cara barbero's (they/them) connection to the central Vermont quest community spans the past decade, and various roles: from a freshly hatched quester exploring new connections to self and place, to sister, guide, and base camp holder, to their present role of co-creating land-based quest opportunities for folx beyond the gender binary.

cara is, in words of self and others, a word-weaving, song-slinging, authentic relating, unfettered moving, base camp logisticizing, hearth-protecting, queer connecting, conformity resisting, fire-tending momma, grandi, of the land open-hearted wise human. Their work involves exploration of the four shields and their connection to all aspects of life on this beautiful, treasured, weeping earth, while respecting and honoring the indigenous occupants of this place, with historical and contemporary awareness.

cara views their connection to this work as a precious gift from the land and community, and sharing it with others as an act of love.

In expectation of future offerings, cara is available to answer questions and share stories with anyone interested in a community quest for folx drawn to a less binary framework. cara can be reached by email at whitepinebasket@gmail.com.

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Courtney Forti (she/her) lives with her family in the ancestral homeland of the Abenaki people, currently called by some Jeffersonville, Vermont. A deep lover of the more than human world, Courtney has found nature connection and wilderness work to offer the teachings that can’t be learned elsewhere. Through this work, Courtney hopes to share the lessons that come from the discovery of ones authentic and unique gifts alongside their profound responsibility to and interdependence with all life.

She has worked with youth and emerging adults in a variety of contexts from summer camp, wilderness therapy, to residential living programs and has facilitated and co-facilitated rites of passage experiences within these groups using models of solo fasting on the land, self-designed and community-designed ceremony, and legacy work through art and community enhancement. She is informed and educated first and foremost by the land she walks and the more than human world around her as well as by The School of Lost Borders, Animas Valley Institute, and her continued work with Vermont Wilderness Rites and The Central Vermont Community Quest.

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Erik Gillard (he/him), also known as Erok, is an artist, activist, poet, storyteller and wilderness guide living in the Western Abenaki homeland of central VT. For the past 5 years he has been guiding community based wilderness fasts for men. Also a long time youth mentor and a naturalist, Erik sees his guiding as part of the deep work to uproot oppression and domination while simultaneously renewing connection to community.

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Fran Weinbaum (she/her) has been guiding wilderness rites of passage and retreats since 1996. Her growing commitment is to the weaving of soulful community in North Central Vermont through community-created and held ceremony including rites of passage.

Fran has found that the essence of each teaching has been to listen “with the ears of your heart” to all that is speaking within and around you. She trusts that the power, the beauty, and the authenticity of going out on the land and listening will bring people what they need to live their lives with deeper passion, meaning, and purpose. Part of the purpose implicit within each person’s story is what is brought back to their most immediate relationships, to the work they do in the world be it paid or service, to their broader community, and increasingly, as a seed for cultural change that leads to human being and doing that is in balance with the Earth and the Other Than Human world.

A mother and grandmother, she lives in East Montpelier, Vermont, with her husband, Peter, balancing the tending of goats, garden, and hearth with work as a spiritual life coach and wilderness quest guide. She trained with The School of Lost Borders, the Animas Valley Institute, The Institute for Spiritual Development, Earth Island Expeditions (now known as the MettaEarth Institute), Naropa University Authentic Leadership, and The Newfield Network - Ontological Coaching. Most recently, Fran completed training in Clinical Pastoral Education (1 CPE), End of Life Doula, and Hospice. Fran is a member of the Wilderness Guide Council.

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Hannah Morgan (she/her) has always felt a deep ache to belong to the plants and wild places. As a mother, clinical herbalist, writer, organizer and wilderness guide she aspires to weave community together around beauty, magic, healing and justice. Hannah lives with her husband, two young children and beloved dog Freya, on a verdant homestead in the Western Abenaki territory of so-called Plainfield, VT. Hannah has been a youth nature mentor for 15 years and is passionate about creating meaningful rites of passage. She has been part of the Women's fast community since her first quest on the mountain in 2014 and is grateful for her elders and mentors in this community who have held her as she has stepped into a guiding role. To learn more about Hannah's work and read her blog you can visit rabbitwarrenherbals.com.

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Janice Walrafen (she/her) lives is a tall pine forest on the banks of the Winooski River in an off grid cabin with her beloved dogs, ducks and geese, and sweetheart Jason Mallery, who is a guide for the Men’s Quests. She is an artist, and community celebrate organizing seasonal celebrations with puppet pageantry, and teaches art to people of all ages. She has been a co-guide in the CV Community Quests since it first began in 2010.

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Jen Boucher (she/her) lives with her family in Northeast Vermont. For the last 20 years, she has rooted herself deeply on the land - growing vibrant food on their homestead, watching the maple and ash trees (and so many others) grow larger in the forest, tending the cattle that graze the fields.

Jen has been engaged with Central Vermont Wilderness Quest since it's first year in 2010 and acted as a guide and participated in support roles through the years. She has felt the soul of the land enliven as the number of wilderness questers fasting on this land grows. Jen loves to bring song into this work to connect us all and to connect us more deeply to ourselves and to the land.

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Susan Atwood (she/her) has guided for the Central Vermont Women’s Wilderness Quest since 2013. Her work in various capacities as teacher, mentor, and guide has centered on helping people explore their edges with courage and curiosity, to “en-courage” all to connect with their deepest aspirations and interests. Enacting this work within the container of the natural world provides an opportunity to explore self beyond the influences and expectations of human community.

Susan has trained with Fran Weinbaum and with The School of Lost Borders. In 2015 Susan completed the Yearlong Soul-Craft Immersion Program with the Animus Valley Institute led by Bill Plotkin and Geneen Haugen. She has a MA in Education with an emphasis on teaching writing and a MA in Counseling. She currently has a private therapy practice in Central Vermont. Susan has been a student of Buddhism for twenty years, and she is a member of The Wilderness Guides Council.

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Judy Hall (she/her) is at home on an off-grid homestead built at the edge of the Wendell State Forest on land impacted by a tornado in 2006. She is committed to restoration, renovation, and cooperation with the natural forces and more-than-human beings who are her neighbors. Judy is a 2008 graduate of the Animas Valley Institute's five-year Soulcraft Apprenticeship and Initiation Program. Her recent ancestors are Scott-Irish fisher and dairy folk. She is a daughter of the Sawtooth Mountains (Idaho), the Mad River Valley (Vermont), and the hills and forests of western Massachusetts. She is a student of Bill Plotkin (15 years), Carl Jung (31 years), and Marion Woodman (lifetimes). She is a lover of wild places and has guided curious wanderers in the mountains of Idaho, the deserts of Utah, and the river valleys of New England. She could be called dream tracker, underworld guide, practicing naturalist, permie-gardener, poet, a pupil of the crescent moon, she-who-walks-with-crippled feet. She answers to all of them. She is currently mentored by Fran and Courtney Forti of Vermont Wilderness Rites to co-create a Wilderness Rites of Passage Program for 13-15-year-old girls. And she is teaching a monthly nature-based program titled 13 Moons, based on Bill Plotkin's book: Wild Mind with Pete McLean. Most recently, Judy has entered a joyful and demanding initiation under the guidance of her four-year-old grandson and 1-year-old granddaughter.

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Celeste Tulecki (she/they) has always had a hunger to wander into the depths–the depths of the mind, the depths spirit, the forest, the unknown, the ways that the patterns of patriarchy tie our hands whether we are men, women, neither or both. Mothered by the mountains and the trees and the human community of central Vermont Celeste has been seeking out work that weaves deep listening and questions, song and and the artistic work of inviting meaningful connection between self, earth, other and the story of why we are here. She is now a mother to two children, singer for the joy of singing, lover of play and gathering, student to ceremony and the Earth, seeker of laughter and magic and is delighting in the celebration of their queer body as a source of wisdom and depth. Born on and living with this unceded Abenaki land and the knowing that she/they must participate in facing and understanding their participation in structures of power that keep people down, even as a queer person in her whiteness.

Part of the Central Vermont Guiding Circle since 2014 Celeste has also trained with The School of Lost Borders and has a private practice as a massage therapist where she/they roots into the earth and listens deeply through their touch to weave an invitation for opening, settling in, and deepening into the body.

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