Purist Magazine

PURIST MAGAZINE ARTICLE ON MY MOTHER

I loved being interviewed by Amely Greeven for an article on my mother. My Mother, Melinda Joy Miller, has an extensive background on transforming environments in which you live, grow, work and develop. She began her journey as a young girl living between Washington DC and the 120 acre farm my grandparents lived on part time, outside Philadelphia. My grandfather was a diplomat and worked at the State Department. On the weekends he came back to the farm and nurtured his nut trees, vegetable gardens and land…we had virtually anything you would ever want to live off of the land. It was a beautiful fairy land when I was young, filled with two manicured ponds to sail around in my canoe, fish and swim, a creek to wade in and endless fields and flower gardens to dream in. She, like me, grew up with one soul in the country side and one racing heart in the city life, always excited by what adventure was coming around the corner next.

My Mother was drawn to understand indigenous culture, so she began her academic road with a degree in cultural anthropology. She didn’t last long in that field though, as she would find herself working at a state hospital later as a sensory-integrative therapist, getting extensive training in child development and part of a team of Occupational Therapists doing ground breaking work as they put their focus on how the environments were set up to impart a shift in their patients developmental process. This work would land my mother on the cover of the Philadelphia Inquire and her colleague as the head of the USC department of Occupational Therapy.

During that time, she discovered two important mentors to her path, Grandmother Twylah Hurd Nitsch and Mina Simone, two Native American woman who would add a deeper perspective for her that would change the course of her life. Over many years, she would become an expert in permaculture, a master of feng shui and healing. She looked at space from all perspectives to understand how to rid it of toxicity, add a layer of balance, intention and understand how the space may be effecting your mind, emotions and behavior.

SPACE SHAMAN

This recent Purist Magazine article on my mother above is just one way she heals spaces. I am grateful to have her as my mom, my best friend and my greatest mentor. Purist magazine and Amely Greeven, the writer, did a beautiful job of honoring her special process. I would never think of moving into a house without her peek at the layers that exist in a realm we don’t see.