siegeanderson's photostream

The first 12 years of my life were spent living in a small town in Hawley Minnesota, a classic Americana childhood. The classmates I spent those first 12 year with, have stayed in my soul to this day. Closer then most others later, I hope to re-connect with some of them.

Since leaving high school, life has been an adventure. The greatest teachers were my family, which encoded a sense of lineage/Luthern values in spite of big city challenges, the Civil Air Patrol which taught discipline and fed my sense of patriotism, many wonderful friends ~ (one of which was to become my idealized life partner model) and Robert Heinlein, who encapsulated a life style/philosophy,which has stayed with me to this day.

An interest in Marine Biology sent me to spending time at ASU as a zoology major, some friends of mine graduated – and found work at only slightly better then minimum wage, a friend with PhD in Physics had trouble finding any work at all. Also decision to take some time to become a SCUBA Diving Instructor seemed logical to find out if it would be enjoyable to get into Marine Biology–desired career at the time. Unsure of the value of a formal college education, I left to continue work in this area and overtime, added water safety instructor, sailing, and whitewater canoeing instructors to the collection.

Spent time in Ca., first in LA, then San Francisco and finally Sacramento lead to the decision to experience the tradition life of marriage, and employment at a Bank. (Sigh-wasn’t much good at either). During this time I developed a passion for self-help/internal work to look at what wasn’t working and find out why, which lead to the addition of new age attitudes and philosophies in my lifestyle.
Returned to Phoenix to begin a career with Red Cross in both health & safety services as well as disaster response. National disaster response work started with the 1983 Colorado river floods, a second marriage effort with a (then unknown) good ole southern boy, & a move to South Carolina where I developed and managed a five county disaster response and learned how to live in the country off the land. This lifestyle and marriage proceeded to climax with responding to Hurricane Hugo out of Puerto Rico/Oakland Quake and return to Phoenix where I cared for my mom during last months of her life.

My second husband returned to the South without me and I undertook a study of a Shamanic path to really understand myself, patterns, choices, relationships and experience choices all my life. One of the internal insights which came during that time was understanding my addition to the paradigm of “employees and marriage”. I can only speak for myself in saying that the “being taken care of” mentality that I was raised with, like any drug addict is too difficult to resist. Therefore a vow to never engage in either environment again, has resulted in an independent lifestyle both as a business owner and as a woman.

My passion for workplace safety and environmental health has resulted in a sole proprietor business called “Safety Paradigms”. The energy to teach directly is not as strong as it was, so I am beginning to transition to online training and communication, only now developing my professional website. My passion is to assist people with creating, turning knowledge into action, a more holistic life from self ~ responsibility, reliance and authority. How ironic that the lessons on the toxins in our life extended into the environmental toxins that are impacting our health.

Turning 50, the pendulum has swung the other way, the active, gypsy, Johnnie Appleseed lifestyle has transitioned to quiet introspective, contemplative sharing of time and resources with those of like mind. Time with my sweetheart of 11 years, my dogs, home, outdoors, books, music and online journeys bring the greatest pleasures these days.