Welcome to my blog!

I first became interested in "holistic medicine" in my late teens and early twenties when I began studying my own cultural history (Cherokee and Powhatan Native American), edible & medicinal plants of the Eastern United States, massage therapy and Reiki healing. Around that time, I also began reading Paramahansa Yogananda, Krishnamurti and Joseph Campbell among others. Native American philosophy is not all that different from Eastern philosophies of healing and the "oneness" of Creation.

I started a daily Hatha yoga practice in my twenties and continued my practice for 10 years until I got married and began seriously studying Middle Eastern dance. As my yoga practice disintegrated, so did my marriage and I grew further from my "Self" than I had ever been. After losing my marriage, my home and my job, I moved to the Eastern Shore of Maryland for almost 7 years. I began a daily yoga practice again as I was recovering from foot surgery. My practice evolved over the years and is much more centered on pranayama and meditation now, although meditation has always been part of my personal spiritual practice.

During the transformative time of my twenties, as I fell out of faith with the dogma of the church, I felt a deep need to take that inward journey to find my "Self". I met Caocoochee on a spiritual retreat, and he guided me through my first Vision Quest (in the Lakota tradition) at Hawk's Nest in Northern Maryland. I completed a 2nd quest supported by my friends Ben and Pete and Leenie Hobbie in West Virginia. On my first quest, I earned the name "Shining Waters". I decided to use this name for my yoga practice as it defines me more than my given name.

My early teachers of healing arts and Native American philosophy and culture included Harry Lentz, Caocoochee, Leenie and Pete Hobbie, Lisa Severn, Jan Walker and Jeanne Rose, among others. I was blessed to also meet & learn from Wallace Black Elk, Chief Arvol Looking Horse (19th generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe, Ed McGaa and Patch Adams. All of my teachers have strongly influenced the path my life has taken - coming full circle to study yoga therapy.

My goal as a guide in the healing arts is to "first do no harm" and to treat every person as an individual. One of the things I love about yoga therapy is that the client is an active participant in their own healing.

I have a passion for fitness, food and living consciously with respect for the earth around us and all of her inhabitants and I bring that to my teaching and guiding.

In yoga we say "Namaste", "The Divinity in me acknowleges the Divinity in you", in Lakota, we say, "Mitakuye Oyasin", "We are all related". Here on my blog page you will find yoga sequences, philosophy, healthy recipes and articles on healing ourselves and the earth. I hope you enjoy!