CATHEY “LEA” MOTLOW

Thunderbird Heart

Lea Motlow, Founder

A mother, grandmother, business owner, and a woman who has been walking the Medicine Path for many years. She was gifted her medicine name "Thunderbird Heart” in 2014 and her walk since then has been to "follow her name”. She has been in healing circles since 2003, she has also assisted and has been a ceremonial midwife in the Rites of Passage programs in past years.   She has most recently completed her training as a certified Rites of Passage Guide…in Kedar Brown’s Vision Quest guide training in 2022.

She herself was called to Quest in 2014 and in October of that year went out on the land for a 12-day journey with Animas Valley Institute. While fasting and on her solo time, she received a vision. The calling was that she and a male partner would bring groups of men and women to the base of a Mountain. In October of 2019, exactly to the day she and Alberto Fernandez Santa Cruz guided their first group to the base of Apu Ausangate. The Vision Quest Vision became fully manifested at that time.  She went back out on the Mountain in 2022, in Sapphire Canyon in Colorado, for 4 days and nights fasting and in prayer received the visions that continues to guide her path.

She has received the initiation of the Nusta Karpay, Nusta Blossoming and the Teqse Nusta's. Lea also has received the initiation of Grandfather Tobacco. She is a graduate of the Eagle Condor Apprenticeship program in shamanic tradition. During her year long training, Apu Ausangate starting coming into contact with her. She was called to Peru in 2017 and in July on her 61 birthday landed in Cusco. She had many deep experiences while there and received the guidance at the base of Ausangate in what unfolded as golden-threads.com. With the assistance of several communities she brings in textiles from Weavers in the Sacred Valley and Chinchero Peru. This is her reciprocity in walking with these Sacred Teachings of the Andean Cosmology, along with being called by Pachamama Peru, the Apu’s (mountain spirits), and the Nusta’s.

Lea, started in the fall of 2023 Training to be an AAIT™ practitioner, Acceptance and Integration Training®. “Our true Self is who we truly are in a state of wholeness, integrated with previous shadow-stuff, without illusions of separateness. Connecting with our true Self allow us to realize that we are True Spiritual Beings, not separate personalities. She will complete the program in March of 2024. At this time she can offer the approach being taught to assist others to trust and to follow their own inner path from the place of their True Self.

What is AAIT™?

Acceptance and Integration Principles®

  1. The true self is not encumbered by the limitations of a narrative.  The true self is a Being.

  2. Taking responsibility for and tending to our inner state is the source of freedom.

  3. Self-acceptance is a means and a measure of well-being.

  4. Resolving reactivity can reveal higher states of consciousness.

  5. The integration of two opposing states can alleviate psychological suffering.

  6. Nondual states of empty consciousness are indication and mechanism of transformation. Cultivating an awareness of these states contributes to increases in present focused attention, self -compassion, empathy and more skillful choices. 

In her more traditional life, she has two grown children Jonathan and Cari Ann. She has a 7-year-old grandson, Caden, and a 4-year-old grandson, Brennen. She loves being a “Grammy” to these two boys and her work in the other realms is to assist them in their journeys. 

Lea owns a medical billing company, Behavioral Health Billing, LLC. To support mental health providers get paid for the work they do to assist others.

She has been offering virtual teachings, weekend retreats, and programs in N.C and once a year in Peru. Walking in Sacred Balance with Pachamama and a deep desire to Guide the ones who are called along this beautiful path of healing. She feels that one of her biggest gifts is to hold a safe container of a Big Heart and Compassion to assist others to walk through the “Threshold" towards their Spiritual Calling. 

Thunderbird Heart "Lea” is so very grateful for her life and this deep journey she is called to walk.