Her mother's parents instilled Oregon pioneer values like how to garden, can food, fish kindly, honor nature, collect special rocks, sew, and bake. Her father's family were Sicilian immigrants importing marble after the San Francisco 1906 earthquake. They remained to mine granite east of Oakland and helped rebuild important structures around the bay. The years passed and her 'hippie' grandmother and uncle were very involved in the Summer of Love movement. Katherine's father strived to be more conservative as an airline executive at SFO but even he had inherited the family sensitivities so he used them in business and in his community service work. He believed in reincarnation and off-Earth life forms. ​

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At a young age Katherine learned that her Great-Grandmother loved tossing I Ching coins. She was exposed to reading cards and at age 11 the first tarot card she drew was The Fool. Regular playing cards are the inherited Sicilian (Sinti Roma) tradition for fortune telling but later the Rider Waite-Smith Tarot deck was studied deeply via the Builders of the Adytum program. Katherine inherited all of those materials and still refers to them occasionally. Her grandmother's psychic services were enclosed in the guise of her beauty parlor where she did hair and provided community therapy, and readings. ​

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Katherine's training in polarity aura balancing began in the late 80's. She was allowed into the emergency triage area at Marin General Hospital after her husband's car accident providing hands above energy work and later hung huge crystals in nets around his hospital bed. The staff was very supportive and were amazed as his internal wounds healed to the point of not needing open chest surgery. When they went back for a follow up appointment a few months later his doctor had a big, new crystal cluster on his desk.