New Mystics Refuge Welcomes You

Taking awakened action with lavish love in fierce grace for the environmentally sensitive and the sensitive environment

Growing Together

Grace’s path has unfolded through a lifetime of discipline, devotion, and revelation.
For over twenty years she lived as a world-class athlete and equestrian coach, known for her uncanny ability to communicate with animals at a level that felt less like training and more like communion. After a profound spiritual experience reshaped her understanding of consciousness, she reinvented her entire approach—guiding students to meet animals as sentient partners, not instruments of mastery. Her methods went on to influence a new generation of horsewomen and horsemen seeking relationships rooted in presence, respect, and attunement.

A decade later, a series of debilitating health collapses brought her professional life to an abrupt end. What followed was an initiation few would choose: homelessness, illness, and months of solitude in the desert. One night, in a barren wilderness lit only by starlight, an inexplicable burst of orange brilliance tore through the darkness and awakened her; what she would later understand as the first spark of the vision that became New Mystics Refuge.

From the desert, she moved into Buddhist monasteries and later Christian monastic communities, where silence became both teacher and companion. She discovered a profound devotion to contemplative prayer, shared practice, and the slow, communal work of transformation. Recognizing her call to guide others, she pursued formation in trauma-sensitive mindfulness, became an ecumenical eco-chaplain through the Sati Center and Insight Meditation Center, completed the intensive The Mind Illuminated dedicated-practitioner training training directly with neuroscientist meditation master, Culadasa, and participated in research-based awakening programs exploring the science of consciousness.

Her path, however, was not finished with her.
After decades of disciplined practice and healing work, her journey reached another threshold. One night, too ill to stand, she whispered a final prayer for freedom from suffering. At dawn she awoke in a state beyond ordinary perception—receiving darshan from a radiant Indian sage she later recognized as Ramana Maharshi. This vision marked the beginning of an ongoing inner transformation that continues to reshape her life and teaching.

Today, Grace lives in service to the freedom she has tasted, guiding others toward the clarity, spaciousness, and innate wholeness already alive within them. She shares her experience through weekly online Centering Prayer sessions, trauma-sensitive classes for Christian and Buddhist contemplatives, women’s Christian satsang, and private spiritual practice guidance.

She is completing a Master’s degree in Religion and Theopoetics, weaving together contemplative wisdom, trauma-aware spirituality, neuroscience, and embodied mysticism into a path that meets seekers exactly where they are, and opens into the vastness of who they truly are.