Meet Catherine…
Catherine is a Doctor of Acupuncture, a Classical Chinese Herbalist, a shamanic practitioner, a holistic miscarriage and birth doula. She began her journey into medicine work through the practice of shamanism in 2007, when she started studying with the Kimmapii Community, nestled in the heart of the Crowsnest Mountains. After years spent travelling and shamanically exploring herself and the world, like a butterfly on the wind, she realized that her soul was calling for a more structured form of medicine - one that could give framework to her longing to serve her fellow human beings..
This lead her to the Academy of Classical Oriental Sciences (now known as the Kootenay Columbia School of Integrative Sciences), in Nelson, BC, where she immersed herself in the 5 year Doctor of Chinese Medicine program. She instantly knew she had found her life’s calling. The wonder and breadth of the scope of practice of Chinese Medicine entranced her - and then, she discovered the world of Fu Ke, or gynaecological medicine. In her very first class, her teacher matter-of-factly stated that a woman’s period should be easy and smooth: no PMS symptoms, no cramping, and no real symptoms. Having struggled her whole life with the kind of severe dysmenorrhea that left her curled up in bed, along with PMDD, Catherine was so flabbergasted she had to leave the classroom. Thus began her love affair with gynaecological medicine.
After graduating in 2017, Catherine continued her studies across fertility, mental health, gynaecology, obstetrics and all things internal medicine. Not long after she began treating in clinic, she became pregnant with her daughter. To say that her pregnancy was harrowing would be an understatement. It genuinely shocked her, that after everything she had learned and all the medicine she practiced, she could have such a difficult experience - and it inspired her to learn everything she could about pregnancy and obstetrics so that she could better ease her patients symptoms.
Her birth blew her mind with its altered states of consciousness and its healing potential, and through it she came to understand that birth can be a portal - one of the greatest ceremonies a woman can enter. She is passionate about sharing this perspective with her patients and helping to prepare their bodies and spirits for birth. She became so intrigued by it that she completed the Holistic Doula program with Whapio and joined the Obstetrical Acupuncture Association.
Finally, Catherine walked her own path through fertility as she tried to conceive a sibling for her daughter. She experienced three devastating miscarriages - one that broke her heart open, another that put it back together, and a third that she is still trying to make sense of. In communicating with these little souls who were here and gone too quickly, she learned that there can be powerful, if difficult, medicine within this place of life-altering grief. She deeply hopes to offer a safe space for others as they move through their own experiences of miscarriage.
Catherine continues to deepen her study of both acupuncture and herbal medicine alongside her shamanic practice. She recently completed a year-long mentorship with Sharon Weizenbaum of White Pine Circle, exploring the Great Turnings of a Woman's Life. This classical herbal framework has reinspired her approach to formulas and opened new lines of inquiry in her cases — asking where the fluids and metabolic warmth of the body reside, and how they can be restored to right physiological relationship. It has elevated her herbal work, working profound shifts within her patients' physiology.
Over her years in clinic, she has come to see that the emotional and spiritual dimensions of physiology are sometimes what truly hold a person back from healing. And so everything has come full circle: Catherine now offers shamanic healings and shamanic acupuncture in clinic, humbled and excited to share this part of her medicine in the treatment room.
Catherine has recently moved her practice to the gorgeous collective in St. Albert, Circle of Wellness Collective. She is thrilled to be practicing alongside such incredible colleagues and to be able to mix up herbal formulas on site.
Outside of clinic, she spends her time obsessively learning and taking more courses, listening to records while sipping tea with her family and cats, and watching in awe as her little one blossoms into a full human.
She looks forward to sharing stories, time and medicine with you in the treatment room!
