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.

CEREMONY

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. Ceremony, during which we create space for, and surrender to, something bigger than ourselves, endows life with meaning.

Probably the most powerful ceremony 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).