I grew up in a home that valued spirituality, a Baptist home. And though I learned so much about love from my family of origin, I have also sought out spiritual knowledge from many sources... the beautiful rituals of the Episcopal Church, the silence of the Quaker Community, the vibrancy of Earth based spirituality, and the power of acceptance found in Buddhist meditation. I have found my spiritual home in the teachings of the Hetakas of Peru, a  spirituality that allows me to keep all the truths I’ve learned from all these precious teachings with clarity of intent and clearness of thought.

In the Hetaka tradition, the truth about who we are is our song, as they call it -- our passion for living, our joy, happiness, peace, exuberance, love, compassion. The importance of these qualities are found in sacred writings from all over the world. Throughout our lives we have a tendency to trade in parts of our song for fear-based recordings, masks, that keep us confused or stuck, blaming, defending . Our masks even disagree with one another, shame and chastise one another. These dulling repetitive patterns created by our mask cause disharmony both internally and in our external relationships. One minute some thought form takes control of our lives, the next minute another. We desperately try to find our power, our truth, by trying to control things outside of ourselves–trying to control other people, the earth, what someone believes, the weather, our emotions , people’s genes. But true power comes from our ability to choose where our attention is...the power of our attention. By choosing where we place our attention and by aiming it on love and joy, we can set our intentions with clarity of thought, emotion and action creating a vibration that aligns us with Spirit and generates a flow of energy around the desires of our hearts.


My wish for myself and for all those who find these words is that we help one another to more and more trust the power of our song, aligning ourselves with Spirit so that we may heal ourselves and our planet. I look forward to spending time with you.

Barbara has a BA in Psychology and a MA in Economics. In the late 1980s Barbara began her training in emotional healing through the Co-Counseling Community. The Co-Counseling Philosophy held that emotional recovery from early hurts was possible through a peer process of deep listening that allowed emotions to surface and heal. For four or five years Barbara participated in the co-counseling community, practicing with other co-counselors, going to trainings, on class, race, gender, sexuality, parenting, and eventually by leading an incest survivor support group. In 1990 she began her career as a body worker. During the first three years as a body worker she spent a portion of her time working with Triangle Hospice, massaging the patients and care givers and teaching touch workshops to staff. Her work with people who were dying led her to seek out and to do intensive self study of the Mindfulness Meditation teachings of Stephen Levine and the guided visualization work of Margo Adair. In 1993 she began teaching guided visualization classes and in 1994 Mindfulness Meditation.

From 1995-2005 she also taught Mindfulness Meditation and lifestyle change classes and workshops at the Duke University Diet and Fitness center. Her interests and experience in working with people emotionally, mentally, and spiritually as well as physically led her to study two energy-based healing systems - Polarity (which combines East Indian and quantum physics theories) and the Hetaka tradition (a shamanic tradition out of Peru). By 1997 she was also giving individual energy healing sessions at the DFC as she had been doing in her private practice for the previous two years.  Resume

Part of Barbara’s spiritual path has been to learn to listen deeply and lovingly to her own inner criticizing voices-- deep enough to hear the fear and hurt they old. Her deep compassion comes from her own healing and keeps aflame her love for techniques such as

• Focusing
• Taoist Meditation
• Non-Violent Communication

which she incorporates into her teaching and individual sessions. Another part of her path has been to remember over and over again the power we each have to create life-flowing energy by dancing from our song with all that is.