NanLeah

NanLeah is a self-taught naturalist whose presence is a steady, quiet medicine—much like the gift she received from studying with John Fox. Her life has carried her across the landscapes of the US. In each place she has fallen in love with the Beings who welcomed her. Wherever she has lived, the wild has offered her a place to rest, a place to breathe, a place to return to herself.

For twenty-seven years, NanLeah has rooted herself in the daily grace, of plants, animals, and birds who share their home with her. She lives in the temperate rainforest of the Olympic Peninsula—Emerald land where moss thrives, rivers chuckle, and the wild things offer the kind of peace that arises when one steps outside the grief of the world. Wonder, astonishment, gratitude, and love are her constant companions. Recently she's been making friends with squirrels, a practice she highly recommends!

Nature poet, photographer, and poetographer, NanLeah braids these ways of seeing into a single practice—bearing witness to nature as it unfolds in her neck of the woods, and inviting others to find refuge in their unique environments.

Since 2018, NanLeah has supported the generative healing powers of IPM’s Year of Poetic Medicine programs. She is delighted to help shepherd the seventh year of Poetry of Nature and is honored to contribute to IPM’s mission of “awakening soulfulness in the human voice”—the same soulfulness one encounters when stepping into the quiet company of wild things.