I am a
queer
white
femme
one-breasted
childless
cat person
in recovery from scarcity thinking.

I identify first and foremost as a dancer
as I am forever falling in love with movement,
especially when it’s asymmetrical, slow, silly, or spastic.

A lifelong Unitarian Universalist originally from Knoxville, Tennessee, I serve as the pastor of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Manhattan, Kansas. I’ve also served in congregational ministry in Columbus, Ohio, and Spokane, Washington; provided residential support to people recovering from housing and mental health instability in Seattle; and taught English in multiple settings in Jogjakarta, Indonesia. My undergraduate study was at Oberlin College in economics and religion.

My ministry grew out of my work as a development economist researching Kenyan farming practices under climate disruption. I received my PhD from the University of California, Davis, in 2016. This was during the second semester of my Master of Divinity at Starr King School for the Ministry, which I completed in 2019. My vocational integration is an expression of my calling to communities of abundance rather than the science of scarcity. As a spiritually grounded community economist, I claim endless opportunities to study and teach reciprocity and to decolonize my interactions one day at a time. My current continuing education is in consent-based governance, known as sociocracy, (with ​Sociocracy for All​) and Circles of Trust (with the ​Center for Courage and Renewal​). I dedicate my growth to the children of this world — whether or not we’re parents, we belong to the coming generations and they belong to us.

​Having lived here since 2021, I am proud to be a Kansan-by-choice in solidarity with the ancestors of this land and their descendants in diaspora. I am inspired by the Kanza people’s reclamation of sovereignty within their homeland following their 1873 removal to Oklahoma. It was an honor to celebrate the rematriation of their grandfather Sacred Red Rock Iⁿ‘zhúje‘waxóbe in 2024, ​which you can read about here​.

Any positive encounter you have with me was made possible by my ancestors, especially Malcolm Call, Lorraine Mayer, and Donald Mayer; my parents Dariel Mayer and Charlie Almquist; and a rich web of love and care which extends around the globe. My spiritual, service, and creative life is supported by my spiritual director, nearby interfaith women leaders, UU minister small groups, 12-step sponsors, my physical therapist, my therapist, and fabulous friends and family. I express my deep thanks to them all. I lift up my congregation, the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Manhattan, which calls me into ever-more-joyful integrity. And I bless you, dear reader, as you weave your own web of support, beauty, and transformation.