Welcome!

A warm welcome, and thank you for joining me. I share a mix of storytelling, handmade collages and drawings, plant and health recommendations, upcoming workshops or events, local or further-abroad recommendations from practitioners I trust and believe in, and information around the 1:1 work that I offer.
I hope that whatever I write strikes a chord, inspires, or sparks ideas.
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Topics I write about: ecology, creativity, fungi, plants, healing work, the body, somatic practices, herbalism, thresholds, past life regression work, being a human.
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You can subscribe through substack and receive stories once or twice a month straight to your inbox, or have a little browse of some of the topics I've written about here. An excerpt of the beginning is featured here, and you can click on the link below each story to read the whole piece.

Threshold Magicians

June 2026

Dancing between two worlds – horses, women and the Elder tree

Four horses nudge and sniff me with their soft noses, curious, trying to figure me out. I scratch their foreheads and under their cheeks, and touch their soft noses when I feel like the scratches have earned their trust.
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‍A couple hours beforehand I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Esteben lives in the village. I meet him on my walk a day before and we talk briefly. He had his hands in the soil, harvesting potatoes, loyal to the place he has always lived in. With my incomplete Spanish, I only understand his Catalan invitation to come with for a walk. We drive up the hills on meandering roads surrounded by downy oak trees and terraced land punctuated with old stone walls.

As we travel further up it gets cooler, crisper, and aromatic with the smell of pine. The oak trees give way to pine forest, a mixture of living trees and dramatic bleeched-white tree skeletons in undulating forms. This kind of landscape reminds me of the Rocky Mountains near where I grew up. I feel relief knowing there’s another part of Europe that has been left to its own devices, alive and trembling, not yet too squeezed into form by human hands.

Stinging Nettle, Dandelion and Passionflower

June 2026

Stories About Meeting Plants and How They Work with Our Bodies

‍My teacher Lala hits my knees, calves and ankles with a bundle of Stinging Nettle, a fiery initiation into Nettle’s world and ways. After the initial burning, stinging, all-encompassing sensation, I can feel how my body is waking up and responding to this intervention. I’ve been suffering from many bites from the tiny coffee fleas around the village who live in symbiosis with the coffee plants in the surrounding hills. I’m peppered with big angry bites, each one a red hill thanks to a strong histamine response.

We’re in the middle of Permaculture for the Herbalist’s Path, a 200-hour month-long course held at Lake Atitlán in Guatemala. On this day we’re at Casa Curativa, a small herbal apothecary project in the middle of Tzunana, “valley of the hummingbirds”. Lala and Sarah share various herbal remedies with us on this day, and I’m the perfect candidate for a stinging demonstration...

Calling for More Gentle Space Holding

May 2026

Female or neurodivergent bodies may need smaller containers and different doses when it comes to plant medicine or expanded states.

‍I’ve been thinking a lot about space holding, containers and body differences after a recent plant medicine ceremony I took part in. We were a big group of women, all helping out to create a common space, to build the needed structures, to make the food – taking care of each other and our time together. Song, ritual, prayer and sweat uniting us into present inter-being that felt nourishing and needed. It reminded me of being a scout councilor when I was a teenager: putting up tents, making food together, grass in between your toes.

But during the night of the ceremony I couldn’t help but feel that some of these practices are too strong and pushy for certain female bodies and nervous systems. I looked around the circle and saw some more sensitive souls looking overwhelmed and overstimulated. Perhaps pushed further than their limits or what they needed. We each received the same dose, regardless of constitution, energy type, sensitivity, and point in our cycles....

Fungal Forest Finds and Steady Hearts

May 2026

About recognising Reishi, Mushroom Meditations, and Reishi Tea Combos

‍Stepping out of a cathedral of old douglas fir trees and into open field, I spot her on an old, toppled tree that is slowly reintegrating into the Earth. She is covered in her own chocolate-colored and chocolate-scented spores, growing out of the old tree-wisdom wood, shiny deep burgundy at the place where she meets the tree.

I’m ecstatic – I feel like I’ve been chosen. Each finding of a new or rare or special mushroom feels like a small forest initiation – a moment in time that recognises my attention and participation in forest time, welcoming me into an ever-widening wild world...

Coming Home to Earth

April 2026

About the wound of belonging and home

‍Recently I’ve been reflecting on, and talking with others, about the textures of nature that make us who we are. I dug out my box of childhood photos, searching for clues about the plants, trees and colors that surrounded me as a child. Going through those moments, curated through the eyes of my parents, there was a striking amount of color and pattern. Colorful clothes, bright skies, Colorado mountainscapes, tree trunks, rock formations, blooming flowers, patterned textiles, relics from worldly travels, homemade Halloween costumes. I’m happy that my young eyeballs and growing brain absorbed all of that external beauty and brightness, the wild landscapes and the crisp colors...

Growing the Mycelial Way

April 2026

Spreading slowly in the dark according to divine, fungal timing.

‍The last year has been particularly teaching me how to grow like a mushroom. Under the ground, invisible to the others in the light. My hyphae (the fungal tips of mycelium) are meandering and reaching in the layers of the unseen, finding other fungal strands: meeting beings of the same or other species, checking in on each other, all with the same goals of transformation and connection.

Some nodes in the network show up for a handful of minutes, some for hours, some attach and become part of my own network as we send each other information. Back and forth, back and forth.....

Collage for Creative Integration

March 2026

Making meaning of twelve collages made in my first year on Substack

‍Collage has become one of the funnest and most helpful ways for me to connect to my subconscious and see what is simmering beneath the surface. Whether receiving intuitive messages, hints for the future, or closing chapters, they have gotten me out of my head and into my body and hands every time. Over the last year I often used them as visual inspiration for my writing, or to figure out what was going on in my head. They helped ground ideas and concepts, or showed me what I had to share – either about my personal life or collective themes....

Big (Collective) Grief

March 2026

About the subtle kind of grief whose delicate tendrils spread far and wide into the dark corners where the light doesn’t hit.

‍In The last weeks have been about grief, in unexpected ways. Sat at the end of a table of strangers at a potluck dinner, I ended up in a conversation with a man in his late 50’s that lead us to the topic of grief. The theme of the evening was actually about modern love, but somehow our conversation meandered differently, and we ended up sharing about our sadness of the current times.

We talked about the disconnection that has increased due to smartphones, sharing our remorse over the quick reach to our phones and our decreased attention spans, our current lack of ability to focus on one thing at a time anymore.I talked about my anger and frustration at the neglect and lack of care that I see in my Berlin neighbourhood Friedrichshain in the streets at the moment: trash and discarded objects, dog shit and cigarette butts on every street. People walking, phone in hand, oblivious to their dog’s or children’s needs, and the ground littered with things people didn’t want to deal with. I expressed my current deep grief. A grief that feels less personal and close to the body, but instead expanding further, connected to our collective consciousness maybe, at seeing the state of where I live and the sometimes vacant-looking strangers around me...

Creating Your Own Apothecary

February 2026

A very basic guide of seven tips on how to get started with creating relationships with the plants and mushrooms that resonate with you and your body.

‍In Germany, I often take our apothecary system for granted—there are safeguards, quality control, and a sense that what you’re buying is at least what it claims to be. In the US, the supplement world can feel like a wild ocean of capsules, marketing, and mystery.

While in Portland, Oregon, I visited several small apothecaries and herbal shops, curious how people are rebuilding herbal culture in the modern world—ideally making it communal, approachable, and alive again. It was inspiring in some ways, missing the mark in others… and it also reminded me: finding the right plants and mushrooms is not a quick-fix journey. It’s slow, personal, and surprisingly complex.

‍It’s a snail’s pace kind of process and learning, and is a bit like learning a new language – but ultimately empowering. And more and more important to take into our own hands as much as possible.

‍Even after taking Lala Palmieri’s and Sarah Wu’s month-long herbalism and permaculture course in Guatemala in 2022, I was just at the very beginning of being able to understand how to approach the plant and mushroom kingdoms and figure out how to support my body, let alone anyone else’s....

The Integration Era

January 2026

After years of mind expansion, mental health discoveries, healing journeys and sharing of big dreams, it's time for us to ground what we learned and put it into practice.

‍I’m sitting in a dimly lit, musty smelling back room of a 100-year-old church building in Portland, Oregon. We’re sat in a circle of about 16 people on plastic folding chairs like a stereotypical self-help group from an American TV show. Everyone introduces themselves briefly and why they’ve come to the meet-up. The vibe is reserved, a little reluctant, but slightly searching for connection. We’re all there to discuss what psychedelics have to do with Buddhism. I signed up weeks before and nearly forgot, and though it’s my next to last day in Oregon I can feel there’s something important about going to this meet-up this evening.

In a smaller group of six we turn to the question of how our recent experiences have been going - with regards to psychedelic experiences, integration, or life in general. With a lot of patience and care, each person brings their experiences to the circle, everyone listens calmly, the topic morphs and changes naturally. I can’t remember ever having been in a group discussion on the topic of psychedelics with such vastly different points of view - and our differences are a pleasure to experience. Each contribution is very grounded and real, not sugar-coating life or the complexities that can arise...

When Mushrooms Invite You to Climb for Your Dinner

November 2025

A forest, a mushroom, a dog, a human

‍Cow bells ring softly, old stones are underfoot. I walk past a tiny fig tree that’s on a mission to show its prowess: not even a meter tall, but full of bounty. The sky is clear and deep blue, early autumn light makes everything glow a little, as if its been wrapped in a translucent golden film, softer and more welcoming than in other seasons. I meet a red squirrel with a fur coat moving from light brown to auburn to red, as if it went for an ombre effect at the hair salon. It’s mouth stuffed with a nut, we stare at each other for a couple full minutes before I finally break the link and let him continue preparing his stash.

Without my phone and on a mission to wander, the neighbor’s grey mustached dog runs up to me, jumping on me and not letting loose, as if trying to initiate a slow dance. He leaps and bounds around, eventually taking the lead along the path. His owner is digging up potatoes - we exchange pleasantries in Spanish. His canine companion leads me through fields and down paths next to old stone walls...

Art's Transforming Role:
From Top Down to Bottom Up

August 2025

About building bridges between science, nature and healing. And creating first-hand experiences of discovery and emotion for others

‍My biggest book recommendation of the year so far (besides “The Overstory” from Richard Powers), is undoubtedly “Art as Therapy” by Alain de Botton and John Armstrong.It opened many doors in my mind and gave me a more expansive view on how the role of an artist or designer can play a bigger part in the times that are upon us and coming. They put forward the idea that art should serve as a lighthouse for good and that artists should “become the choreographer[s] of an experience you should have, rather than an experience they once had”: that the underlying mission of art should change how we experience the world.

To some this might sound a little obvious, to others a bit too ambitious, but in their book they were able to convey how it is time for the role of art to shift. Away from creating memorials and instead creating opportunities for deeper first-hand experiences of the real thing...

Learning the Language of Nature

July 2025

How pattern recognition in nature can lead to pattern recognition in ourselves and fellow humans

‍The smell of wild roses mixed with pine trees and salty ocean. This sensorial cocktail follows me for hours and kilometers along the Polish Baltic Sea, etching a new memory and location into my brain to return to in moments where I crave feelings of flow and freedom. The scenery changes again and again in it’s combination of trees and plants. I imagine the mycelial structures just under the surface. Returning in autumn, basket in hand, to sand-loving mushrooms that enjoy this seaside environment of salty air and mossy ground. Each of these shifts in the environment are feeding my brain with new information and patterns, giving me clues about the spaces I’m entering and exiting.

Biking and camping for several days affords a unique experience of passing through many different environments over a short amount of time. Yet at a slow enough pace to still identify familiar plants, trees and other living beings. Each break for water or a snack opens up another opportunity to crouch down and get closer to our surroundings, noticing patterns known and new. These trips help me to more fully immerse with Earth, providing occasions to expand my language of the natural world...

Going to Mushroom Church

May 2025

About a solo magic mushroom trip on Christmas Eve, an unexpected evening in a church, and the beauty of experiencing all the emotions

What does it feel like to be in one spot for your whole life, deeply and widely connected to your surroundings: every neighbor, every tree, the soil, the plants.

‍I’m sitting amongst 500 other people – imagining exactly this. On an uncomfortable wooden pew, a zodiac-themed chandelier above, red brick walls, in a square-shaped church in Kreuzberg, Berlin. Everyone has calmed down for a moment, eyes closed, breathing relaxed, bodies slumped against the wood. Tarun Nayar opens “Mushroom Church” with this short, guided meditation, helping everyone root down into this shared space for the next hour or two.

The next hour and a half of the experimental format is filled with mushroom and plant music: different mushrooms and plants are connected to synthesizers, creating etheric and unexpected sounds and patterns. The church is lit up in different colors, morphing visuals are projected on the ceiling, and collaborators enter and exit the front of the room, adding music or poetry to the evening. The atmosphere is warm and welcoming, the congregation giggly, curious and responsive.

It does remind me of going to conventional church a little, but it feels a lot more right. We are connecting with the natural world and with each other, a language I understand more quickly than written records and stories from another time. The guidance and wisdom from plants and mushrooms hits softly but quickly, a more gentle nudge in the right direction than the old stories that often pull on our mental capabilities first...

Resurrecting Rituals and Creating the New

April 2025

And thoughts on how to end cycles with oomph

The end of April, and what a ride it has been so far this year! So much intensity in just a couple of months - not only in the external world, but also reflected in my own life and in the lives of those around me. (Thank goodness for astrology updates from Molly McCord, which help to understand it’s not just me..!)The only other time I remember so many people going through big shifts and realizing they needed to move into something new was within the first year of the pandemic.

Although there are also some external motivations this time, to me it appears that a lot of the conversations and decisions this time around are coming from a more grounded, internal resilience. These rooted decisions seem to be based on lived experience and nudges from the heart, and are less like the 2020 feeling of having the rug pulled out from under us. A more collective decision to change and create the new, more patient and forgiving, is emerging...