I was born in a small village in southern Germany. Due to quite complex and difficult family dynamics, I found this environment increasingly stifling and restrictive as I grew up, and left home and the country at age 19. Since then, I have spent most of my adult life living in the U.K., and much of that in London. Over the past few years however, I have come to realise the importance of particularly my maternal grandmother’s legacy of a strong connection with nature and place. My grandparents’ simple way of life in a secluded house in the forest used to be an enchanted refuge for me as a child. I was also fortunate enough still to be able to roam and play unsupervised as a child, and always experience a relief and ‘coming home’ sense in wild, uncultivated places, and in direct contact with undomesticated other-than-human beings.

I have been meditating and practicing as a buddhist for over 20 years, and have worked as a Child Psychotherapist for around that same length of time. For me personally, the combination of psychoanalysis and buddhist meditation has transformed my life, in helping me respond creatively to my particular set of life circumstances. The strong emphasis on friendship and community (sangha) in the Triratna Buddhist Order (

I was ordained in 2011)  has been especially instrumental in this - I lived happily in a small Buddhist community in East London for thirteen years until recently, and would like to live communally again in the future - but based in nature rather than the city. I have a castle-in-the-clouds dream of building an eco-house one day on a piece of land somewhere, to live and work in communally.