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 coach. 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 guide, conflict mediator, female empowerment coach, decision-making processes consultant, DEI consultant, and plant medicine guide. Read about my services and schedule a free 30 minute discovery call to see if we're a fit.

Services

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on a personal note

I am a white, Jewish, cis-gendered, able-bodied woman who benefits from many privileges in the States. I grew up financially comfortable, neurotypical, and flourished in a very traditional, very oppressive education system. I have an advanced degree and have traveled extensively. All of my perspectives, observations, and experiences are unavoidably cast through a lens shaped by these privileges.

While I have done a lot of work with myself and others to further my understanding of my positionality and the hegemonic systems shaping my reality, I am always open to being called in and learning more if you feel the emotional capacity to do so. My vision for Other Ways of Being is to create a project that speaks to people from every spectrum of identity, but I also understand that my inherent lenses of privilege creates a barrier to that vision.

I hope you feel my energy for collective liberation, and I hope your path leads you to rad, customized design of life inside your values and outside pre-determined social paradigms.

professional history & skills

1:1 re-imagination guide, non-normative relationship guide, and dating coach for seekers of conscious partnership

Initiation ceremony facilitator | coming of age, grief, entering partnership

Diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant

Intra-group dialogue facilitator for white and white-passing folks

Conflict mediator & decision-making processes consultant for ecovillage Communa de Rhiannon

Masters in secondary education based on social justice pedagogy from the University of Pennsylvania

Secondary school humanities educator & curriculum designer rooted in social justice pedagogy for public high schools in Philadelphia & Denver

Environmental educator for the Wissahickon Park, Philadelphia

Pscilosybin guide through the framework of nature-based spirituality