Meet Valerie
A warm welcome and deep bow to you for your journey that has led you here. I'm the founder and guide of Hagia Sophia and Shenandoah Valley Church of the Wild. I see guidance as a relationship between my intuitive wisdom attuning with yours, and with the intelligence of the holy wild - the sacred intelligence within all beings, within Earth and the whole planetary system. I see life as initiation into the deeper reality of who and what we really are.
My path of transformation is tied with encounters with nature and place, and with the mystical and the subtle realm of energy and soul. Liminal encounters that opened me to the Real behind the real. As fixed ideas and opinions fell away about how the world works, and who or what God is, something within me expanded. I was led into the worlds of energy fields and soul, the divine feminine, ancestral connection, Celtic spirituality, and a body of wisdom transmissions called the Gene Keys. My path led to the teachers and mentors I needed, and still receive from, some of them listed below. Others of my teachers have been trees and other not human creatures.
My educational background in conflict transformation and restorative justice allow me to apply the underlying systems principles beneath these fields to the inner world. Following years of activism in the climate movement and politics, my path shifted toward the inner sciences, the journey from knowledge to wisdom, for individual and cultural transformation. What we see on the surface level of life as structures, forms, and systems originate from an unseen dimension of life, beneath the surface. The interior and invisible realms. What we see with the eye is simply not all there is.
I am committed to the paths of embodied spiritual awakening, not just for personal wholeness, or to feel good, but to participate in the Great Change emerging in the world at this time. Toward creating systems based in justice, inclusion, cooperation, compassion and kindness. Interconnection means that when we can meet ourselves and the world with more awareness, accepting and integrating what is unconscious, we impact those around us, and we impact the collective toward higher states of consciousness. And this is the whole point... the evolution of the human species begins with each one of us. Whatever has brought you here, it is a holy door, inviting you to enter.
M.A. Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding Eastern Mennonite University
Certified Spiritual Direction Institute Harrisonburg/Charlottesville
Certified Ecospiritual Direction guide - Center for Wild Spirituality
School of Earth & Soul Graduate (John Philip Newell)
Reiki Attunement levels I and II
Eight years of energy healing and courses with spiritual teachers Annie Browning and Annmarie Early
One year medicine wheel path - Sacred Passages with Tammy LaDrew
Animas Valley Institute training the Way of Council and Art of Mirroring
Gene Keys Guide
School of Living Astrology Graduate
Advanced Training Certificate: Applied Archetypal Astrology from Pacifica Graduate Institute
Apprenticeship with Sorrow course graduate (Francis Weller)
Healing Collective Trauma course graduate (Thomas Hubl)
The slides below provide an overview of the underlying basis of what informs and guides Hagia Sophia. Divine Wisdom originates and moves through our sacred human ecology, a term that describes the interactions and relationships between the organisms that make up the whole human person. The processes of energy and matter that constantly flow between the divine/spirit within and around us, in nature, in our body, emotions, and mind, are holy. A sacred conversation. If you have interest in learning more, please scroll through the slides below.
