"In art we create a utopia that promises us comfort that takes up the injuries inflicted by the world and turns them around. In art we have the possibility to depict all our dreams and utopias. For the dreams we encounter at night and sometimes by day tell us much about how to conduct ourselves. I don't mean that we should get lost in our fantasies like daydreamer or someone who suffers from a reality deficit (though who doesn't) I don't mean those fortunate lunatics who, because of their so-called "illness",can or must keep undercover. I am thinking of a consciously designed creative life that every single one of us should make as inventive as possible. I believe that an artistic person has the mission of getting to active grips with her dreams and making something of them, of being alert and observant and deploying his observations to re-evaluate and if needed in the most difficult and disagreeable cases, give a name to the 'woulds' we bear.
Even in an intolerable war or emergency situation, even where it's a question of naked survival, hope of a well-earned paradise lingers. For the human species has the god-given nature of being creative enough to produce at least a segment of paradise.
One thing seems certain: the pain caused by the loss of paradise is what first makes us notice paradise as a fact. Overtime, each of us has lost her own paradise, and personal loss goes along with the recognition of the vacuum it leaves behind. It is self-knowledge that drives us humans on. The possibility of seeing ourselves as creators has driven and still drives us.
Our religions and philosophies also promise us paradise. But as soon as relations and world views become ideologies and and stand for absolutes the presumed paradise is lost in burderous banality.
YOu gaze into the mirror and discover yourself." a fellow artist.

In my earliest years, I was informed the world, that I was about to grow up in, and it’s problems, that I was required to confront, were a source of natural cause sometimes explained as, “that’s just the way it is”. Under this belief, I should be a nurse and married to a farmer at the end of the dirt road in the corner of Minnesota right now. Fortunately philosophizing and the authority of my experience have never been beyond my rational. I looked for a better way.
Since those first several years the following twenty has been committed to regeneration of community, personal exploration, environmental connectivity, and actualizing my potential to encourage the possible. All things that I felt were solutions to the problems of this world. Looking into structured programs of immersion and service I came to such experiences as being an exchange student in Germany, working throughout the U.S as an AmeriCorps member, being a case worker of 9/11 victims for the Red Cross, and furthering my environmental education with Audubon Expedition Institute. Under the principle of my own self-direction and initiative, I’ve taken on various roles to polish my educational, personal, and professional goals: Living on an intentional community and growing 80% of the food consumed, becoming a wilderness counselor for at-risk youth, becoming Wilderness First Responder certified, and most recently managing a Permaculture farm in the tropics of Costa Rica.
These experiences have been my “initiation” into adulthood. My teachers have been abundant along a continuum of people, places, and overcome challenges. I have learned about the power of one in the context of a supportive community. I have learned that it is about what we can give not what we’ll receive. I have learned that sustainability is not enough we need regeneration, I have learned that a better life is not at the expense of exploiting millions of others lives. I have gone through many transitions and deep transformations that have provided me to perceive and be in the world deeply and consciously. Undoubtedly, the greatest lesson has been the journey.
Now I am left with the question of what to take from my past to help create the future.
If the teachers that I’ve encountered, the lessons that make up my life, and the story that I live by are going to mean anything, they have to be grounded. I’ve come to a point where I need to be more anchored with a larger reference point. With a culture which drives us out of our bodies, out of our minds, and out of our natural environments, there is a richer level of experience and existence that’s worth working for. This is what brings me to the Present.
In the last few years I have fantasized about working in a cross disciplinary method of therapy by empowering others through wilderness, movement, and art. To teach in the way I learned. My aspiration is to help provide youth with a framework to work through the turmoils and difficulties of moving into adulthood and realize some approach to be integrated and well-adjusted emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually. While simultaneously co-creating the reintegration of a healthy society, a community (human and non-human) in which I am a part of, and a solution I believe in.
Often I find those that encapsulate my own desires and goals. Similar motivations run through our veins. We all have the same chambers of love and fear. My goal currently is to use my experiences as a point of departure as a contributing member of a scholastic community, to mature my own learnings into a translatable philosophy and transferable lifestyle that I agree with, and to get to grips with what my dreams are and make something of them.