The real About page

I own that...



Not all copywriters are interested in liberatory art! I’ve long admired revolutionaries and activists who’ve taken a stand through their writing and experienced exile and political asylum for it, such as Thich Nhat Hanh and Jose Rizal. I am also moved by Black feminist authors and artists such as Audre Lorde, bell hooks and Angela Davis, and others in the Third Wave and current day like Sonya Renee Taylor and Adrienne Maree Brown.

I’ve long been drawn to an arc of work connecting to collective liberation… DEI, antiracism, feminism, land back, social justice, identity work, intersectionality, community care, critical race theory, BIPOC or LGBTQIA+ identification, Indigenous sovereignty, trans and gender-equity and inclusion, anticapitalism, anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, supporting small and local business, respecting mental health, respecting neurodiversity, anti-ableism, anti-genocide, anti-apartheid, pro-humanity, abolition, antipoverty work and global solidarity.

As a copywriter in the health and wellness niche, I own that I have extensive embodied experience working directly in hands-on energy exchange, which I believe transfers to words.  (Words are bodies of meaning.) As a lifelong educator, I’ve taught thousands of students across the lifespan—ages 3 to elder—in dance, yoga and massage therapy over the past 25 years. My past clients include Cornell University and Ithaca College. I’ve touched the lives of countless people as a licensed massage therapist specializing in shiatsu and Thai massage in private practice.

I own that as a visionary, I’ve pushed my limits and experienced uncommon depths of understanding. I am no stranger to mystic trance, states of insight, and shamanic initiation (“severely psychotic episodes as a sort of calling,” to reference Rev. Jen-Mitzuke Peters, Doctoral Candidate, LPC, E-RYT). I ran into a gamut of hospitalizations following Zen sesshins (meditation retreats of up to 7 days) from 2014-2016.  I've lovingly joked that my hospitalization profile should go on my C.V.  I was hospitalized in Sheffield, Massachusetts; in Orlando, Florida; in Los Angeles, California; and in Ithaca, New York.  I was later hospitalized in 2020 in Puerto Princesa, Palawan, Philippines, during a relapse into the trance state. I could be described as a recovering meditation addict and am happy to report that my latest prolonged trance in June 2024 in Southern Spain was hospital-free. My initial run-ins with the reality police have endowed a deep humility and empathy for mental health states and perspectives.  I’ve led multiple years of fundraisers for the nonprofit Suicide Prevention and Crisis Service.

I identify as biracial and the daughter of two diasporas, as well as an ally for many people and groups I love and care about.  My family has immigrant roots and I’ve become an immigrant myself in Spain, the middle ground culturally and geographically between the United States and the Philippines. Having a Jewish American mother and a Catholic Filipino father led me to become the Buddhist “medio andaluza” resident of Spain that I am today, embracing tapas and flamenco.  I know what it’s like to be inside and outside of worlds, to explore belonging and identity, to translate and transform experience. From my little perch in the world, I love living at the intersection of the Atlantic Ocean, the Strait of Gibraltar, and the Mediterranean Sea.