An Invitation to Explore with Me in the New Year

Dear Friends,

On this New Year’s Eve Eve, I wanted to share something with you with an eye to 2025. Sharing is both exciting for me and requiring a bit of courage. So, if you choose to take a moment to read this, I will be deeply grateful to you.

This past summer, through the Earthbody Institute, I completed my certification in eco-therapy. This is a therapeutic practice which involves mindfulness and nature connection to create meaning, bring about ease in mind, body and spirit, and give care to the planet that supports us. This two-year long process involved a focus on climate crisis, eco-justice, systems thinking, nature practices, grief, ancestor and soul work, and community action. I spent time in synchronous online classes and working with individual eco buddies. There were many solo outings on the land, 1:1 counseling sessions with mentors and guides, and I traveled across the country to a group retreat.

Through this work and my supplemental courses and independent study, I’ve explored the work of Joanna Macy, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Adrienne Maree Brown, Francis Weller, Sharon Blackie, Toko-pa Turner, Bill Plotkin and many more. My ongoing self-created curriculum includes work in nature journaling, art therapy, forest bathing, wild nature survival skills, community gardening, community building, belonging, creative writing, and more.

Following a meandering initial college path through the arts and writing, I focused on a degree in interdisciplinary and women’s studies that led to my certification to teach. Now in my 29th year of educating gifted youth and adults, definite themes have surfaced. The natural unfolding of these years has included work in advocacy, creativity, equity, mindfulness, social-emotional awareness, coaching, strength and passion development, nature connection, and sustainability.

Why am I posting all of this here? First, I suppose, to own it…to speak it so that it can not be unspoken. No turning back. I struggle with at once feeling proud of and deeply aligned with all of this work while, contradictorily, fighting the compulsion to question what right I have to share and retreat. I’m a big ole work in progress! I also write this to invite you in to experiment with me.

Retirement as a public school teacher is clearly in sight for me in the next few years, and I’ve been working to develop my vision and plan for my encore life work. While all of this—even my teaching career—has been first and foremost a means of doing deep healing work and an effort to feed my seemingly insatiable appetite for exploring and learning, it is also something I’d very much like to to share with the world in my second act. I’m searching for kindred curious spirits who would like to explore with me as I find my new voice and the sweet spot of intersection between my passions-skills-knowledge and the world’s needs. I’m also being pro-active in attempting to create spots of light, connection, and purpose for myself and others in what I feel may well be deeply challenging times ahead. And, again, dichotomously, a time of enormously hopeful opportunity.

In the following year, I plan to create at least four experiences. These will guide folks through accessing their creativity, deepening their connection to nature, exploring various avenues of mindfulness, and tapping into everyday magic to promote a greater sense of well being and belonging to ourselves, our community, and the other than human world. In exchange for these offerings, I would ask for your honest feedback, possibly some materials donations for projects participated in, and perhaps to bring a curious friend. My ultimate vision is to serve individuals and groups as a means of work upon retirement. I can honestly say, I think I’ve been preparing for this my whole life. The time has come to share this truth.

If you would be interested in participating in some creativity-nature-mindfulness-belonging centered experiences in the next year, please send me a direct message so that I might include you in my planning.

If you’ve read to this point, I’m excited to see who this might call in. Could it be you?

May you find a connection to a light within and glimmers of illumination outside of yourself that provide you with some trust, joy, and hope heading into this new year. May we all be the light we are searching for.