whakapapa

Kia ora, my name is Juliette. Daughter of Annie and Lawrie, youngest (read goofiest) of three, born in Whakatu, with whakapapa trailing footprints back to Scotland, Ireland and England.

We moved around a lot when I was young. I was raised by many lands; The golden sands and emerald estuary of Totaranui, the vibrant embrace of the Kahurangi, Tawhiti Matea and the steep curves of Te Whanganui-a-Tara. I was schooled and cleansed and strengthened by Te Awa Tupua — the Whanganui river. And on the hot red dirt of Te Whenua Moemoea — Australia, land of the dreaming, I grew through serpent spine and brightly coloured wings into a passionate adulthood.

I am because we are, and so to the land, water, creature and spirit that has fed and belonged me to this wild generous earth, I sing my praise; to the human families I came into and circle out with, I keep bowing; to the life that leads out from here — May I stitch forward healing to the violence passed through my ancestry into systems of extraction and oppression.

May I serve and be in the hands of great change.

vocation

It’s a full life, overflowing with yearning. At this moment in time, over a decade in to honing my skills of contribution to personal, social and ecological wellbeing, I am bolstered by a beautiful reassurance, both personal and reflected in clients and students, that is that the practices work. While I felt the shimmering promise in the early days of practice, that all these moments of clear experiencing might someday add up to something, I did not know then as I know now how simple and effective the practices really were. That they were changing me. That they were all leading to a kind of embodied rest that would allow me to work in a world full of un-rest and dis-ease with great conviction, compassion and commitment to collective wellbeing. I teach now what I know first hand feeds the hungry, heals hurt and releases the over-burdened heart into it’s own holy breaking and remaking.

My study, experience and ongoing inspirations span across many fields all relating to deepening awareness of the animate human body and the return to community and earth-connected living. From birth-work and women’s sexual health, to body-work in the form of zenthai shiatsu (thai massage, shiatsu and osteopathic techniques), yoga (Iyengar, hatha, anusara, embodied flow, trauma informed yoga and the ongoing development of terra soma), Somatic Movement Therapy, Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, Dance Movement Therapy, Story, Poetry, Mytho-somatics, Ecosomatics and most recently The Four Shields framework for Wilderness-Based Initiation and Vision Quest.

I am endlessly fascinated by this ‘one precious life’ as Mary Oliver had said, and am convinced it is worth finding our way to inhabit our days with presence and eyes that see the profoundly sacred sentience thinly veiled within all the everyday ordinary things; like stones, and sunlight on water, like bark and moss and you, before you do anything at all, just simply breathing.

qualifications

• Wilderness Rites Of Passage Guide under the tutorage of The School of Lost Borders

• Somatic Movement Therapist, RSME & RSMT with ISMETA

• E-RYT® 500 Registered Yoga Teacher

• YACEP® Continuing Education Provider with Yoga Alliance

• Dialectical Behavioural Therapy Coach

• Certified Embodied Flow™ Facilitator

• Certificate in Psychosomatic Therapy

• Zenthai Shiatsu Practitioner

• Yoni Mapping Therapist

If you haven’t checked it out yet — the hub where my various passions and qualifications weave together with a collective of inspired teachers and students is Awakening Arts, School of Yoga and Ecosomatics.

This is where my love for growing community gets to bloom with trainings and retreats online and in person — exploring the confluence of wilderness connection, yoga, and somatic psychology. Check out the school here awakenignarts.co.nz.  We are 8 years deep and thriving!

work with me one : one, online or in person

• Somatic Movement Therapy — Healing is not a concept it’s an engagement. Supporting individuals with the integration of lived experience and the development of embodied safety and coherence. To (re)ignite inspiration.

• Four Shields 1:1 Discovery and empowerment calls. Supporting individuals through 1:1 Four Shields work to meet life transitions with depth and coherence. To recognise their gifts, surrender to the mystery and claim their power.

• Yoga Teacher Mentorship - Supporting and re-igniting inspiration in yoga teachers who are committed to practising and teaching yoga with cultural awareness, ethical responsibility, and contemporary relevance.

living in mythic times

Are you ready? Are we ready? … Are we equipped enough with the kind of skill and artistry this world might require of us, to live well in these mythic times ?

Can we show up with humility, courage and wisdom for ourselves, for our families, in our local communities and for the social - global events that need our voice ?

How will we make a world together that is safe and inspiring, that generates wellbeing for our grandchildren and this wild wakeful Earth ?

We must be somewhat ready, somewhat equipped, because these are the times we are in. We are here. And - we have some serious growing down and in to do!

It’s going to take a lot of hands on work, and deep rest, play, and community activation to remember ourselves into right relation with each-other and the more than human world.

I guess the good news is, we innately, somatically know how make connection, how to make the world whole. Perhaps we just need to stop long enough to over hear, sense and feel ourselves dreaming.

We won’t generate change through thought and dialogue alone, it is time to live, again, more deeply into our bodies, from there, we can take our next, together steps.