I am a qualified Nature Based Facilitator, having trained with the Natural Academy.
In 2022-3 I completed a year long course in Biographical Counsellling Skills for Social Professions with the PABC.
I also have a Bachelor of Arts degree in Waldorf Education and a BA Hons in English Literature and Spanish,
I am trained as a Forest School Leader and completed a year long course and practise in Practical Skills for Teachers with Pyrites Craft.
I have spent 20 years working with children and their parents all over the world, indoors and outdoors.
Below is a brief biography of my immersion in the natural world
UK – schools in the country, gardens, tree climbing, walking, running.
Small boat sailing brought me autonomy, joy, thrill, and a nourishing social life.
A levels: Geography, field trips, river and sea research projects. English literature: story, poetry. Spanish: communication and language.
South America – trekking, wild places. deep bonds of friendship, experience of working with orphans near the sea and sand.
Quechuan culture, indigenous craft and agriculture.
UK – University Yorkshire – protection of the environment, direct action, permaculture.
English and Spanish languages – poetry and story. Dissertation on Oral Storytelling.
Waldorf Education – small children in nature, gardening, walking, songs, stories.
Deepening my connection with natural cycles.
New Zealand – Working on organic farms and small holdings, solo trekking.
South Africa – Teacher, Waldorf Education, travel to sustainable communities
UK – Degree in Education, Waldorf teacher. Rooting in Herefordshire/Wales/ myth, story, cycles.
Traditional Craft: blacksmithing, tanning and leather work, green woodwork, felting, basketry, processing clay from the ground, paper slip kiln.
Luna Girls Mentoring Circles and Menstrual Awareness journey.
Rose Circle Training
Mexico – outdoor Waldorf School, teacher mentoring. Craft, Oaxaca, back strap loom weaving outdoors.
USA – Colorado: Feet on the Earth program, ecopsychology interest grows,
Fire Craft, bow drill practise
Upstate New York: EARTH: Education and Renewal Through Hands, pit forge in the snow. Teaching in wood inwooden yurt.
UK – Wildwise: family camp teaching, girls in care teaching weekend.
Art of Mentoring, Nature Culture Network, Devon, training and leading.
Creation of Firelight: Hearth Centred Education, leading groups of children in woodland adventures.
Parent and child groups too.
Off grid living: van, yurt, building tiny house. Entering community land project.
Namibia: staying with Bushmen: craft, tracking, deep nature connection and community.
Cultural Emergence Leadership Training with Jon Young, Herefordshire.
Spain: workshops in Nature Connection in Spanish, La Garrotxa, walking and exploring, yurt living
UK – pregnancy and oak roundhouse building.
Marriage in a field, under an oak tree, witnessing, community.
Crafting ceremony including Elements as key participants.
Twins born, nature connection every day with them, finding ways, finding freedom.
Training of Mother hood.
Mother Nature Journey, training and leading.
Becoming custodians of 14 acre woodland on banks of River Wye,
learning about woodland management etc
Training in Biographical Counselling : honouring stories.
Leading sessions in the woodland
Qualified as Nature Based Facilitator
(Outdoor Insurance, Risk Assessments and Outdoor first aid courses kept up to date)
My family (myself, my husband and our twin boys) live in the Borderlands between Wales and Britain. We live between the Black Mountains and the River Wye.
We lived for 5 years on a beautiful patch of land, lent to us in generosity by soul friends. In our little corner, tucked under a grove of young oak, by a stream, we built two dwellings.
We are also lucky enough to be co-guardians of 16 acres of woodland on the banks of the River Wye.
One dwelling is a tiny house on wheels, the other an earth roofed roundhouse. The roundhouse is moving to our woodland.
Nearby, my Spanish/Argentinian husband built a workshop for his craft of making barefoot leather shoes. https://gaucho.ninja/
We now l iive in a small cottage with a view, close to our cosy haven in a valley.
On this website, in my reflections I share more of what I have learnt as an educator over twenty years of teaching and mentoring in various ways.
I share some of what the rich school of life and travel have taught me. I am indebted and deeply grateful to the children and adults of different races and cultures that have been my companions and teachers along the way.
Here also I pose some living questions: an enquiry into what is means to maintain our humanity, our humanness in this increasingly technological age.
I keep writing, talking and walking, as part of my human need to be seen, to be witnessed, to contribute to and connect with the larger tribe.
This fills me with hope and trust in a world that can, sometimes, seem full of fear and doubt.
I look forward to meeting new friends and reconnecting with old, here in this mysterious virtual community, this cyber-space.
