About
Teacher, writer, and spiritual companion drawing from two decades of contemplative training, mystical theology, and an ever-deepening communion with the sacred.
I am, before anything else, a participant. The work I do — facilitating, writing, companioning — is downstream from the practice. I am still learning what I teach, and I plan to keep being a student of this mystical life for as long as I am alive.
I have worked for years with growth companies and their CEOs, executive teams, and boards in providing strategic, global marketing programs. Four IPO business successes. Fast-paced high-growth environments. I came to know what it is to lead at scale, and what it costs the soul to do so without contemplative grounding.
I earned my Master of Arts in Transformative Leadership at the California Institute of Integral Studies, in their School of Higher Consciousness and Transformation. CIIS taught me the architecture of consciousness transformation, and connected me to a global network of teachers and guides I still travel with. Plant medicine became part of my training in those years — slow, intentional, ceremonial work that I do not write about lightly.
I am completing a Master of Divinity at Global Ministries University. GMU has given me the chance to study mysticism, spiritual healing, theology, poetry, and myth — all the things that give a life meaning and purpose. It is also what led me into spiritual companioning, and into the writing I now publish at Carmelsoul.com.
For the last several years I have worked closely with Lyndall Demere, a spiritual director in Metaphysics, on creating and disseminating metaphysical meditations for the purpose of mystical experiences and healings. Together we compiled and published Upper Room Meditation: Mystical Meditations for Living and Dying in Divine Grace & Developing Attunement for the Practice of Spiritual Healing in 2023 — a book used by hospice workers and contemplative people around the world.
I served as a board member of AIM Youth for Mental Health, a nonprofit dedicated to bridging the gap between research and access to evidence-based care for young people.
I open my barn and home in Carmel-by-the-Sea as a container for like-minded and like-hearted groups for spiritual retreats and pursuits of growth, healing, and prayer. Many of the people you see in the photos throughout this site have been through it.
"The Mystic is You. The Mystic is Me. The Mystic is the thread that runs through all of us, asking only to be remembered."
Spiritual Companioning
One-to-one companioning with Tara Ryan, MA, MDiv — for those moving through grief, transition, awakening, or the kind of question only deeper listening can meet.
There is a particular kind of room a person needs when something inside is changing. Not a fixer's room. Not a diagnostic room. A room where the holy can show up, and where the questions are allowed to be larger than the answers.
Spiritual companioning is not therapy and is not advice. It is the ancient practice of accompanying another soul — listening for the movement of the sacred in their life, naming what is rising, and holding space for what cannot yet be named. The companion does not lead. The companion walks alongside, attending.
Two decades of contemplative training. A Master of Arts in Transformative Leadership from CIIS and a Master of Divinity from Global Ministries University. Years of study with Lyndall Demere in metaphysical meditation and spiritual healing. Time spent learning the slow language of plant medicines and the slower language of silence. And, beneath all of it, my own ongoing pilgrimage through the twelve phases I write about in The New Mystic.
We meet on Zoom, by phone, or — for those local to the Monterey Peninsula — in person at the Carmel barn or walking Point Lobos. Sessions are 60 minutes. Most companioning relationships meet twice monthly, though some are weekly during a particularly tender season, and some are monthly when integration is the work.
A first session is always offered without obligation, so we can sense together whether the fit is right. Sometimes I am the right companion. Sometimes I am not — and naming that is also sacred work.
Sessions are offered on a sliding scale of $150–$300, with a small number of sponsored spots reserved each season for those for whom the fee is a barrier. If money is the thing keeping you from inquiring, please inquire anyway.
"To accompany is to walk beside. To hold space is to make room for what is already there."
The next step is a short note. Tell me a little about what is moving in you, and what kind of companioning you are looking for. I read every note myself.
There are a few ways. Spiritual companioning is the most intimate. The school is the most structured. The barn is the most embodied. The Patreon is the most everyday. And the book is the easiest place to begin — it is the map of my own path, offered to anyone who wants a map of their own.