Category: teaching

  • Planting Seeds

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    In the dark of this Covid winter, I have been feeling the deep need we all have for connection. For the past year, being in deep relationship with the Earth (and a few very good friends!) has been the balm that has soothed my loneliness and fear, my anxieties about what lay ahead. If I rise each day and greet the sun, and end the day looking at the sky as the sun sets, I know that I am still part of the cycles of life that keep this planet spinning. Perhaps you, too, have been finding ways to connect…

  • New Class Offering: Caring for Ourselves in the Dark Seasons

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    Saturday, September 26 1pm-5pmSanctuary Healing Gardens, Scarborough ME 2020 has been a year full of unprecedented stress and anxiety. Our nervous systems have been stretched to their capacities. We have been basking in the sunlight for the past five months, but as we move into the dark seasons, we are bound to be feeling the difficulties of this historical moment profoundly. It is more important than ever that we find ways to carry the sun with us into the darkness. The autumnal equinox is bringing us into the seasons of Radical Rest, a time when our ancestors followed the rhythms…

  • Inspiration in the Dark

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    Since Imbolc, I have been feeling the shift of light and dark intensely both inside my body/mind and in the outside world. I saw bluebirds out scouting for nesting spots on Monday. The chickens have started laying eggs again, and I am remembering images of summer. Today I saw two birds land on the telephone wire in the back yard and I thought about the hummingbirds that lingered throughout the growing season. This, despite the fact that everything is covered in a half-inch of ice and we were replacing mailboxes hit by someone who slid off the road on Friday.…

  • On Authenticity in Practice

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    This past week, I gave a talk to my colleagues at the College of Pharmacy at the University of New England to be considered to join the department as an adjunct faculty member. While pondering my talk, I struggled to think about how best to present myself to a room full of scientists, since I am much more aligned with my intuitive mind. I recalled how, when I began to practice herbal healing, I was trying to fit myself into an idea of what an herbalist is and does. I had difficulty finding my true path because I started the…

  • Moving through Shadow

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    It seemed that I was incapable of putting things into words in 2016. I wrote only the papers that I had to submit for professional purposes. I wrote no poems. I answered emails so sporadically that I’m sure people must have thought I disappeared. I wrote in my journal but twice. This space sat empty, awaiting something, but it never seemed to come. I gardened. I taught classes. I traveled. I helped to organize a conference. I fell in love. I gathered with friends. I lived life with a heart full of gratitude and mourning. There was a lot of…

  • Upcoming classes!

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    The spring has swept me up in its sudden bursting, but now that I’ve got most of the gardens planted and the humidity is contributing to a slower pace, I can find my thoughts again. There’s just been so much to keep up with–like the Solomon’s Seal that sprouted from nubs barely poking through the surface of the soil into 3 foot tall fronds in the matter of two weeks.Now that I’ve caught up with myself, with the season, and with all of the newness, I’m excited to announce a few upcoming classes that I’ll be teaching. First up is…

  • Announcing: Walk Your Edge–A Six-Month Journey of Earth Connection

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    One Saturday per month * May – October 2015 (May 2, June 20, July 18, August 1, September 12, October 31) 10am-6pm meeting in Portland ME fee $600 : sliding scale work-trade & time dollars are options; payment plan available Many of us have been working for years to make big changes in our hearts and minds and in the larger society. As our society’s systems of racism, misogyny, homo-trans- and xenophobia and the destruction of our home the Earth are exposed and visible to us all of the time, it may feel like our work is simply too big.…

  • Listening to the Call

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    For most of my life, I have second-guessed myself, stood back to observe, avoided anything that might expose my lack of skills/knowledge/intelligence. I have taken the back seat, fumbled for words when asked to speak my mind, and generally been afraid of failing. Since 2013, I have been deeply asking what my true purpose here on this planet is–what am I called to do and what can I stand behind? I have been asking this question all of my life, but after a major illness and the reflection that followed, the question changed to be more like what can I…