I was born in the late 60's to a father who was a Beatnik photographer and a young, aspiring hippie mother. Before I was even born, my father turned to heroin and any other drugs he could get his hands on. When my father's behavior became unsafe, my mother left him, and New York City, and we set out on a peripatetic journey.

 

With no plan or goal, I spent my early childhood moving from place to place and rarely staying anywhere long enough to put down roots or go to school. My mother was seemingly a lost soul and was always looking for something better. For a while we lived in adobe animal shelters in the Huerfano valley in Southern Colorado. Later we squatted off the land in remote valleys of Hawaii, where my mom grew most of our food in her garden. We tried to be as self-sufficient as possible, which meant we didn't buy clothes or anything new, but instead shopped at secondhand stores or even better, found things at the dump. 

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When I was 8 years old, my mom suddenly started wearing orange. She had become a disciple of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. At age 9 what was to be a 3-month trip to India over the summer school holiday, turned into a 3 year stay in India and another 4 years at Rajneeshpuram, in central Oregon. Having moved more than 15 times before the age of 9, I was happy to be part of a community. For the first time in my life, I felt like I belonged.

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Over those 7 years, I was compliant, a good girl, and always lived and worked with the "moms," and spent very little time with the other kids or my mother. I adapted to the ways of the commune. Instead of going to school, I worked doing a number of jobs, including working as a message runner in the ashram in India, to working as Sheela's receptionist during the early days at Rajneeshpuram, and later working as a flight attendant, and in Rajneesh Legal Services.

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When Rajneeshpuram ended in 1985, I was ushered into the "real world" without preparation. What a shock! Not fitting in is an understatement! By some stroke of grace, and a lot of hard work, I found my way to university. First I attended a Jr. College for a year where I got good grades. I then convinced the University of Colorado to accept me without SAT scores. I graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in Humanities and Comparative Literature in 1992. I worked in the high-tech industry for 10 years, bought a house and did things other normal members of society did. In 2004 I went back to school and earned a Master of Science in Oriental Medicine. Since 2008 I have been running a successful holistic health practice in Colorado.

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