Experience

In the language popularized by adrienne maree brown, I see “experience” as emergent rather than linear. Like a forager gathering delicious things on a walk through the woods, collecting what’s appealing and in season, I’ve picked up what nourished me when I most needed it.

I am also someone who believes more in the ancestral knowledge that lives in my DNA, the things I’ve learned through lived experience, the wisdom I’ve garnered from elders, friends, and unexpected guides, the Black and Indigenous teachings that have deeply shaped my thinking, and — as you might guess from the name of my “business” — what I’ve been taught directly by nature and all the “non-human” kin who have crossed my path: plants, animals, and the elements. Especially fire, which is so ever-present on the land I call home. And water, which is so quickly escaping it.

And I place infinitely less importance on “credentials,” or what modern culture typically considers “valid,” especially because these validations have so often been withheld or stripped away from non-White, non-Western people and their ways of knowing. At the same time, I hold an important nuance: not all experience makes someone trustworthy to teach or lead, and there are many charlatans and self-serving teachers who care little for the collective. So discernment matters.

In that spirit, if it’s helpful for you to see what “qualifies” me to pass forward the information I share, or if you’d like to take some of the classes or programs that brought me to where I am today, I’ve listed my most relevant experience below.

Relevant Professional Experience

I spent 20 years (2004–2024) in branding and marketing. Along the way, I spent two years (2013–2015) as Community Animator at the Posner Center for International Development and served on the board of the Denver Shared Spaces Project, often traveling internationally to study shared spaces and speaking at industry events. That work taught me how people build community and share space, which is the heart of the shared land and homestead life I’m working toward now. No path is wasted. Every one of mine led me here, but I only list what’s most obviously relevant to the work I do today.

This Plus That, Inc.
Owner/Founder

  • Sep 2021 - Current Eventually renamed/dba changed to Teach Me, Nature in Sep, 2026

  • Sep 2021 - Nov 2022 Host & Producer of the This Plus That podcast, and writer of the This Plus That Substack

Carrie B. Wellness
Business Partner
Contract COO/CMO

  • Dec 2022 - Jul 2026:
    Supported Carrie Bennett, Circadian Health Educator & Clinician, with all aspects of the business other than teaching.

Relevant Speaking Engagements

  • Oct 17, 2026: ORIGIN “Keep Boulder Wild”

    • Making Our Way Back to Nature Fireside Chat with Amy Ippoliti, Brigitte Mars, Mackenzie Selkhe, and Brandi Stanley

  • Sep 19, 2026: Farm to Mat Hosted by Amy Ippoliti (Boulder, CO)

    • Fireside Chat on Natural Healing & Circadian Health with Dr. Usha Nagavarapu, and Brandi Stanley

Continuing Education & Trainings

In addition to many one-off classes and experiences in animal harvesting, butchery, fermentation, traditional cheesemaking, sourdough, gardening, herbalism, and more — here are the more extensive trainings and continuing education experiences I’ve done.

In Process:


Completed:

  • Aug 9-15, 2026:

  • June - Sep, 2026:

  • May - Oct, 2026:

  • May 2026

  • Oct 2025 - Mar 2026:

  • Summer 2025 - Summer 2026:

  • Apr - Jun, 2025:

  • May - Jun, 2024:

  • Late-2018 - Mid-2019:

    • Fermentation & Bioregional Herbalism Apprenticeship with Asia Dorsey of Bones, Bugs, & Botany

  • 2018:

    • Apprenticeship/business development support with Seth O’Donovan at The Guest House, a symbiotic farm-restaurant-hotel project in the Carbondale valley of Colorado

  • Fall 2017:

    • Colorado School of Mines Audited Class: Explorations in Science, Technology, and Society—Pathways to Innovation: Building Synergy Between the Sciences and Humanities

      • Taught by Lincoln Carr, this class sought to unify thinking in the sciences and the humanities by connecting approaches across disciplines, synthesizing literary, artistic/visual, and STEM elements. 

      • Class Sessions: Silence, Quantum Logic, Dreaming, Poetic Reverie, Embodiment, Technological Augmentation, Space-Time Context, Emotional Intelligence, Dialectic, Shamanism, Metaphysics, Justice

  • Summer 2017:

    • Social Permaculture Design Course with the Denver Permaculture Guild, a five-month cooperative training series, integrating the ideas of permaculture with social movements.

      • Sessions: Introduction to Social Permaculture, Pathways of Justice and Resistance, Organizations That Live, Economics After Capitalism, and Nurturing the Sacred Warrior

      • Facilitation: Intersections of Social Permaculture with Emergent Strategy (Brown, 2017); Design Thinking and Social Permaculture

Formal Education

If you’re someone who cares about a very "Western” way of looking at credibility.

Master’s in International & Intercultural Communication
Joint Program—Korbel School of International Studies and Media, Film & Journalism Studies at the University of Denver

2008 - 2010

  • Concentrations: Human Rights & Organizational Management

  • Foreign Language Exam: French

  • Internship: Laboratory to Combat Human Trafficking

  • Major Research Papers:

    • Sensationalism and its Detrimental Effects on the Anti-Human Trafficking Movement: A Call to a Critical Examination of “Abolitionist” Rhetoric

    • Employing Communications Campaigns to Elicit Change: Assessing the Effectiveness of Social Marketing in Non-Profit Advocacy Work

    • The “Other” Side of the Camera: The Role of Power & Privilege in Documentary Film (Group Paper)


Bachelor of Arts in Advertising
Department of Communication
Harding University

2000 - 2004

  • Concentration: Graphic Design