MEET CINDIE
Working with Cindie is a unique experience. She has an intimate understanding of human nature and the rhythm of life-death-rebirth. Fascinated by listening to stories or sitting in silence as a bedside companion, Cindie is a sacred space maker who offers her compassionate full presence to clients in a way that is soothing and palpable.
For those who are able to speak, Cindie won’t judge you, talk over you or try to fix you. Instead, she will listen deeply and see naturally who you are at the core, as she guides you to remember, share, understand and believe in the deeper meaning of your life and legacy. Having these kinds of conversations in this kind of environment will help you hear yourself and better reflect on the ways you have touched others, contributed to this world, and grown as a soul. With her gift for seeing and understanding subtle things that others may not, Cindie will foster perspectives that create:
- connections where there is dissension
- peace where there is uncertainty, and
- lightness where it is heavy
Guiding persons through an end-of-life process is Cindie’s passion, vocation, and calling – and it is very essential work. Over the past four decades she has been preparing for this role, by diligently working to improve herself, deeply connecting with nature, and aspiring to positively influence all those around her.
Calm, wise, and fully present, Cindie knows how to gracefully enter a room, keenly observe, deeply listen, and read between the lines to interpret circumstances and situations with depth and nuance. Being open and receptive to unspoken information allows Cindie to understand what’s going on beneath the surface and informs her of how to best maintain or guide the patient and their loved ones to more connective and peaceful states of being.
She understands when a situation calls for inspiration and when it calls for palpable sacred silence. She knows about physical, emotional, and relational states of being, and she has a depth of knowing about the cycles of life-death-rebirth. All of this offers her a sense of the possibilities that can unfold at the end of life, but she also has a humility and knowing that every death is unique. Hence, Cindie uses wisdom and skill to remain open and guide whatever comes into play.
It is Cindie’s greatest honor to bring purpose, resolution, and peace to her end-of-life clients while compassionately guiding them through their biggest transition.
EDUCATIONAL AND WORK EXPERIENCE
Cindie has lived in the Northern California Bay Area for over 50 years. She began her professional career with an MBA and a coveted position at IBM. Later when she had young children, it inspired her to spend more time in nature, so she began to practice organic farming and gardening, and to explore primitive living skills. Ultimately this led to her developing and hosting a decade of highly successful nature education camps for children. This is where Cindie realized that everything she needed to learn could be found in nature. Hence nature became her greatest teacher, where she keenly observed and aligned with nature’s never-ending cycles of life-death-rebirth. All of this fed into her fascination with human nature, belief systems, personal growth, evolution, spirituality, the similarities that connect different people/religions/culture, the deeper meaning of life and death.
Cindie’s deepening connection with the natural world and human nature and her insatiable quest for self-discovery led her to working with wisdom keepers across a broad spectrum of disciplines, including Tai Chi, Celtic Wheel of the Year, Kabbalah Tree of Life, dream work, symbology, shamanism, animal behavior, astrology, death and dying. Drawing wisdom and inspiration from a vast array of teachers, in the early 1990s or before it was mainstream including Carolyn Myss, Deepak Chopra, Marion Woodman, Neale Donald Walsh, and Elizabeth Kubler Ross. Cindie was most heavily influenced by Joseph Campbell, Animal Speak author Ted Andrews, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes and Kala Ambrose, the latter two with whom she still studies.
Cindie is a mother, grandmother, nature and animal lover. From a young age she always dreamed of being an elder.
Degrees, Certificates and Training:
- End-of-Life Doula
Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont - Death Doula
Sacred Crossing Institute for Conscious Dying and Alternative Funeral Home - Death Midwife
Sacred Crossing Institute for Conscious Dying and Alternative Funeral Home - Compassionate Companion Transition Doula
With Wilka Roig, Deputy Director of Education of the Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation Global - Companion Animal End-of-Life Doula
Larner College of Medicine at the University of Vermont - Hospice Volunteer Training
Mission Hospice and Home Care - Grief and Loss Facilitator Training
With Bill Berry, Grief and Loss Expert - Walking the Labyrinth of Grief
With Kitty Edwards, Executive Director, The Living & Dying Consciously Project - DEATH AND SPIRITUALITY: on Life, Death, and Life After Death
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross Foundation Coursework - Heart of the Wounded Healer
Prayer, Ceremony and Ancient Healing Traditions with Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes - Healing Touch Level 1
Healing Touch Program (HTP) - Gentle Touch Massage Training
Mission Hospice and Home Care - Deep Nature Connection Therapy Mentoring
Indigenous Ways with Jon Young and others - Academy of Mystical Arts & Spiritual Sciences
Emotional Intelligence and Intuition with Kala Ambrose - Hospice Volunteer
Mission Hospice and Home Care - B.A. UCLA, 1981
- M.B.A. Pepperdine University, 1984
- Ordained Non-Denominational Chaplain
Universal Life, 2003
