Hello. My name is Monika. 

I am based in Victoria, British Columbia. I am a death doula, filmmaker, disability justice advocate, project manager, reiki-trained energy shifter, and budding herbalist. My queer, genderqueer, and neurodivergent identities inform all facets of my work and how I occupy space in this world.

My grandparents and great grandparents fled villages in Ukraine, Poland, and Germany for a new life in Toronto. They wove lessons in nonviolence, loving-kindness, and reverence for nature that continue to thread through my family and my community. 

I acknowledge the space I now occupy. I am here on the lands of the Lekwugen-speaking people. I sit with kwetlal and hold deep reverence and gratitude for the past and present stewards of this land: the Songhees Nation, Esquimalt Nation, and the W̱SÁNEĆ peoples.

While studying film and photography, I incurred a serious brain injury. I graduated, I pushed too hard, and my dreams of documentary film were sidetracked by my body’s need to rest. A couple years later and two more traumatic brain injuries, I stumbled further along a path of introspection and uncertainty. With the health care system unable to support me, social services unable to catch me, and friends and family holding on, I quieted and sought something beyond the expensive and ineffective treatments and trail of unanswered questions. Would I ever be me again? Death dappled this period in my life and loss became the only certainty. I found gradual relief through embodiment practices like yoga, pranayama, time reclaimed in nature, somatic attachment therapy, energy shifting, and walks with my senior rescue dog. In time, I was able to reconnect and re-regulate with my loved ones, and with myself. This soul work guided me to a variety of training opportunities in community building, grief, bereavement, dying and death.

My life, as I imagine yours, happens in the small, magical moments. I want to celebrate life by also honouring death. I believe the big is foreseeable when we are humbled by the small and the magical. 

I am here, with all I have been and all who I am becoming. I welcome you to bring yourself just the same. We are all one.