After a childhood spent living abroad, and an education purposefully directed by the different cultures and communities we lived with, I returned to the UK to complete education formally. At 19, after raising the funds to do so, I moved to Nepal to work for a grass roots aid organisation. Enthused by the beauty of the mountains and the people I lived with, I returned to the UK to study women's health and outdoor education.  

My continued respect and intrigue around traditional ways of life led me to undertake my own research project across the Silk Road in 2004. Travelling overland, I lived with communities and tribes throughout Kyrgyzstan, China, Pakistan and India and spent time researching and learning from traditional healers and midwives.

Returning to the UK I became a midwife - a practical skill that I believe cuts across any cultural, religious or social differences and inevitably opens the door to an immense experience in human nature. I have worked as a midwife both in the UK and abroad, with a recent post with the Afar in Ethiopia.

I have found great inspiration by spending extended periods of time in nature - particularly in the mountains. I have undertaken several long distance trails including a month of the Lycian Way in Turkey, weeks of the Camino de Santiago in Spain, and a 6 month, 2700 mile wilderness trail from Mexico to Canada called the Pacific Crest Trail. Since qualifying as an outdoor instructor, I have trained with the School of Lost Borders in the USA and completed three years of outdoor leadership training with Schumacher College. I have also attended specialist training in women's health, youth work, wilderness first aid and child protection.

I have worked in various settings and with many different clients as a mountain leader and specialist in guiding transformative personal change. Clients include nature-based mental health charities, schools, outdoor education centres, Duke of Edinburgh, John Muir and personal development expedition companies. 

I have also undertaken a three month research project into Rites of passage in the USA culminating in my Rites Of Passage Interview Series, as well as creating and holding a Rites of Passage gathering for practitioners in California.

Recent projects have included hosting Transitions and Thresholds - a Rites of Passage Practitioners gathering at Embercombe, carrying out in depth research into community based Rites of Passage in partnership with Starter Culture, and creating a new venue for nature based retreats at our home in Dartmoor. In 2023 I will be running Wild Time for Girls, a nature based rites of passage program in the UK; and in 2024 hosting a training with Betsy Perluss from the School of Lost Borders (contact me directly for details). Details of all these events and more can be found here.