About Rhonda Wendzel, RN, BSN, LMT

Founder of Spiral Earth Healing Collective & Women’s Sovereignty Circle

I have always carried a deep desire to understand people—their stories, their cultures, their ways of seeing the world, and what connects us beneath all of our differences.

I have traveled extensively and lived overseas, experiences that taught me that culture, religion, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, and other identities shape the lens through which we experience the world—but they do not have to separate us. Beneath those differences, I believe there is something deeply human and sacred that connects us all: a living spark, an inner wisdom, a capacity for connection and healing.

My professional life has always existed at the intersection of science, healing, and human experience. I spent more than 20 years in cytotechnology, performing preliminary cancer diagnoses under the direction of pathologists. I later became a registered nurse, working in oncology and palliative care, and eventually trained extensively in therapeutic bodywork, cancer and lymphatic massage, nutrition, herbal approaches, somatic practices, and energy-based modalities. I also developed a deep intuitive sensitivity to people and their physical and emotional experiences.

Yet none of that knowledge prepared me for what it would mean to watch someone I loved deeply face cancer.

A Journey Through Cancer, Grief, and Transformation

My wife, Stacy, died of cancer in 2023 after a six-year journey.

Throughout those years, I drew upon everything I knew—as a cytotechnologist, oncology and palliative care nurse, bodyworker, student of nutrition and natural approaches, and intuitive practitioner. And still, I felt powerless as I watched her illness progress.

There came a point when the strain of caregiving became more than I could carry. Eventually, Stacy entered palliative care and spent her final days with her mother.

Losing her brought me to my knees.

I had been regarded by many as a strong, capable woman who could handle almost anything. Suddenly, I felt as though half of me had disappeared—as though I had been dropped from a plane without a parachute. Returning to work and moving through ordinary life without my wife felt almost impossible.

In the midst of that grief, I began searching—not simply for a way to survive my loss, but for meaning.

I turned toward the natural world. Hiking for hours, climbing mountains, being on the ocean, and spending time in quiet relationship with Mother Earth became some of the few things that eased the pain. At the same time, my spiritual life deepened. I began exploring traditions and practices that could help me understand healing not only as something we receive from others, but as something we can learn to participate in ourselves.

I began studying Zhineng Qigong, a practice developed by Dr. Pang Ming and associated with the Medicineless Hospital in China, where I became particularly interested in the relationship between awareness, the body, and our capacity for healing.

I also began traveling in search of meaning and a deeper understanding of who I was becoming.

The Promise That Became a Calling

Before Stacy died, I made her a promise:

Someday, I would create a healing space for women with cancer.

At first, I thought that promise would be about cancer care alone.

But grief transformed me in ways I could not have anticipated. I came to understand that healing is not simply about eliminating disease. It can also mean finding our way back to ourselves after life has fundamentally changed us—through illness, grief, caregiving, menopause, trauma, loss, major life transitions, or simply the realization that the life we have been living no longer feels authentic.

After moving to New Mexico, I was invited into a year-long process of walking a Medicine Wheel, culminating in a four-day vision quest.

That experience brought the pieces of my life together.

What emerged was not a new purpose so much as a remembering of the promise I had already made to Stacy: to help women reclaim their inner wisdom, reconnect with their bodies, and find healing through authentic connection and community.

That vision became the beginning of Spiral Earth Healing Collective and Women’s Sovereignty Circle.

Creating Space for the Healing Journey

SEHC and WSC grew from the belief that we do not have to choose between science and spirit, modern medicine and traditional wisdom, the body and the mind, or individual healing and community.

There is room for all of these ways of knowing.

My work brings together my professional experience in cancer and nursing, more than 15 years in therapeutic bodywork, somatic awareness, Qigong, Reiki, meditation, and other integrative practices with the lessons I have learned through love, caregiving, profound loss, and my own journey of transformation.

Women’s Sovereignty Circle is the community expression of that vision.

It is a space rooted in sacred listening—a place where women can come together without needing to perform, fix, advise, or have all the answers. A place to listen to the body, reconnect with inner wisdom, share honestly, and experience the strength that can emerge when we are witnessed and supported by others.

My hope is to create spaces where women can remember something that life can sometimes cause us to forget:

The wisdom we seek is not always outside of us.
Sometimes healing begins when we become quiet enough to hear what is already within.

That is the heart of Spiral Earth Healing Collective.

And it is the promise I continue to carry forward for Stacy.