About
Originally from Belgium, I have lived and worked on the North-American continent since the late '80s.
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My connection with the outdoors runs as a primary thread throughout my entire life. From finding solace in a chestnut tree as a child, to nowadays living secluded in the hills southeast of Santa Fe, my ease and comfort have mostly been in the wild.
With Licentiate studies in outdoor adventure education and a Masters degree in experiential education, I led and facilitated countless 5- to 28-day outdoor courses. A 5-monthlong apprenticeship with the Canadian Outdoor Leadership School on Vancouver Island encouraged my love for extensive wilderness expeditioning, whether solo or with friends. I also worked for the Belgian and North-Carolina Outward Bound Schools, which taught me how to keep people safe, challenged, and fulfilled during monthlong wilderness courses. Later on, I instructed for the Wilderness Awareness School In Washington State, which turned me toward more immersive nature connection, in particular via animal tracking, plant medicine, and bird language.
While living in Santa Fe NM -- with two babes in tow, I started a small non-profit organization dedicated to earthly celebration, offering seasonal community festivals and year-long nature connection programs for youth and families.
Inspired by permaculture friends and other soil-building geeks, I took on additional jobs as landscaper and garden artist. As I slowly learned from the plants the animist way to participate and join in with the land, my own home gardens expanded and flourished. Now, gardening and growing food have become a process of careful listening, asking the terrain for permission, and taking guidance from the land.
In light of the current climate crisis, I am active within small, local culture, one that sets itself apart through beauty-making, earth-centered manners, and real service on behalf of the whole community of living beings.
Throughout those years, people in need always seemed to find me -- friends and strangers alike, and were rejuvenated by my natural ability to wholeheartedly be present, listen deeply, and reflect without judgement. These skills served me well during the long and tiring days of wilderness expeditions with students cracked open by fatigue, hunger, and ever-changing group dynamics, as well as by the natural beauty and silence in far-off places.
Already as a teen, I was reaching out beyond my own circles and spending summers with low-income youth, as well as developmentally challenged adults.
I took workshops and other trainings in group dynamics and personal development work, in order to unlearn for myself and better assist others during hard times.
More recently, the distinctive work at the Sky Center/NM Suicide Intervention Project in Santa Fe, NM taught me of both the societal and innermost complexity of mental health. I am forever grateful for the wide array of encounters with youth and their families in need, whom I was privileged to support and learn from throughout my seven years of work with the Sky Center.
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My longstanding experiences with both immersive nature connection and mental health support, in addition to twenty-two years of very attentive mothering, give me a confident foundation and rich fluency to accompany fellow humans in their explorations of wellbeing and service, vitality and interrelationship. Nature Council and Harvest Baskets bring together several decades of careful practice and accumulated knowing to serve with joy, integrity, and embodied interconnection.
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