How I Ended Up in Mt. Shasta

People often ask me how I ended up in Mount Shasta.

This isn’t exactly a random stop on the map. It’s a small mountain town in Northern California with snowy winters, clean air, an open-minded community, and a landscape that feels both expansive and quietly powerful.

I arrived here when I was twenty-eight years old, driving a small red Toyota truck with everything I owned packed into the back. My guitar. A massage table. Clothing. Boxes of herbs. A few favorite books and personal treasures. Camping gear—because I wasn’t arriving with a lease or a plan. I was arriving on a quest.

I had left Arizona because of a vision and a deep desire to find home.

Months before I left, during meditation, I saw myself at the base of a beautiful white mountain. In the vision, there were green trees, blue sky, open space—and feelings that came with the image: happiness, comfort, passion.

At the time, I didn’t know where that mountain was. I only knew I wanted to find it.

My young adult years in Arizona were deeply formative.

It was there that I met my meditation teacher, earned my massage license, and began building a steady, meaningful client base as a somatic practitioner. I pursued creative expression, found community, and stepped into a healing profession I genuinely loved. Those five years after college helped me understand who I was and how I wanted to serve.

And yet, even as I strengthened professionally and personally, something inside me knew Arizona was a stop, not my lifetime home. 

I knew my next chapter would unfold somewhere else. I just felt it.

I wasn’t fully at ease in the larger city of Phoenix. The desert had shaped me, and I’m grateful for it. Still, I longed for a place where my external environment better aligned with my inner values.

A place that nourished a sustainable lifestyle. A place with clean air and ample fresh, pure water.

So I trusted that and dared to seek my long-term home.

I saved enough money to explore, packed what mattered most, and began driving north. I was moving toward something I could feel but had not yet seen. 

When people asked what I was doing, I smiled and said, “I’m making it up as I go along.”

Three days into my journey, I saw Mount Shasta, and I cried as I drove up the winding I-5 Hwy to town. The mountain felt pristine. The air was clean. The water was abundant. The vibe was both majestic and peaceful.

I arrived on the fall equinox of 1998.

What followed wasn’t dramatic. It was easy.

People appeared who offered guidance. Small synchronicities stacked up. Doors opened. Nothing felt strained. I felt calm and was going with the flow. My body felt energized and fed by the beauty.

A few days into my explorations, I drove as high as I could go and parked at 7,900 feet near the Old Ski Bowl. I pulled out a worn lawn chair and sat facing the western horizon. The late autumn sun set behind the Eddies mountain range while the first stars began to emerge. My red truck sat behind me, still holding the entirety of my life.

I picked up my guitar and began singing words that felt less written and more received:

“Free spirit, gypsy with her heart open… the way is clear.”

It was cold at that elevation, but I felt warm with something deeper than certainty. I didn’t have a long-term strategy. I didn’t know how everything would unfold. What I had was congruence of thought, word, and deed.

I had followed a vision, and here I was.

When I say the mountain called me, I don’t mean I heard a mystical voice echoing through the sky. I mean that I listened to an inner knowing. I allowed my own happiness to be a compass. I chose to move toward what felt alive rather than stay where I was merely secure.

Living here over the last decades has supported me in ways I could not have anticipated at twenty-eight.

This landscape and this community have witnessed my growth in love, leadership, business, and friendship. The mountain has steadied me through winters and reminded me that life moves in seasons. The community has held me accountable to integrity because something about this place invites honesty, transparency, and depth.

Many years into my time in Shasta, the mountain welcomed my husband, Gavin, too. When he visited for the first time, he fell in love with both me and the majestic presence of the land. He felt at home, which served as another quiet confirmation of our compatibility and shared path.

Today, we lead retreats and gatherings here in our beautiful home, inviting others to experience this beauty and clarity for themselves. What I’ve found is that when you stand in the presence of this mountain, it becomes easier to hear your own inner truth.

The call that led me here was about belonging and home. Your call may look entirely different. It may be about a relationship, a creative expression, a shift in profession, or a deeper alignment within your own body. The form will vary. The invitation is often visceral: listen.

Looking back, I can see that the most important choice I made wasn’t driving north.

It was trusting the vision (and the longing) in the first place.

And I am still listening.