I’ve always loved being in Nature

I live in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Southern Oregon, but I wasn’t always from the forest. My own process of listening to Nature led me out of the city and into the wilderness. I just moved here at the end of 2019 after living in Hanoi, New York City, and San Francisco for the past decade working in tech, media, and design.

I grew up in the suburbs of Washington, DC and my high school years were chronicled in a book called The Overachievers. I was indoctrinated into a culture that valued achievement over personal and planetary wellbeing.

On the outside, I could play this game. I was the captain of the cross-country team, got straight As, and went to an Ivy League. However, on the inside I was miserable — sick, anxious, and depressed. I was diagnosed with chronic lyme disease at age 18 and probably had it since getting a tick bite at Girl Scout camp when I was 8 years old.

After trying every healing modality under the sun and spending so much time and money looking for some cure and someone else to heal me, I looked inside and realized that only I could heal myself. I’m grateful for so many teachers — in real life and books — but ultimately Nature has been my greatest teacher. I’ve learned so much for the forest, the ocean, and from the lyme-carrying tick.

I believe the real work is to reconnect to Nature, and our true Nature, and once we do that, everything begins to flow. That’s why I’m so passionate about sharing my process to empower people to begin their own journey of reconnection.

I used to think there was something wrong with me because despite having a B.A. in History from Dartmouth College, an MFA in Products of Design from The School of Visual Arts, and experience working with design luminaries at IDEO, SYPartners, and fuseproject, I could never quite fit into any of the boxes that I was supposed to go in. I felt that my purpose was to offer my creative gifts to the world but that this world was not made for me.

What I know now and wish I knew then, is that the world I couldn’t fit into isn’t the world.

It’s something we created and isn’t really working for anyone. It’s what Joanna Macy refers to as “business as usual” and what Sharon Blackie calls “the wasteland.” This is the world of capitalism, of growth at the cost of the planet, culture, and our own wellbeing.

I’m no longer concerned about fitting in and am here creating in service of Mother Earth and the world that I know (and I know you know!) is possible.

I design healing and transformative experiences, strategies, and spaces for individuals and corporations. I’m here to inspire people to reconnect to Nature as a way to heal — themselves, their communities, and our Planet.

My design process blends the shamanic with the scientific. I have a unique ability to weave the spiritual with the material and support people as they bring down their visions from higher planes and manifest them in this reality. I take cues from natural cycles and permaculture principles.

I call it nature-centered design instead of human-centered design because centering humans hasn’t worked so well. You can hire me for individual support, for a transformational retreat, to lead your group through a nature-connected experience, or as a strategy and media consultant. I only work on projects that bring us closer into alignment with outer nature and inner nature and are on the side of evolution.