Hidden Gems: Meet Stella Davies of Stella Davies Healing & Expressive Arts

Today we’d like to introduce you to Stella Davies.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started? 
I began my career as a Creative Arts Therapist back in the UK, working in social services settings, prisons, and mental health facilities. This was an intense baptism by fire, and after a few years, I started specializing in natural voice work after training with Chloe Goodchild (thenakedvoice.com) in 2000. I shared this method of natural voice practice widely in the UK, Greece, and Croatia for many years before bringing it to my area in the US when I moved here in 2008. The practices include a lot of mantras and chants as well as other physical and vocal techniques for freeing the authentic voice and singing the soul. This work resonated very much for me personally on my own healing journey as well – we often teach what we most need for ourselves!

I started discovering more about the healing power of sound through the British Association for Sound Therapy around the same time as I attuned to Reiki in 2005. This marked a big shift in my work as a healer, and I attuned to Reiki Master Level in 2012, then Holy Fire Karuna Reiki Master Level in 2015 through the International Center for Reiki Training (www.reiki.org). I have been teaching classes at all Reiki levels regularly in the community for many years now and hold regular Reiki Shares and ongoing support for my students and Masters. Reiki is such a remarkable healing tool and I feel so blessed to share it.

As a teacher of Nada Yoga (the yoga of sound) since my first work with Chloe, I was later strongly called to take a Yoga Teacher Training in 2014 to share the asanas and pranayama, along with the power of sound. I combine these now in all my classes, both on Zoom and in person. My yoga classes focus on deep awareness of the body, really taking time to breathe and ‘be’ in these more Gentle/Restorative styles that I teach. Sound is also encouraged, which my students love!

Finally, as a child I was always passionate about nature and became quite knowledgeable about animal, bird and plant life in my native Britain. But as I grew older and became more involved in relationships, the busy-ness of work-life, moving to a new continent and building a new life and career over here in SOCAL at 39 years old,  I felt like I sort of lost touch with it to a degree.

It was just a couple of years after arriving in the US that I discovered Shamanic Journeying through a teacher called Elaine Alghani, apprenticed to an elder from the Huichol Lineage. Once I discovered the richness, direct-revelatory guidance, and healing that could be attained through shamanic journeying, a whole new world opened up for me! After taking a Journey Around the Medicine Wheel with this teacher over the period of 18 months, I knew this was a strong calling for me – it was a way of returning me back to my youthful passion for nature whilst creating powerful relationships with animal, bird and plant spirits that wished to bring healing to humanity.

It effortlessly brought my love of nature into harmony with my spiritual calling and growth as a Reiki Master, Vocal Midwife, and Yoga Teacher. After a 2-year integration period, I began to share drum journeys with different animal totems with my community. Later, I started a closed group of women who wished to Journey Around the Medicine Wheel – it began at the start of COVID and still continues today, as the Medicine Wheel just takes us deeper and deeper into our relationship with Mother Earth and all her Children; the Elements (as part of us); the Direction of Father Sky and our own incredible Heart-space. This particular body of work correlates so perfectly with my own Celtic lineage, where we honor the Wheel of the Year – the solstices, equinoxes, etc. My passion is guiding people to become more deeply aware of the cycles of the year and how they relate to the cycles within ourselves – getting us back into balance with the seasons and back into right relationship with the natural world – a remembering that we are an integral part of it, not separate.

For me this body of work is essential for where we are in our relationship to the Earth as a species at this time. And these ancient teachings are just as relevant today and maybe more important in the light of global warming, the destruction of huge swathes of natural habitat, and the continuing issue of decreasing biodiversity. We need to get back into balance and harmony with nature, and this is one powerful path to support that journey. I look forward to sharing about this more, and other facets of my work in interview. And I appreciate this opportunity!

Thank you.

Stella Davies

My website is www.stelladavies.com

Cell – 818 665 9840

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Coming from a family where uncomfortable stuff was happening, but where I was strongly discouraged from voicing anything about it, led directly to me being called to learning and teaching Natural Voice-work. This was not always a comfortable road – it led me into connecting with very painful and traumatic parts of myself that needed healing. Finding my voice initially often meant unleashing this deep trauma at the same time. But it was also one of the healing roads home.

Early on in teaching natural voice and running day-long workshops, I met and started dating a guy who was an amazing poet and had recently just got published and seemed to be going far in that world. He asked me to create songs out of some of his poems, which I did, recording them in a local studio.

He had suffered from clinical depression in the past, and some of his poems were about being in a mental health setting. After a few months of being together, he started declining again really fast. Even with my therapeutic background, I was well out of my depth, and after 3 months of depression, a month before he was to appear at a very prestigious poetry event in the UK, he took his life. I was utterly devastated and had all the emotions one expects with a suicide – deep grief, guilt, anger, just to name a few. After a few months of struggle, I finally wrote, recorded, and produced my first album of ‘soul songs’ – channeled songs that just poured through after such an experience. It was Chloe Goodchild’s Naked Voice work that had given me that ability to create something powerful and beautiful out of utter despair and grief. The album was called ‘Goddess in Blue’ and included songs about that experience as well as some of the Poem/Songs we had created together. It was deeply healing to create this.

A few years later, after attuning to Second Degree Reiki, my first marriage went rapidly off the rails, and it became clear that we were really not suited. Changing the vibration of oneself can sometimes lead to relationship shifts! Eventually, I left and returned home for a while, away from my established healing community. I was disoriented, lonely, and confused, and felt a lot of despair at the ending of my marriage.

In some rather miraculous and hard-to-believe ways, Spirit managed to gently guide me back on track, and I started running chant circles again. Even my mom came along and loved it! I got back on track, started recording a new Chant album and strangely, one of the chants was how I got to call in my forever husband – how I got to be in the US!

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
These days, I am probably best known for Reiki (with Sound) individual treatments and regular, local Holy Fire Reiki classes for all Reiki Levels. I am proud of the safe, healing spaces I offer for sessions and classes, and grateful that I have taken my own personal healing work deep over the years (and continue to), so that I can be a compassionate and supportive presence for people. Tears are as welcome as laughter, and there are normally both! My Reiki students get ongoing support forever after they have attuned with me.

I also offer group Cacao and other types of ceremonies with Sound Baths and hold regular Sound Baths locally in Yoga Studios and out of my own home studio space. I love to offer custom ceremonies/sound baths for special events like birthdays, anniversaries, etc. I also co-lead Yoga/Sound/Healing Retreats with my friend and retreat Partner Renee Green.

Pre-COVID (for two decades), I was also well known for Chant Circles and Kirtan Gigs with my musical partner Jack Lee (jackleemusic.com), and these are now coming back into the community more regularly from March this year! Jack is a talented multi-instrumentalist, and I am a recorded singer/songwriter with a passion for bringing people together to sing sacred chants (kirtan-style and otherwise). These are wild, joyful, and healing events that bring people together in a truly beautiful way.

The Journeys Around the Medicine Wheel I am super proud of because they have touched people so deeply (including myself) and because it is so very much needed to help humanity get back in touch with the healing medicine/wisdom available to us from the Earth. I am hoping to offer more of these Circles going forward, some in-person and some on Zoom to reach a wider audience.

Who else deserves credit in your story?
Nikki Slade – (www.nikkislade.com) – first natural voice mentor, UK

Chloe Goodchild (www.thenakedvoice.com) – second natural voice mentor, UK

Krystynne Gabriel and Trish Norman– first Reiki Masters, UK

William Rand (www.reiki.org) – Reiki Master

Coleen Benelli (www.reikilifestyle.com) – Reiki Master

Andrew Waterhouse – for helping me write my first songs and for all the music we made with Gordon Sharp

Keith Mills – first album producer, UK

Tony Bowler – first duo partner, UK

Jack Lee (www.jackleemusic.com) – dear friend and musical partner

Elaine Alghani – dear friend and my first Shamanic Teacher

Tomas Pinkson – Huichol Elder and Teacher of Elaine

Surreina Gallegos – dear friend and my first retreat co-leader in the US

Renee Green (www.greenrenee.com) – dear friend/ally and retreat-co-leader

Bill Merrit – my amazing and supportive husband over here in the US who encourages me and all my stuff big-time!

Shaun Merritt – my incredible, talented and supportive stepson who designed my most recent website and is my tech mentor!

Ron and Bron – my sister and brother-in-law who were the reason I met Bill and why I now live in SOCAL!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.stelladavies.com
• Other: https://stelladavies.hearnow.com/in-the-presence