Stratton is a registered landscape architect who has designed award-winning spaces ranging from intimate private gardens and meditation spaces to overstructure plazas, streetscape designs, and wetlands restorations. Stratton works closely with owners and architects to create a seamless flow of interior and exterior space in the final design.

Stratton currently lives on the central coast of California. Originally from the east coast, she graduated from Hamilton College in upstate New York and then received her master's degree from the University of Michigan. She has been in private practice as a landscape architect in Maryland and California, and has taught landscape architecture at George Washington University and at Morgan State University, both in Maryland, and at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California. While at Cal Poly, she was part of a university team in 2005 which went to Copan, Honduras, 'the Athens of the Mayan World' with the Department of City and Regional Planning, in order to work on a masterplan with American and Honduran students for the future development of the area.

Stratton has worked with Earth energies throughout her career. The design of sacred space, especially those created in alignment with the sun, has been a central interest throughout her life. Stratton's interest in the unique qualities or energies of the land or 'spirit of the place' led her to study feng shui, the Chinese art of placement. She holds certificates in Compass School Feng Shui from Roger Green's International School of Feng Shui, and from Denise Linn's School of Interior Alignment. In addition, she has studied shamanism, attending basic shamanic journeying classes with Michael Harner, "Medicine for the Earth" with Meg Beeler, and most recently, Celtic Shamanism with Tom Cowan. Stratton has also incorporated Maechelle Small Wright's work with nature devas at Perelandra into her own design process, and includes co creative gardening and permaculture techniques in her work.

Stratton first learned of Mallku Aribalo through feng shui circles, where he speaks frequently on Andean cosmology, and the siting of Inka power centers in alignment with the sun, and on Peruvian shamanism at conferences in the United States and Europe. She returned to Peru for her second trip in the spring of 2007, when she traveled with Mallku Aribalo in the Sacred Valley. She was so impressed by the richness of the experience and the sensitivity and depth of Mallku's interpretation of the Inkas and their environment, that later that summer, while at a conference on shamanism in Iquitos, Peru, she and Mallku began the discussion for a trip in 2008.