Tending to the
Inner Garden
The garden now
travels with you.
I love ancient medicine, and I love futuristic technology. I created an AI tool filled with practical steps to help you in your everyday health journey, and filled with timeless wisdom.
Check in with yourself each day. Write in your journal. Draw timeless wisdom from The Well. Take a practical step on The Path. Sit on The Bench for a conversation with whoever you need today.
A circle born from
my own healing.
Tending to the Inner Garden began after I finished two years inside an intensive trauma healing program, studying individual, ancestral, and collective trauma. I was in recovery at the same time, newly home from the hospital, tending to my own medical trauma. You can read that story on Heal Out Loud.
I reached for the tools I trust, the ones I have used for years to digest what happened to me and return it to my body. I could have done this quietly at home. I chose to invite the public to come with me.
We met every Monday for a year in Northwest Broward. The circles were powerful. Each person came to tend their own garden. We worked with what grows inside you.
I am proud to say I have sat with patients from across the political aisle and held space for their humanity. It challenged me, and I challenged myself to stay, because we are going to need to heal. We are going to need to reconcile. We are going to need to repair. This is Tending to the Inner Garden.
Through attention,
stewardship, and care.
- Some areas need watering.
- Some need pruning.
- Some need protection.
- Some need nourishment.
- Some need rest.
- And some have been quietly growing beneath the surface all along, waiting for the right conditions to emerge.
A practice of noticing
what is already present.
Tending to the Inner Garden is an invitation to return to yourself with curiosity, compassion, reverence, and care.
It is a practice of noticing what is blooming, what is withering, what is asking for attention, and what is ready to be released.
It is a practice of learning to trust the intelligence that already exists within you.
A garden grows flowers.
A garden also bears fruit.
Fifteen years ago I sat with a patient and told her about the rule of the fruits. I grew up in Haiti, surrounded through the whole of summer by fruit of every kind.
Mango ◆ Soursop ◆ Tamarind ◆ Cacao ◆ Plum ◆ Guava ◆ Avocado ◆ Pineapple ◆ Banana
Every fruit asks to be received in its own way.
- Guava
- bitten whole, skin and all.
- Mango
- the skin drawn back, the flesh eaten down to the seed.
- Pineapple
- the crown and rind cut away before you reach the sweetness.
- Soursop
- opened soft, the white flesh taken, the dark seeds set aside.
- Tamarind
- cracked from its shell, the pulp drawn from around the seed.
- Cacao
- never bitten. The seed is held in the mouth, drawn sweet, and let go.
Wisdom is knowing how to meet each fruit. The same wisdom knows how to meet each teacher, each book, each relationship, and each season of a life.
This became the way I study, the way I read, the way I learn. Both are worth my hours.
I hold people the same way. I do not discard a person because one part of them is hard to digest. Across difference of race, of nation, of gender, I stay in relationship and I look for the nectar in the one in front of me. This is what makes me a healer.
I am after the nectar.
I can show you
where the sweetness hides.
There is more. I can also see the parts that are not meant to be eaten.
So I can guide. I can show a person where the sweetness hides in a fruit they have never held, and which part to set down without fear.
This is what it means to guide. To come close. To show you how the fruit opens. To name what nourishes, what protects, and what is set down with respect.
My work has always been to harvest, and to teach others to harvest for themselves.
In conversation with
the Hermit.
For much of my life, I have lived in conversation with the Hermit archetype.
Many people assume that because I connect deeply with others, I must be highly social. The truth is that some of the most meaningful moments of my life have occurred in solitude. Walking along the ocean. Sitting with a journal. Studying. Praying. Reflecting. Listening. Creating.
The Hermit is a devotion to depth. A willingness to sit quietly enough to hear what the soul is trying to say.
A cultivated estate.
Not a wild, abandoned field.
When I think about the inner garden, I imagine a cultivated estate. Beautiful walls covered in bougainvillea and climbing roses. Passion flowers weaving through the pathways. Fruit hanging from the vines. Abundance overflowing beyond the gates.
The walls are there because what is growing inside matters.
There is a difference between exclusion and consecration. A nightclub has a bouncer because it is exclusive. A temple asks you to remove your shoes because it is sacred. The work that I do has always felt closer to the temple.
symbols, archetypes, dreams, prayer, contemplation, and mystery.
sleep, food, boundaries, grief, accountability, and showing up for one's life.
The mystical and the practical meet in the soil.
At some point, we cross a threshold. The armor comes off. The performance softens. Something more essential is invited forward.
This is the spirit in which I approach healing. Not as a transaction. Not as a performance. A sacred relationship with life itself.
The fullness of your humanity is welcome here.
When Rumi left the tavern, I followed…
I was hopeful enough to keep listening
until the day I found myself
transformed into an entire garden of roses.
Excerpt: “Rumi (for Coleman Barks)” · Mary Oliver
Tending to the Inner Garden
is also available to carry with you.
Nine days. Nine dimensions of your inner life. A few minutes each morning, in compassionate presence with yourself.
Begin the JourneyThree ways to come
into the garden.
Choose the one that meets you where you are.
One-on-One Sessions
Tending to the Inner Garden is offered as one-on-one sessions. Unhurried, private, working with what is present.
Book a Session
Bring It to Your People
Tending to the Inner Garden can be brought to your organization, group, or retreat. Reach out to begin planning, and we will shape it together.
Send a Message or text (954) 451-0617
Meet From Anywhere
One on one online sessions for the tending that asks for privacy and your own quiet room. Wherever you are, the garden travels with you.
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In person or online. We will work with what is present.