Custom Games, for your home, school, business, or club. Give me a theme, message, or lesson, and I will design a new game around helping your players to explore or learn it, at their own pace. Or I can run an existing game, if your group prefers that. My goal is to ensure that everyone in the group learns something, or transforms some part of themselves. I’ve been co-writing games since 2001, and designing games intended to be transformative since 2015. In 2023, I completed a graduate certificate in Transformative Game Design from Uppsala University.
This service is subject to my approval of your motivations and ethics. I will not design games that support bigotry or kyriarchy in any way, because I consider them harmful propaganda. (Examples of kyriarchy include patriarchy, late capitalism, and oligarchy in general.)
Storytelling, for children, adults, or a mixed audience. I specialize in improvisational storytelling: I solicit a few suggestions from the audience, and build a story for those people. For children, a responsible adult may suggest a broader theme or lesson for me to embed within the story, or a popular story for me to retell.
Narrative is unique in its ability to teach lessons in a way that they can remain in the unconscious mind, unlearned, until the listener is ready to think about them. Suddenly they will remember the story, as if by magic. Getting to be a part of this process is part of why I love what I do.
Bardic Healing is closely related to storytelling, but can often involve singing in addition to storytelling. It uses the archetypes and themes of narrative for healing, along with the vibrational properties of the human voice. This service may be particularly helpful for other magicians and energy workers, or anyone who considers themselves an auditory thinker (someone who thinks mainly in words and sounds, rather than pictures or physical sensations). It also works well when combined with energy work (below). Bardic healing can sometimes also include story-rich visual media (movies, TV, music videos).
Divination with Archetype Cards or the Animal-Wise Tarot. My goal is to help shed some light on where you’re stuck in your life right now, and how you might transform the situation to suit your needs or wants. The archetype cards may reveal what ideas and themes are important in your mind, or they may show how specific other people occur for you, both externally and internally. Tarot is better for detailed questions about current or future events, or analyzing a situation in detail.
Mythic Consulting, the personalized process of discovering the mythic archetypes most important to you, and connecting with them in a fulfilling way. This process varies, depending on the situation and what the client is trying to accomplish. I suggest trying a card reading first, to see if mythic consulting might be right for you. Mythic consulting often dovetails organically with with pastoral counseling or divination, as part of the same session. It also can provide clues about what god(s) or pantheon(s) you might want to consider working with.
Pastoral Counseling and/or Spiritual Direction. We talk about your beliefs, your ethics, what is sacred for you, and what you want to create in your life. If you’re feeling stuck or blocked, we can explore a new direction or purpose. I can help you figure out a way to honor or request assistance from a specific deity, or I can point you toward the god(s), pantheon(s), or religion(s) that fits you best. Some paths and traditions do require initiations that I am not able to provide, and may have requirements that I don’t know about. In that case, I will help you find an ethical, knowledgeable practitioner who can help you with whatever I cannot. Pastoral counseling partly involves peer support, which can include any of the following:
- Holding space for you to talk about where you’re blocked in life, or what’s bothering you right now
- Providing empathy and compassion when you need them
- Asking open-ended questions to reveal hidden motivations, unhelpful narratives, logical mistakes, or other unnoticed patterns
- Making you feel safe, seen, and understood
- Finding specific information that you need
- Brainstorming or strategizing with you about a problem or obstacle
- Reminding you feelings are non-rational, so no need to beat yourself up for feeling them, but no need to act on them either
- Recommending a specific daily self-care practice such as prayer, meditation, or contemplating one’s own mortality
- You may get more out of working with me if you identify as:
- Autistic, ADHD, or otherwise neurodivergent
- LGBTQ+
- Jewish (“messianic Jews” / J4J very much encouraged not to contact me, unless they admit they’re Christian first)
- Pagan, heathen, polytheist, animist, and/or a witch
- Recovering Catholic, Ex-Christian or deconstructing Christian
- Agnostics or atheists who want to break through their own anti-theism, materialism, rationalism, or scientism
- Members of any subcultural or countercultural group (e.g. punk, goth, emo, hippie, polyamorist / ENM, kink, SCA, transhumanist, psychonaut)
- And, naturally… gamers!
While I am not a lawyer, my understanding of Pennsylvania state law suggests that pastoral counseling with an ordained minister falls under clergy-penitent privilege. In other words, a major difference between me and a state-licensed counselor is that I cannot be compelled to testify against you in court, largely due to the separation of church and state. Our work together would technically fall under “the seal of the confessional”, which can apply to any clergyperson who provides spiritual advice or counsel. The sole exception I’m aware of is situations where I might suspect child abuse, since all clergy are mandatory reporters in Pennsylvania.
Energy Work on spaces and people, with a focus on bringing forth what is missing, completing what needs to be whole again, and discarding what no longer serves the client or the space. I was trained in Usui Reiki Ryoho in 2008, and have practiced visualization-based energy work since 1999. Reiki is currently only available in-person.
Ritual Design for those who need some help creating a ritual for a specific effect, either once or as a daily devotional practice. The end result can be performed on it on your own, or with help from a friend. This is one of my favorite services to provide. If your goals or desired methods are creative, it’s likely I’ll offer you a discount. I hold an ordination from the Universal Life Church, which allows me to perform marriages, handfastings, coming-of-age ceremonies, funerals, etc.
Officiating Life Cycle Events such as marriages (triads, quads, and other polyfidelitous relationships enthusiastically included), handfastings, naming ceremonies, coming-of-age rituals, retirement celebrations, and funerals. I was first ordained by the Universal Life Church in the 1990s. Depending on where you live, it may be necessary for one of you to join the ULC (which is free, quick, and does not come with email spam) in order for me to perform your marriage ceremony.
Trickster Wisdom – I consider most of what I do to be a form of benevolent trickery. My games are designed in such a way that understanding how the trick works won’t prevent it from working. (Explaining it ahead of time and getting explicit consent only makes it work better.) My pastoral counseling and ritual design make liberal use of playfulness and paradoxical intention.
From the above examples, it should be clear that trickster wisdom is more often an added bonus or free gift, than a service that someone might directly request. But if you would like some direct advice from the Wise Fool (or one of his cousins, e.g. the Sacred Cross-Dresser, the Extroverted Hermit, the Mad Shaman, the Drunken Master, or the Laughing Buddha), this is a specialty of mine. You may also request a specific trickster god, but if we do not already have a preexisting working relationship, I may choose to mediate the conversation. If we do have a preexisting relationship, channeling is possible.
Policies & Legalese:
All services except pastoral counseling and spiritual direction are discounted to $60 per hour, until I have a little more experience providing them services to the public. (Until recently, they have only been for family and friends.)
Pastoral counseling and spiritual direction are currently barter or pro bono only, depending on your situation. Or you could make a donation to a nonprofit we choose together.
Sliding scale is available, and no one will be turned away for lack of ability to pay. Let’s have a conversation about your needs. I don’t believe means-testing is ethical, but knowing a little more about your situation can help with triage if I’m busy.
Half-hour minimum charge for divination and energy work. One-hour minimum for all other services.
Same-day cancellations will be billed for the applicable minimum, except in case of emergencies such as fire, family crisis, serious illness, or earthquake.
Other relevant education:
The Bodhana Group: Therapeutic Applications of Role-Playing Games
Uppsala University: Graduate certificate in transformative game design, which included training in change models and emotional safety
Landmark Education: The Landmark Forum, The Advanced Course, The Communication Course
California Institute of Integral Studies: Counseling Skills 101; Somatic Psychology 101; Neurodiversity, Mad Studies, and Critical Psychology; Adverse Childhood & Community Experiences; Sexuality and Gender
Trans Lifeline: Peer Support Training
Zendo Project: Online Psychedelic Peer Support Training
Legalese: While I have been strongly influenced by depth psychology (e.g. books and papers by Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Phil Hine, Wilhelm Reich, Sarah Lynne Bowman, Whitney “Strix” Beltran, and Nick Walker), most psychologists and psychiatrists who subscribe to the medical model of mental illness do not consider depth psychology scientific or provable. This does not matter much to me, because the mental-emotional-spiritual importance of archetypes fits my intuitions about and observations of my own mind. I know of no more comprehensive map or guide to the inner workings of the mind. (Not surprising, since the pioneers in this field used individual case studies and introspection / self-observation as their main methods of inquiry.) My other main influences include transpersonal psychology, drama therapy, logotherapy, internal family systems therapy, virtue ethics (specifically ethics of care), utilitarianism, Neo-Platonism, Stoicism, agnosticism, phenomenology, and chaos magic.
I’m neither a therapist nor a life coach, but will be doing a training program in psychedelic facilitation in the near future. I already have a moderate amount of experience with trip sitting at festivals, thanks to the regional Burning Man network. I also plan to do at least one Metaphors of Movement training in neuro-linguistic programming.
I care about the mind (reason, emotions, and intuition all included) in the same way Galileo did: as an engine to invent wondrous things, to figure out how the universe works, and to improve our world. Game design, like pastoral counseling, is partly about creative problem-solving; hence, the services described above are for self-help or spiritual purposes only. However, if you are also working with a state-licensed therapist, I request that you inform them before signing up for mythic consulting or pastoral counseling, which can sometimes be intense. Doing so will protect both of us, so it is not optional.