STORY

I grew up on a dead-end cobblestone street in the Flemish countryside. Our little street would lead to a bigger one, called Bleregem, which was famous in the village. When somebody told a story and someone else responded saying ‘they come from Bleregem’ it meant the story should be taken with a pinch of salt. This was the oral culture I was immersed in during my childhood, enriched by my grandfather, who would tell me made-up stories and the local library that soon became too small for me. 

My love for story endures, I have been practicing performance poetry since my teens and I went on to study language, literature and journalism at university. I enjoy the clarity of a good article that manages to explain a complex subject and I cry over the beauty of a poem expressing the inexpressible. Over the past few years I have been engaged in the study of myth. Listening to and retelling mythic tales enables me to relate more deeply with life, in a way that counterbalances our excessively literal way of looking at the world.

NATURE

As a child I was blessed with a lot of unstructured time to play outside, bathing in the sense of wonder that comes so naturally at a young age. I would be immersed in the magical universe of our garden for hours.

When I first travelled to Scandinavia, I fell head over heels in love with her. The freshness of the Swedish lakes, the smell of its forests and the solidity of the boulders under my feet made me instantly feel at home. I studied in Stockholm for a year and kept returning up north for canoe trips in summer or an artist-in-residency in Sápmi in winter. My relationship with these northern lands became more intimate each time I returned, and I finally made my home here in 2021.

My connection to the land has become an essential part of my work and is grounded in my practices of nature awareness and shamanism.

RITUAL

Already through art and nature I had experiences where I sensed there was a world beyond the one we think we have control over as humans. Ritual, during which we create space for, and surrender to, something bigger than ourselves, endows life with meaning.

Probably the most powerful ritual I know, is the sitout. When I came back from my first sitout, fasting and being in solitude in the Swedish forest, I knew something significant had happened. It became clear to me that I wanted to make it possible for other people to go out on the land and look for guidance in this way, to remember what it means to be human. I am touched every time I sat around a fire listening to the stories of the people who have just returned from their sitout.

SOCIAL JUSTICE

As a teenager, I marched on many demonstrations, angry at all the injustices I saw in the world. I was involved in campaigning for human rights through Amnesty International and then went on to cover social movements in Latin America as a journalist. My reporting assignment involved a two-month journey through Central America and this touched me deeply, on account of the environmental devastation and structural violence which I witnessed firsthand. 

In my work as a sitout guide I still keep this social justice approach in mind. I consciously try to steer away from cultural appropriation when doing ceremonial work and am actively looking to ground my work in a European, and more specifically Norse, lineage. This in turn comes with having to take into account the historical and political appropriation of a part of these traditions by extreme right.

Sweden is also home to the Sámi, and indigenous people, who face discrimination and whose culture, traditions and livelihoods are threatened.

Some of my programmes are specifically aimed at the queer community, as a way to offer a safe space in a heteronormative, genderbinary society.

Education & experience

Academic

-Master of English & Swedish language and literature (Ghent & Stockholm University)

-Master of Journalism (Erasmushogeschool Brussels)

-Master of Conflict and Development (Ghent University)

 Soulcentric

-I am a master-teacher of the Corepower method for personal leadership.

-I am a permaculture designer and teacher. I completed a Permaculture Design Course (Bert D'Hondt, Belgium) and a People & Permaculture Design Course (Looby Macnamara, UK)

-I have studied nature connection and cultural repair through the 8 Shields model and the Art of Mentoring

-I have done several sitouts, among which a Sacred Passage & Advanced Awareness Training led by John P. Milton/Way of Nature (USA)

- I have a shamanic training focused on Northwestern European shamanism by Linda Wormhoudt (NL). I am a Woman of the Paths (nature connection work) and Soul Woman (working with dying, passing and mourning) and currently continue my study of seidr with Andreas Kornevall.

- I am energy-trained, with a focus on healing, in the Standing Like a Tree chi kung lineage by Cosima Scheuten (NL).

-I have developed unearthing intuitive wisdom through my study of the tarot with Felice Derkinderen (NL).

- I was a student at the School of Myth of mythologist and rites of passage guide dr. Martin Shaw (UK).

About you & me

Maybe you wonder if my work is for you. When most of what follows resonates with you, you can trust that we are a fit!

You feel deeply concerned about the crises in our modern society, feel grief and anger for the loss of peace, biodiversity, a way of living where humans are caretakers and culture carriers. You worry for the future generations. Sometimes it feels attractive to run for the hills however you choose not to and instead look for ways to contribute to alternative, regenerative ways of living. You love the music of Rising Appalachia and the poetry of Mary Oliver. You get excited when you hear the words ‘once upon a time’. You are queer or an ally of queer people (as well as BIPOC people). You are selective with your media consumption yet you believe qualitative journalism is important to defend and promote democracy and human rights. You would never ever vote for extreme right. You are looking for depth and meaning. You are excited about the natural world close to where you live. You like rituals and beauty. You feel at home in the margins or consider yourself an edge walker. You feel drawn to indigenous knowledge and want to be respectful towards it. You find celebrating midwinter as important as celebrating Christmas. You know when the moon is full and when the sun sets. You live in the big city and sometimes dream of living a simple, slow life on the countryside. You live on the countryside and dream of living in community.

You are an educator, coach, artist, craftsperson, permaculturist, you are working at the local bookstore or CSA, you are working independently or consider doing so, you are in a leadership position or an organizer in your village, your work for an ngo, you are a sensitive poetic soul looking for a way to thrive instead of survive, you struggle with your health and wonder how to find support and resilience, you’ve been called an old soul or a free spirit, you know the names of your great grandparents or just got curious about them, you wonder how to stay healthy and sane in a crazy world, you are stepping into a new life phase and want to mark it, you are in a crisis and want to listen to what it has to tell you, you know disruption and grief, creation and the joy of sitting together around a fire.  You wish for every child to play freely outside, for every teenager to get a rite of passage and for everyone to learn about death being part of life. You consider life a gift and yourself a small part of a big whole.