Expose a child to a particular environment at this susceptible time and [s]he will perceive in the shapes of that environment until [s]he dies—Saskatchewan born and Pulitzer-prize winning author and environmentalist Wallace Stegner (1909-1993)

I grew up in the rural landscape north of Toronto, Ontario when my family moved from the homogenous suburbs of Rexdale to the backwater of Nobleton where my parents built a home in the woods. While it is true that I have a tendency to romanticize these free-ranging childhood memories of the 1960s I am also aware of the summer months my father would spray DDT throughout the woods to control the mosquito population. He wore no protective clothing; the DDT would leak through his clothes from the spraying apparatus he strapped to his back and considering that he died of a neurological disorder I wonder if this exposure carried long term consequences for his health, that of his family and the environment. Perhaps there’s insufficient evidence to prove that my fathers later in life illness was caused by exposure to these toxicities. Yet I wonder if it was the re-membering of these events that became the influence for taking a path of study—in my mid-fifties, to writing my Masters dissertation (2016) on ecotherapy/ecopsychotherapy—taking therapy outside. Recognising the restorative relationship that happens between the human and more than human.

In the summer of 2016 I returned to my native Canada after 35 years of a life lived abroad. As a newly qualified psychotherapist I began the process of creating a deck of Nature Connecting Cards. My intention for creating this deck of cards was in part to encourage those who engaged with the cards to get moving and outdoors. It was during this time I began the Pacific Jubilee Soul Guiding program for integrating skills learned from studying a degree in psychotherapy, with the qualities of a practicing spiritual direction and nature connecting activities.

Shortly after my arrival in Vancouver I was introduced to Sharon Butala’s evocatively written book The Perfection of the Morning. I became familiar with the landscape of the Prairie’s through Sharon’s stunning descriptions. Many elements of her gritty personal story chimed with my own. I felt accompanied and enlivened by her writings of this landscape and its heritage. I have little knowledge of the Cypress Hills that Sharon writes about yet find it a synchronicity that I now live in Alberta and not a great distance from the places Sharon describes.

Given the opportunity my hope would be to enrich people's lives by offering spiritual direction remotely or from a base. The notion of continuing to facilitate outdoor nature connecting activities either as part of a spiritual direction session or as part of a retreat is an offering I relish—to accompany others in writing short narratives of their ecological stories in the way I have done here.

I live in a ‘kinship context’—by this I mean that I share ‘home’ with two adult sons, my daughter-in-law, my young grandson and granddaughter. My first neighbors are the wild deer that meander through the woods where we live. I often notice a collective of deer in the early mornings rising from the warmth of the tall grasses and under the cathedral high canopy of the Aspen and Pine trees where we call home. There’s a reciprocity shared between us humans and the more-than-human presence of the trees, the birds and the deer, the bears, the butterflies and the bees. These connections bring life full circle and have brought me back to the familiarity of the woods of my free-ranging childhood.