I was one of those kids that had found a passion before I entered kindergarten. The first time I saw an insect a bond was created. From then on, I knew I wanted to work with and study insects. Growing up, it became apparent that I didn’t see insects the same way as others. Although insects were my main passion, I also had a connection with other animals as well. In grade school, my classmates quickly learned that I was different. I was always standing up for insects and protecting them, as well as other animals. Whether it was convincing adults and kids that the baby ladybug I was holding was not to be feared and wouldn’t bite anyone, or that snails shouldn’t be stepped on or thrown even if there are hundreds on the sidewalks and considered a pest at the moment. My classmates quickly put me in the “she’s different” category and I was like “You bet I am”.

I had my first animal communication experience as a teenager. It was a butterfly that had not emerged fast enough out of its chrysalis and therefore its wings had dried all crumpled up and it was also missing part of its tongue. I kept it safe and hand-fed it. During the warm summer nights, I would let it sit on my bedroom window screen. One night I woke up with a start and I knew at once the butterfly was in trouble. Sure enough, when I found it, it was being attacked by ants. Fortunately, I was able to rescue it before the ants did major damage. Every once in a while events like this happened with other kinds of animals, but I didn’t think much of it. As a teenager, I knew this hyperfocus on becoming an entomologist was unusual, so I delved into other fields just to make sure this was what I really wanted. I always kept finding myself drawn back to insects. They always kept finding me and I couldn’t help but marvel at their beautiful uniqueness and wonder what their life was like. I was too curious.

When I finally reached the university for my education, I thought I would finally be around my own kind. But even entomologists there looked at me funny. My determination to become an entomologist saw me through some hard challenges during this time. It was also during this time that my mom, knowing that I was going through a difficult experience, paid for an hour-long session for me to talk with a local psychic, Marin Graves. Her help was tremendous. However, as I was completing my degree it quickly became apparent that my idea of having a career in Entomology was falling apart.

Eventually, I had to move back home, jobless and deep in debt, to get some distance from this experience and to begin the repair work, both on my mental health and physical health. It took several years and several stages to be grateful for having that experience that encapsulated my entomology degree and to be even more thankful for making it through. Part of the repair of my physical health required me to figure out how to lower my blood pressure which continued to maintain high numbers despite repairing the mental part of myself. This led me to tap into the energy that I could feel in my body when I was a teen and during yoga classes. I used this energy to reset myself each night, and just detox from the events of the day and return to neutral. Eventually, this got my blood pressure back to normal. During this time, I was doing random jobs. Any use of my entomology knowledge was teaching new beekeepers how to keep bees or volunteering my knowledge to local conservation events. It was during this time that my mom went to a psychic, Susan Lynn, and Susan said that I needed to pursue a career in Animal Communication. She said there were two teachers she knew of that would be good for me to learn from. She said Danielle MacKinnon was one of them and then she said she was not receiving the name of the other one. She took that as a sign. When my mom told me that I needed to pursue a career in Animal Communication we laughed because occasionally when I would get frustrated with life I would jokingly say, “Well, I am not coming back to this planet unless I get to communicate with animals”.