Hi, I’m Drew, and I’m not for everyone…
And, I’m like most people. I’ve been deeply hurt, and I shaped a life around not getting hurt again in the same way. I know addiction, self-loathing, self-destruction, self-abandonment, self-importance, and self-deceit, all of which allowed me to craft a “successful” life that might actually be perfect for someone else. I blew up my self-made life as a metal artist and fabricator, because I was tired of feeling like a fraud, and because I was bringing the wrong dreams alive. After achieving some level of success in my field, I couldn’t shake the dis-ease at the center of my being. “Who the hell am I anyway, if not the stories I’ve carried around so long?” And “how much of the good, the bad, and the ugly have I hidden from myself?”
I said “yes” to moving beyond the frontiers of the familiar and safe, into a journey where I learned that the path of becoming is one of unbecoming. It is one of awakening to the fragmentation of our ego, and finding a Self that can dis-identify with its parts, and hold them as they have always needed. Furthermore, there is the decolonization of identities we have taken or been given, lived with our bodies, complete with all of their attitudes and beliefs. But healing for the sake of healing was not enough, as there was a journey to soul that was really calling me.
My journey took me to secluded mountain top temples in China, to the wilds of the Amazon, the deserts of the SW United States, and into the landscapes of my body and psyche, only to encounter that what I have been simultaneously been running from, I was running toward.
And while the specifics of my journey are uniquely mine, as are yours, when we look at the deep structure of the human journey, we find that we are longing to arrive at the same destination, we came from the same place, and the ordeals along the way are not all that different. We all need to be held by hearts that can love and bless, and be seen with eyes that convey the heart’s generosity. We also need eyes that can appreciate the specificity of our journey, while also seeing the big picture.
Training and Influences
Animas Valley Institute/Bill Plotkin: 10 years. Psychospiritual wilderness guiding that includes: Depth, dream, soul craft and soul initiation work, deep imagery process, council and mirroring, somatic process, parts work, ceremony, and so much more.
Pacifica Graduate Institute/Steven Aizenstat: 3 years. Dream tending training.
Taoist Studies Institute: 10 years: Taoist cosmology, psychology, ritual, movement, and meditation.
Trained and practicing in depth and somatic, and alchemical psychology.
Trauma informed working deeply with poly-vagal theory, parts work, and trained in EMDR.
Indigenous Technologies: Tracking, bow-making, enthobotany, animal behavior, fire-making, and other wilderness awareness modalities helpful in re-wilding the body and psyche.
I have been guiding people in wilderness-based rites of passage experiences since 2009, and adult psycho-spiritual programs for the past eight years.
As a gender-queer, neuro-diverse, male-bodied person, and someone who has been doing anti-oppression work for many years, I have become a trusted to companion those whose bodies hold the lived experience of many identities and their associated traumas.