Hi, I'm so glad you are here.
I want to start by saying that my work is guided by a deep, swoony love for the wild world — and by a strong belief that if we are to heal the ecological and human crises of our time, we must come home to a respectful, reciprocal relationship with the living world.
I want to start by saying that my work is guided by a deep, swoony love for the wild world — and by a strong belief that if we are to heal the ecological and human crises of our time, we must come home to a respectful, reciprocal relationship with the living world.
How I came to offer this work...
I was born a nature lover (though honestly, I think we all are). I was lucky to grow up on ten acres of blue oak woodland in rural Northern California, roaming on the land, playing in the creek, connecting with animals, and feeling alive and free.
Because of my love of nature, I earned a degree in Environmental Science, served as an environmental education volunteer in the Peace Corps in Honduras, and have spent over thirty years working with individuals, schools, businesses, nonprofits, and local governments to create systemic change in how we live.
While my work has been meaningful and important to me, about ten years into my career, I broke down.
I was working on behalf of wildlife and wild places while spending most of my time in climate-controlled buildings, interacting with screens, wearing shoes and tidy clothes, rushing from one thing to the next. My internal world was busy, noisy, and disconnected. I felt lost, exhausted, and separate from everything that seemed alive, real, and life-giving on the other side of the walls and windows.
The human-made modern world had never made sense to me. I'd never felt safe and at home in it. But there I was, pushing through, holding it all together, and betraying my aliveness and my joy in order to make it work.
I had no idea there was another way.
I was born a nature lover (though honestly, I think we all are). I was lucky to grow up on ten acres of blue oak woodland in rural Northern California, roaming on the land, playing in the creek, connecting with animals, and feeling alive and free.
Because of my love of nature, I earned a degree in Environmental Science, served as an environmental education volunteer in the Peace Corps in Honduras, and have spent over thirty years working with individuals, schools, businesses, nonprofits, and local governments to create systemic change in how we live.
While my work has been meaningful and important to me, about ten years into my career, I broke down.
I was working on behalf of wildlife and wild places while spending most of my time in climate-controlled buildings, interacting with screens, wearing shoes and tidy clothes, rushing from one thing to the next. My internal world was busy, noisy, and disconnected. I felt lost, exhausted, and separate from everything that seemed alive, real, and life-giving on the other side of the walls and windows.
The human-made modern world had never made sense to me. I'd never felt safe and at home in it. But there I was, pushing through, holding it all together, and betraying my aliveness and my joy in order to make it work.
I had no idea there was another way.
Something simple (and miraculous!) happened.
So I started seeking, which brought me to a Permaculture design course. During the course, I was introduced to a way of being that humans have known for a very long time. Then I was invited to experience it by sitting still outside for 20 minutes and turning my full attention to what was happening around me in nature.
My body immediately recognized the rightness of it. I didn’t have language for what was happening, but I knew, in my bones, that this was what I had been wanting my whole life: a practical way to shift from feeling separate from nature — like nothing more than a visitor or an outsider looking in — into a lived experience of deep belonging and intimacy with the wild world that I loved so much.
That moment changed my life.
In 2011, I joined a virtual group program led by Jon Young. Jon had been mentored through his childhood by wilderness tracker Tom Brown Jr., whose own mentor was Stalking Wolf, a Lipan Apache elder devoted to preserving and passing forward wisdom teachings for living in close, reciprocal relationship with all of creation. I didn’t just join a program, I stepped into a whole other way of being — one grounded in a reality that is sane, steady, and custom-made for my health and well-being.
So I started seeking, which brought me to a Permaculture design course. During the course, I was introduced to a way of being that humans have known for a very long time. Then I was invited to experience it by sitting still outside for 20 minutes and turning my full attention to what was happening around me in nature.
My body immediately recognized the rightness of it. I didn’t have language for what was happening, but I knew, in my bones, that this was what I had been wanting my whole life: a practical way to shift from feeling separate from nature — like nothing more than a visitor or an outsider looking in — into a lived experience of deep belonging and intimacy with the wild world that I loved so much.
That moment changed my life.
In 2011, I joined a virtual group program led by Jon Young. Jon had been mentored through his childhood by wilderness tracker Tom Brown Jr., whose own mentor was Stalking Wolf, a Lipan Apache elder devoted to preserving and passing forward wisdom teachings for living in close, reciprocal relationship with all of creation. I didn’t just join a program, I stepped into a whole other way of being — one grounded in a reality that is sane, steady, and custom-made for my health and well-being.
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The impact on my life has been profound.
From the outside, my life looks about the same, but on the inside my experience of being alive has changed completely. Being intimately connected with the wild world has given me space to breathe, to soften, and to blossom into my truest self. My body has released long-held tension, my nervous system has settled, and my mind has grown quiet. I feel alive and free, like I did as a kid roaming my parents’ land. I am in love with mosses, rocks, beetles, breezes, and fungi. And most significantly, I've discovered a radiantly peaceful center inside myself that I can come home to whenever I want. I am deeply grateful for Jon Young and his teachers for carefully carrying this way of being through time for the benefit of all life. And, of course, I am forever and humbly grateful to the wild ones, who will always be my greatest teachers. This is the path I walk and it is what I offer. You’re welcome here and if you ever feel the call to experience this for yourself, it would be my joy to share with you what I've been shown. |
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