Who is Scout?
How did I come to be who I am, able to create WordTrails?
There are three key defining elements of my life, woven together as a thread over my seventy years.
I was raised inside nature to an extraordinary degree. I grew up in a place and time when nature was right outside the front door and I was regularly kicked out into it to get my mother some peace and quiet. My family camped every summer, traveling widely to visit various national parks.
My parents were very active people. My dad was a Nuclear Engineer and a builder, so our Sunday outings were visiting construction sites around the area, wandering through empty half-framed houses, seeing what people were up to. My brother and I would scramble around the site, kicking through the rubble, picking up slugs from the electrical boxes, chasing each other and our dog around for no particular purpose. I grew up inside an engineering mindset. Later he helped me design and build homes for the myriad wild animals I ended up raising.
I have had extraordinary experiences of being part of powerfully synched up teams. When I was eight, I took an after school class called Raising Wild Pets. When my mom saw how much that class lit me up, she kept her eyes peeled for other opportunities, and a few years later, when that same group offered more classes, she signed me up again.
By that time the group had negotiated an agreement with the city of Walnut Creek, California and taken ownership of an old abandoned East Bay MUD pumphouse, with permission and support to turn it into a place designed to connect kids and nature.
And so it happened that at 11 years old, I became an integral part of the team that set out to do just that.
Everything important in my life stems from the interweaving of these conditions.
There are other moments of peak intensity that have contributed in a defining way to how I have moved through the world…hard things that I went through and have carried without seeing or understanding, until I finally came to be able to.
What happened between those hard things and my current understanding about them – my story – is everything I have done in my life.
Things I have done:
Experience, trainings and certifications
1966 – 1974 Alexander Lindsay Junior Museum: Naturalist, Aide, Curator, head of exhibits department, guide.
1973 – 4 Exhibits intern at the American Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution)
1974 – 1976, 1998-2000 Student of Forestry, environmental studies, geography and art: CAL Berkeley and University of Montana
1976 & 1977 Forest Service Fire Lookout
1978, 1979 Boise Cascade Corporation: Logger, sawmill worker
1981 Mackay Bar Corporation: Dude ranch manager and guide
1970 on, Carpenter/home builder/ tiny home builder & trainer
1983-1993 Co-founder, designer and COO/CFO of an international multi million dollar business building custom timber frame homes.
1985 – 1993 Timber Framers Guild. Board member, Project manager, conference coordinator.
1993-4 Turtle Island, Fiji: Resort remodeling
1995 – 2000 Graphic Artist, desktop publisher
2000- 2005 Timber Frame Business Council, Executive Director
2014 Biomimicry 3.8: Professional development coach for their inaugural Master Practitioner cohort.
2014 Arizona State University, Adjunct Professor of Life Sciences
2008 to present, Traveling Light: founder and owner. Life Coaching, Energy retreats, facilitation, guiding, guide trainings.
2012 – 2023 Professional guide. Zion Guru, Classic Journeys and others:
2021 – present WordTrails developer
Certifications and trainings
Emergency Medical Technician OR Level II
Wilderness First Responder
Private pilot SEL, taildragger
NLP Master Practitioner
Hypnotist
TOP Certified Facilitator
Compassion Key Certified Practitioner
EFT certified Practitioner
Animal Communication Specialist
Trust Technique
Compassion Key
Reiki master
Other big things
Mother of two
Grandmother of one
Gardener, artist, reader, writer, cook, good friend
That life has led me here, to where I could create WordTrails
Here are two more pieces to the story, two things that happened early, before I had any way to hold or process them, which together formed a determination to find a way to do things better than had been done before.
Hiding under my desk. When I was eight, in the year 1963, a thing happened. I have a full body memory of this moment.
There I was, hiding under my desk, looking out at the teacher as the final sounds of the air raid drill siren died away. I was not a stupid child, and I was not scared. I think I was probably too shocked to be scared.
Shocked at the stupidity I was being asked to participate in, with no choice.
I mean, here I am, under a desk. Being told that this is the smartest and best thing to do if someone fires a nuclear warhead at me.
Wait one sec. Seriously? This is the best you’ve got?
Can we even talk about the utter ridiculousness of Nuclear Winter? Who would WANT to survive into that? No thank you. And…the whole endless stream of stupidity that this choice illuminated, but no one was looking at.
The soup of emotions and thoughts inside me was quite a stew, with an overriding flavor of – “Seriously? If this is the best the adults in this room can do, we are f*&%ked.”
Of course, I did not know that word but there is no other word that captures the depth of the feeling of absolute and utter stupidity. And what mattered was not the word. What mattered was the click in my system in that moment. I can still feel the unspoken and absolute determination to do things differently, so this could not happen.
NO.
NO to children hiding under desks to be safe from adults lobbing weapons and bombs at each other.
The Quarters. I was in a place of absolute profound happiness. Satisfaction. Everything was JUST RIGHT in my world as I was playing with a stack of quarters that I had found in my mom’s purse. I was oblivious to anything but my own joy with these beautiful, clinking, shiny things.
I don’t know how old I was – pretty darn small. Barely verbal, I think. My dad came into the room, saw me, and lost it. Where did you get those quarters? Still feeling safe and happy, oblivious to any danger, I answered, Mom’s purse.
I can’t say what happened. Except that my world exploded. I was blown out, way out, into outer space, and since that moment, my entire life has felt like a very important part of me has been trying to get back into my body…and terrified to do so.
And finally, I know a thing about this experience.
That moment was only a moment. Just one more chip, laid on the table.
It was not yet trauma. It became trauma when I went to my father later, wanting to re-connect, wanting a hug, wanting something – and he was unable to let me in. He was unable to forgive himself and therefore, he could not hug me.
THAT was the traumatic moment, losing my connection with my father, through his inability to be forgivable, which became a mutuality for many years.
I guess this is why I understand WordTrails as I do – for me, it is a place to gather and be mutually forgivable.
So, there you have a picture of me, and perhaps an idea of what it has felt like to move through my life as a small animal, absolutely beyond question a part of things – a part of nature at least, but not at all sure about whether or not I’m a true human, with a part of me always feeling on the outside looking in, observing myself in the mix. (one reason my work in the prison has been so powerful for me. In the prison I have had the opportunity to go deep into the very big question of what is inside, what is out?)
As I have moved through this life, there are things I have come to accept and love about myself.
I am one who helps imagine, design and build things that work well and feel good.
I am one who works hard to forgive, to let things be OK anyway.
I am one who trusts in a very big picture – a natural world that follows patterns and laws which work with breathtaking beauty, consistency and constancy. Those patterns and laws can be depended on, absolutely. I can follow any path I choose, for whatever reason might move me, and there will always, for me, be a foundational truth I can count on: Life works. It works even better for me when I keep working with it.
I am one who now understands that the more I can relax and move in concert with natural patterns, the more I am personally going to enjoy my time on earth, and the world around me is a better place for all of us when that is true. Less and less am I meddling in things that are not mine, and more and more am I showing up powerfully for the things that are.
This is the territory from which WordTrails emerged.
May it serve you as well as it has me, in whatever way it might.
