My name is Michelle Mercurio but you can call me Micki. Heart communication is my language and specialty. If you’re curious about what your next step in life might be and how to get there; if you want help finding and tuning into that still, quiet voice of your inner guidance; if you’ve felt stuck in your own birth canal; if you’re ready to shed what you’ve outgrown and discover the new you waiting to emerge; or if your heart simply longs to be heard, really heard by a heart of deep compassion and presence, let’s talk. It’ll be my great honor, privilege, and joy to work with you.
I’m a spiritual midwife, a visionary, catalyst, teacher, healer and channel. These days I live mostly in a state of awe and wonder at the incredible orchestration of life, of the magic and mystery of it all. But it wasn’t always that way.
Born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, I knew from a very young age I belonged in the mountains surrounded by nature, befriended by trees, rocks and faeries. So as soon as I was free to venture out at the age of 19, I moved to the foothills of the Smoky Mountains in rural Tennessee, to a small uninsulated shack of a house with no water or indoor plumbing and an old rusty woodstove for heat. Thus began my journey into adulthood.
But first came the split. A very shy and sensitive girl raised as a devout Catholic, I was singled out and humiliated in front of the class at the tender age of 7 by a nun admonishing me to “never, ever listen to that small, still, voice within – for it could be the voice of Satan!” I was terrified.
Yet even in my fear and humiliation, there was something about that voice I trusted and something about what the nun was saying that just didn’t feel right. So when I got home I asked my parents, fully expecting they would back me up… but they sided with the nun. And it was at that moment I felt myself split in two: from then on I would do my best to be the dutiful daughter outwardly obeying and following what was expected of me, but I would keep the other part of myself tuned in to the voice that continued to whisper to me… keeping this part of myself very quiet and safely hidden.
It was this voice that guided me to move to Tennessee and live what was then considered the back to Earth hippie farm life. Growing and selling vegetables, learning how to make medicine from plants, hauling water from a pristine spring gushing out of the mountain, listening to and learning from the elders in the valley. Giving birth to my three babies at home, I studied midwifery so I could assist in attending and supporting other women choosing to bring their children into the world in a gentle, loving manner.
In the years since then, I’ve raised my kids and been blessed with grandkids, farmed for a living, designed and built a strawbale home – yes with indoor plumbing! – learned the secrets of life from the rivers, rocks, trees and stars, studied the ways of the medicine wheel with indigenous elders, became involved in social and community activism, ran a business as a concrete finisher, went back to college to earn a masters in social work, became an ordained minister, studied energy medicine and hung out my shingle as a holistic body-mind-spirit practitioner – with that still, small voice guiding me at each of these turns.
A rich and creative life, you might say – and it was – but also wracked with terrible pain, excruciating self-doubt and an underlying belief that I was unlovable and irredeemably flawed. I lived in quiet desperation through deep periods of depression and despair – not knowing any way out – praying I would die or somehow disappear into the black chasm I was so lost within. And perhaps worse of all, feeling a profound shame that despite having created an idyllic life in many ways, I was unable to find peace of mind or heart… there was obviously something deeply, disturbingly wrong with me that couldn’t be fixed.
So although there were many, many bright spots along the way, at these times it all seemed so hopeless, so futile, so endless. It was during these periods, these deep dark nights of the soul, when that small, still voice within seemed to go silent. I would cry out in utter agony – and hear nothing but an empty, bleak silent echo in return. I felt awfully, horribly alone, with no one and nothing to guide me through this process of what felt like death. And I certainly didn’t know there was a rebirth on the other side of it. Yet now I realize I was being prepared for the next phase of my life’s work – for I had to first experience my deepest depths and face my darkest shadows in order to help others navigate through theirs.
So just as giving birth to my children at home led me to the desire to assist other women through childbirth, so too did dying to my old self and giving birth to the new lead me to become a spiritual midwife. And meeting Linda and the Council of Love – or you might say becoming reacquainted with them again in this life – and steeping myself in the love and wisdom of their teachings has played an enormously pivotal role in my blossoming into who I truly am.
As a Council of Love Master Teacher and SpiritLife Coach, the shedding of the old and rebirth into the new in heart-conscious awareness is my specialty. I work with people from all walks of life, in any and all stages of their process. My role is to guide and assist you from being who you’ve been into who are becoming – along the sacred spiral path of ascension into the next higher version of yourself. Yes, it’s a birth – but it doesn’t have to be hard or a struggle. Drawing from the wisdom of everything I’ve lived and learned, and even more clearly tuned to the voice within than ever before, I’ve a “medicine bag” filled with tools and techniques to assist you. But even more than that, I’ve got a heart that can meet you wherever you’re at, and walk with you each step of the way with courage, grace and compassion. Contact me and get a feel for what I have to offer you.