About me
Kia ora. My name is Redwood.
I provide biodynamic craniosacral therapy to help people with a wide range of health conditions, and I teach meditation.
I’m passionate about supporting my clients and students to connect with their inner resources of healing and wisdom, so that body and mind can come into a nourishing balance.
I live in Golden Bay, Aotearoa New Zealand, where I can also be found exploring the natural world, growing organic food, and writing and sharing poems.
Why is this site called Redwood Health?
I grew up in California, and redwood trees are one of my inspirations in life. They also offer some powerful lessons about health.
Coast redwood trees are the tallest trees alive on earth. But they don’t get that way alone. An entire redwood forest is connected underground by roots and fungi. The trees share water and nutrients with each other so that they can all thrive together.
Like the trees, as human beings, we each possess incredible life force within us – and our health shines when we are in connection with each other. This understanding guides my work.
My health story
I hold multiple university degrees in environmental science, and always expected that my career would be in service to the ecological world. After finishing my Masters degree in the U.S., I travelled to New Zealand on a research fellowship to study organic farming. Then things took another turn.
In many traditional cultures, it is common for someone to become a healer not by conscious choice, but through having to heal themselves from a serious illness. This turned out to be my path. Following what seemed to be a minor injury just before my 28th birthday, I struggled with a mysterious and debilitating chronic pain condition for more than a decade. The simple tasks of living were a challenge. Doctors were mostly unable to diagnose or help me. Most medications had no effect or made things worse. I hunkered down in the peaceful community of Golden Bay to try to rest up and heal. During this time I intensively studied natural health and tried every hands-on therapy that I could, hoping to find a cause and cure for my pain.
During those difficult years, the one therapy that most consistently revitalised my body was biodynamic craniosacral therapy. More manipulative therapies either caused me pain, or brought about bodily adjustments that soon undid themselves. However, craniosacral was different. Although I had no idea how it worked, I could feel that the therapy was activating some sort of self-healing power within me. The changes from these treatments felt more sustainable and long-lasting. In the days following a session, I felt greater lightness and ease in my body, more comfortable in my own skin. And as I continued receiving biodynamic craniosacral work over time, the results deepened, my body accessing greater stillness and a sense of wellbeing.
Although I didn’t know it at the time, receiving this therapy for years was forming the foundation for my own training as a practitioner.
My health recovery accelerated when I finally studied the neuroscience behind chronic pain, and got the training to apply it to my own situation. Through an intensive program of brain retraining, working with my thoughts, emotional responses and behaviors, my nervous system’s patterning began to change. As a result, these days I am gratefully doing the things I love, tramping in nature and dancing with a huge smile on my face – and supporting others on their own healing journeys.
I am dedicated to sharing the tools I have learned with others. As a result of my own health experiences, I hold a real empathy for people who are struggling with difficult conditions. I also have a knowing in my bones – because I have lived it – that the river of health is always there under the surface, and with the right tools and awareness, it is forever ready to rise and flow.