Articles Written by Jen:
Synchronicity Magazine (Issue 99): Living From the Inside Out
“Allowing our children to go on that journey of discovery with our full support and sensitive guidance is the best way I know of to ensure a future where the Earth and all her children are well cared for. Children are much less likely to grow up to hurt themselves, others, and the planet when they know they have choices and that they are responsible for their own actions and indeed, the direction of their lives.”
Common Ground Magazine (July/Aug 2017): Healing Addiction: It Takes a Village
“We’ve assumed that punishing addicts for their behaviour and marginalizing them is the way to deter addictive patterns but this is actually the stance that encourages addiction to flourish.”
Pagan Pages Magazine (Jun 2017): Ancestors
Excerpt from the book “Dreaming of Cupcakes: A Food Addict’s Shamanic Journey into Healing:”
“People tend to treat addicts with everything from pity to disgust. All addicts are trying to soothe and cope with pain and emotional trauma of some sort. I want to highlight these people as survivors who have made choices that enabled them to keep living. I understand that we are each responsible for our own actions, thoughts, feelings, and words. I hope that this book shows the complexity of addiction and the inner world of an addicted person. I pray for a compassionate approach toward addicts and the people who live with them.”
Pagan Pages Magazine (Jul 2017): Children and Ceremony
Excerpt from the book “The Magic Circle: Shamanic Ceremonies for the Child and the Child Within:”
“With the growing secularization of society in the 20th Century, mainstream Western culture gained more freedom of spiritual discovery and expression. Unfortunately, some of us also lost our conscious tie with the sacred both inside and outside of us. This has created a generation of kids who seem to feel a bit in limbo; many want ways to walk their spiritual paths and make a difference in the world but do not feel comfortable in either secularization or organized religions. We find that many kids have instinctively discovered a relationship with the cosmos in a consistent way through spending time out in nature.”
Pagan Pages Magazine (Aug 2017): Forgiveness Practice in Families
“In the hubbub of everyday life, it can be so easy to forget what is important. Ancient Hawaiian families knew this and infused their lives with ritual because they knew this was a way to keep their mind/heart/body/spirit clean daily.”
Pagan Pages Magazine (Sep 2017): Ancient Strategies for Cultivating Inner Peace
“You don’t have to have a spiritual practice or even have spiritual beliefs to benefit from these techniques. If you struggle to keep your center in challenging situations, these could be helpful to you in tapping into your inner strength and innate wisdom.”
The Empath Magazine (Autumn 2017): Animal Totems: Masters of Sensitivity
“Sensitivity is a gift and if a tough animal like the crocodile values it, it must have a purpose that can be equated with innate strength.”
Pagan Pages Magazine (Nov 2017): Shamanism and Mental Health
“The indigenous social worker went on to tell me that she comes across the same ignorance I experienced often in her field where psychologists think that what they learned in their training is the only valid knowledge out there. She also went on to tell us that this is why the health care system often fails indigenous peoples: because it is culturally insensitive.
Pagan Pages Magazine (Dec 2017): Death as a Teacher
“Thankfully, society is now beginning to see the need to discuss death and dying practices. Death Cafés are cropping up in cities all over the world and people want to know how to live, die, and grieve well; in fact, people are often surprised to learn that the three are all interconnected.”
Pagan Pages Magazine (January 2018): Solstice Releases and Intentions
‘We humans are more powerful than we know. We spend a lot of time feeling helpless, allowing ourselves to fall into victimhood. I’ve found through experience that Carlos Castaneda, the pioneering anthropologist and dreamer said it best: “We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of energy is the same.” We humans tend to stay in patterns and pack around crap that doesn’t serve our evolution for a long time. We forget–if we ever were encouraged to remember–that we can release pain, trauma, and harmful patterns right out of our energy bodies.’
Pagan Pages Magazine (February 2018): Change as a Natural Part of Life
“The only truth I know is that life is always changing; it must adapt to grow. Because we are a part of nature, this is true for humans too. In the natural world, though seasons follow roughly the same pattern year after year, there are constant evolutionary changes happening at the DNA level to ensure that we can survive and thrive through the ages.”
Pagan Pages Magazine (April 2018): Being of the Earth
“People often ask me how a Catholic Portuguese kid ended up being so steeped in shamanic and indigenous traditions….Being human is a beautiful and challenging journey. When we are in right relation to our relatives–human and otherwise–life is not as hard and lonely a journey.”
Pagan Pages Magazine (May 2018): Dance as Catharsis
“When in the midst of dance, we can heal without words by learning to tap into the body and spirit wisdom that is lying dormant inside of us. Along with patterns that don’t serve us any longer, we have a chance to witness those that do.”
Pagan Pages Magazine (June 2018): A Leap of Faith
“I learned from the plants to accept myself as I was and to trust what I knew deep inside of me: I was a good educator with a passion for advocating for children’s rights to learn in ways that matched their sensibilities. I found a place deep inside that I anchored into to draw strength. Though I honour and respect my public school colleagues, I don’t regret my decision to leave and take a path less traveled.”
Pagan Pages Magazine (July 2018): Children and the Seven Generations
“I know that what we do today affects the seven generations ahead and the seven generations behind us. We have the chance to shift what we believe about children and their value in a way that our ancestors perhaps were not able to. Respecting the work of parents and the rights of children to explore their new world in safety is actually good for all of us because those kids will be deciding policy and taking care of us when we are elders. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want a traumatized, jaded, and perhaps violent person taking care of me when I am an elder. I want to be surrounded by adults who were nurtured when they were children. These adults are more likely to be compassionate, have a strong sense of human and environmental rights, carry love in their hearts, and be active in their citizenship.”
Pagan Pages Magazine (Aug 2018): Self-Love: The Gift of Living Aloha
“I like you just as you are.” In a society that is always telling us that we are not good enough, this was–and remains–a radical statement.”
Pagan Pages Magazine (Sep 2018): Connecting with the Inner Wise One
“We are living in a time when connecting with elder medicine is essential if we are going to be able to navigate the challenges of our time: continuing wars, genocide, global warming, economic collapse, and violence of all kinds. Wise elders are a living resource; they have much life experience and they have learned how to wade through life’s ups and downs in a way that looks easeful and even graceful.”
Pagan Pages Magazine (Oct 2018): Findhorn: Meditations on Peace
“The angel card we drew for our group was SUPPORT and I really saw people holding each other with openness in their hearts during some pretty rough moments. And I think that is really what brings about peace. Can we leave room for people to show up exactly as they are and hold a loving space where they have the possibility to transform a pattern in their life that is not working for them? We were proof this week that this could be done cross-culturally.”
Pagan Pages Magazine (Nov 2018): Dreaming: An Essential Skill
“Whether we realize it or not, we are living in a spiritual soup of energy containing many layers of experience and knowing that we can access if we are able to quiet our inner worlds to listen. Dreaming is a vital practice for our time.”
Pagan Pages Magazine (Dec 2018): Going Back to my Roots
“I do know one thing…If I stay rooted in my values and I keep sharing my gifts through my essential being, my life will be well lived–no matter what surprises the universe sends my way.”
Pagan Pages Magazine (Jan 2019): Individuals Within the Unified Matrix of Life
“We are individuals with our own life paths but we are living in a relational field of energy where what we do, say, and think impacts everything else in connection with us and vice versa. We are individuals within the unified matrix of life.”
Pagan Pages Magazine (Feb 2019): Spirits on Individual Journeys
“What I have faith in is that our souls* are ancient and wise; many of us have lived many lifetimes and Great Spirit is patient in letting us come back again and again to this Earth plane to refine our characters. I don’t know if this resonates for you but this feels true to me: Elders have told me that ultimately on a spiritual level, each of us has a life purpose that only our Dreamers know.”
Pagan Pages Magazine (Mar 2019): Working with Past Life Memories
” People ask me all the time how I can “believe” in past lives. And my response is: I don’t believe anything until I’ve experienced it. I’ve had enough of these moments where my psyche breaks through to show me that time is not linear and that my consciousness can roam freely through time that I now simply know these things to be true. ”
Pagan Pages Magazine (Apr 2019): Healing Through Sacred Music
“I want to point out here that sacred songs are different than popular songs credited to musicians. These songs are designed for healing and they often have a very specific intent.”
Pagan Pages Magazine (May 2019): Living in the Fifth World Prophecy
“On the surface, it seems like the world is going to hell in a handbasket, and I hope to present an alternative view to the one mainstream media is feeding us. My intent is to shed some spiritual light on our situation that can help us navigate these trying times with more ease and grace.”
Pagan Pages Magazine (June 2019): Human BEing or Human DOing?
“If you are feeling burnt out, I encourage you to begin looking inside to see the patterns that need to change in your life. What will you give your energy to? What will you stop giving your energy to?”
Pagan Pages Magazine (July 2019): Perimenopause: A Spiritual Threshold
“When these psychological shifts started happening along with the physiological ones, I didn’t put the two together. I initially thought I was losing my zest for life or that there was something wrong with my dreaming and manifesting skills that I’d always been able to lean on. What I see now is that there is a really profound change happening in all of my energy bodies requiring me to rest and introspect more.”
