Meet Helen
Coaching since 2005. Learning every day.
This is me in the stern (rear) of the canoe a few years ago. I love this picture because although it might appear to you like I’m a hotshot paddler, the reality is that in my overconfidence I’ve misjudged my approach and I’m heading into failure. In the moments after this photo, I was fighting with all my skill and training to get to an impossible place. Eventually I realized it was futile, and that the only solution was to go with what the river wanted. In this case, that led to us unexpectedly flipping and drifting downstream getting pounded by rocks and big waves. Sometimes life is like that; we work really hard to get something impossible before we realize that we are asked to do something else. And going with the flow isn’t always gentle! But I learned a lot about arrogance and humility that day, and I became a better paddler and partner thanks to Rivière Noire.
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I was born in Ottawa, Canada, the ancestral and current homeland of the Algonquin Anishnabeg, to immigrant parents and have since lived in many regions of Ontario.
My early career was an adventure of leading long canoe expeditions through Boreal wilds while discovering the art of community living with Outward Bound Canada and other organizations.
A call to family-making led my spouse Jennifer and I to return to Ottawa where we are attempting to parent and live keeping the next seven generations in mind.
The need to earn a living has led me to dabble in teaching (K – college and Waldorf); school administration, consulting, coaching (Hendricks Institute certified in 2005); and most recently, against all odds, to a career with the federal public service where I’m trying to influence the workplace to be more humane.
I am currently a student of the Orphan Wisdom School, a patron of the Sacred Gardener (I share these because I hope you’ll check them out) and I’m starting to dip into the allegations of mythopoetic gnosis. I tend to my suburban garden in an aim to nourish soil, birds, bugs, and my family.
I’m happiest when sleeping in a tent, cooking on a fire, soaring on my bicycle, ambling with my dog, laughing until my sides ache, and crafting with natural materials alongside good friends.
I wish I were a better wife, mother, gardener, storyteller, writer, and painter.
When I die, I want to feed soil.