“What’s one of your dreams?”

“One of my dreams is to inspire and enable people to reconnect with nature. Pretty much the root of every issue in society is disconnection from the natural world.”

“Have you always felt that way or was there something specific that inspired you to have that awareness?”

“I think I’ve always been programmed as a nature kid. I grew up in the suburbs but wanted to be out in the woods. It wasn’t until I was in grad school in New York studying design that I realized I had seasonal affective disorder. So in the winter I would get depressed because I wasn’t getting enough sun and I realized how much not getting enough nature was affecting my mental health. My thesis ended up being about how disconnection from nature affects your mental health. When I came back to San Francisco I was wondering what to do with all this knowledge I had so started this thing called the Forest Bathing Club. It’s 300 people who meet up monthly in nature. It’s like a yoga class meets a hike.”

“Psychiatrist have been obsessed with sexual mental health disorders but when it comes to nature there’s only one: seasonal affective disorder. In reality there are tons and tons of ways that nature affects our mental health.”

“I was just in a silent meditation retreat in Hawaii and being grounded in nature was so healing.”

“Yeah, nature is therapy. I saw this guy who used to lead treks in Nepal and he said a psychiatrist told him that he was going to put him out of business because when you immerse yourself in nature all your dysfunctions go away. My dream is to make it so you don’t have to go to Nepal to receive that energy.”

“What was one of your favorite things to do as a little kid?”

“To invent games with my friends. I grew up in this neighborhood where there were no fences in people’s back yards so you could just run through everyone’s yard. One family had a trampoline. I had this rich imaginary world with friends.”

“What was one of those worlds?”

“One day we decided to be reporters/spies and we went around the neighborhood documenting what was going on with everyone. When you actually start to look at the world that way it’s funny cause it’s like, ‘There’s a sock in the middle of the road. What happened there’?”

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