Annette M. Hulefeld, DMin, LCSW, was born with a deep connection to Spirit that has guided her life’s work in promoting the emergence of a Divine Feminine consciousness. She has worked as a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist for over thirty-five years. Annette’s has a natural gift for shamanism and pursued initiations into indigenous healing rituals that allow her to adeptly travel between the seen and unseen worlds. She specializes in the treatment of disorders directly related to various forms of abuse, diminishment, and loss. She works with women, men, teens, and families.
After receiving her doctorate in ministry, she expanded her practice, working as a psycho-spiritual advisor, integrating psychological growth with native and mystical traditions, including intuitive tarot readings, natal charts, and dreamwork. She seeks to help other weave Spirit and ancestral wisdom into every facet of ordinary life.
Annette has presented at dozens of conferences and workshops over the span of her career on topics ranging from near-death experiences, shamanism, drumming and journeying, the Sacred Feminine, grief and end-of life issues. She loves to sing, create inspiring cards, play card games with her awesome sons and their families, travel on vacations with her grandsons, laugh till her sides ache, read fantasy novels and create fairy gardens with “believers.” Her greatest joy: being with her beloved Frank and walking hand in hand and giggling over nothing!
Although you've read my professional bio above, (I hope it sounded fancy! My editors and I slaved away ;) I'd love the chance to share deeper insight to my OWN journey. In fact, maybe like some of you, I began this journey without even realizing it had begun...
I began my book project in 2002 while pursuing a Doctorate in Ministry, during which time the spirit of the Divine Feminine seized me fiercely, uprooting my life, my belief systems and everything I’d come to claim as my identity.
Like most of you, I understand the personal and collective longing that drives us to find our origins within our families, within the universe, within the Mystery many name as God. We are perpetual seekers trying to answer the question of: Who am I and what is my purpose in life?” My perspective was slightly different in that I was obsessed to find out “what’s wrong with me?” and “am I good enough as a woman?” I also couldn’t wrap my head around the question of: “What’s so great about being alive?” Good grief – I remembered divine union prior to birth so why would I want to be imprisoned in the muck of a body and be mired in suffering and mental anguish! Needless to say, when I realized life was pursuing me with greater tenacity than death, I reluctantly chose to accept a path that included diving into insanity, gut-wrenching pain on several different levels, near-death and dark nights, to finally rise like the phoenix, into the complexity and wonder of being alive.
I had very little guidance and little understanding that we are spiritual beings seeking a human experience. All I wanted and looked for was an escape route! While the word mystic was foreign to me, I knew, I remembered the Divine albeit I could not fathom that the Divine was one with me – inside my body. That was heretical to say the least, leaving me living in two separate worlds. The depth of the separation probably was the source of unrelenting physical pain I lived with for years. On the one hand, I was informed directly by the Divine in visions, dreams, spiritual experiences in Nature and so much more. However, I accepted the polarizing dogmas from religion, culture, family norms and even psychology. “ Visions are delusional; don’t listen to your dreams that’s fantasy and un-real; the world of Spirit is dangerous – and will lead you astray.” Or how dare you, a woman, think you can trust your intuition and your inner guidance?”
Sharing my story is not easy and yet, my hope is something in the stories will spark similar awakenings in you, the reader. My heart aches for so many individuals who misunderstand the true meaning of living as an embodied mystic, who lose or diminish their spirited voice to the voices of external authorities, who live half-alive because they believe they are a bit crazy for their intuition and divine guidance. How many have forgotten that the Light within us is sourced in God, Mystery, the Universe and it has the power and desire to activate Love with everyone we encounter? How many are in the dark about the reality of the divine blueprint we all carry, a blueprint that awakens and empowers the truth that we are divine human beings?
I am not a guru or psychic or a therapist with all the answers. That is the framework of an old paradigm that is now dissolving. I am however highly trained in the intuitive arts, and have been a licensed therapist for almost four decades. My passion isworking with people and groups who are committed to diving deeply into sacred Mystery, unraveling distorted belief systems, accepting the wisdom of the Dreamtime, Intuition, and the Tarot.