The Nature of This Work
I offer a mix of traditional counseling, life coaching, and insights borne from three decades of working with people with a serious illness. Perhaps most uniquely, I do this with a rites-of-passage view and by offering practices drawn from my two decades working as a wilderness guide.
The most common form of the work involves spiritual mentoring: supporting people who are looking to deepen their relationships with both inner nature and outer Nature. I consider my primary task here to be tracking a client’s “soul story,” as that person opens more deeply to who they are and how they want to show up in the world.
Also, I often have been called to work with people going through a major life passage. A serious illness. The illness or death of someone near and dear. A major change in work or a relationship or an identity. Or some other great life transition. This is where a rites-of-passage view can be especially helpful.
Frequency: Most often this work is done weekly or every other week. Meeting less often is possible, though that makes it harder to sustain a connection.
Fee: My full fee is $175/hour, though I offer a sliding scale down to $75/hour. I ask people to ask themselves: What can I afford? How much do I value this? And what amount will translate into a real commitment to this work? I leave it to you to set the final fee.
How to meet: I offer sessions in person, over the phone, or by Zoom – or some combination of the three.
Day walks: In addition to meeting 1-on-1, I encourage people, on occasion, to go out alone in nature with an agreed upon exercise: a “day walk” if you will – the short form of a wilderness fast. This is an opportunity for a person to explore more deeply a theme that gets identified during one of our meetings. The story of that day walk is usually the starting point of our next session.
Wilderness programs: My preferred way to do this work is to meet regularly with a person before and after they do a longer wilderness program (whether that’s with me or with other guides). This is the ideal way to do this kind of rites of passage work. If you’re interested in combining this 1-on-1 work with a program I’m co-guiding, I do shorter programs through EarthWays, a collective of guides in Sonoma County, and longer programs with the School of Lost Borders, usually in the deserts of Eastern California.
Fee: My full fee is $175/hour, though I offer a sliding scale down to $75/hour. I ask people to ask themselves: What can I afford? How much do I value this? And what amount will translate into a real commitment to this work? I leave it to you to set the final fee.
How to meet: I offer sessions in person, over the phone, or by Zoom – or some combination of the three.
Day walks: In addition to meeting 1-on-1, I encourage people, on occasion, to go out alone in nature with an agreed upon exercise: a “day walk” if you will – the short form of a wilderness fast. This is an opportunity for a person to explore more deeply a theme that gets identified during one of our meetings. The story of that day walk is usually the starting point of our next session.
Wilderness programs: My preferred way to do this work is to meet regularly with a person before and after they do a longer wilderness program (whether that’s with me or with other guides). This is the ideal way to do this kind of rites of passage work. If you’re interested in combining this 1-on-1 work with a program I’m co-guiding, I do shorter programs through EarthWays, a collective of guides in Sonoma County, and longer programs with the School of Lost Borders, usually in the deserts of Eastern California.
