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Founder of Vitalis Light
Reiki Master and Animal Reiki Practitioner. Over thirty years in animal care.
I grew up in Salt Lake City as an animal-obsessed, nature-rooted tomboy who felt most at home outdoors, at horse camp, with dogs in the backyard, or anywhere animals were welcome.
In my early teens, the 1980s punk scene opened my world. Its fierce independence and questioning spirit led me toward animal and environmental advocacy and a consciously aligned way of living that has remained with me ever since.
Early years in Utah
Manager of Horse Haven
That awakening led me to study wildlife biology and begin volunteering in animal rescue.
I earned a scholarship to Utah State University to study Wildlife Biology and began volunteering at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, now known as Best Friends Animal Society, one of the most recognized animal welfare organizations in the world. What began as volunteer work became nearly a decade of immersive rescue experience.
I worked in the dog department caring for more than 500 dogs and later became Manager of Horse Haven at age 23. I oversaw rehabilitation and lifelong sanctuary care while developing adoption procedures that transitioned rescued horses into carefully screened permanent homes, work I remain deeply proud of.
Animal rescue was never just a job. It is a way of life.
Over the years, I also worked in equine sanctuaries and ranches, and in private veterinary practice with both small and large animals.
While working at the Hawaii Island Humane Society in 2016, I witnessed many of the emotional moments guardians face when animals are surrendered, ill, or nearing the end of life. Wanting to support both the animals and the people who loved them in a deeper way led me to pursue formal Reiki training that same year. I completed both my Reiki Master certification and Animal Reiki Practitioner training in 2016.
Animals do not only need medical treatment.
They need emotional safety and nervous system regulation.
They need connection when their people are away.
They need dignity, calm, and compassionate support as they age.
The people who love them need reassurance and support as well.
Reiki was never a trend. It was a return.
The Story of Merkaba
One of the most rewarding rescues of my life weighed almost nothing.
I found him on the pavement during the pandemic, a baby mynah, cold and featherless, eyes still closed, fallen from a nest too high to reach. The shopkeeper told me it happens all the time, that the mother never comes back for them. So I took him home and named him Merkaba.
I fed him every forty minutes through the day, and I set my alarm through the night. I was working at a veterinary office then, and I was lucky, I could bring him to work with me every day.
His nighttime box sat beside me, with a heating pad. One night, sitting up at my desk, I reached in just to make sure the pad was still warm. He found my hand. He crawled underneath it and settled there, and I could not bring myself to let him go. So I stayed.
I held him, and I wept.
I wept because I was exhausted. I wept because this baby had no mother. I wept for every small thing in the world that needs holding, and for the truth that I cannot save them all.
He grew fast. In the daytime he lived in a box in the bathtub, under a heat lamp, and one day he stood at the edge of it, looked straight at me, and flew to my lap, as if to say, “Look what I can do!”
Within weeks he was truly flying. One afternoon he flew out into the yard, and my heart stopped. I did not know if he would come back. I called for him, and he arced around and landed across the fence, and then he came to me. I cried again.
He had become a wild bird, but he could never be released on his own. So I found him a family with another mynah on the far side of the island. I drove him there. I said goodbye. I love you. I want the best for you. Even though it was tearing a hole in my heart.
A week later they sent me a photograph of him beside his new companion, mouth open in the baby gape, already at home.
Transition is a natural part of every life. Letting go, when it comes from love, can be one of the most beautiful things we do. I choose to hold the beautiful moments in my heart, the warmth of his small body, the day he flew to my lap, and the day he found a beautiful home, perhaps better than I could ever have given him.
I have made it my work to help people move through these transitions, to hold onto the memories, and to cherish the love and the light.
Jambi and Dazzle
Dazzle's Debut
You may have seen photographs of me walking along the beach or spending time with my dogs throughout this website and thought, “She must have a dream life,” or “She’s always had it all together.”
The truth is, it wasn’t always that way.
In July 2025, a serious back injury changed the direction of my life.
Overnight, my world became much smaller.
I could no longer do the work I loved. I was suddenly home almost all the time with my now 12 year old Chiweenie, Jambi.
He had never struggled with separation anxiety before. With me home every day, he grew used to having me there, and leaving for my appointments became hard on him. I knew I could not always be home, so I decided to find him a dog of his own.
For about a month, I searched rescue websites.
Then I found Bitty.
Jambi and I went “just to look.”
Obviously, we brought her home.
She was the smallest dog at the rescue. She had already been adopted once and returned less than eighteen hours later because she was too frightened for anyone to touch her. I chose her because of that, not in spite of it.
She had been born under a house, where she lived for the first six months of her life. After that, she spent about a year living in a travel crate inside a caravan, and her hips and lower back are still sore from it. Someone had hurt her. Even today, if I pick up something as ordinary as a hairbrush, she immediately cowers and begins shaking uncontrollably.
Even through all of that fear, I could still see her light. That’s why I named her Dazzle.
I gave her time.
I created a quiet, safe place where she could go whenever she felt overwhelmed, and I let her decide when she was ready. In the beginning, she only let me pet her for a short time. Then she’d quietly trot back to her own corner. That is where she settles, and that is exactly where I want her to be.
She is finding her joy now. She tears around the house squeaking her toys, and she loves to run. Jambi has settled too. His anxiety has eased, and the two of them have become a comfort to each other.
Looking back, I realize all three of us needed something.
I was trying to recover from my back injury. Jambi needed reassurance that I would always come home. Dazzle needed to discover that not every person was going to hurt her.
Earlier this year, I refound Reiki.
At first, I was looking for something that might help me. Before long, I was sharing it with Jambi and Dazzle as well.
Those quiet moments together became part of our daily lives.
As I sat with them each day, something began to change in me, too. Reiki has never been about fixing anything, or about having the answers. It is the cultivation of peace. I was not adding calm to the room. I was quieting myself enough to meet the calm that was already there, and letting Jambi and Dazzle settle into it in their own time.
I did not know it then, but those small, steady moments were the beginning of everything. The patience Dazzle needed, the reassurance Jambi needed, the peace I needed, it was all the same thing. It was the work I had been preparing for my whole life. It was the beginning of Vitalis Light.
Today
I believe connection is not limited by proximity. Through decades inside animal care and energy practice, I recognized that structured distance Reiki could offer more than comfort. It could help sustain connection across physical distance.
Vitalis Light was created from that recognition, including the development of the Shared Connection Method™, a refined and intentional way to support animals and the people who love them when physical proximity is not possible.
Today, I offer structured distance Reiki sessions designed to support emotional and energetic steadiness, especially during travel, transition, and other moments of absence or vulnerability.
I also periodically offer donated Reiki sessions for animals in rescue, sanctuary, and rehabilitation environments as a way of giving back to the broader animal community.
I am honored to support your companion while you are away, and to help maintain the quiet thread of connection that exists between animals and the people who love them.
In Gassho,
