About Wind and Raven
Healing Pathways, Survival, Story, and the Long Work of Becoming Whole
Wind and Raven is the public home of Steve R. Patterson’s Healing Pathways work, older writings, videos, reflections, and ongoing conversations about recovery, illness, survival, dependency, identity, meaning, and transformation.
This site began during a very different season of life. Some of the writing here goes back to the years when I was living with end-stage liver disease, liver cancer, and the uncertainty of whether I would survive long enough to receive a liver transplant. What began as a search for meaning during illness became an archive of survival, spiritual inquiry, recovery, and the long process of rebuilding a life after collapse.
Wind and Raven has changed over time because I have changed over time. Earlier versions of this site included more direct shamanic language and offerings connected to spiritual work. Those offerings have been removed. The current direction is simpler and clearer: preserve the archive, continue the Healing Pathways work, and create a public space for honest conversations about healing, survival, recovery, and transformation.
Where This Work Began
My name is Steve R. Patterson. I am a writer, liver transplant survivor, former counselor, group facilitator, and creator of the Healing Pathways body of work.
My path was shaped by illness, addiction recovery, spiritual searching, clinical work, and the need to make meaning out of experiences that did not fit neatly inside one category. I have spent years exploring the relationship between story, body, spirit, survival, dependency, grief, and identity.
I have also spent years removing the unnecessary parts. Wind and Raven is no longer a place where I offer shamanic services, retreats, spiritual guidance packages, or one-on-one healing work. The older spiritual inquiry remains part of the foundation, but it is no longer the public offer.
What remains is the question that started the work:
What happens when everything you thought you were falls away, and you have to decide who you are going to become?
The Wind and Raven Archive
Wind and Raven is also an archive of the period when I was sick, recovering, searching, and trying to understand what had happened to my life.
Some older blog posts and reflections were written during or near the years of liver failure, liver cancer, transplant, and recovery. Others came later, as the questions shifted from survival to meaning, identity, and rebuilding.
That archive remains here because it matters. It shows the roots of the work before it became a book, a framework, or a program. It is the record of a person trying to stay alive, tell the truth, and find language for an experience that medical, religious, and clinical systems could only partly explain.
The older material may not always match the current direction of Wind and Raven. That is part of the point. It shows the evolution.
The Healing Pathways Program
Healing Pathways is the body of work that grew out of that journey.
It is a narrative-based, integrative approach to recovery, healing, and personal transformation. It works with story, body, memory, meaning, relationship, intention, and integration. It does not separate mind, body, and spirit into disconnected parts. It treats them as one living system.
The Healing Pathways work includes two books:
- The Healing Pathways Companion
- The Healing Pathways Facilitator’s Guide
The Companion is written for the individual reader. It invites reflection, journaling, narrative practice, and personal exploration.
The Facilitator’s Guide is written for group leaders, counselors, recovery coaches, and facilitators who want to bring the Healing Pathways framework into group or community settings.
Wind and Raven is where the public-facing, reflective, and personal side of Healing Pathways will continue to grow.
View The Healing Pathways Program on Amazon
Wind and Raven on YouTube
The Wind and Raven YouTube channel is where I will walk through the Healing Pathways material chapter by chapter.
These videos will explore recovery, dependency, illness, grief, identity, story, meaning, embodiment, spiritual inquiry, and the slow work of becoming whole after life has broken open.
The channel will also become the home for future public conversations about healing, recovery, survival, and transformation. These conversations will be reflective and educational. They will not be counseling, therapy, treatment, crisis support, or clinical services.
Watch Wind and Raven on YouTube
This Is How It Feels to Heal
My first book, This Is How It Feels to Heal, came out of the illness, transplant, recovery, and spiritual inquiry period that originally shaped Wind and Raven.
It is a lived account of illness, identity, death, survival, recovery, and the work of rebuilding a life after everything familiar had fallen away.
The book is not a medical guide and not a clinical manual. It is a personal record of collapse, survival, and transformation.
View This Is How It Feels to Heal on Amazon
How Wind and Raven Connects to Valkyrie
Wind and Raven is the public home for the reflective, personal, and spiritual side of Healing Pathways.
Valkyrie Counseling Group is the professional and publishing home for the books, facilitator resources, and ASAM-related group facilitation material.
This separation is intentional. Wind and Raven carries the public conversation. Valkyrie carries the professional framework.
Visit Valkyrie Counseling Group
What Wind and Raven Is — and Is Not
Wind and Raven is a place for reflection, education, story, spiritual inquiry, and public conversation.
It is not a medical site, not a counseling platform, not a treatment program, and not a place for clinical diagnosis, crisis support, or professional therapy.
I am not offering one-on-one spiritual guidance, retreats, shamanic services, counseling, treatment, or direct recovery coaching through Wind and Raven.
If you are in crisis or need clinical, medical, or mental health support, contact a licensed professional, emergency service, or crisis resource in your area.
Contact
For questions about Wind and Raven, Healing Pathways, books, videos, or related public conversations, you can reach me by email.
Email: steve@windandraven.com
For my broader writing, media, podcast, and upcoming projects, visit StevePatterson.online.& Amazon.com.