Change starts with the self. Our actions, thoughts, voice and goals are the only things we can really control and often the best teacher is living by example. If we live our values and embody our ethics in our daily choices - those around us, especially young people can see the value in living in an ethically centered way. A daily set of ethics shown through action should involve our relationship with the environment. This is where the deep change in the world starts. As Mimi IKonn said, “When you establish peace, when you establish love, when you establish kindness here [inside], you cannot act any other way to the outside world.” Actions that I can do daily are to make choices like taking my backpack with me when I go to the grocery store and taking my own bags. Refusing any offer of plastic bags and using my own reusable cloth bags. Other simple choices like using my own set of wash rags to clean the kitchen with rather than paper towels are easy to do. The fashion industry, according to Bloomberg.com is responsible for 10% of fossil fuel emissions and are one of the leading producers of waste on this planet. I try to do all my clothes shopping at secondhand and thrift stores. Having traveled to Kenya, the Ivory Coast, Costa Rica, and other countries I have seen how so many of the clothes made are still circulating. This isn’t a good thing, some countries like the East African Community have proposed banning more economically developed countries from exporting their clothes there. Old clothes can become the washrags I use to clean the kitchen or shop rags for wood projects. I love walking every day. Getting in a car creates a kind of separation from myself and the environment. If I can, I would rather walk to stores to do my grocery shopping, noticing flowers along the way, meeting neighbors, seeing how the street subtly changes from one day to the next and at different times of the day. Feeling the wind on my cheek is a simple way to connect to the environment, and while walking we use less space, need fewer external sources of energy and promote a healthy connection to ourselves and the environment in the process. Beyond simple everyday choices like those illustrated above, we can get involved in community projects like gardening or planting trees. The connection we find to others who share our values in this process is invaluable and another facet of how mental health is tied to choices we make related to our environmental ethics. And beyond our individual choices and local community, we can participate in sacred activism. Sacred activism to me are ways in which we can respectfully but also vocally make ourselves heard towards larger groups that we feel are not doing their part to help the Earth and face the current situation we find ourselves in. So, we first hold ourselves responsible, and then work with our local community, and then extend these values to the larger world, doing our best to hold corporations and institutions responsible for how their businesses affect our home, this Earth. This is a basic model of how can facilitate change by making simple, smart, small everyday choices. We can then work with our community and hold larger groups responsible. This model starts with the self and extends outward, and in this way creates cohesive change.

In the past I struggled with drinking too much alcohol – especially after I got divorced. It took me moving to an organic farm and working on various other farms to let go of the behavior and underlying patterns of causation. Experiencing natural farm communities up close in a personal way was eye-opening in many ways. One of this ways is understanding how vital community and organic food are to mental health. When you understand the difference between processed food and what it takes to grow healthy organic food you begin to understand in a very visceral way how mental health often starts with what we put into our bodies. We need micronutrients from whole sources of local, farm fresh, organic food. Food that contains pesticides contributes not only to cancer-causing agents within the body but contributes to propping up an unsustainable agricultural system. Mental health is directly equated to food and to being within nature. Both of these facets require participation in a local, regenerative form of agriculture that respects nature and respects what we put into ourselves. It has been more than four years since I have had a drink of alcohol, and a large part of the reason why is that I now understand this direct link between mental health and the everyday nutrients we feed ourselves with. When I cut out the junk food, processed food, fast food and ate farm-fresh food my relationships began to change as well as my mental health. I became more involved with the community that supports this lifestyle, less reliant on outside sources for validation, and less depressed. When we break the cycle of depression and despair with small positive everyday choices related to nutrition and movement, a landslide of positive changes can begin. We begin to network with friends, peers and colleagues that support these goals, our internal and external lives begin to line up. I was a young man out of high school when I started a job working helping to take care of severely disabled and mental health challenged adults living in group homes. Each home had six to eight residents that had a variety of mental health challenges. The biggest takeaway that came from this experience is that behind the mental challenges, behind the physical challenges, behind their mode of speaking and relating - are highly intelligent and emotionally complex people. They are in so many ways the same as me or anyone else that hasn’t faced the challenges they have. It takes time to get past the surface level differences to understand that underneath they have the same need to relate and the same ability to have and hold complex ways of being. I learned how frustrating it must be to have all of that held inside without an ability to have others more easily understand you. Communication of our authentic selves is hard enough for people that don’t have challenges related to disabilities, let alone those born with these obstacles. I have also learned that a homogenous approach to mental health is not the best approach. We are all individuals and it takes time, patience, and the ability to sense another person’s patterns to be able to develop strategies to address their individual needs. Just like carefully cultivated organic produce, mental health care cannot be quick or rely on processed solutions. For example, some might be quick to prescribe medication to someone showing signs of what could be called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. As an alternative, when we take time to understand the factors involved in an individual’s life, we might advise them to take walks in the park, start adding fresh fruits and vegetables in their diet, and do mindfulness exercises. It has been shown that long walks can be the equivalent of taking ADHD medication. Physician Paul Dudley White says this about the subject: "A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world." The factors described above, understanding the link between the food system and mental health, my own mental health struggles of the past, and working with severely mentally challenged adults has led me to a path of desiring to be a mental health counselor. I will do this by finishing my bachelor’s degree in human and nature studies and then pursuing a master’s in eco-psychology. In this way I can bridge the worlds of food and social justice, mental health, and environmental understanding.

The path of me pursuing my higher education has been non-linear, and through this path I have learned to see setbacks and challenges as some of the greatest teachers. As an older student, the path back to college has not been easy. This journey back started about eight years ago and was interrupted by getting divorced. That event in my life was a tremendous setback as I moved away from where I was living for ten years, separated from the person I was married to and had to re-forge my life in a new fashion. After starting this journey of renewing my center – deciding where and how my life is centered, I acquired Lyme disease while working on an organic farm in Wisconsin. This event force me to slow down; the pain and lethargy associated with Lyme can be immense. I had spent several years after my divorce living and working on organic farms. During this time of experiencing re-centering through community and a connection to organic, sustainable agriculture, I also realized that back-breaking farm labor; no matter how centered in my community values it is, was not the path forward. This is when I decided to finish my bachelor’s degree. I realized this would be necessary to get the education, skills, and experiences needed to expand the seeds that had been planted over the several years prior. The skills and education necessary to turn these seeds into well-nourished plants in the right soil and the right amount of sun. I can see now that it is in the viewing of these ‘setbacks’ as an opportunity that was the turning point. Opportunities to re-evaluate my goals, my values and how I would like to lead my life. These deep reflections and resulting choices led me to where I am today. Which is having gone back to school full time last year and graduating with my associates in the top 2% of my class, a member of Phi Theta Kappa Honors Society, and firmly knowing where my values, goals, and intentions lay. Another piece to the puzzle going forward is how do I bridge the gap between what I have learned about the power of community to transform lives and our environment, and take that to where I can lead and help others into their own experiences. The answer I feel like has to be found in the continued pursuit of my higher education. I have learned that commitment to values of community, culture and ecology can radically transform both our lives internally and the environment externally. By pursuing education that encompasses expressive arts, the psychology of how humans relate to the Earth, and the Earth’s patterns through the Human Ecology bachelors degree, I can become a leader for communities to deepen our relationships in this regard. Some might say that wounds are the greatest teachers, and in the story of my own life related above, I would say that setbacks are actually opportunities to re-evaluate what our intentions and goals are. It is in this re-centering that I found a deeper commitment to community, the Earth, and education. I have learned that it takes not just a commitment to understanding what our values and intentions are, but how we enact, how we follow up these intentions with a plan of action. So here I am attempting to enact the last two years of my bachelors degree so that I can become an active leader in community going forward in my life. I seek to become a mental health counselor with a bachelor's degree in eco-psychology.

The path of me pursuing my higher education has been non-linear, and through this path I have learned to see setbacks and challenges as some of the greatest teachers. As an older student, the path back to college has not been easy. This journey back started about eight years ago and was interrupted by getting divorced. That event in my life was a tremendous setback as I moved away from where I was living for ten years, separated from the person I was married to and had to re-forge my life in a new fashion. After starting this journey of renewing my center – deciding where and how my life is centered, I acquired Lyme disease while working on an organic farm in Wisconsin. This event force me to slow down; the pain and lethargy associated with Lyme can be immense. I had spent several years after my divorce living and working on organic farms. During this time of experiencing re-centering through community and a connection to organic, sustainable agriculture, I also realized that back-breaking farm labor; no matter how centered in my community values it is, was not the path forward. This is when I decided to finish my bachelor’s degree. I realized this would be necessary to get the education, skills, and experiences needed to expand the seeds that had been planted over the several years prior. The skills and education necessary to turn these seeds into well-nourished plants in the right soil and the right amount of sun. I can see now that it is in the viewing of these ‘setbacks’ as an opportunity that was the turning point. Opportunities to re-evaluate my goals, my values and how I would like to lead my life. These deep reflections and resulting choices led me to where I am today. Which is having gone back to school full time last year and graduating with my associates in the top 2% of my class, a member of Phi Theta Kappa Honors Society, and firmly knowing where my values, goals, and intentions lay. Another piece to the puzzle going forward is how do I bridge the gap between what I have learned about the power of community to transform lives and our environment, and take that to where I can lead and help others into their own experiences. The answer I feel like has to be found in the continued pursuit of my higher education. I have learned that commitment to values of community, culture and ecology can radically transform both our lives internally and the environment externally. Some might say that wounds are the greatest teachers, and in the story of my own life related above, I would say that setbacks are actually opportunities to re-evaluate what our intentions and goals are. It is in this re-centering that I found a deeper commitment to community, the Earth, and education. I have learned that it takes not just a commitment to understanding what our values and intentions are, but how we enact, how we follow up these intentions with a plan of action. So here I am attempting to enact the last two years of my bachelors degree so that I can become an active leader in community going forward in my life.

In the past I struggled with drinking too much alcohol – especially after I got divorced. It took me moving to an organic farm and working on various other farms to let go of the behavior and underlying patterns of causation. Experiencing natural farm communities up close in a personal way was eye-opening in many ways. One of this ways is understanding how vital community and organic food are to mental health. When you understand the difference between processed food and what it takes to grow healthy organic food you begin to understand in a very visceral way how mental health often starts with what we put into our bodies. We need micronutrients from whole sources of local, farm fresh, organic food. Food that contains pesticides contributes not only to cancer-causing agents within the body but contributes to propping up an unsustainable agricultural system. Mental health is directly equated to food and to being within nature. Both of these facets require participation in a local, regenerative form of agriculture that respects nature and respects what we put into ourselves. It has been more than four years since I have had a drink of alcohol, and a large part of the reason why is that I now understand this direct link between mental health and the everyday nutrients we feed ourselves with. When I cut out the junk food, processed food, fast food and ate farm-fresh food my relationships began to change as well as my mental health. I became more involved with the community that supports this lifestyle, less reliant on outside sources for validation, and less depressed. When we break the cycle of depression and despair with small positive everyday choices related to nutrition and movement, a landslide of positive changes can begin. We begin to network with friends, peers and colleagues that support these goals, our internal and external lives begin to line up. I have also learned that a homogenous approach to mental health is not the best approach. We are all individuals and it takes time, patience, and the ability to sense another person’s patterns to be able to develop strategies to address their individual needs. Just like carefully cultivated organic produce, mental health care cannot be quick or rely on processed solutions. For example, some might be quick to prescribe medication to someone showing signs of what could be called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. As an alternative, when we take time to understand the factors involved in an individual’s life, we might advise them to take walks in the park, start adding fresh fruits and vegetables in their diet, and do mindfulness exercises. It has been shown that long walks can be the equivalent of taking ADHD medication. Physician Paul Dudley White says this about the subject: "A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world." The factors described above, understanding the link between the food system and mental health, and my own mental health struggles of the past related to alcohol, has led me to a path of desiring to be a mental health counselor. I will do this by finishing my bachelor’s degree in human and nature studies and then pursuing a master’s in eco-psychology. In this way I can bridge the worlds of food and social justice, mental health, and environmental understanding.

As a firm believer in the eco-feminist philosophy, my favorite Disney character would have to be Belle from Beauty and the Beast. The reasons are perhaps obvious. She strives to better herself through education, valuing her intelligence and wisdom more than settling for some ego-centered male partner who wants her to be a provincial housewife. Belle is a woman who stands up for herself, draws her boundaries, has respect for her father the inventor and does all she can to help him. Belle knows who she is, expresses herself and does not shy away from a challenge. In the eco-feminist philosophy, the oppression of nature and the oppression of women are linked. Historically women are associated with nature-wisdom and throughout history we see examples in culture of nature being seen as something to be controlled. In Beauty and the Beast we see Belle as a bit of a misunderstood outcast in the town because of her clear value of intelligence over that of fitting into traditional cultural standards. She values the wisdom of books, her father’s interest in invention, and is proud of her choices. Both her and the Beast are outcasts, one for being a woman who values intelligence and the other for being something directly from nature, which the townspeople find frightening. Later in the story Belle sacrifices herself to take the place of her father in the Beast’s mansion. She begins to see some of the more subtle underlying qualities of the Beast despite him being horrendously scary looking and having absolutely no manners. She values his ability to evolve and sees the best in him. She didn’t settle for a provincial life being a mother and a housewife. I imagine if the story were continued that Belle would not let the Beast tell her how to live, drawing clear boundaries around her desire to contribute to the world with her intelligence and encouraging him to keep evolving as well.

The journey of my health transformation started with a single carrot, and at age forty-five and a non-traditional student, my health has never been as important or as vital as it is now. The story started at a moment about ten years ago and when I was one-hundred pounds heavier and consumed alcohol in excess, as well as a lot of processed food. There came a point when I finally decided enough was enough and started making small changes. I opened the refrigerator one day and thought to myself - there has to be something healthy in here - and I chose to eat a carrot. The next week it was two carrots a day and I started walking at a local park. The month after that it was a variety of fruits and vegetables daily and bike riding added in, the growth has continued to this day. These small changes started coalescing into bigger changes which eventually included getting divorced and moving to an organic farm in Minnesota where I started working and volunteering on organic farms. The healthy communities I became involved in gave me insight into how to improve my daily choices. I have not had a drink of alcohol in four years and completed a yoga teacher training at the Circle Yoga Shala in Arkansas in 2021. Now my daily practices include yoga, meditation, fresh organic food, and some kind of walking or hiking throughout the week. I understand the value of eating local, farm fresh food, a diet of mostly fresh fruits and vegetables with whole grains and lean protein. Followed with good herbal supplementation like turmeric and ginger teas. The changes continued with me going back to college full time last year to pursue a bachelor’s degree in human and nature studies. Maintaining and growing my practice while going back to school involves getting up early enough that I have time for my morning health routine before class, not over-indulging in caffeine, and using natural energy through whole foods to maintain brain and physical health. Fish, walnuts, blueberries, fiber as well as herbs like bacopa, sage and ginkgo can help maintain brain health. Looking back it might seem easy now, but I realize it started with that first choice to eat a single carrot. The changes didn’t happen all at the same time it has taken years of progressively making better choices daily and following those up with larger life decisions that led me to greater sense of holistic well-being, acceptance and vital health. The changes are internal as well as external. When I was heavier, full of processed food and drinking a lot I remember having a mantra in my head that involved a lot of self-hatred. Living on organic farms taught me that mental health starts with what we put into our bodies. Today my self-talk is very positive and sometimes I will just blurt out things like “I love you life!”. When I tell this story I never want to make the journey sound easy because it hasn’t been. I have seen the lowest of lows with divorce, Lyme disease and self-despair, but gradually through daily small choices, the transformation has been positively amazing. I hope to continue this journey by completing my bachelor’s degree and pursuing a master’s in eco-psychology.

The journey of my health transformation started with a single carrot, and at age forty-five and a non-traditional student, my health has never been as important or as vital as it is now. The story started at a moment about ten years ago and when I was one-hundred pounds heavier and consumed alcohol in excess, as well as a lot of processed food. There came a point when I finally decided enough was enough and started making small changes. I opened the refrigerator one day and thought to myself - there has to be something healthy in here - and I chose to eat a carrot. The next week it was two carrots a day and I started walking at a local park. The month after that it was a variety of fruits and vegetables daily and bike riding added in, the growth has continued to this day. These small changes started coalescing into bigger changes which eventually included getting divorced and moving to an organic farm in Minnesota where I started working and volunteering on organic farms (one of these farms was even an organic carrot farm!). The healthy communities I became involved in gave me insight into how to improve my daily choices. I have not had a drink of alcohol in four years and completed a yoga teacher training at the Circle Yoga Shala in Arkansas in 2021. Now my daily practices include yoga, meditation, fresh organic food, and some kind of walking or hiking throughout the week. I understand the value of eating local, farm-fresh food, a diet of mostly fresh fruits and vegetables with whole grains and lean protein. Followed with good herbal supplementation like turmeric and ginger teas. The changes continued with me going back to college full-time last year to pursue a bachelor’s degree in human and nature studies. Looking back it might seem easy now, but I realize it started with that first choice to eat a single carrot. The changes didn’t happen all at the same time. It has taken years of progressively making better choices daily and following those up with larger life decisions that led me to greater sense of holistic well-being, acceptance and vital health. The changes are internal as well as external. When I was heavier, full of processed food and drinking a lot I remember having a mantra in my head that involved a lot of self-hatred. Living on organic farms taught me that mental health starts with what we put into our bodies. Today my self-talk is very positive and sometimes I will just blurt out things like “I love you life!”. When I tell this story I never want to make the journey sound easy because it hasn’t been. I have seen the lowest of lows with divorce, Lyme disease and self-despair, but gradually through daily small choices, the transformation has been positively amazing. I hope to continue this journey by completing my bachelor’s degree and pursuing a master’s in eco-psychology and counseling others on how they can help themselves.

Having just turned the age of fort-five years old, I can say that in some ways it feels surreal to be at this stage of life. I went back to college full-time last year and the result of that experience has been expansive on a variety of levels. First off, the engagement with professors and peers opens doorways and plants so many seeds of inspiration and potential learning. It feels like each discussion, each assignment provides small doorways to ever-more possibilities through which to engage, learn, and grow mentally and spiritually. There are other aspects which were more challenging that required time to see the benefits. An example of this is the college algebra class I took. Engaging in complex math equations for two to four hours every single day was at times – very frustrating to say the least. Now, after having the class completed, I can see that putting my brain through these rigors created new pathways and fluidity when it comes to working with symbolic languages and systems of understanding. It was a daunting task to be honest, the prospect of continuing my bachelor’s level education at forty-five but I quickly learned how much fun learning is, especially when provided with a structure in which to engage. Technology has advanced quickly in recent times obviously, which has added to the experience. Being able to read texts online, engage with peers and professors virtually when needed, the ability to use these tools to the benefit of the learning experience has been profound. Higher learning is important to me because I can see the palpable benefits after having gone through the first year of going back to college. There is a wider variety of topics that engage my mind now and a language that I have to work with when communicating with others about these topics. I can see how this knowledge not only sparks my own curiosity and wonder about life, but provides seeds for other to do the same. This engagement with life at the level of wisdom, knowledge, curiosity and wonder is at the core of how I want to spend the rest of my life. To enter into a continual state of wonder and awe of this world we live in and the wonderful people that inhabit it is truly a gift. This gift comes from the work it takes to engage in topics of interest through exercises, practice and engagement with others. The intention to improve this world and address the challenges we collectively face is also at the core of this learning process. I will continue this process by finishing my bachelor’s degree and pursuing a master’s degree after that. Then, through the process of helping others I will continue to learn, because the teacher learns as much from the students as the students do from the teacher.

Having just turned the age of fort-five years old, I can say that in some ways it feels surreal to be at this stage of life. I went back to college full-time last year and the result of that experience has been expansive on a variety of levels. First off, the engagement with professors and peers opens doorways and plants so many seeds of inspiration and potential learning. It feels like each discussion, each assignment provides small doorways to ever-more possibilities through which to engage, learn, and grow mentally and spiritually. There are other aspects which were more challenging that required time to see the benefits. An example of this is the college algebra class I took. Engaging in complex math equations for two to four hours every single day was at times – very frustrating to say the least. Now, after having the class completed, I can see that putting my brain through these rigors created new pathways and fluidity when it comes to working with symbolic languages and systems of understanding. It was a daunting task to be honest, the prospect of continuing my bachelor’s level education at forty-five but I quickly learned how much fun learning is, especially when provided with a structure in which to engage. Technology has advanced quickly in recent times obviously, which has added to the experience. Being able to read texts online, engage with peers and professors virtually when needed, the ability to use these tools to the benefit of the learning experience has been profound. Learning is important to me because I can see the palpable benefits after having gone through the first year of going back to college. There is a wider variety of topics that engage my mind now and a language that I have to work with when communicating with others about these topics. I can see how this knowledge not only sparks my own curiosity and wonder about life, but provides seeds for other to do the same. This engagement with life at the level of wisdom, knowledge, curiosity and wonder is at the core of how I want to spend the reset of my life. To enter into a continual state of wonder and awe of this world we live in and the wonderful people that inhabit it is truly a gift. This gift comes from the work it takes to engage in topics of interest through exercises, practice and engagement with others. The intention to improve this world and address the challenges we collectively face is also at the core of this learning process. I will continue this process by finishing my bachelor’s degree and pursuing a master’s degree after that. Then, through the process of helping others I will continue to learn, because the teacher learns as much from the students as the students do from the teacher.

I was a young man out of high school when I started a job working helping to take care of severely disabled and mental health challenged adults living in group homes. Each home had six to eight residents that had a variety of mental health challenges. The biggest takeaway that came from this experience is that behind the mental challenges, behind the physical challenges, behind their mode of speaking and relating - are highly intelligent and emotionally complex people. They are in so many ways the same as me or anyone else that hasn’t faced the challenges they have. It takes time to get past the surface level differences to understand that underneath they have the same need to relate and the same ability to have and hold complex ways of being. I learned how frustrating it must be to have all of that held inside without an ability to have others more easily understand you. Communication of our authentic selves is hard enough for people that don’t have challenges related to disabilities, let alone those born with these obstacles. Later in my adult life I struggled with drinking too much alcohol – especially after I got divorced. It took me moving to an organic farm and working on farms; experiencing natural farm communities to understand how vital community and organic food are to mental health. The experiences I have had, working with mentally challenged adults and my own struggles with alcohol have changed my beliefs in a myriad of ways. I now understand how mental health often starts with what we put into our bodies. We need micronutrients from whole sources of local, farm fresh, organic food. After this step we can use supplements and herbal medicine to address places where we still might need some adjustment. My beliefs have also been changed in that I seek to understand underlying patterns, the real self that might be hiding and waiting to be expressed in others. This might not always be able to be heard through the language they use, and can be understood through mindful observation and listening well. In this way I am enabled to address the real needs that another might face. I have also learned that a homogenous approach to mental health might not be the best approach. We are all individuals and it takes time, patience, and the ability to sense another person’s patterns to be able to develop strategies to address their individual needs. For example, some might be quick to prescribe medication to someone showing signs of what could be called Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. As an alternative, when we take time to understand the factors involved in an individual’s life, we might advise them to take walks in the park, start adding fresh fruits and vegetables in their diet, and do mindfulness exercises. The specific kinds of food they might be missing or the specific patterns of movement that help them can be learned through an individualistic approach to their mental health. These two experiences mentioned above – working with mentally challenged adults and my own journey to mental health through natural means, . . . contribute greatly to my current work. This work involves having gone back to college and studying a combination of psychology and ecology. I desire to help others be seen and heard, and provide them the tools to realize how vital community and nutritional choices affect brain and emotional health. Eventually I would like to be a counselor for others, to help them communicate with themselves internally and to externally relate in a more holistic way. In this way I hope to provide others the tools they need to have a mentally healthy mode of being in this world.

Lotus Breathe Let eternity Breathe Through your stillness. Let the infinite Expand into The spaces between Our breathe. Diving softly Slowly Into the depths, Stillness expands here Swirling like a vine up the structure of our spines: The divine Coming home into Our bones.

Covid is a disease that has affected the entire world in one way or another. When I mother passed away two years ago from this disease it cut short the opportunity I had to get to know her more deeply and spend more time with her. It was just before Christmas in 2020, and I knew when I got the call from a family member saying our Mother was sick and getting worse, that I would be the one to be with her in her final days. I left the job I was working at the time in order to be in the nursing home with her in her room to support her as she neared the time she would be leaving this world. Covid was very much still raging through facilities that care for the elderly and committing to being inside the room with her was a process that involved putting other factors in my life at risk; like my job, not being near other people, having to quarantine after and the possibility of getting covid. After she passed, I had time to deeply reflect on the experience of being with her in her final days, her life, and my own life. It is during this time I decided to go back to college. I realized that the path towards being able to deepen the way I can help communities and individuals could only be opened by going back to college. My mother knew I had an acute intelligence as a child and always dreamed I would go to college. After she passed I knew this was the moment to fight for my higher education and to fight for opportunities that would broaden my ability to help this world. Holding her hand as she drew her last breath was a true privilege, to be able to be there for my mom when she needed me most was an experience that helped not just my family and her, but myself as well. I wasn't happy at the job I had been working, or happy with where I was living and the months of reflection that followed her passing allowed me to re-evaluate how I wanted to lead my life and what my goals are. I realized that I had a deep desire to help others, and to help this world. I went back to college and finished my associates degree the next year and graduated in the spring of 2022 with my associates degree in the top 2% of my class and as a member of Phi Theta Kappa Honors Society. I am now in the final process of transferring to a university for the spring 2023 semester to finish my bachelors degree. I plan to study psychology, ecology, spirituality and art therapy. These are the educational areas of interest that will enable me to be a leader for communities in regards to helping us understand our deep, inherent connection to Mother Nature and to help build a world that is sustainable in regards to her, and in regards to our own physical, mental, and spiritual health. I often still think about my Mother and I know she would be proud of me and the choices I am making to help humans relate to our dear Mother Earth more deeply. Only by fighting for what I believe in, fighting for opportunity and engaging in my life and my education has this been possible.

The path to my higher education has not been a linear one. As a young man just out of high school I chose not to go to college and worked for about a year at group homes where I helped to take care of people with severe mental and physical health challenges. The job was one of the most enlightening, rewarding and challenging experiences I have had in this life. Eventually I learned to see past the disability that can be seen affecting the external appearance and behavior of the people I took care of; realizing it is the wiring in the brain on some level that caused the apparent mental and physical challenges. I learned that the residents I was working with were highly intelligent, emotionally complex people that were highly relatable. The seeds of those experience are rooted to this day in the way I am approaching my life and now affecting choices I am making towards the next steps to my higher education. Many of the courses I will be taking will be related to understanding psychology, there are two more years in my bachelor’s level education and then a master’s degree probably in eco-psychology, and the reasons for this are multi-fold. As an older student, now in my 40’s, I went through my own periods of mental health challenges, struggling with alcohol addiction that partially led to a divorce. I have now been alcohol free for more than four years. Part of my healing happened after the divorce, when I moved and began working and living on organic farms in Minnesota and Wisconsin. This is where I learned the value of whole organic foods free from pesticides. I stopped eating junk-food, processed food, and disengaged from other behaviors that one might use to escape from the challenges in their internal and external lives. It is these factors that lead me to pursuing a degree in eco-psychology. I know the challenges that go along with making your way in a world driven by consumer society where one might often feel alienated, the challenges that go along with not being understood, and the depression and resulting patterns that can ensue. Through the grace of God and sheer willpower I found my way out and it is my great desire to help others. By continuing my education in the fields of psychology, ecology, creativity, social justice, somatic embodied meditation, and yoga I can gain additional skills I need to help and understand the challenges that others face. This journey is really just started as I am three to four years away from that master’s degree that will enable me to be a leader for others, working with the tools of mindful compassion, movement, creativity, expression, counseling, and nutritional health. I am hoping be an interface between nature and humans that are facing mental health challenges, by showing them how mental health is directly related to nutrition and to connecting with nature. It is my hope to be able to be a facilitator for others in opening the door for them to connect to nature, their own creativity, and into the patterns of healthy mental and physical health by leading them to their own direct experiences with these factors that have been influential in my life. Now more than ever counselors of this nature are needed in this world After my divorce I got Lyme disease and shortly after that my mother died. It is during these several years that I had my own deep reflections surrounding how I want to live my life and eventually into a desire to help others, to question how can I serve the community and the most vulnerable among us. Renewal, hope and transformation have become the mantras I live by and it is one of my greatest desires to share the gifts of the healing and transformative process with others to help them into their greatest potential and into an alignment with a lifestyle that is sustainable. Going back to college has not been easy, I quit working full time, relying on the savings that I had built and putting my focus fully on acquiring the education I need to be able to help others. I envision myself being a counselor in the field of mental health, which requires two more years of bachelor’s level education and two years after that of master’s level education. I am dedicating to committing myself to the continued sacrifices that are necessary to make this dream of helping others possible. Any help I can get along the way goes towards someone who knows the depths of struggle and the light that is waiting on the other side. Help me continue this dream.