Keep
/kēp/
The most fortified and enduring part of a castle, used as a ceremonial space or for refuge
Historically, the keep was the strongest and innermost part of a medieval castle. For this reason, it played an important military and defense function as the final refuge in a siege or attack, while also operating as a ceremonial space for coronations, blessings, mourning rituals, and celebrations.
There are many symbolic layers to a keep. Not only did it offer sanctuary and safety from the outside world, it was also a place to connect with one's power and faith, engage in ritual, and access divine knowledge. I chose to name my intuitive practice The Keep, because it reflects exactly the kind of safe, supportive space I aspire to create for others.
On another symbolic level, we also each carry a keep within us. Beneath the fortified walls of our external selves, there lies an essence of being, full of power, waiting to be recognized & known. My work is devoted to serving others on the journey into their own inner keeps, where a vault of wisdom exists. To unlock it, one must be willing to face the keep's depths and it is my mission to guide you there.
Hi, I'm Charley, stewardess of the Keep.
In the summer of 2022, I embarked on a wild odyssey.
First, the waves swallowed me whole, spit me underworld, then catapulted me through the cosmic muck where I dangled precariously in empty space as a jellyfish, rocketing between portals. Time tensed and stretched like a rubber band. At one point, I opened my eyes to take in the "real world" and I saw that it was made of latticework, held up by great, high-tensile threads of pulsing energy. Eventually I made my way back to the yard which was singing in the July heat. My steps were bumbling but I was barefoot and deliciously alive. The wildflowers vibrated with a life of their own. The world was ringing inside of me, and everything had something to say. Stunned by it all, I fell back towards the ground, which again became the sea, earth and ocean tangling as one with the canopy of trees above.
In that moment, I remembered I was home.
The mushrooms' medicine, and the awakening that followed, has never left me since.
As I write today, I remain deeply grateful for what my initiatory psychedelic experience has allowed me to find in the time that has unfolded since: myself.
Yet I believe we never stop finding ourselves.
The human adventure is such that we never really solve the mystery of the self. I believe our quest is to embrace the unknown, cultivating it as a limitless spiritual resource---one that allows us to continually surprise ourselves with our boundless depth, capacity for growth, and loving presence.
The work I do, at its very core, is soul work.
It's not about fixing, eliminating, or correcting those things we consider flaws. It's about making deeper, more meaningful contact with life in all its unknowableness. It's about experiencing the story of our lives as a form of poetry, and reconnecting back to our bodies to fully live it as such. I'm not so much interested in explanations as I am in imagination, insights, and ideas that can radically shift how we experience our realities with greater love and compassion. I believe in listening to ourselves more than "curing" ourselves. Soul work is not about accessing linear answers or solutions, but restoring our inner wisdom, curiosity, and creativity to make more art and love out of life.
Through my own reconnection with my soul, I discovered a calling to the intuitive arts and my quiet link to Spirit---a thread that, in hindsight, had been woven through my life all along. This journey has awakened me to the importance of accessing my deepest truth---the part of me that knows how to be unwavering and sure, even when other parts are not---about what makes me feel most alive & like myself. My offerings to you as an intuitive and mediumistic practitioner are an expression of this, guided by a greater purpose: to share and teach the magic of self-knowing to others.