I'm a facilitator, grief worker, and lover of this wild green Earth. I've been active in movements for social, ecological and climate justice since 1998; some of my past work has included organizing to abolish mountain top removal coal mining in Appalachia, fighting coal plants in western North Carolina and on the south side of Chicago, community organizing to stop water privatization, and campaigning for private prison divestment. I'm a co-founder of Rising Tide North America, and for many years I was active in local, national and international climate justice organizing and direct action.
These days, I focus on creating a more just, equitable and life-sustaining food system at my "day job" as Executive Director of a small but mighty nonprofit called Rogue Farm Corps. I'm also an herbalist, medicine maker, and co-founder of a holistic health free clinic serving Portland's houseless community.
I'm inspired by the power of grief and gratitude as catalysts for healing and transformation. Now more than ever, we need spaces where we can come together, speak our hearts and be real with each other about the depth of the crises we face.
I first experienced the Work That Reconnects in the early 2000s while participating in a social justice sangha in Southern California, and found this approach to the healing of ourselves and our world to be deeply resonant. I have been facilitating the Work That Reconnects since 2018, often combining the spiral with elements of Earth-based ritual.
I'm excited to partner with groups, formal or informal, to facilitate workshops and other explorations in the tradition of the Great Turning and the Work that Reconnects.
Why I am called to facilitate the Work
The Work That Reconnects has much to offer in terms of practices and processes for experiencing a deeper connection to ourselves and our world. This work calls us to meet the challenges of our time not just with our intellect but with our hearts, realizing and affirming our interconnectedness.
How I see the Work serving the Great Turning
We are living at a time of unprecedented crisis and unprecedented opportunity. The life support systems of the planet are beginning to unravel, the impacts being felt first and hardest by the same communities who have been marginalized throughout modern history: the poor, people of color, and other oppressed groups. We're losing countless species every day, the climate is changing, and our planet's supply of fresh water is being squandered and polluted at an alarming rate.
We need spaces and tools to process the enormity of the loss we're facing, to re-establish connection with each other, and ground ourselves in the abundant support of the Earth. Within this, we also need to de-colonize our minds, our workshop spaces and our cultural norms. We all hold both privilege and trauma, in different proportions, flavors and degrees. Wherever we land on the spectrum, it is our responsibility to actively dismantle the systems that assert the dominance of one group over another: white supremacy, misogyny, classism, homophobia and transphobia. When we do our healing work and come together across difference, the possibilities for transformational change increase exponentially. The Work That Reconnects gives us a blueprint for this critical work.
Audiences I work with
I have primarily worked with activists, artists, healers, and nonprofit professionals, but I am open to working with any group and meeting people where they're at.
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