A quick summary
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I'm a writer, facilitator and ecological educator with an academic background in literature and ethnobotany. Through participatory action research and community engagement, I explore the elegant complexity of living systems, social processes and cultural contexts with others. In all of my work, I place an emphasis on close observation, active listening, interdisciplinary thinking and the use of narrative approaches to creatively address social and ecological challenges.
My key professional strengths also include curriculum development, experiential learning and teaching, and the integration of the arts into community processes. My ethnobotanical expertise lies in sustainable wild-harvesting practices for medicinal plants of the Pacific Northwest and northern Appalachian/Green Mountain bioregions. |
A slightly longer story
Raised in the woods of rural Ontario, I was introduced to the living world around me as a place of immeasurable beauty, intelligence and power. Living and learning within the web of life has been the focus of my education since I was very small.
While studying for my undergraduate degree in literature and environmental studies at the University of Victoria, I had the privilege of taking classes with ethnobotanist Dr Nancy Turner. Nancy's work opened my eyes to the diverse and sophisticated relationships between Indigenous peoples and local plants in the Pacific Northwest bioregion, and catalyzed my desire to explore relationships of reciprocity between people and landscapes. I spent the next five years studying, practicing and writing about regenerative agriculture and medical ethnobotany (how people gather and use plants for healing in different cultural contexts), deeply compelled by stories of cultural and ecological restoration.
In 2010, I returned to university to earn a Master of Science degree at Schumacher College (University of Plymouth) in Devon, England, and again focused on medical ethnobotany. My community-based research, inspired by ecocultural restoration projects in Indigenous communities such as Waglisla (Bella Bella), British Columbia, explored honourable wild-harvesting practices with a focus on the medicinal shrub Oplopanax horridus, Devil's Club. This intensive period of study and field work refined my perception of nature's intelligence as it flows through plants and people, and continues to deeply influence my teaching and writing today.
Since completing my MSc., I've taught or facilitated courses on ethnobotany, sustainability and community resilience at Pacific Rim College, Schumacher College, Earthspring Sanctuary, McGill University's Office of Sustainability, and in the forests and fields of the Sutton Mountains of Québec's Eastern Townships, traditional territory of the Abenaki Nation. I continue to explore, teach and write about these topics in collaboration with an international community of teachers, writers, scientists and friends. During the green months, I grow and wild-harvest a great diversity of food, medicine and basketry plants near my home in the beautiful Missisquoi Valley.
While studying for my undergraduate degree in literature and environmental studies at the University of Victoria, I had the privilege of taking classes with ethnobotanist Dr Nancy Turner. Nancy's work opened my eyes to the diverse and sophisticated relationships between Indigenous peoples and local plants in the Pacific Northwest bioregion, and catalyzed my desire to explore relationships of reciprocity between people and landscapes. I spent the next five years studying, practicing and writing about regenerative agriculture and medical ethnobotany (how people gather and use plants for healing in different cultural contexts), deeply compelled by stories of cultural and ecological restoration.
In 2010, I returned to university to earn a Master of Science degree at Schumacher College (University of Plymouth) in Devon, England, and again focused on medical ethnobotany. My community-based research, inspired by ecocultural restoration projects in Indigenous communities such as Waglisla (Bella Bella), British Columbia, explored honourable wild-harvesting practices with a focus on the medicinal shrub Oplopanax horridus, Devil's Club. This intensive period of study and field work refined my perception of nature's intelligence as it flows through plants and people, and continues to deeply influence my teaching and writing today.
Since completing my MSc., I've taught or facilitated courses on ethnobotany, sustainability and community resilience at Pacific Rim College, Schumacher College, Earthspring Sanctuary, McGill University's Office of Sustainability, and in the forests and fields of the Sutton Mountains of Québec's Eastern Townships, traditional territory of the Abenaki Nation. I continue to explore, teach and write about these topics in collaboration with an international community of teachers, writers, scientists and friends. During the green months, I grow and wild-harvest a great diversity of food, medicine and basketry plants near my home in the beautiful Missisquoi Valley.
Gratitude
I extend profound gratitude and respect to the many teachers I have been so fortunate to learn from and work with throughout my life, including ethnobotanist Nancy Turner; community herbalists Saci Spindler, Shauna Bernadette and Rosemary Gladstar; Heiltsuk elder and teacher Pauline Hilistis Waterfall; ecologist Stephan Harding; physicist and philosopher Henri Bortoft; systems theorist Philip Franses; and mythologist Jules Cashford. I am also deeply influenced by the brilliant writing of the late biologist Rachel Carson, cultural ecologist David Abram and ethnobotanist Robin Wall Kimmerer. Thank you!