About

Hi I’m Fern,  

 

I am the principal ceremony holder, facilitator and life coach at Fern Forest. 

 

To be honest, my primary role and identity at this moment in my life, is of mother. Being a mother is a gift, a great opportunity and a duty that is deeply important to me. 

I was lucky enough to Homeschool both of my (now) teenage daughters through grade school and that journey has greatly transformed/informed my path. It taught me to become more curious, and it taught me what teaching styles work to motivate and create confidence, and what teaching seems not to work as well. My noticing of what works in nurturing children really brought me home to the fact that our current, old, patriarchal system doesn’t really support life. 

This was an alarm bell for me since I am all about what makes us, each individual, fully alive and all about “power with” and inclusion instead of the usual arrangement of power over, and power under and exclusivity. My learning as a mother and home educator are one of the pillars of my strength and offering. 

 

After becoming “tough as nails” in order to survive in this world and doing hard physical labor as a tree-planter in order to buy a home and security, I learned that to nurture growth and health and vibrant life in children, I had to become softer. Like a gardener experimenting to find out what nutrients each plant needs in order to thrive, I tried different approaches to creating strong children and what I found really finally works best is empathy, attunement, being a healthy example, and learning deep listening skills.  

 

Learning these new ways of relating and communication put me on a path of learning, sharing and teaching empathy and compassionate communication. 

 

Another pillar of my offerings comes from my spiritual connections to the great creator, Goddess, my own sacred body, and to the forests. 

 

Raised in a spiritual Jewish home, with a strong connection to the land and animals of coastal BC, through personal encounters in the wilderness, I have always had a strong spiritual path. I prayed, danced my prayers, connected with the sun and and moon, and forests, I meditated and had a deep connection with what I usually called God (though God was not, in my mind a man) since I can remember. 

 

My spiritual and intellectual knowing have led me to understand the healing and grounding effects of ceremony. Ceremony is needed to mark the passing of time, our relationship with the Earth and celestial bodies, our life cycles, grieving and birthing  and other meaningful cycles and stages of life.  

 

The cycles of life need to be honored, as we bring back an awareness of what serves life. 

 

My offerings of ceremony, compassionate communication and emotional intelligence practice, conscious movement, stories and life coaching all come from these two pillars: connection to Great Spirit, and relational learning through motherhood.  

I carry a philosophy of deep gratitude for life on Earth, the healing power of deeper connections, the beauty of community building and mutual support, and the wisdom of finding our unique true selves, our heart-songs, and the stories that serve us, through knowing ourselves, the Earth's wisdom and our higher powers whatever you call them.