I am of the Yew
"I speak with the roots that remember.
I was born between breath and silence,
awake in the dream, walking between worlds.
The old ones braided their memory through my bones.
I do not rush.
I do not bloom on command.
I unravel.
I rot to become.
I carry the dead in my lungs,
and the living in my song.
I am a woman of the in-between,
rootwalker, grief bearer, thread keeper.
Not here to lead you.
But to walk with you,
through the dark
and toward your remembering."
Aimee Traeden
I am one who walks with the Elements
Breath is the beginning and the end.
The first inhale brings us to life.
The last exhale releases it.
I have always said I was born with a death breath. I entered this world blue, not breathing. I believe that when I took that first breath, I left one foot in the in-between and one foot here.
That moment began my relationship with the spirit world.
It was also the thread that wove grief and death into the fabric of my life. At age three, I began to lose the ones I loved. Friends. Family. Lovers. By thirty, I had walked with grief more times than I could count.
The losses came like seasons: three, eight, thirteen, thirty.
I once thought I was cursed. Over time, I came to understand that grief was a gift, not a curse. And that it is a landscape we all will walk.
As a child, I had countless ghostly and otherworldly encounters. These moments shaped my belief in a world beyond what we see. They set me on a lifelong path of spiritual seeking.
My mother was an astrologer. Because of her, I was introduced to different ways of knowing at a young age, including taking me to become a certified crystal healer at the age of thirteen. Later, I studied a myriad of things like astrology, Wicca, the occult, tarot, and shamanism.
In my forties, I apprenticed for five years with a shamanic sound healer. There, I learned how sound, when paired with an open heart, intention, and trusted spirit allies, becomes the carrier wave of intention. It was also a doorway into discovering the truth behind so much magic and internal wisdom. It led me to a crossroads, where I stopped seeking wisdom around other people’s sacred fires.
Instead, I turned toward my own ancestors, and my whole life changed.
I discovered a rich history and a spiritual depth within my own Nordic and Celtic lineages. Which led me to animism, the runes, Seidr, and ancestral devotion.
Now, I walk as a death and grief tender, a seer, and an ancestral ritualist. I carry the threads of artists, musicians, healers, dreamers, keeners, and Volvas.
I sit at my own sacred fire, lit by my ancestral elders.
In my ritual healing work, I tend to the whole being: mind, body, soul, and the subtle field. I have learned that healing does not come from force. It comes from slowing down.
From integration, not overwhelm.
From listening, not fixing.
When we work together, I meet you where you are. We move at the pace your soul can receive.
This work is not a performance.
It is not perfection.
It is soul work.
It is sacred remembering.
It is a return.
Not to who you were,
But to who you have always been beneath the forgetting.
Llangernwy Yew in Wales 4000-5000 years old.
Lifelong Study & Devotion
Over the years, I’ve trained extensively in Shamanism, Seiðr, ancestral healing, grief ritual, sound healing, animism, somatic trauma work, death care, and spiritual guidance. My studies include mentorships with Anne-Marie Keppel, Ingrid Kincaid, Inger Johanne, Lindy Fay Hella, Annette Høst, Kari Tauring, Francis Weller, Daniel Foor, Larissa Noonan, Betsy Bergstrom, and others, as well as immersive apprenticeships in shamanic sound healing and Nordic lineage practices. While I hold many certificates, my deepest education has come through lived experience, grief, and my relationships with the land and the dead.
This photo was taken as I sat within the limbs of the 5,000-year-old Llangernwy Yew tree in Wales.
This was a moment that cracked me open like nothing before.
The tears in my eyes mark a turning point.
This was a soul-rending, life-altering encounter, one I will never forget.
