Joy to the World: Christiana Joy Weidner, BASH Graduate, Class of 2006, Guiding Self-discovery Naturally

by Jane Stahl

November 16 marked the anniversary of the death of Anna Maria Jung, popularly known as Mountain Mary. She is described in Margaret Leidy Harner’s book One Day at a Time: A Social History of Boyertown, PA as a “pioneer nurse, a comforter of body and soul, benevolent, pious, brave, and charitable. Mary was considered by all who knew her as a ‘holy woman…. and her reputation as a healer spread far beyond the hills of the Oley Valley.’”

Reflecting on this iconic Berks County “healer” and this spiritual season of "miracles," brought Christiana Joy Weidner, Boyertown High School’s Class of 2006, a former student, to mind. Connecting with former students to learn their life journeys after leaving the classroom is always fun and often surprising. “Life happens,” as they say; and the path my students thought they’d follow is often not the direction life takes them.

Christi peeks around a panel of art at a local exhibit and, in 2008, she welcomes Ken Ellis' upgraded Bear Fear bear, Yogi Bearra, mascot of Boyertown's Bear Stadium, fashioned by Doug Davidheiser, to the community.

Christi, who now goes by ChristiAna, did all the conventional things following high school of an academic, highly motivated student: she earned a degree from Kutztown University in communications and even continued her community involvement. In addition, she earned Master’s Degree from the University of Pennsylvania in social work focused in trauma processing, human sexuality, race studies, and community organization.

Her résumé incudes include initiating a not-for-profit start-up, corporate management, fundraising, communications and public relations, group facilitation, community organization, teaching, and project planning. She is a qualified counselor, schooled in neurological, scientific methodology.

Yet, after five years advocating for exploited groups and eight years helping individuals and communities process trauma, she recognized that something was missing; she felt a need for change—for transformation that, in her words, “meets the desire for integrative, embodiment grounded in the belief that everything is energy and we are fully immersed in a spiritual experience.”

And so, like many who are labeled Millennials or Gen X-ers today, she left the traditional career path and stepped out of the mental health structure that she describes as “pretty cardboard box” offices that bow to the rules of insurance companies—a structure that often seemed to sustain ill health in order to remain financially profitable.

Instead, she spent 2 ½ years living in a tiny house—a renovated “big blue school bus”—exploring an alternative style of healing mental health issues through nature-based therapeutic practices.

“Ideally, I want to invite folks to visit me, to find me, and in a meadow have conversation to liberate their “natural selves” stripped of ego states, defenses, judgments and expectations that block free flow of energy—that is, their emotions. Energy is meant to move,” she adds. “And healing comes when the energy is allowed to move, is transformed through human connections. It’s really about community-building and enhancing consciousness.”

“Healing is not about exploring what’s ‘wrong with me,’” she explains, “but nurturing a state of loving acceptance, building a trusting relationship—to be OK with expressing, at least to yourself, whatever feelings surface and becoming a loving human being.”

“It’s a Mountain Mary vibe,” she offers, referring to the legend from Pike Township, known as a skilled healer and spiritual leader. Mountain Mary, known among the Pennsylvania Germans as a powwow doctor who conducted rituals, offered prayers, and practices to address both physical ailments and spiritual concerns and guided by more than human judgement, able to uncover information, and offer assistance through uncommon kindness, cooperation, and generosity.

“I know it sounds ‘woo-woo,’ and many folks reject approaches that veer from the known, the rational, the scientific. I have an education and have studied with some amazing people; I can provide the neurological explanations; there doesn’t need to be ‘woo-woo,’” she quips.

“But there can be ‘woo-woo’ if people are comfortable with that, if they want to give ritual, incense, the use of objects a try in provoking healing. What’s important, however, is the connection, of learning to get beyond chit chat and everyday business and see one another with a greater appreciation, getting to the heart of being human.”

Christy eschews typical promotional and marketing ploys to “build her business,” but hopes through word-of-mouth to introduce herself to those who value her approach to healing and encourages folks to check out her offerings of sessions on her website linktr.ee.com/lovedbythewater.

Since learning more about the geography of her birth in Woodbridge, VA, next to the Occoquan River, Christi has deepened her practices by immersing in natural settings alongside the water. She had learned the Algonquin meaning of “occoquan,” which translates to “the end of the water,” from Mary Jane Schneider’s historical fiction book Wilderness Path about the Oley Valley. The Lenape believed that Manitou, or Great Spirit, lived at the end of waters - generically, where rivers or tributaries enter into open water like a bay or ocean.

This information greatly affirmed Christi’s desire and decision to nomadically move about staying near important bodies of water. Her love of the water and experience being loved by the water can be found in various artistic forms at patreon.com/lovedbythewater, including a podcast with her beloved, Michael Wann, as they catalog their journey as a couple who enjoy teaching tantra and astrology while moving about as nomads.

ChristiAna became aware that the late M.J. Schneider, author, community leader, and former editor of the Boyertown Times, was her Great Aunt through marriage while she and I were creating the script for a DVD to accompany Boyertown’s second pictorial history book that featured interviews of community members who “made” Boyertown the special kind of place it is.

Copies of The Boyertown Area in Pictures: A History of Special People Creating a Special Place is available today solely at the Building a Better Boyertown office, 3 E Philadelphia Avenue at a special price. 

Years later, as Christi and Michael read M.J.'s historical novel Wilderness Path to Christi’s 10-year-old daughter at bed time, the plot bled through into their daily lives in synchronized timing as the chapters progressed. 

Today, moved to preserve this local work of artistically captured early 1700's history of her home valley, ChristiAna began recording a podcast audiobook and storytelling discussion of her familiy’s experience reading MJ’s book at bedtime. She hopes to monetize this effort soon in order to generate revenue for a re-print of the three books written by M. J., including the locally popular Boyertown Opera House Fire Chronicles.

She shares her offerings online or in-person, if you can pin her down. Since leaving the Boyertown area, again, in June 2023, Christi has become a professional house sitter which lends itself to offering medicine circles and astrology workshops in a variety of special locations, usually by the water: Oak Creek in Sedona, AZ, Gulf of Mexico, West Palm Beach, FL, Blue Hill Bay in ME, and the Susquehanna River, York County, PA. Her mother grew up along the Susquehanna River.

Her most recent expansion in practice involves song-weaving, a tradition as old as time. As a songstress, she enjoys catching melodies, rhymes, and poetry while immersing in nature, especially by the water where she feels the most love through sand, sun, and salty water. She shares these songs freely online for other folks to pick-up and carry in their mind as helpful, easy tunes to curb the stresses of day-to-day social media and news “tunes” blasting the body-mind airwaves. She has also just recently illustrated her first zine on consciousness practices involving moon awareness, women’s bleeding, and relationships. Find songs and zine with audio accompaniments at patreon.com/lovedbythewater

Process and Mission

She sees herself as a guide walking along side folks in their journey rather than a “therapist,” drilling down to root issues, but never shy to identify a radical point of contact for transformative growth. Her method involves validating experiences that make folks feel safe and comforted to discover freedom and dissolve emotional blocks, discerning what an individual’s challenges are, distinguishing between stress and trauma, separation from integration, and, at its core, navigating a spiritual awakening by exploring central themes and intentions. It’s an interior journey of self-discovery and reclaiming joy.

Individual offerings

She facilitates a variety of offerings for individuals, couples, or groups including beginner level organic astrology lessons using a 3D tool for “hands on” learners, coaching in the philosophy and art of tantra, medicine wheel ‘therapy’ and/or ceremony, and general life path transformation guidance. Her methods include, but are not limited to: gentle movements, somatic transmutation, guided visual journeys, breath coaching, shadow & blind spot integration, trauma recovery, energy awareness, hypnosis, and walking barefoot!

Beginnings

Reflecting on her beginnings, ChristiAna says, “I began this journey in my youth when I climbed to the top of the tallest tree in my parents’ yard and stayed there for hours – journaling, singing, going to the peak of that pine and looking out over the whole neighborhood. It was my first sanctuary outside of the womb.

“Then, as a young leader of youth, I built an Old Testament replica temple in a basement room of our church. Here, in this temple created over the course of a slumber party or two, filled with great joy and play, I had my first experience directly channeling the love of the divine over two younger sisters of the faith.

“Later, fast forward, I found myself in the ‘business’ temples of other high priestesses; powerful yet humble women dedicated to the empowerment and embodiment of their Sisters and Brothers.”

Contact

Her two podcasts, Loved by the Water, co-hosted with her beloved Michael Wann, and Wilderness Path, an audiobook plus discussion, can be found on Spotify or Apple Podcast. Find more information on offerings at linktr.ee/lovedbythewater or become a patron of her arts at patreon.com/lovedbythewater. Email aura.anajoy@gmail.com.

B Inspired podcast episode
ChristiAna is a guest on the “B Inspired” podcast in which she shares her journey since high school that took her from the traditional mental health structure to one in which she offers an alternative style of healing mental health issues through nature-based therapeutic practices. B Inspired can be found on your favorite podcast platform including Spotify at https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/qolZbbDhGxb or on your favorite podcast platform including Anchor.fm, Google, Apple, and Castbox.

Commentary
Is there interest for the type of healing and guidance of spirit offered by ChristiAna? I sincerely hope so. I do believe our whole society—indeed, the entire world needs some kind of help.

Help is needed to get past all the fear, anger, and divisiveness in order to reclaim the joys inherent in a civil society, a society that works toward common goals to improve the circumstances, health, and well-being that benefit everyone.

Help is needed to see our fellow human beings as friends, not enemies. To recognize that life is not a zero-sum game—that there’s enough for everyone if we aren’t trying to hoard everything for ourselves.

Help is needed to have relationships built on compassion and empathy, not a lust for power.

I’d like to hope the world recognizes that it needs help and that perhaps sitting in a meadow can be just the help it needs.

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