MY STORY

My path was marked by a profound struggle to adapt to Western capitalism as a young single mother, moving from an engineering education in Ukraine to doing all kind of jobs, and eventually making my way to a near 20-year career in software development as an ethical hacker. I tried to “fit into” an entirely new culture, who’s mainstream current is neatly packaged, ready to be consumed and all-consuming. This was not sustainable for my humanistic and curious being.

Things changed when I discovered Canada's 'creative underbelly' – a world of artists, activists, First Nations wisdom-keepers, history-makers, story-tellers, circus performers. philosophers and land stewards, who taught me and still teach me an alternate narratives of belonging on Turtle Island and being in praxis when it comes to relationships with human and non-humans beings. This discovery became a pivotal moment of my personal journey.

In 2016, I began a transformative five-year journey at the Gestalt Institute of Psychotherapy in Toronto. This wasn't just education—it was a radical reimagining of human experience, paralleling my journey as a co-founder of a land-based collective project. These experiences dismantled my hard-coded atheistic worldview and opened me to a profound curiosity about humanity's interconnectedness, co-conspiracy, and co-operation with Nature.

As a Gestalt practitioner, I am a 'relational engineer' – an instigator committed to creating collaborative spaces where individual and collective experiences flow together. My work is an invitation to co-create, to explore, and to inspire transformative connections between humans and in the world we are part of.