Antross comes from the name of the range road I grew up on during some of my most formative years. That small acreage down the quiet dirt road is a place that marks the beginning of this journey. As I look back to the past and the life I lived in that home, I’m reminded of much pain and brokenness. Though what I also experienced, as I have come to learn, is that this home also marked the place of a lot of growth, transformation, and evolvement.

Healing is not linear and it is never ‘finished.’ That home and the experiences I lived there still continue to shape who I am today. It holds countless memories of who I was as a little girl, as a young lost teenager, who I became as a young woman, and the many experiences that have led me to stand where I am today.

Using Antross as a part of the name and this brand is a way of carrying this history with me, to remember where I come from and how much the pain and trials have helped and shaped me just as much, if not more so, than the easy, happy times. A reminder of how much we can grow, shift, and change without even realizing it.

I understand alchemy, in the spiritual sense, as the practice of using the physical metaphors of scientific alchemy to describe an inner process of spiritual awakening, psychological growth, and the purification of the soul that comes from the loss of ego. Starting in my Antross house and carrying me all the way to where I am now, I’ve been doing the inner work on myself to dissolve the ego, the pain, and worldly attachments. I’ve been doing the work to give deep love to myself and fill in gaps left behind from childhood. I have done this through self-reflection, and even intense tribulations and adversities. It is also the washing away of old habits and rigid identities. It is sorting out your own truth and illusion and choosing to live presently and authentically outside of learned fears. It is combining your darkest parts of yourself with the most contented parts, the shadow and light, into a balanced whole. Alchemy to me, in this regard, may be facilitated through periods of deep inner turmoil and painful lessons that may keep repeating until we learn from them. Beautifully, what follows is a deeper understanding of self, resilience, clarity, and deep love.

I resonate with alchemy as a metaphor for the inner process of transformation: a transformation shaped by our challenges, pains, joys, discoveries, and relationships, in the way our experiences shape who we become and force us to mold and change, to learn, release, surrender, and bloom again.

Alchemy isn’t meant to be about changing who you are or becoming someone completely different. It is working with what we’ve been given and showing gratitude for not just the blessings but the suffering that comes along with having them. It is about learning from what we have experienced and allowing ourselves to grow into someone new. It is about accepting change and flowing with it rather than resisting. Learning from the pain we’ve caused and the pain caused to us. Letting it teach you. A way to better understand and come to love your process so you may have the space to understand and love others from an unconditional, nonjudgmental place.

Antross Alchemy brings these two concepts together. Where I have come from and how that has shaped me and continues to transform the person I am. An homage to the truth that our beginnings matter, all of our experiences lend a hand in shaping us, and that there is always room to grow, to learn, to get curious, to change.

From what was a tumultuous upbringing I have fought hard to heal from stems my deepest passion and highest pursuit to devote my life to helping people. To giving my support and offering my abundant love in any way I can to facilitate the growth and healing of our fellow Earth family. This is why I have chosen Reiki. This is why I am building Antross Alchemy.

It is an honour to have you along on this journey with me. In the words of Baba Ram Dass, “We’re all just walking each other home.”