As a Certified Guide with the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy, I now lead people into the woods (or their own home or backyard) to remember what our ancestors knew (and many still know) - that our true selves are both much larger and also so much smaller than our human bodies. Together, we remember that this human body deserves deep love and care, and that extending our intimacy and love into the land and all who dwell there nourishes both us and them (Us). 

My professional experiences

In addition to being a certified Forest Therapy Guide, I am a licensed social worker (LMSW). I carry over 20 years of experience accompanying people during and after loss, grief, crisis, crisis, and trauma. I am an adjunct professor of social work at Portland State University; have co-led organizations and programs; and have extensive experience as a coalition builder, collaborator, and trainer. I am certified in Conflict Resolution and Mediation and in Wilderness First Aid.

My identities and positionality

I am queer, white, Ashkenazi Jew-ish, cis/femme, and an animist. The name of my practice honors those from whom I have received the gift of life: my human and plant ancestors.  

I walk with the lands and beings of my home as an uninvited guest. I honor the labor and love of the original and ongoing stewards of this land, including the Multnomah, Clackamas, Kathlamet, Tualatin Kalapuya, Cowlitz, Bands of Chinook, and many other Indigenous Peoples that have lived, traded, and moved through this region since time immemorial. I benefit from white privilege, and I am in loving labor to destroy whiteness, while actively co-creating the world to come. This includes paying reparations and redistributing money, prioritizing PIC abolition, advocating for Palestinian freedom, and working toward justice and liberation for all.

Informed by cultural humility and openness, I collaborate to offer spaces (indoors and out) that center and create as much safety and ease as possible for all of those harmed by systems of domination, including People of the Global Majority; Queer, Trans, and Gender Expansive people; disabled and neurodiverse folks; and poor and houseless community members - and of course all of the many beloveds for whom these identities intersect. These practices and aspirations are a never-ending learning and unlearning.

I carry my own grief - from deaths of beloved kin, from infertility and miscarriages, and from the myriad other ways that loss weaves into life. Often now (not always), I know grief/love as the rich and fertile soil in which my life grows and is nourished. I live in constant gratitude to the many ancestors and beings (human and Otherwise) that have laid this winding and beautiful path before me. I am so grateful to the web of family~community that I am held by, including my partner, child, and animal companions.

If you’re interested in hearing more about my path to becoming a Certified Forest Therapy Guide, you can listen to a conversation I had with my dear friend and coach, Megan Leatherman of A Wild New Work on her wonderful podcast!

Learn more about guided Forest Therapy

To learn more about Forest Therapy, please check out the slideshow below, created (unbeknownst to me until the big reveal) by my amazing, brilliant, and totally wonderful child.

If for some reason you’d rather read a bunch of words written by me, you can read my introduction to guided Forest Therapy here (but really, the slideshow though… ).