I’m Natasha, also known by my buddhist name Nagadipa.

Nagadipa is a Sanskrit word which was given to me after many years training to be ordained within my buddhist tradition. It means Light in the Depths. If you understand Sanskrit you’ll understand a little more about the symbolism of Nagas and why I am such a water lover.

In recent years quite a few people ask me how I got to here. I was tired of feeling somewhat uptight when reading my own bio so I rewrote it in favour of informality, and towards answering this question.

A Jack of all trades and a master of what binds them.

Welcome to the Art of Rewilding which I set up nearly a decade ago after having just walked away from my ‘almost’ Fine Art career.

A few months prior to that point I was sipping a glass of red wine whilst sitting on a Parisian pavement outside my own vernissage feeling more than a little disenchanted by my lack of joy at this career milestone. The words GET OUTDOORS rang in my head just as a text arrived from a friend telling me that the author David Abram was coming to England.

And thus, the next chapter began.

Rewind to my twenties and thirties.

I spent nine years at art school training as a sculptor and photographer. Creativity runs through my blood - it has all my life. A vivid imagination, a never-ending fountain of ideas and connection-makings has its pluses and its minuses…

Then, in 1998, at the tender age of 26 this ‘South London gal’ became a Buddhist much to the horror of my very secular upbringing and family. I was what I affectionately call ‘a hard core buddhist’ back then. VERY committed, studying buddhism, working in right livelihoods, living in community and training to be ordained as a buddhist.

At the age of 30 my artist identity and my buddhist identity collided - is there a better word for the experience? What I mean is that I could no longer hold these two identities at arms length from each other. It was a very interesting experience and actually bought me more fully into the world and out of my imagination. I still remember it vividly, I was walking in the foothills of La Chapelle D’Abondance with my camera and hiking day pack. This ‘colliding’ bought many fruits.

A job landed in my lap out of the blue and I began teaching groups of adults. Back then I taught contemplative and creative photography, ways to access the creative impulse through the artist’s way, buddhism and meditation.

The British photographer Tom Hunter very generously would come to Brighton to show his photograohs to my students and we got chatting. I showed him my photographs and he said, ‘You’re hardly National Geographic material’ and invited me to apply for the Masters he taught on. The outcome of which was that I returned to art school in 2010 - a gift to myself - which I now laugh wryly at because it was so very academic and theoretical. Not at all what I had expected. I wrote my master thesis ‘The Deterritorialization of the Photograph’ on how the works of David Abram, Merleau Maurice Ponty, Gilles Deleuze and Elizabeth Grosz gave context to what was unfolding in my photographic fine art practice. It very nearly killed me to write this - to galvanise my vast non-verbal way of making images into academic language and structure. I could not have done it without the support of my dyslexia-support tutor Tim Stephens.

It’s pretty good, if you’d like to read it, I’ll send you a copy!

Fast Forward to my fifties.

For the last twenty six years I’ve trained, been ordained and taught as a Buddhist. In the last decade I’ve apprenticed to, and been offering courses and trainings in the territory of nature-based rites of passage also known as vision quests. During that same period I have also been apprenticing the body and what I might now call Eco-Somatics or Embodied-Animism through my own practice and development of Gene Gendlin’s Focusing process flavoured by some Milton Ericksonian approaches.

The principle of animism is a way of perceiving and engaging with a living and animate earth, including all the seen and unseen beings that inhabit it. This alive connection emerges not through abstract thinking but through direct experience - rooted in our direct sensory experience and a cultivation of reciprocal relationships. This is a participatory way of being, where humans are just one among many expressive participants in the dynamic, interconnected multiverse of life.

This way of being demands that we listen - not just with our ears or eyes (that’s another conversation) but with our hearts, our intuition, and our senses. It is a deeply, relational way of being in the world, encouraging us to remember that we are not separate from the natural world, but are woven into its very fabric.

This is known through the body and experientially. I am keen, some might say overly keen to emphasise the difference between alienated awareness and integrated awareness. And between conceptual understanding and experiential understanding. By focusing solely on personal self-development, psychology, and improved leadership skills, we inadvertently limit our exploration and understanding. These secular/ rational approaches can only take us so far.

It took me a very long time to trust my way back into my body. I can be very dismissive of retreats or trainings where this is not paid enough heed.

Stepping away from my soapbox, swiftly.

Deep Dives.

Some of what I facilitate is in at the deep end. In at this deeper end of nature-connection the way we guide does not end with increased mental and emotional wellbeing, but aims to create a profound shift in our sense of identity, transforming it from one that is isolated to one that is deeply rooted in relationship; from Isolated Self to Ecological Self.

This changes us at depth. We are grown through Earth’s dream of us.

It is also a kind of magic.

And it’s not easy. There needs to be enough steady, enough emotional resilience, enough integrated awareness and sense of navigating from ones own authenticity to be able to withstand the vagaries that accompany BIG identity shifts. There is no fast track here.

Elements you will find repeated throughout my work are: Rites of Passage (supporting transformations with nature), Eco-Somatics or Embodied Animism, somatic practices that aid integrated (as appose to alienated) awareness and show you how to be in Relational Reciprocity (which is a key component to understanding the Mirror of Nature), the creative impulse, ritual and myth. All the while offering ways to ground it back home one step at a time.

My work is ultimately at the service of Becoming-Elders and recognising that we are all indigenous to earth, with the aim of actualising communities and futures that are good for soul, soil and society.

Wow, are you still reading?

As a licensed coach, my work draws on my 26 years of Buddhist practice (and ten years as an ordained Buddhist) alongside a decade of dedication to therapeutic and embodiment modalities, specifically Eugene Gendlin’s Focusing method, Identity Orientated Psychotrauma Therapy, Compassionate Enquiry and Generative Change.

I have a private practice and primarily encourage people to align with their true nature and embody the gifts they carry, so that they may live as powerful, healing influences in their communities.

I offer online and in person programmes, nature based seminars and retreats, vision quests and 1-2-1 mentoring. I’m based between Austria and the UK. The photo is of me with my two beloveds - my husband goofing around with me and the ocean.

As featured in The Guardian: 10 of the Best Wellness Nature Retreats for 2024

Professional Certified Generative Coach with the IAGC Accredited with the International Coaching Federation

Team leader for Robert.Dilts and Steve Gilligan for three years - Creative Mind & Systemic Trance

Identity-Orientated Psychotrauma Therapy training with Vivian Broughton, completed in 2022

Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher having delivered bespoke courses in MBSR including within HM prison service for four years

In the last seven years I have been apprenticing the body. To what I might now call Eco Somatics or Embodied Animism through the development of Gene Gendlin’s Focusing process.
Certified Focusing Skills Yearlong (twice) with BFA (2018). Specialised in Untangling with Cornell and McGavin (2022).

Twenty six years meditation and Buddhist practice. Ordained within my tradition ten years ago, my work as a Buddhist has included serving as a prison chaplain

My Wilderness Guide Training over the last decade includes apprenticing to Annie Bloom since 2016 (former AVI lead guide). Having trained and assisted with School of Lost Borders I consider Annie to be my main teacher. The way I guide is more deeply informed by her approaches and methods.

Core Team Member of Wilderness Guides Council UK

Eco-Psychology Practitioner

I enjoy exploring the crossover between my wilderness practices and shamanism thanks to Rasmus Ludvigsen

Professional certified teacher: PGCE in post compulsory education

Nine year full time Fine Art/ Photography training including Photography Masters. Professional Fine Art Photographer including having exhibited internationally

Twenty years facilitating Mindfulness and the Arts, specialising in creative and contemplative photography, myth and creative writing; developing presence and freeing creative expression