The Long Game

June marks four years since the founding of Roots & Rays Creative Counseling. Looking back, it's both humbling and surreal to remember the small seed I planted in 2022, just after the global pandemic and the dawn of ZOOM therapy. My vision was to create a therapy practice that felt warm, relational, and deeply intentional. Every detail mattered—especially the environment where healing would unfold.

What I couldn't have imagined was that I wouldn't just build a practice—I would help build a home for it.

The Roots & Rays Center for Creative Medicine became a true collaboration. Architect Dan Weese envisioned a trauma-informed space beyond anything I had ever dreamed. Jorge Mendez and the JM+RA Construction team brought it to life. Alex and Maureen Sorell shaped the interiors, Robert Jeffries crafted the finish carpentry, and Julie deLeon designed the restorative healing gardens that now surround us. Together, we painted walls, hung artwork, planted native prairie, and poured care into every corner. I remain profoundly grateful to my family, friends, colleagues, and community whose encouragement carried this vision forward.

Since opening last September, we've been settling into this beautiful container—hosting therapy, workshops, trainings, and community gatherings while continuing to imagine what it might become.

A wide daytime photograph of the Sagrada Família in Barcelona shows four towering stone spires reaching into a blue sky filled with soft white clouds. Intricate Gothic-inspired façades are covered in detailed carvings, while sections wrapped in scaffolding reveal the basilica's ongoing construction. In the foreground, lush green trees and a still reflecting pond frame the cathedral, emphasizing the harmony between architecture and nature. Sunlight bathes the stone in warm golden tones, creating a sense of grandeur, hope, and enduring craftsmanship.

I've been thinking lately about the Sagrada Família in Barcelona. Construction began in 1882, and although its iconic towers were completed this year, the basilica remains unfinished. Antoni Gaudí devoted his life to a vision he knew he would never see completed. That kind of faith in the long game moves me.

In four years time, Roots & Rays has walked alongside over 200 individuals and couples in their healing journeys. We've launched a nonprofit to expand access to care, supervised clinicians toward licensure, mentored interns, and watched gifted colleagues step into their own work. These are seeds planted whose full shade we may never experience ourselves.

Healing is often like that. A single seed, tended with patience, can one day become a great oak. Holding steady to a goal, a vision or a dream can sometimes feel heavy- especially if you’re drawing the map as you go- but if you stay the course you may create a legacy that generations in the future will benefit from.

Four years feels like a meaningful moment to pause and honor what has taken root. But more than anything, it reminds me that we're only at the beginning. There is still so much tending to do, but we are up for the task. It’s important to remind ourselves how far we have come while also holding the possibility of continued growth.

Happy birthday, Roots & Rays.

Here's to the long game—and to every seed still waiting to bloom.