About Madison

Healing is possible

I believe the people drawn to live for something larger than themselves are also often asked to meet life's hardest thresholds: grief, trauma, illness, rupture, and doubt. As a queer, bi-identified, cis woman, my own journey has included complex trauma, chronic illness, and the deep grief of losing people I loved. I know in my body that this kind of threshold work is survivable, and that it can reshape us into someone more capable of the life we are being called toward, not less.

Throughout my own healing, the natural world, wise mentors, and chosen family offered guidance when I needed it most. We do not become who we are alone. We are shaped by the people who loved us, by the losses that cracked us open, by the land we belong to, and by those who came before us and wanted something better. These relationships, along with years of study and clinical practice, led me to work rooted in somatic therapy, depth psychology, grief tending, and nature-based healing.

Today, it is an honor to support others as they move through their own thresholds of loss, trauma, disconnection, and longing.

Lineage, Training and Foundation

Academic and Clinical Training

Master of Arts in Clinical Mental Health Counseling

Master of Arts in Sustainable Communities, where I studied what calls people toward a life of meaning and contribution to justice, what propels and sustains that dedication, and what gets passed forward to the generations that follow.

Clinical Therapy Practice — Former individual, couples, and family therapist in an addiction recovery setting, specializing in trauma-informed, experiential, and wilderness-based approaches.

Specialized training

Rites of Passage and Ritual Training

I’ve received extensive training from some incredible people and organizations since 2016:

I’m also a founding member of Remembering Earth, a collective dedicated to rites of passage and community grief work in Western North Carolina. Where I co-lead:

  • Wilderness Programs - Multi-day immersive fasts, solo thresholds, and youth/adult severance programs within the School of Lost Borders framework

  • Multi-week Programs — Facilitating community grief programs, dreamwork, women's circles, and programs on death and dying

My foundations

Before my ancestors settled in North America, they practiced Celtic, Germanic, and Jewish traditions. I feel their presence and their lineage in my bones. While my family first settled in the region now known as North Carolina, I was raised in the high desert of Arizona. I now live and practice in the mountains of Western North Carolina, on the traditional, unceded homelands of the Cherokee.

My work sits at the intersection of continuing visionary traditions and listening to the land’s wisdom. I am deeply informed by:

  • Queer Theory & Feminist Thought

  • Eco-Psychology & Earth-Based Rites

  • Grief, Animism, & Death Work

Voices That Guide My Practice:

Francis Weller · Bayo Akomolafe · Joanna Macy · adrienne maree brown · Robin Wall Kimmerer · Meredith Little · Steven Foster · Silvia Federici · Sharon Blackie · Mary Oliver · Amanda Yates Garcia · Bill Plotkin · Carl Jung 

Connect

If this way of working resonates with you, I offer a free 15-minute consultation. I’d be honored to connect.

Reach out

Reflections

“Madison is a powerful, skilled, and inspiring being who has helped me rediscover my connection to land, sky, air, and water. Our time brought me healing and peace and gave me new tools and insight to work with. I can’t recommend her highly enough.” - Previous Client