Leah was born in a small community in Northern Alberta, Canada and raised in a cabin on a remote piece of land. She spent her early years living off-grid surrounded by and in awe of the wilderness and seasons of nature. She worked on the Light family farm, with animals and in her family’s organic vegetable growing and sale operation: Northern Light Produce Network. At the age of 14, she fell gravely ill, which though she did not know it at the time, would mark her entrance to a life long path of experiential growth and learning on the healing journey.
In 2004, Leah moved from Alberta to Vancouver Island, British Columbia, where she met a master healer working in the Five Elements acupuncture tradition. He became a long term teacher, friend and mentor up until his death in 2021. His treatments initiated some of the earliest lifting of the layers of illness and blockage from Leah’s life. Through that transformation and the relationship formed around it, she came into her first understanding of soul level healing and what it felt like to start walking the necessary path back to wholeness. Throughout that time, Leah worked as a tree planter and in other capacities in the forestry industry, and was certified as a Community Support Worker. Subsequently, she worked for a number of years supporting people with physical, mental and cognitive health challenges.
In 2014, Leah sat in ceremony with Ayahuasca for the first time. That first ceremonial experience brought her immediate further healing. Very soon afterward, she started dieting with master plants in the Shipibo tradition, both in Canada and Peru. Dieting the master plants opened many further gateways to transformation and growth. Physical pains and problems ongoing from early life illness also continued to fall away. In 2018, Leah began facilitating ceremonies in a Shipibo healing center near Iquitos Peru, where she worked off and on until 2022. Leah came to Soltara to work as a facilitator in October of 2023. Over that time period, in addition to facilitating ceremonies in Peru, Leah studied at Pacific Rim College in Victoria, British Columbia, where she graduated with a diploma of acupuncture in 2023.
In her work as a plant medicine facilitator, Leah draws on her life experiences being in deep relationship with nature from an early age, from time spent with her five elements healer and teacher, from her dietas, and from working with guests and clients both in and out of the Ayahuasca medicine space. Her ongoing personal medicine journey of returning to wholeness after illness also informs her work, adding sensitivity and compassion to her offering. She believes that every person has a purpose and innate gifts to share as well as the courage to face their own challenges and find their own solutions. She feels honored to be present to the healing journeys of others as a facilitator: to witness; to coach; to companion. Leah continues to stand in awe of nature and the plants. Of their ability to heal both bodies and souls, and to help us more joyfully be within the continually unfolding, interconnected web of life’s becoming.
When not at work, Leah can often be found rock climbing, going for walks and meditating in nature, or on the river bank with friends. From 2010-2014, she skated as a Pivot, Blocker, and Jammer with the Nanaimo Nemesis and Brass Knuckle Derby Dames roller derby teams.
