Charlotte Shristi
Harrisonburg, Virginia
Charlotte is a certified Stone Walker and a certified Stone Medicine Instructor. She practices the Stone Medicine traditions as they’ve been taught by elder Jenny Ray, and is honored to be able to share these traditions in the following courses: Rain Bath Aromatherapy, Stone Medicine 1, Healing Hands and Feather Fan Crafting.
Charlotte completed the Medicine Path Program, a 15-month in-depth training program, to become a Certified Stone Walker in 2019 and has since taken additional courses and become a certified Stone Medicine Instructor. She opened her private practice, Wild Poppy Healing Arts, in 2022, dedicated solely to Stone Medicine and offering safe space and a welcoming, trauma-informed healing environment to all. In 2023 she received the gift of a traditional name “Yuphiya Mani” in Lakota/Dakota, translated as “Beauty Walker.”
She describes her journey to Stone Medicine:
“Since childhood I’ve cared deeply about the wellbeing of others…. human and non-human! Following my love of art and thinking I might become an art therapist I studied psychology and fine art. After earning BAs in both, I explored ways of using the arts as healing process, working with people struggling with homelessness, displaced children in war-torn Colombia, and with survivors of war, natural disaster and trafficking in Nepal.
I also followed my curiosity about Native American world-views to the Hopi Reservation, where I taught elementary art the year after college. Being deeply inspired by Native American authors and concepts, these concepts have also influenced my art-making. A decade before receiving the teachings in Jenny’s traditions about becoming a hollow bone in order to offer healing with the stones, I dedicated a series of artwork to the theme, called “Hollow Reed, Hollow Bone.”
Since moving to the Shenandoah Valley I’ve focused my energy on caring for my family, creating visual art, tending the land we live on and working on local climate change and nature-connection projects.
Many threads wove together to guide me to the practice of Stone medicine… my interest in healing trauma through physical (known as somatic) practices, a fascination with traditional wellness practices around the world and my own powerful experiences receiving and practicing a number of holistic wellness methods; as well as a passion for reconnecting with the wider natural world we’ve become so separated from!All these things prepared me to say “YES” when a number of friends encouraged me to study Stone Medicine at Cedar Stone School of Massage. Only later did I remember sacks of stones, squirreled away since childhood; and how I had lovingly arranged and tended those stones. Were they in truth tending me, through my most difficult childhood experiences? I already knew the medicine of the stones deep in my bones!”
How to reach Charlotte:
wildpoppyhealingarts@gmail.com
https://charlotteshristi.wixsite.com/wildpoppyhealingarts
