lands I have found community in during my life: The Shawnee, Iroquois, Catawba, Monacan, and Cherokee, who have been in harmonious relationship with what settlers call the Shenandoah Valley long before my ancestors settled there and have been pushed out. The Red Willow People, Kiowa, and Tiwa; the Freemont and Ute of the Southwest whose lands call to my soul. The Lummi and Nooksack, who have been in harmonious relationship with what the settlers call Bellingham, who continue to live here on reservations, and white people like me, continue to come. The tribes and nations of Turtle Island had their land stolen, their peoples enslaved, murdered through genocide, and robbed of their culture and sacred practices by white Europeans like my ancestors, and still tend these lands with devotion and care.
Thank you for the ways you have never forgotten our relationship with earth.
*I acknowledge People of the Global Majority (non-white), women, non-binary, trans, and LGBTQIA people who have experienced racism, oppression, pathologization of identity, hatred and acts of suppression, violence, and rejection from white religious communities, psychological services rooted in theory developed by white males often prioritizing patriarchal norms, and communities like ones I have been a part of. I continue to unbraid myself from the ways I have internalized many of these patterns through my training.
Thank you for the ways you are fiercely committed to standing in your power.
Dear Beloved Souljourner,
Throw the first intention towards beginning your soul journey into the waves!
Contact me with questions or what you are hoping for from your soul journey, or to setup a FREE FIRST HELLO (30min) and together we can discern your next steps!
Monika Denise
