I'm Maris
After experiencing burnout and disillusionment with a system that takes advantage of its care workers, I took time off from teaching as a high school humanities educator to travel around the world and explore the realm of other.
Within the dominant systems & narratives of the modern era, people are depressed, despairing, anxious, and lost. Our current social & political systems push us as far from our true, wild selves as possible in order to manipulate us as good workers and consumers. We learn to hate our bodies, fear our dreams, feel shame for our differences, accept grueling work hours, and please others at all costs.
I created this project to contribute to the movement of folks looking to help us overcome our collective crisis of imagination when it comes to how we can show up and live in this modern context. People around the world are building creative, joyful lifestyles inside of their values and outside of traditional paradigms, and I want to highlight these models of others ways of being through this platform.
As I have traveled and moved through life at home, I noticed I frequently played a similar role in many different people's lives: a norm-questioning guide. People come to me when something feels stagnant in their lives; something is preventing them from seeing past the prescribed narratives and towards their internal compass. Once we get to this point of awareness, that is when the magic begins. This is where we get to identify the formulas we've inherited, and then reimagine.
Over the years, I've organically inhabited this role in the form of re-imagination guide, writer, conflict mediator, female empowerment coach, decision-making processes consultant, DEI educator, and plant medicine guide.
Learn more about what I offer by exploring the buttons below, and feel free to schedule a clarity call with me. I love learning and connecting with you.
a note on training and credentials
I do have many years in formal institutional training, from college to university to agroforestry courses, and also have years in non credentialing mentorship from teachers like Solea Anani of Archetypal Mythos and Martha Travers of Contemplative Studies at Michigan and Kat Lee of Business Alchemist Mentorship.
Yet the heart of the truth is that it’s not the courses, certifications, or credentials I’ve earned that have honed the skills I need to guide you. It is the way I’ve moved through life, learning consciously from human and nonhuman teachers. It is the way I’ve traveled. It is the way I’ve listened. From personal interactions, deep and sprawling conversations, conscious reading of incredible authors, intuition based writing: these are the ways I’ve shaped myself and am in the process of becoming.
I’ve engaged with these processes with intention and focus. I’ve moved through life in a way that is endlessly curious, very thirstily attuning to the lessons of teachers around me. And, most of all, it has been the way I’ve contemplatively lived my own life, experientially tapping into the practices of my mentors, whether they be human guides, authors, or the elements, to understand what it is to be human. I’ve lived the human project with hungry curiosity and vulnerable authenticity, and I think this is what makes a qualified guide. I don’t think it is the credentials or degrees.
I think credentials and degrees can give people permission and confidence to move forward in their path, and sometimes can offer useful methodology and learnings. However, I strongly believe it is not the only way to become a highly skilled and useful person. I believe that it has often morphed into a type of expensive or elitist gatekeeping project. I am a learner, schooled and unschooling. I have walked through the gates and around them. I am here, awake, and listening.
professional history & skills
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1:1 re-imagination guide, non-normative relationship guide, and dating coach for seekers of conscious partnership
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Initiation ceremony facilitator | coming of age, grief, entering partnership
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Diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant
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Intra-group dialogue facilitator for white and white-passing folks
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Conflict mediator & decision-making processes consultant for ecovillage Communa de Rhiannon
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Masters in secondary education based on social justice pedagogy from the University of Pennsylvania
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Secondary school humanities educator & curriculum designer rooted in social justice pedagogy for public high schools in Philadelphia & Denver
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Environmental educator for the Wissahickon Park, Philadelphia
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Pscilosybin guide through the framework of nature-based spirituality