Meet Janet Pratt 💃 Mom, Grandmother with Mojo, and now, Author

Meet Janet Pratt 💃 Mom, Grandmother with Mojo, and now, Author

30Women30Stories, Athena Village, Member Stories

by  | May 7, 2021 | 2021, 30 Women 30 Stories

Meet Janet Pratt 💃 Mom, Grandmother with Mojo, and now, Author

Janet Pratt

Writer. Poet. Avid Reader. Grandma. Mother. Wife. Teacher. Life-long learner. And now
 Author!

Detroit Lakes MN US

I love music and dance in my kitchen often.

For this purpose I’m going to choose KT Oslin’s HEY BOBBY


She talks about owning her own car and going for a ride in the country


fits with my mojo story!

All the talk about mojo got me thinking about the lessons we learn from the women in our lives, specifically, my mom.  Last year for our first 30 Women 30 Stories project, my Mom and I had a conversation around Mother’s Day.

Lot’s has happened since then, so I thought we’d check in with my her.  She’s survived a year of COVID sheltering-in-place and used that time to finish her book, “Dancing in My Kitchens” – “Advanced Reader” copies are now available and it will be published in early summer. Mom definitely has “mojo stories” to tell
 – Kelly

 

Janet’s Stories

 

On Mojo

Mojo, I think is energy, that little spark that gets you going. And something that you’re ready to do, but you haven’t started for some unknown reason. And there it is, and it gets you going.

On Women’s Work

Well, of course, Grandma, Pauline, my dad’s mom comes to mind. She had 11 children. Eleven! She lived in this tiny little house near Climax, Minnesota. I thought it was a grand house. You walk in the front screen door into the kitchen. There was this huge table because she had all these people that she had to feed. The rest of the house was big – maybe not big, but to me as a child, it was big.

Grandma Pauline

I really learned a lot from her. I was left there to stay for a while and when I was there, I watched her.  She didn’t sit down except with me to hold me in her lap once in a while, or to come out side with me to show me something.

And I thought, wow, she can really keep things together. My Grandpa was sort of frail, bent over and kind of grouchy. But Grandma, he was somebody else that she took care of.

I remember one day in particular. It was raining but he got it in his head that he needed to go outside. So she stopped what she was doing, comes over, puts on his galoshes, his big rubber boots and his old jacket. She puts on a cap and she says, “okay come on, come on.” She gave him her elbow, led him to the door, opened the door and he went outside.

Grandma was doing it all so calmly. I went to the window and there he is,  it’s raining, he’s sort of hunched over. He walked to the end of the little wooden walk. He stopped, and I saw him look up at the sky, the rain hitting his glasses. He looked down again. And he turned around and he came back to the house. I thought “Well, that’s not much of a walk.”

He knocked on the door, Grandma, helped him back in, took off the galoshes, the jacket, got him seated at the table. And that was it. She’s back in the kitchen.

That lesson for me was that it was part of a woman’s job to do everything.

I was watching this person do it all. She was taking care of him. She was cooking the dinner. She was baking bread. She was doing everything. And I was I was just amazed, absolutely amazed. She became a very important person in my life. She definitely had Mojo.

Now I’m thinking about my mother and what she did and how much I got from her. She also did it all. But, boom, now I was in the middle of it. I was the oldest child. And I was there with her as she was doing everything.

She was doing it all, but now I was doing part of it. So, I didn’t really look at her as being inspirational until now. Now, I think “Boy, that lady had grit.” She really did. My dad died when I was 9, my brother and sister behind me, she moved us to Fargo. She had  Mojo person.

 

On the Teachers who Inspired her


You know, I’ve been listening to some of the news that the teachers don’t want to go back in the classroom? Maybe a few, but that’s not generally true. Teachers want to be back there teachers want to teach.

When I was teaching I was laughed at when I said, in the coffee room, “I love this job so much, if I had enough money to live on. I think I do it for nothing..”

I think my teachers inspired me to be a good teacher. Now when I’m looking back,  I think I was a very good teacher. I really do because I did share myself like Dr. Cater did.

Catherine Cater!

I left college to get married, [I was planning on getting my degree so] I took a few courses at NDSU. One of the classes was called Regional Literature taught by Dr. Catherine Cater. Dr. Cater was this wirey little black woman who was, oh my god, she was just so interesting.  She shared her own experiences from the South, where she had grown up.

One day, I don’t know why this line keeps coming back to me, but she said “You can’t tell me that those owners of the plantations didn’t wake up at night and have nightmares about it. You know, they did.”   She’d never been [a slave] herself, but she knew about it. She said, “I know that those white people would wake up at night and have nightmares about it. And that’s why” she said “our country did what it did. That’s why they said we can’t do this anymore. This is not right.”

And oh, gosh, she was such an influence. And the next morning, after she shared this with us, she came into class and she said, “I want to apologize for being such a ham.”

And I thought oh, “Dr. Cater, don’t apologize. That was the best lesson I’ve ever had.”

My art teacher was another one. My PE teacher was another one. My piano teacher was another one. All of these teachers. Wow. And in high school, my psychology teacher.

And then there was Alice Olsen, my sociology teacher. She had so much energy and pep. What did we learn sociologically? I don’t remember that. I just remember Alice! She just got us interested in reading the newspapers, looking around and finding out what’s going on in Fargo.

 

IGNORING BRICK WALLS

It wasn’t until the ’70s that women won a legal right to apply for credit cards separate from their husbands. [click to read article]

I was picking out carpet [for our living room in the late ’60s, early 70s]. I’d brought the carpet samples home and I chose the color. It came time to sign the contract, to pay the bill and I was going to put it on a time payment, I believe.

And they said, “you’re going to have to get your husband’s signature.” And I asked, “Why? I’m buying this.”

And she said, “Well, that’s just the policy of the bank. We need to have his signature.” Well, I kind of argued with them a little bit. And then I thought, Oh, what the heck, I’ll go get his signature. I know, he’ll sign it.  And so I did. And then I went back and got the carpet.  That angered me.

Even before that, I went to the bank to open a checking account of my own. I know a lot of couples share accounts, and do so very well, I guess. I wanted to have my own. I got a paycheck. I wanted to deposit it. I wanted the checkbook. I wanted to keep track.  Dick didn’t like that. He said “There’s no reason to do that. We’ve got a bank account. We don’t need it.” And I just said “oh yes, we do.”  And I did it. And so I had my own account!

Turning 40 and Getting My Own Car

The MG.  My sister’s neighbor had a little MG blue convertible. That was the cutest car you’ve ever seen. I saw the for-sale sign for $1200 (a lot of money for me – for anybody back then I guess) I said “oh gosh Dick, I think I’d really like to buy that MG.

Well, he didn’t say anything. He kind of let me stew, thinking I might forget about it. But I didn’t forget about that car. So one day we were over at my sister’s and he said, “Oh, why don’t you go buy it?” And I thought why don’t I?

So I did! [Laughs] I bought that little car. And I did have fun with it.  I felt kind of cocky. And I hate to use that word, but it’s sort of like it’s sort of like the song [Hey Bobby]. I know who I am. I know where I’m going. I da da da da.

He told me it was “not a good investment.” But it was a very good investment. I got exactly what I paid for. Now, that might not be “profitable,” but it was, for me, personally profitable.

Kelly 

What were you investing in?

Janet 

My mojo!

On COVID + Dancing in her Kitchen

Discovering who I am is so very important to me, knowing that you will succeed at something if you are focused, and if you believe in it, and you believe the truth of it, you will succeed.

So will I succeed? With COVID, if I had to sit at home and knit and watch TV and read novels, No, I won’t.  I still like to cook and stuff. But that’s not enough. It’s not going to be enough of a focus.

And that’s what pushed me over into really digging into the many, many, many journals that I’ve kept over those decades. And looking at the past, the history of it, and wanting to put it all down.  I thought, there are things that I have done in my life that might be helpful to others, to other mothers, young and old. When you’ve lived 85 years. You’ve seen a lot.

I wanted to share it. That’s how I got started.

Kelly

Your book, Dancing in My Kitchens, is at the Advanced Reader stage now. And you’re planning on publishing it in early summer.. That’s a big milestone for you.

Janet

Yes. But it won’t be the last one. Knowing it was going to be published, almost took me down into depression again. But no, I couldn’t quite do that.

Then this morning, I woke up and thought I’ve got some ideas here. My Mojo might be fired up again [laughs].

Kelly

So we can expect another book maybe from you.

Janet

Yeah, but it won’t be research or history or anything personally revealing. It’ll be a novel.

Kelly

That’s exciting., stay tuned!

More About Janet

Janet is a retired English Teacher and hight school guidance counselor.  She lives with her husband of 65 years in a little home in Detroit Lakes where she’s hoping to add on a “room of her own.”  When she’s not writing in one of her hundreds of journals, she’s knitting, hanging out with her Daughter Kari, granddaughter Naomi or Mary, her BFF and fellow writer.

If you’d like to be an advanced reader of DANCING IN MY KITCHEN’S contact Janet at janetpratt@iclould.com.

Meet Nancy Gerber 💃

Meet Nancy Gerber 💃

30Women30Stories, Athena Village, Member Stories

by  | May 6, 2021 | 2021, 30 Women 30 Stories

Meet Nancy Gerber 💃

Wisdom – Calm – Peace – Family – Community – Spirituality.

“And in the  end the love you take is equal to the love you make.”
– Lennon and McCartney

Minneapolis MN US

Carly Simon’s “Coming Around Again” got me through a lot! But really any classic rock. Led Zeppelin, Boston, or Carole King
 the music of my youth.

[3:44]

Pressure is Lifted

Career Choices

[3:28]

Reclaiming My Mojo

[2:54]

Mojo + Music

Nancy’s Toolbox

I have what I call my “toolbox,” so to speak, of what I do to maintain peace, my calm, my health. It’s come together come over the years.  One day our Hospital president asked me if I would speak to a group of 200 managers, and directors and vice presidents about how I maintain calm; sharing what I call my “toolbox.”

When our President asked me to share this, I was very grateful, it felt very, very good.  Scared to death! But very good!

My toolbox has always contained a multitude of things. It’s come with the flow that has been my life.  I’ll be a recruiter. Now I’ll be a manager, I’ll be a director; I don’t really want to be a director anymore. I think I’ll be a generalist; and I’ve had all those opportunities.  I’ve been lucky that people have let me have those, you know, kind of assisted me and having those opportunities. These things in my toolbox have helped me make the decisions and maintain my calm and peace throughout. [watch Pressure is Lifted | Career Choices}

And it all started at 16 trying to find that peace in my life.

In the last few years I realized, I thought, “Whoa, I’m there. I’ve reached it.”

And, you know whether I’ve reached self-actualization on Maslow’s hierarchy, I don’t know.

But that’s kind of what it feels like. I certainly have my days when I am stressed when I am anxious. It’s changed in the last, I don’t know, five or six years.

My Toolbox

Acupuncture

Years ago a therapist recommended an acupuncturist. She was pregnant at the time and her son is 16 years old. So I’ve been having acupuncture for 16 years that every two or three weeks.  Acupuncture levels up your meridians, your chakras and balances them..

Therapy

I’ve gone to therapy when I’ve needed it. That has been an important thing to do.

Movement

Exercise has always been kind of near and dear to my heart: weights yoga, running then moved to walking At 63 yoga is really important to me and really balances my day – I do yoga in the morning.

But I also lift weights and, and walk every day, no matter what the temperature is. So my husband and I get all fixed up and we go.

Learning.

It’s been self-help books. Continuing to learn and seek new ideas.

Spirituality.

And it’s been Spirituality – Kelly moving back to Minneapolis and saying, “I’m going to go back to Unity” A spirituality center focused on really looking through intention and having intention for being a positive person and all that positivity brings into your life. And so I went back to Unity. And that made a huge difference.

Community.

I have a group of women that I’m close to. We meet regularly and that helps. I have several different groups of women that I meet with, but particularly one group, through Unity that I’ve connected with Kelly is a part of that. And I it makes a huge difference in my life. [watch Reclaiming My Mojo]

Meet Beth Riegger 💃 Keys 2 Success Marketing

Meet Beth Riegger 💃 Keys 2 Success Marketing

30Women30Stories, Athena Village, Member Stories

by  | May 5, 2021 | 2021, 30 Women 30 Stories, Beth Riegger, Collective

Meet Beth Riegger 💃 Keys 2 Success Marketing

Beth Riegger, Keys 2 Success Marketing

I’m a Mom of a high school senior/Type1 diabetic, dog mom of 2 (plus an extra), wife, crafter, wine lover, I value relationships. And I’m a digital marketing strategist.

Twin Cities MN US

Can’t Stop the Feeling

from DreamWorks’ Trolls

My Story

(interview lightly edited)

On Defining Her Mojo

My essence is fun. Happy and the warrior.

I read Glennon Doyle’s book Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life and it really fit, the word “warrior” just really resonated with me. I am a warrior for my Type 1 Diabetic son, so much so that I dyed my hair blue for #ProjectBlueNovember and if you haven’t noticed, I have really blonde hair.

My hair stylist was not very happy with me.

“Love you, Brooke!”

I’m not adversarial. I’m not confrontational. I’m not looking for an argument. But if you wrong me or one of my friends, or one of my friends’ kids, better look out because I’m comin’!

It’s funny because my girlfriends and I, when I lived in Fargo, went to the movie about Tina Turner, “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” We walked out of that movie bawling, of course. But we all just held each other’s hands and made a commitment at that point in time: if anybody ever began to treat one of us the way Ike treated Tina, that we would be there for each other, and I feel like that was kind of the start of my warrior-ness.

“What’s up Ben Franklin, Jr. High?!”

On Where Her “Warrior-ness” Comes From

I feel like I’ve gone through a full awakening over the last year with the civil unrest and opening my eyes to atrocities that still happen. And I feel like the warrior-ness came out of [the idea] I want to be the person that I wish I’d had when I was younger. Nobody was there to stand up for me.

Well, I shouldn’t say nobody, because I’m pretty sure my mom did.

Growing up in a small town in Minnesota, if you move there after you were born, you are a constant foreigner. You’re never really truly accepted. That’s what happened to me when we moved when I was 10, end of fourth grade. I was bullied. I was purposely excluded. One of my other classmates actually left the school district because of the level of bullying that she received. And I think that truly, I’m the person that I wish I had by my side.

On How the Last Year Has Changed Her and Her World View

I have not turned a blind eye. But I have not listened when people of color were talking. I’m quite certain you can probably go back on my timeline to five years ago, where some other Black life was taken too soon. And I said all lives matter, not just Black lives, because I didn’t get it. I didn’t understand. Nor did I take the time to understand.

I, like every other white person, just dismissed it because we didn’t see it. We’d never been a part of it. Then George Floyd happened and there was 100% no doubt whatsoever that that was a thing.

Then you start listening to people talk and you start listening to these other stories like I should have been listening in. So now I feel it is our responsibility, as white people, our responsibility to listen, but also take action. What can you do? Well, I can reach out to a Black teacher at my son’s high school who was getting roasted on Facebook for participating in a protest about Black Lives Matter. People were calling for her dismissal from school, calling her awful names. Her email address is, just like every other teachers email addresses, posted on the school website.

And so I took action. I emailed her and I said you are important and you are heard. If you are brought to the school board, I will not only be there but I will hold your hand and I will stand in front of you if necessary. And I mean it. And I’m not the only one that will and I hope she understood my passion, my warrior-ness in what I was saying because I’m not lying. I will.

I’m not going to be the most eloquent because I don’t debate. But, I’ll stand there, I’ll stand in front of her, I’ll stand beside her, hold her hand, hold her up–whatever needs to be done.

And that’s not enough. That is not enough. It’s voting the right people in offices, down to school boards, to mayors to city council members, to the state level to the federal level. It’s getting those right people in the seats that can make those changes. It’s being involved in these listening sessions. And my friends, Dawn [Johnson] and Chaz [Sandifer], are not the only ones that are doing it. They’re doing it here. They happen to be in my circle of people that I know. But it’s happening all over the world. And we all have to pay attention to it. And we have to listen. And we have to understand. And we have to start doing things. You can’t say, oh, I’ll take action when I can. You have to make a plan. You have to make a plan to take those actions.

On How the Last Year Has Informed Her Business Practices

I am seeking out connections to women of color. I’m starting to really be purposeful about that. But also, I’m protecting my own peace. And Facebook has been my jam. I’m on it all day, every day. And it’s not that I’m obsessed with it.

Or, you know, sometimes I am, let’s be clear.

People have commented on some of the things that I’ve been saying. And they are so horrible.

Beth’s tattoo “Kriger”, which means “Warrior” in Norwegian

I thought, how could I ever have associated with you? No, I don’t. It’s no longer a point of, “Oh, we just have different views of things.” That’s diminishing it down to, “I like red, and you like blue. I like chocolate and you like vanilla.” And that’s not the difference. The difference is you’re an asshole and I’m not.

I’m done with people pleasing.

I don’t think I’ve done a good job on my business side about being anti-racist. And about supporting someone to take that into I’m going to take that to heart and do better


Over the last couple of years, I get a feeling. And whether you call it God, or prompting, or the Universe, I don’t want to work with you. There’s just something off. And it was really easy during the election to hear. I did make conscious choices on those feelings. I’m not just going to take anybody’s money. I want to work with the right people. And if I got to take a hit financially, then I’ll take a hit financially.

On Doing the Work and What’s Next

I think it’s completely, completely changed me. I’ve always talked about making a statement with your dollars. I need to be more intentional about that, about what & where I’m spending my money.

I’m active in my city [Brooklyn Park] creating a business center for entrepreneurs. My city is multi-racial and multicultural, probably pretty close to Minneapolis in the multicultural realm. But this business center is focused on people who aren’t going to go to college, they don’t have the money. They are immigrants or low-income families. So it’s about focusing on them and having local business people like me, rent from this area, and our rent dollars go towards scholarships for this person to get a business plan written, or for this person to get a startup loan of $1,000 or things like that, and so I’m excited to be a part of that.

On the One Message to Her Younger Self

Stop trying to get your love and affection from people who don’t want to give it to you.

On Finding Her Mojo

I don’t know how to explain it. Like, I’m chugging along at work, or I’m taking a walk at the cabin with the dogs. Or I am sitting outside with the sun on my face. Like those are happiness. Those are awesome.

Especially if there’s a glass of wine involved.

More About Beth

✹I help clients create smart effective marketing strategies to give them the most bang for their buck đŸ’” DM: “10” to get my top 10 Website Must-Haves

I am the owner of Keys 2 Success Marketing. I was born and grew up in a small town where my parents owned a hardware store. This experience has led me to many jobs as well as entrepreneurial adventures. I bought a Spa with a partner a few years ago, where we started it on a beer budget!

After the website was developed, I maintained the website and learned about website design and online marketing which greatly facilitated the success of the spa. I decided to sell my shares to my business partner and started my own business in website design and marketing.

My main job is to help people with the right knowledge and procedures on how to market their business online without having to spend a lot of time researching and figuring out what questions even need to be asked about online marketing. I help businesses find answers to the hard questions that are necessary for the success of their business and website.

I am a marketing specialist and cover everything including website design and development, e-commerce, WordPress support, SEO, training, blogs, social media strategies and marketing.

Where to find Beth

Meet Catherine Campion 💃 The VO Dojo

Meet Catherine Campion 💃 The VO Dojo

30Women30Stories, Athena Village, Member Stories

by  | May 4, 2021 | 2021, 30 Women 30 Stories

Meet Catherine Campion 💃 The VO Dojo

Catherine Campion

Left-handed baby of a massive Irish-American family. Passionate voiceover talent & coach; adaptive yoga instructor; certified Death Midwife. I’m a Capricorn, so I don’t believe in astrology.

Minneapolis MN US

You and Me Against the World by Helen Reddy

“Me and my Mama’s song”

My Story

Catherine Campion | VO Dojo [04:36]

[00:20] Cat’s definition of “mojo”

[00:55] Super Power

[01:38] Once Upon A Time


[03:40] Everything is exactly how it’s supposed to be


I love the saying things always work out in the end and

if they’re not working out, then it’s not the end.

– Catherine


 Not the End

Editors note: flash forward 10 years and Catherine’s desire for Intentional Community remained.  The following is the “rest of t he story. As she says in the video “not the end.”

 

Humans historically have gathered in small groups that all know each other well and hold each other accountable and take care of each other. And at least in our country, and in most countries that run in developed society, we now have nuclear families. And if you don’t, you’re an outcast, or you don’t like your nuclear family, and you’re like, well, I guess I’m stuck


I don’t know if you know the idea of Dunbar’s number, do you know what that is? So, the actual Dunbar’s number, I believe, is 150. And decades of sociological research came to the conclusion that humans seem to function best around 150 people, because then you will know everyone, you can’t really know more than 150 people, or you can’t really have really care for more than 150 people. I went to a small Catholic, high school de LaSalle, and it had, 120 kids in my grade or whatever. And I pretty much knew a little bit about each of those kids.

So the idea is you build concentric circles
you have a village of 100 people for 50 people more or less, who know each other and care about each other and take care of each other. And that’s a neighborhood and then you have 150 collections of 150 people and that makes a city, and levels of governance where a representative would go from each level and eventually
t’s different than just democracy, it’s more like self-governing units that also functions on a higher level.

Building an Intentional Community

So what we’re doing in Michigan, similar to what I was trying to do in Ecuador, is
sharing proximity, not necessarily the same piece of land. But that was the idea: having a group and then really homesteading as best we can. Growing as much of our own food as we can–there are already goats, chickens, pigs. It’s all, you know, solar powered, with wells for our water. It’s not on the grid. We’ve got six acres of farmland and four acres of forestry
we’ve already started planting on it. So just survival level homesteading. That will be great, a great, comfortable, safe way to live during this phase of what our country is going through and who knows, will industrial civilization collapse in our lifetime? will global climate crisis go off the rails in the next 30 years? Just like a nice place to ride that out with some friends and family.

Being of Service

My partner and I both have a lot of ideas, how we can be of service and how we can be teaching on the land. I’m a yoga teacher  specializing in senior and adaptive yoga.  There probably isn’t another adaptive yoga teacher around so there might be a bunch of people with disabilities that would love me to teach them that. I’m also a death midwife, and my partner’s a third-degree black belt, and he loves the idea of teaching little boys how to be appropriate men and how to be good.

And I’m teaching through the VO Dojo teaching voiceover as a Sensei. And I brought up the idea recently that there are so many older people, mid-career or retirees that either a discovered when they got to retirement age, they couldn’t really retire without a part time job. Or they just want to have another career. And I said, we should start focusing on seniors to teach voiceover to and my partner said “yeah, we would love to do that. We were already talking about it.” Because I love seniors, and I work with them. And I would love to teach them how to do voiceover.


not the end.

 

More about  Catherine

Being born into a cross-cultural/dual-citizenship family and improvising since I was 11 have helped me build a rewarding international on-camera & voiceover career.

Highlights include acting opposite Charlize Theron in *North Country*; appearing in the final season of *Weeds* with Mary-Louise Parker; Network commercial campaigns for Subaru, United Health and H&R Block; narration for the United Nations; voicing Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow for the Iron Man video game; and Siri, in Ellen’s iPhone, on the Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Connect with me

Join me tomorrow for “Ask the Sensei”
at thevodojo.com Click to register for this free Q+A

Meet Dawn L Johnson 💃 Your guide back to your authentic dope self

Meet Dawn L Johnson 💃 Your guide back to your authentic dope self

30Women30Stories, Athena Village, Member Stories

by  | May 3, 2021 | 2021, 30 Women 30 Stories

Meet Dawn L Johnson 💃 Your guide back to your authentic dope self

Coach Dawn L Johnson Life | Mindset | Wellness Advocate

A 20 plus year wellness advocate of all things healing from the inside out. Podcast host, leadership, deep self awareness, highly intuitive, empathizing, relationship building, mentoring.

Minneapolis/St. Paul MN US

Superwoman by Alicia Keys

My Story

PERSEVERANCE

My successes came from mistakes, despite struggling in silence

HUMBLED BEGINNINGS

As a young girl I realized quickly that leadership was my biggest strength

More about Dawn

I coach dope ass Women and Men to unlearn past behaviors and gain freedom from mind drama of all the lies you’ve ever believed of yourself.  Through my heart centered coaching practice I will guide you to connect with your inner light. Let’s take this healing journey together.

Where to Find Dawn

Meet Sharon Payne 💃 Healer Musician

Meet Sharon Payne 💃 Healer Musician

30Women30Stories, Athena Village, Member Stories

by  | Apr 30, 2021 | 2021, 30 Women 30 Stories, Sharon Payne

Meet Sharon Payne 💃 Healer Musician

Sharon Payne, Healer, Songstress

Writer, editor, musician, healer, project manager. Looking for new ways to jump start the next phase of my life!

Twin Cities MN US

My Song

I couldn’t choose just one!  so Get Up by Mary Mary “what are you afraid of? don’t you know what you are made of?”!!
and But the World Goes ‘Round performed by Liza Minelli from New York New York.  It’s a song about mojo!

My Mojo Stories

Songstress

Healer

More About Sharon


Sharon Payne wears many hats 
 and she loves each one!

She is a life-long learner with an inquisitive mind and the curiosity to ask “why” and to seek new growth. Sharon is a successful project leader with over 20 years of experience in the educational assessment and survey research industries, working in both business development and project management. In addition to project leadership, Sharon is a natural communicator with exceptional interpersonal, written, and verbal skills and has been a writer, editor, and writing instructor. She often takes on freelance writing and editing jobs.

Sharon has been a musician since as far back as she can remember. Her early musical experiences including singing “God Bless America” at a family reunion at age 4! She has sung in numerous choral groups over the years, has played the piano for over 40 years, and played the bassoon from grade school into her 30s. Music is one of the most important ways that Sharon keeps her mojo alive, and she has recently taken up playing classical guitar as well.

Sharon has studied the healing arts of Reiki and Qigong and is a Reiki Master, trained through Stone Circle Reiki, and a Qigong Level 3 Practitioner, trained through Spring Forest Qigong. She hopes to expand her healing practice during the next year, to bring the benefit of energy healing to many.

Finally, Sharon is the mom to a totally amazing 22-year-old son, whom she adores with all her heart.

Where to Find Sharon