Situating My History
I'm Laura Anctil (she/they) and I'm a mother, a Somatic Reiki® & Ritual Practitioner and a secondary support for 1:1 psychedelic assisted therapy with registered clinical counsellors. I currently reside on Stó:lō unceded land, the traditional territory of the Semá:th and Mathxwí First Nations and I identify as a white, queer, thin-bodied and neurodiverse immigrant with Italian and Celtic ancestry. I've been a Certified Labour and Birth Doula since 2008 and this experience has greatly shaped how I hold space for others during journey work with Somatic Reiki, ritual practice or psychedelic medicine. I’m also trained as a social theorist and scientist, and I completed an MA in Cultural, Social and Political Thought from the University of Victoria in 2013. My decade-long study of power has left me deeply invested in anti-oppressive ways of being, and in cultivating right relationships with our planet and its inhabitants in every aspect of my work and life.
Awakening to My Own Energy
Reconnection with my own body has been the healing first step that has taught me true reconciliation with myself, opening the door to learning healthy reconnection with all O/others. As I've combined my study of embodied power dynamics, critical thinking, ethical practice and social justice with my skills of compassionate, physical support to others during labour and birth, I've come to understand that offering embodied support can be deeply enriched by energetic attunement to the emotional, somatic and spiritual states that bodies traverse in these embodied, liminal processes.
Birthing Somatic Reiki®
Out of this experience, I’ve learned to offer Reiki through a somatic lens that brings awareness of the embodied experience of energy work. I call this work Somatic Reiki® and I offer it as a holistic and trauma-informed bodywork where people can connect and relate to themselves with deeper and fuller self-expression.
The focus of my 1:1 practice is all about cultivating a particular, co-created
space where I companion clients through their own, self-directed and
embodied process. As they journey inward in this intentional container,
clients receive energetic support with Reiki energies and the skilled companionship of an experienced practitioner.
In my experience, this process has shown itself to be particularly
complimentary to psychedelic journeying, as clients can use
Somatic Reiki in similar ways to how they might work with
psychedelic medicines. Reiki frequencies are well-suited to
simulate a light, altered state similar to a medicine journey,
and can create valuable opportunities for intention setting,
prepping prior to journeying, and as integration or
aftercare following a psychedelic session.
In my personal life, I feel deeply blessed to live
from a place of rich relational beauty in
animist kinship with the whole world of
beings, spirits and energies that are
my family. Through my devotion to this
family, I've developed a lifestyle that
incorporates ritual practices into my daily
life that connect me with plants, animals,
energies and all the non-human others
in my world. The experience of this deep reconnection with the earth and with my
own ancestral lineage has been the foundation
of my learning around how we can companion
others through life's journeys.
I seek to bring this interconnected
presence back into the world in all the work
that I do and anchor it as a cultural practice
to nurture future generations.
Ritual Practice as
Animist Kinship
Medicine Womxn Dharma
My course work and practices over the past 20 years in mindfulness, yoga, dance, somatic frameworks, sacred grief work, miscarriage and death doula experience, feminine shamanic and intuitive practices and Jungian Psychology all weave together to inform the life-long soul archetype that presents in my path: a young, still always learning, community medicine womxn in process and continued development. As a result, I feel a deep, dharmic comfort when I companion others with compassionate presence through Somatic Reiki, altered state journeys, liminal transitions, interstitial energetic zones and embodied experiences of the numinous. I often feel a wide-eyed sense of wonder at the beauty of human-life experience, being a part of this great collective spirit, Earth. In my personal time, I like magikal adventures in the woods with family, friends and familiars; dancing with my kid in my living room; singing loudly while driving, playing in different bands, poring over ancient and contemporary texts, and tending to my garden sanctuary.