For me, it began with my grandparents. They grew up in the Nooksack river valley as subsistence farmers, and tended the 50 acre farm my great-grandparents bought when they emigrated from Germany.

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The farm was a magical place of old cedar trees, a salmon-bearing creek and a big garden. A city kid, I had a big imagination but knew very little about what it actually meant to grow food or be in relationship with a place. I once tried to sow carrot seeds in a forest. But three times a year we came to visit and, no matter the age, we were participants. Harvesting, cow-feeding, firewood stacking, garden tending, foraging, preserve making... they held the rhythm with their patient hands. And in showing up, over and over, through the many seasons, I began to learn.

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When I turned 16, I decided to work at a plant nursery. Over the next seven years I slowly began to learn botanical names and a wider world of plants beyond vegetables. I took home sick and orphaned plants. I started my own garden at home, growing carrots in the sun. I worked on organic farms all over the world and once, in college, learned about seeds & ecofeminism literally at Vandana Shiva's feet. Interestingly, I ended up a creative writing major.

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Next came four years of fielding questions, teaching classes and mentoring community gardens as a Garden Hotline educator at Seattle Tilth (Tilth Alliance). It was here that I began to study wildcrafting and plant medicine with my colleagues and many local herbalists. I began growing my first medicinal plants and failed miserably. I had no idea when or how to harvest—I even dried my herb bundles on a clothesline in the sun! (Yikes.) But trying again and again, I found a rhythm.

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In 2017, Bastyr University recruited me to be their Botanical Garden Supervisor.

For four years, I managed eight diverse gardens and a large greenhouse. I mentored students and oversaw all production, harvest and processing of medicinal and edible plants from all over the world. I also stewarded the Sacred Seeds Ethnobotanical Trail—a large scale restoration project spanning three biomes. I collaborated with the Advisory Committee, GRuB and local indigenous organizations to build community education on the Trail around native plants and cultural ecosystems in culturally respectful ways.

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I left Bastyr to train in guiding land-based rites of passage with the School of Lost Borders, and to begin weaving together my passions into an even more dynamic embodiment of my gifts. That is, plants and ecosystems with undertones of ceremony, wildlife tracking, herbal medicine, ancestry, astrology, trauma healing and poetry. Thus, the Tending Alive project was born.

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My grandparents have now passed on and the farm has been sold, but that rhythm still pulses in me. Over the last 17 years, I've helped thousands of people move through overwhelm to become more skilled and confident gardeners. I believe with the right support, we who have lost connection with land can remember our own beat. I am not any more of a plant expert than you can be. I want to help you find your way.  

Learn more about my training/experience and lineage.