Clear evidence that I haven't always embodied consent. 🐈

I've been called a "Human Swiss Army Knife" because of my unusual combination of experiences, diverse network of humans, and ability to connect dots across worlds that don't often speak to one another.

A born-and-bred New Yorker with a foundation in Cultural Anthropology from Brown University, I've spent the past 20 years working at the intersection of strategy, creativity, systems, and human connection. I've served as COO of a civic action foundation, co-founded a community-driven focus group business, traveled the world as an award-winning photographer at TalismanPHOTO, and guided creatives, founders, and startups.

Across industries and roles, the through-line has remained the same: helping people make sense of complexity, strengthen relationships, create elegant systems and flows, and move toward more aligned ways of working and living.

In less corporate language, I'm essentially a Talisman.

My Origin Story

Creative expression, beauty, and authenticity are essential to how I find joy and freedom (Taurus, obviously) — and I was lucky enough to grow up surrounded by people who celebrated most of that. 😅 My parents gave me a point-and-shoot camera with carte blanche as soon as I could hold one. And my grandmother was Eva Zeisel — industrial designer, genuine disruptor, and someone driven by what she called "the playful search for beauty." Growing up around this unique combination of creatives, thinkers, and makers — and with a camera always in hand — shaped how I learned to process what I was seeing, move between many worlds, celebrate moments of tension, and healthily challenge all kinds of authority — to the occasional dismay of my parents.

I grew up with enormous enthusiasm and encouragement — and very few boundaries. And while those two things might seem unrelated, in order to have a safe container to play and expand without losing ourselves, they need one another. My parents were bohemian rebels, traveling the world before having me at 42, raising me according to what they witnessed across cultures, and continuing to welcome me along for the rest of their lives.

But a rich world isn't always a safe one.

What we call love without limits can feel both like a drug and suffocating — even with the absolute best of intentions. I spent decades not knowing where I ended and other people began. But it's never too late to build that container — mine came after 40, and that work is now at the heart of everything I do.

During COVID, I was diagnosed with Bipolar II and embraced myself as pansexual and nonbinary. I leaned into the diagnosis — into the relief of finally understanding that I wasn't failing at being healthy, but that I simply needed outside support. It was the wild, terrifying feeling of being seen for the first time, and the freedom and fear of embarking on a new journey of identity and self-expectation.

I stopped moving according to society's timeline and started choosing my own adventure — beginning the grieving process, releasing what was never mine to carry, and welcoming in what I desire, fear, deserve, and want to play with. I found my way to psilocybin (instead of SSRI’s), EMDR, therapy, kink, and shadow work. 

My own turning point was learning that healing requires consenting to all of it — the pain, the grief, the joy, the hope. Nothing can be bypassed. I've come to realize I thrive at thresholds, crave liminal spaces, seek out cycles and patterns, and am constantly drawn to challenge myself, sometimes masochistically. I've spent a lifetime performing one kind of connection while starving for the kind I actually needed. But it's clear that what I've really been craving all along wasn't more connection, but slower, deeper relationships. One-on-one. Authentic. Present.

My Passions

Community Care & Youth Support

For almost 15 years, I’ve volunteered with Camp AmeriKids, a free summer camp run by The ELM Project for underserved youth living with sickle cell disease. As part of the wellness team, I support campers, volunteers, and staff through conflict resolution, behavioral support, empathy-building, and community care. I was notably the first wellness team member without a mandated reporting profession—bringing an unconventional but deeply relational perspective to supporting young people.

Being part of this community has profoundly shaped both my personal life and the direction of my work, deepening my understanding of teamwork, boundaries, community care, and the difference between saving people and empowering them.

(And yes, I also took the photos and designed the website.)

Crisis Text Line

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I volunteered as a Crisis Text Line counselor, completing training in de-escalation, empathy, and crisis intervention before providing over 200 hours of one-on-one text-based emotional support to people in acute distress.

This experience deepened my understanding of active listening, emotional regulation, and the importance of meeting people where they are rather than where I think they should be. Something I keep coming back to: support is rarely about having the right answers. It's about helping someone feel seen, understood, and less alone.

Animal Welfare

I specialize in caring for animals with medical needs and sensitive temperaments while supporting volunteers experiencing compassion fatigue and burnout. Fear Free Shelter Program certified, I contribute through fostering, volunteer coordination, adoption facilitation, outreach and fundraising photography, and veterinary assistance.

My work in animal rescue—and supporting both animals and humans in crisis—has deepened my understanding of boundaries, communication, consent, nervous systems, grief, and the importance of asking for help. Connecting more deeply with animals also opened me to forms of intuition, interdependence, and trust that had always been present, but that I was once too afraid to fully embrace.

Check out my animal and rescue resources here.

Birth, Death & Transition

I'm currently studying to become a birth doula, with death doula work next on the horizon — something that feels less like a career pivot and more like a continuation of the way I've long approached care, transition, and accompaniment. Doula work continues to deepen my understanding of presence, consent, advocacy, and what it means to support people through profound change. I'm drawn to the threshold moments of life: beginnings, endings, and the spaces in between. It turns out I always have been.

Kink as Healing

The kink community has become a deeply affirming space for practicing communication, consent, boundaries, trust, accountability, and embodied self-awareness — both individually and in community. It supports my ongoing exploration of shadow work, desire, and somatic processing: the same terrain I navigate with the people I support, just in a different key.

Me in My Body

Apparently I pulled myself up on the kitchen table leg and started dancing to klezmer before I could walk. My parents filled my childhood with art and music and my body just responded to the emotions being conveyed. Movement, dance, sports, and martial arts have been my entire life — and empathetic embodiment as a form of expression and connection runs through all of it. This deep understanding that our bodies can't lie, we can only ignore them — that they are the connective tissue between what we feel and what we've lived — is a key part of my healing practice. I'm especially drawn to forms with deep cultural and historical roots, where movement carries lineage, memory, and meaning.

These days I mostly salsa dance, am exploring West Coast Swing, and will never say no to an early-90s hip-hop party (ideally ending before 11).