About
HI, I’M BRANDI
I teach people how to reconnect with the wild world — not as something to visit or escape to, but as the living medicine our bodies are designed for.
The Severance
For more than a decade, I was chronically ill in ways seemingly no healing modality could improve. I tried everything: elimination diets, supplements, functional medicine, all of it. Some things helped, but nothing made me feel truly well. I was only in my thirties — far too young to be that tired. I was exhausted, not just physically, but from the work of trying to find answers. And I felt completely untethered from any sense of aliveness. Turns out it's pretty damn hard to access "eroticism" in Audre Lorde's meaning of the word — that fundamental, spirit-level vitality — when your body and energy are running on empty.
Then, in 2022, I stumbled into something called circadian biology — in essence, how critical proper light exposure is to our health. Natural sunlight in our eyes and on our skin during the day, mitigating toxic artificial light at night. In fact, just three days into walking outside during the morning "UVA window" without sunglasses, the chronic fatigue I'd had for a decade disappeared. And it's never returned.
So I dove fully in. I changed my relationship with sunlight and darkness, learning more about circadian health and mitochondrial function, and my health improved in ways I didn't think were possible. The aliveness I couldn't seem to grasp before? Yeah, it came back.
By then, I'd already been dipping my toes into farming, fermentation, and other, more “ancestral” ways of living. But that moment — watching myself transform simply by reconnecting to nature's rhythms — was when I truly realized: nature isn't just nice to look at or fun to be in. It's what our bodies are designed to thrive inside, because it's where we evolved. We've just become deeply severed from it because of things like capitalism, industrialization, and colonization. And that severance is making us sick, both in body and in spirit.
The Return
Over time, as I watched my health improve, I also learned more about my ancestors — largely English and Celtic — and how intimately their practices and rituals were tied to the ecological world. I read, listened to, and studied under Indigenous and Black folks who had retained more of this knowledge across time. I started paying more attention to all the other ways nature operates, convinced that it was more than just sunlight that humans were meant to be in tune with. And I became obsessed with closing the gap between myself, the land, and all the things that sustain my life.
I started seeing trees as kin. I heard plants speak. I believed rocks were elders. The whole of nature came alive, animate — a vast, interconnected web of abundance that feeds my life as I feed it in return.
And I began learning more "old ways" in earnest, aware that I'd resurrected something essential. I deepened my fermentation practice. Began learning butchery, herbalism, permaculture, bow hunting. And I started documenting the whole thing — not because I'm an expert at any of it, but because I'm often a few steps ahead on the path, learning in real time. I want others to see that this life is real, possible, and maybe both necessary and inevitable. Our current systems are crumbling. As I see it, the only way to build the new world we need — one that's regenerative, rooted in community, and rebuilds our relationship with the living world — is to start living inside it.
The more I learned, the more I realized I was filling a gap no one else seemed to be holding. The ancestral skills world teaches people how to hunt, forage, and start a fire, but they rarely know the biology — why reconnecting to nature literally heals us. Meanwhile, the circadian biology world understands the science, but their view of "returning to nature" is narrow: improve your light environment, touch your feet to the earth, drink clean water. It's more about optimization and constant health improvement. Basically, it's capitalism and colonization repackaged as "wellness": buy another product, tweak your daily routine, stay endlessly worried about what you're still missing. It's not about returning to wholeness — yourself, your community, and the land. It doesn't see nature as a relationship; it sees it as a resource to use for our own gain.
So I'm standing in the middle, holding both. I teach the biology first — here's why sunlight matters, here's what happens in your mitochondria when you step outside at sunrise — because that's the permission most people need. It validates what their body already knows: there's a literal, measurable reason they feel better outside. That moment, when someone's face lights up and they say, "Oh my god, that's why I crave this," is one of my favorite things. It's profound every single time.
And then I walk them further. Because once your body experiences the tangible change that comes from aligning with nature’s critical signals, you start to ask: what else? What other rhythms am I severed from? What other relationships am I meant to be inside? And that's when the real return begins.
The Severance
For more than a decade, I was chronically ill in ways seemingly no healing modality could improve. I tried everything: elimination diets, supplements, functional medicine, all of it. Some things helped, but nothing made me feel truly well. I was only in my thirties — far too young to be that tired. I was exhausted, not just physically, but from the work of trying to find answers. And I felt completely untethered from any sense of aliveness. Turns out it's pretty damn hard to access "eroticism" in Audre Lorde's meaning of the word — that fundamental, spirit-level vitality — when your body and energy are running on empty.
Then, in 2022, I stumbled into something called circadian biology — in essence, how critical proper light exposure is to our health. Natural sunlight in our eyes and on our skin during the day, mitigating toxic artificial light at night. In fact, just three days into walking outside during the morning "UVA window" without sunglasses, the chronic fatigue I'd had for a decade disappeared. And it's never returned.
So I dove fully in. I changed my relationship with sunlight and darkness, learning more about circadian health and mitochondrial function, and my health improved in ways I didn't think were possible. The aliveness I couldn't seem to grasp before? Yeah, it came back.
By then, I'd already been dipping my toes into farming, fermentation, and other, more “ancestral” ways of living. But that moment — watching myself transform simply by reconnecting to nature's rhythms — was when I truly realized: nature isn't just nice to look at or fun to be in. It's what our bodies are designed to thrive inside, because it's where we evolved. We've just become deeply severed from it because of things like capitalism, industrialization, and colonization. And that severance is making us sick, both in body and in spirit.
Media Appearances
Much of this happened back when I was running a podcast and newsletter called “This Plus That,” exploring how to connect the seemingly unconnectable and why it matters. Over time, I started only talking about aliveness, “erotic ecology,” and all things rooted in what nature teaches us about being human, which eventually led me to what I do today. I’ve recently shifted my business fully in this direction, and I’d love new opportunities to share it.
Podcast Interviews
The Space Between Things
You, Me, Empathy Podcast
June 2023
Brandi Stanley
2 Pages with MBS
May 2023
Identity, Relationships, and Paradoxes
The Revel & Reveal Podcast
February 2023
Connecting the Seemingly Un-Connectable
The Good Dirt Podcast
November 2022
Bridging the Binaries
The Queer Spirit Podcast
October 2022
Brandi Stanley Hosts This Plus That
The What If Project with Dr. Glenn Siepert
October 2022
Exploring the Nature of Paradox
The Ground Work Podcast
September 2022
How to Feel Alive While Living with the Duality of Darkness and Light
The Unmistakeable Creative Podcast
August 2022
Morning Joy Practice
The Best Advice Show with Zak Rosen
August 2022
Becoming More Alive
Art2Life with Nicholas Wilton
June 2022
The Relateables | Brandi x This Plus That
The You Know Everything Podcast
March 2022
This Plus That with Brandi Stanley
The Follow Your Curiosity Podcast
October 2021
Mentioned On
How to Be a Better Human
TED
October 2022
When Real Life Interrupts
Art Juice
July 2022
Bylines
A Bright, White Light
The Dairy Arts Center
April 2022
Features
Reflections on Being Misunderstood
CanvasRebel
June 2022
Meet Brandi Stanley
VoyageDenver
October 2021