ZEPHYR
®
Zephyr, CPBT, RCST , PE
they/them/their
Since 2012, Zephyr has been supporting infants in the
NICU to integrate trauma, settle, and sleep. Zephyr has
worked with infants ranging in age from hours old to six months old,
and born as early as 21 weeks gestational age (LMP) to term.
Medical conditions have included awaiting mother’s recovery from
birth, fever at birth, reflux, Down’s syndrome, Patau syndrome,
prematurity—need for lung and brain development and weight
gain, birth during seizures from preeclampsia, esophageal atresia,
difficulty latching or sucking, inability to keep food in as with
pyloric stenosis, gastroschisis, born without heartbeat, exposure
to drugs in utero, in withdrawal from drugs, cleft palate, injury
from vacuum birth, and hydrocephaly.
Zephyr is familiar with medical interventions and works
with infants while on a ventilator, with a peripherally-inserted central
catheter (PICC line) or intravenous (IV) line, with an ostomy bag, on
bubble continuous positive airway pressure (BCPAP), with a nasogastric
(NG) tube, gastric (G) tube, orogastric (OG) tube, or jejunostomy (J) tube;
while isolated in an incubator, and in withdrawal, including those receiving
medication-assisted-treatment using methadone and morphine protocols.
Zephyr has experience providing newborn palliative care.
Zephyr is currently writing the book, Trauma Integration in the Neonatal
Intensive Care Unit: Sentience & Energetics, promoting collaboration
between practitioners of allopathic medicine and energetic healing arts.
The once-in-a-lifetime circumstance of the neonate of continuing, outside
the womb, to develop the physiology, neurology, and capacity for human
connection that will serve as the foundation for their life, necessitates the
timely provision of energetic support. Mutual support and cooperation across
paradigms is key to providing the highest quality of care in service to
the whole person --- the baby, whose NICU experience will play a
singular, formative role across the trajectory of their life.
Zephyr is a certified graduate of Ray Castellino’s Prenatal and Birth
Therapy Foundation Training, a Registered Craniosacral Therapist,
RCST®, and has completed Dr. Susan Ludington's National
Intensive Kangaroo Care Certification Course.
The arc of Zephyr's journey has been graced by the extraordinary gifts of
Douglas Daher, Martin Weiner, Marion Woodman, Victoria Sloan, Ray Castellino,
and Harvey Ruderian. Over the past twenty-three years, Zephyr has studied under
Raymond Castellino, Mary Jackson, Tara Blasco, John Chitty, Anna Chitty,
Mary Louise Muller, Debra Bochinski, Hugh Milne, Scott Zamurut, Dr. Susie Ludington,
Marion Woodman, Michael Meade, and Robert Bly. The breadth of Zephyr’s
perspective manifests in the wonder and gratitude they feel for the beauty
of each soul met in this profound work.
Zephyr holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering and
construction management from Stanford University. They have lived five years in Africa—
Libya, Ghana, and Tanzania—and worked thirty-five years in construction, public works,
development, and relief work. Under the nom de plume, Melissa Fischer, Zephyr has
published a work of literary fiction, The Advocacy, an environmental justice
novel based on their Peace Corps service in Ghana,