Melissa lives north of the cities on 5 acres with her wonderful husband, son, daughter, two golden retrievers, and 28 chickens. Melissa loves and embraces the change of seasons with her family. Foraging berries in the summer, harvesting wild apples in the fall, forest walks in winter, and maple syruping in the spring. Letting seasonal traditions guide her family has been soul filling!
Bio:
Melissa’s life transformed during her first right of passage – giving birth to her son in 2020. She is passionate about the transformational potential that bringing life into this world is – from pregnancy to birth to breastfeeding.
Melissa loves her role as Assistant Teacher for the Growing Together program at Minnesota Waldorf School. She enjoys building healthy in-home rhythms for her family and finds great joy in helping guide families with their rhythms as well. Once a week, she hosts and facilitates her own child/parent enrichment sessions (Nourishing Connections). Her program has flourished into a beautiful community of families. Spending time outside, place based learning, showing deep reverence for the land and all beings, honoring the child, fostering curiosity, incorporating songs and rituals, and having space to play freely resonate deeply with Melissa.
Melissa is nurturing, intuitive and inquisitive. She loves summer beach days, quiet time in nature, singing, cooking, and baking all things sourdough. She is grateful for the continued opportunities to learn and be in service to other families/children.
Anthony yearns for connection that reflects how humans have evolved for most of our history: as a tribe and in relationship with nature. In search of this connection, he left his professional career in Software in 2020. He found the connection he was looking for in the Rewilding movement. It manifested as a practicing modern day hunter gatherer. Springtime is Maple Syrup, Summer is berry picking and mushrooms, and Fall is Wild Rice and feral Apple Orchards. He shares his passion of foraging with family, friends, and is looking forward to teaching classes to the public soon.
Bio:
Anthony’s greatest honor in life is getting to raise his two children with a partner in their growing intentional community, a modern day tribe. Practicing community and modern day hunting and gathering all culminate in how Anthony finds purpose and shows his love for the next 7 generations. Anthony completed level one and level two of Forest School Teacher Training Spring 2023.
Anthony is a Lead Guide for Summer Day Camps, and has led workshops in Outdoor Odyssey.
Julia is thrilled to be guiding alongside Anthony and Melissa. Julia is a lifelong teacher, coming from the Montessori roots, and having discovered the Forest School methodology over the Covid months. In 2020, she developed Wilderness Awakening, offering classes, camps, workshops and retreats to support a deepened connection to the Earth and allowing for emergent curriculum.
Julia loves learning from young perspectives, and reflects back an appreciation for magic and mystery that is alive and afoot in all wild spaces.
Britta, she/they, is a naturalist, builder, and artist currently living in Minneapolis. Her journey began as a youngster exploring the woods behind her house and playing in the oak savannas and bluffs in the St Croix River valley in Minnesota. Britta is a student of natural building and has worked in home remodeling and construction for five plus years. She enjoys sharing her knowledge of tools and building with folks traditionally left out of those trades. Britta has a BFA from the University of Minnesota focusing on printmaking. Over the past eight years she has been diving deep into local ecology, wildlife tracking, bird interpretation and a variety of bushcraft skills. While living in Guelph, Ontario she spent time working with the Guelph Outdoor School and learning the Eight Shields education model for teaching and building nature connection. She loves to gather together with friends to take part in the seasonal bounties of each year, setting up camp to tap maple trees in spring and wild rice in the fall. She believes building relationships with the land, plants, and animals is critical for developing ourselves as empathic caring individuals. Her goal is to make those connections accessible and inclusive for all.
Greg Schayes hails from the temperate rainforests of Washington State where he has been facilitating nature connection since 2006. Exploring landscapes is at the heart of Greg’s teaching philosophy and he is passionate about sharing the wonders that can be observed while out on the land. Greg is passionate about building connections between people and nature by engaging their sense of wonder, and tapping into their own curiosity with a strong emphasis on play. When Greg is not sharing his love of nature connection with others, you can find him searching though used book stores, fixing old toyotas, or snuggling with his dog. Greg lives in St. Paul with his wife Becky and his children Casper and Angus. He shares his home with a friendly Labrador named Aoife and a Ball Python named Karamel.
Erin grew up in Minnesota but spent much of her adult life adventuring and journeying outside of the state. She returned in 2019 to attend law school and, ironically enough, it was the drain and stress of law school that motivated Erin to look outside and seek solace in the natural world.
Erin practices law, but she dedicates much of her personal time to nature connection and appreciating the beauty of animal and plant life. She is constantly amazed by how resourceful and inventive animals are at surviving in a world that does not always value them. Erin became Cyber Tracker Level III in September of 2024 and cannot wait to continue on the path of nature connection. She seeks always to foster respect with all creatures and life, and she is deeply thankful that she has learned to listen to the birds sing.
Ruth lives on a 5 acre homestead in Northern Stillwater where she and her partner Austin run a bee therapy center, plant a wide diversity of native plants and trees and host educational workshops. Ruth works as a Practitioner at Functional Patterns Minnesota and Functional Patterns White Bear Lake. She also cooks nutritious and delicious local delicacies for her partner, family and friends. Ruth practices hobbies such as watching and photographing birds and other wildlife, and riding an electric unicycle.
Bio:
Ruth’s bachelor’s degree is in Psychology and Human Development. Ruth was a Special Education Teacher in the public school system for four years, while there, she realized that there was more to education and child development than what was covered in the traditional setting.
Her greatest joy in life is being a land steward and building a community of people who honor and value the earth. She loves cooking nutritious and holistic food, learning about edible and medicinal plants, food preservation, and improving the landscape for birds, insects and other animals that we share this home with as well as future generations.
Ruth is passionate about educating the next generation of people and young minds to help regenerate the earth and all of its inhabitants. Ruth loves wandering the land and learning about the many wonders of nature. She takes great pride in hosting and providing opportunities for people from many different walks of life to experience the wonders of the natural world.
Trevor also lives north of the cities on almost 4 acres with his partner, Bethany and 26 chickens. He graduated with a degree in History and has a professional career in Finance and Small business.
To all who know him, he is an animal whisperer. His best days are spent out enjoying the sunshine, relaxing by a bonfire, finding a new species of salamander or bird, feeding his hens delicious and nutritious treats, and tracking the new incoming weather system. Putting a smile on your face and lightening your day whether old or young, big or small, Trevor has a special way with people and animals alike. Those who are close to Trevor say he is a man of integrity, honor, has a big heart, is charasmatic and witty.
Rachel is a mom of two, world traveler, nature lover. Her background in nutrition led to her love of organic gardening, food forests and working with children. She saw in her nutrition studies and dietetic internship people’s disconnect with healthy food, and realized the best way to connect people with healthy eating was working with the youth, hands on growing their food. That led to her traveling to South America, Hawaii, and the West Coast studying how food can be grown in harmony with nature.
After having children of her own, Rachel’s focus refined to studying Forest & Nature Schools, leading her to complete her teacher training as a Forest School Teacher. She saw the importance that Nature plays in children’s learning. Allowing the children to be hands on, self exploring, creative, their imaginations taking the learning to whole new levels.
As Rachel progresses in this field, she looks forward to merging the forest school and nature school practices, while also expanding Nature Schools to be more available for older children as well.
