I am an activist.
A witch.
A mother.
A dancer.
A storyteller.
A circle keeper.
A ritual maker.
A gatherer of women.
A walker of old paths + maker of new ones.

I work at the meeting place of justice + ritual, feminism + magic, body + land, the personal + the political.

When I was six years old, I told my mother that I wanted to be the second woman to sit on the US Supreme Court.

Even then, I had a strong sense of inequality, of the importance of representation and of marginalised people, especially women, being able to take up space in places where we had historically been excluded.

My life didn’t take me to law school or the Supreme Court, but that thread has followed me ever since.

I grew up in America as a third generation migrant, on the stolen lands of the Wampanoag (now known as Boston, Massachusetts) and spent some of the formative years of my twenties living in Nicaragua. There, I started a mobile lending library, wrote my dissertation on gender equality and became increasingly interested in the relationship between gender, power, community and social change.

I moved to the UK in 2006 and have now spent more than 20 years working in activism, community development and the movement to end violence against women and girls. That work has taken many forms over the years, but at its heart has always been a belief that violence against women and girls isn’t inevitable, and that creating change requires more than supporting women after harm has happened. We also have to look at power, inequality, culture, relationships and the systems and communities around us.

In 2022, I moved to the ancient Celtic lands of Cornwall and something began to shift for me. I had already spent years exploring embodiment, movement, women’s circles, spirituality and seasonal living, but living in Cornwall has deepened all of it. I began developing a much stronger relationship with the land around me, its holy wells and ancient stones, its folklore and mythology, its seasons, its history and the many layers of story held here.

At the same time, my professional work brought me to neighbouring Plymouth, where I became the city’s Violence Against Women and Girls Strategic Lead. I work across the city with statutory services, specialist organisations, communities, businesses, schools and others to help create the cultural and systemic change needed to prevent violence and abuse.

And then, in 2024, I started the Sacred Kernow Community. What began with a women’s circle has grown into a community of women gathering throughout the year for circles, workshops, retreats, pilgrimages, seasonal celebrations, movement, making, ritual and ceremony.

Sacred Kernow brings together so many strands of my life that I once thought belonged in separate boxes: Feminism and spirituality.
Justice and ritual. The body and the political. Ancient stories and contemporary women’s lives. Land, lineage and community.

My work draws on seasonal and cyclical living, embodiment, mythology and folklore, goddess traditions, creativity and earth-based spirituality. I’m particularly interested in the old stories we have inherited about women - the witches, goddesses, wise women, healers, mothers, monsters and rebels - and what happens when we experience those stories through the reality of our own lives.

I’m also interested in the simple practice of women gathering. Sitting in circle. Walking together across the land. Making things with our hands. Sharing food. Moving our bodies. Telling stories. Marking thresholds. Sitting alongside grief, rage, joy, change, ageing, motherhood, loss, desire and all the other tender parts of being human.

I don’t see this as separate from the work I have spent my entire adult life doing. For me, ending violence against women and girls has always been about more than responding to abuse, addressing risk and ensuring safety. It is also about women having voice, agency, community, bodily autonomy and the freedom to live lives that belong to them. Sacred Kernow explores some of those same questions from a different but linked place.

Today, I move between strategy meetings and women’s circles, policy and pilgrimage, activism and ritual. I’m a social justice activist, Qoya inspired movement facilitator, leadership coach, ritual maker, storyteller, community builder, mother, wife and witch. I’m American by birth and have made my home here on Cornish land.

Maybe the six-year-old version of me would be surprised by where it has all led, but I think she would recognise the thread and be awfully proud of the woman I've become.

Through Sacred Kernow circles, retreats, workshops, pilgrimages, movement, ritual + ceremony, I create spaces for women to gather, explore, make, move, share stories and reconnect — with ourselves, with each other, with the land and with something deeper.

You don’t need to know anything about goddesses, witchcraft, ritual or spirituality to come along. You don’t need to believe what I believe and there is no particular version of yourself you need to become.

Come exactly as you are and leave a little bit more connected to yourself, community, land, lineage and spirit.

All of you are welcome. All of YOU is welcome here.

Click here for more information about my work and campaign to end violence against women and girls.