I’m Melissa. Mother of five, wife of one, astrologer, storyweaver, and lifelong mystic.

Here’s the truth: motherhood didn’t hand me flowers or rainbows. It handed me blood and bone. It split me open so wide I could see the stars through the cracks. I’ve birthed babies and buried dreams. I’ve lost children to distance, faced heartbreak that felt like annihilation, and clawed my way back from the edge more times than I can count. My path has been a spiral. Love and loss, joy and grief, devotion and disillusionment, again and again.

I wasn’t given ancestral stories growing up. Instead, the old tales hunted me. They found me in the dark nights when I was broken open. Goddesses of the deep forest, underworld queens, selkie women who shed their skins. They whispered that I wasn’t crazy, I was remembering. They showed me I was living a much older, wilder story than the one our culture hands to mothers.

And that’s why I do this work. Because I know what it feels like to be swallowed by motherhood, to wonder if you’ll ever recognize yourself again. I know the rage, the grief, the exhaustion, the quiet longing to burn the whole “perfect mom” story to ash. I know the ancient bitch within who rises from those ashes. Fierce, unapologetic, holy.

Astrology and mythology have guided me all the way through my darkest nights of the soul, and continue to do so. They helped me to see that my life falling apart was part of the greater plan to allow me to find myself. They gave me a map through the underworld and a language for the fire in my bones. And now, I walk with other mothers who are ready to face their own descent and find their wild woman waiting on the other side.

If you care about the more official version: I hold a B.S. in Natural Resources, an M.A. in Integrative Health, an M.A. in Psychology, and certifications in Personal Training, Exercise Nutrition, Yoga, Integrative Wellness Coaching, the Treatment of Eating Disorders, Transformative Imagery, Patient Navigation, and Compassionate Inquiry. Currently, I’m a PhD student in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness at the California Institute of Integral Studies.

But the truth is, my real credentials are the blood and tears I’ve spilled, the underworlds I’ve walked, and the fire I’ve come back carrying.