About Daphne

Short version

Former English/drama teacher and teacher trainer. Second career in counselling, psychotherapy and mentoring. Now an elder, technically retired, but engaging with individuals and not-for-profit SMOs working with the climate crisis and the natural world. A lifelong reader, writer, learner and teacher.

Long version

I spent most of my solitary early childhood climbing trees, getting lost in woods, playing in water… seeking outdoor adventures whenever possible. Forced indoors, I found adventures in reading whatever I could lay my hands on, and in writing my own stories. The natural world - especially trees, plants, birds and water - and reading and writing enabled me to navigate the difficulties of home and school life.


At 18, about to enter what was then called teacher training college, I ran away from higher education, from ‘home’, and from myself. I soon married and spent the 1970’s having a son and a daughter and doing a variety of evening and weekend work such as barmaiding, waitressing, cleaning, being an Avon Lady... such glamour!...  anything to help boost family income. Work from home clerical work too, decades before ‘working from home’ was a Thing. All simultaneous with being a mum, housewife, chief cook and bottle-washer and generally doing what was expected of a good wife and mother. But I watched the Rock Follies on tv and in 1979 heard Marianne Faithfull singing The Ballad of Lucy Jordan. I decided I too wanted to ride through Paris, in a sports car, with the warm wind in my hair. Or at least, anything other than my current life which - apart from my children - seemed utterly without meaning.


I began the journey back to myself. Initially, I took the academic route by re-taking previously failed A levels, becoming a full-time ‘mature’ (not sure I was) university student of English Language and Literature - and French, so I got to Paris, even if not in a sports car. I subsequently took a PGCE in English and Drama and went into teaching: a practical way to combine childcare and a career. And from the psychological perspective, a way to resolve past issues with worse-than-inadequate teachers. I haven’t stopped educating myself - in the academic and also a much wider developmental sense - since.


In 1983 my marriage ended, I engaged in my own therapy, and spent ten years teaching. That therapy, and my teaching experiences - especially with children labelled as having emotional and behavioural difficulties - led me to realisations about the deep inadequacies of our education system. I decided to re-train as a counsellor - first working in educational settings -  then took a psychology degree and  more in-depth training in psychotherapy. Since then, I have worked in a variety of organisational and personal development settings as psychotherapist, facilitator, counsellor, mentor, life coach... there are many different titles for what is, at heart, the same process. Whilst there are significant differences in methodologies, and theoretical underpinnings, ultimately my work has been about facilitating the development of others to get from where they are now to where they want to be. You can read more about this and the facilitation skills I offer here


There has been another, different strand in this web of experience. On my fiftieth birthday I had a powerful synergetic experience whilst walking a labyrinth. It was a Maslovian peak experience - a Joycean epiphany even - and I continue to have similar experiences.

Because of those experiences - and because of my lifelong love for the natural world, where most of them occur - I have for the last ten years or so engaged increasingly with conservation and environmental issues, doing both practical and people-engagement volunteering with conservation organisations. I currently have volunteer roles with the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, leading wellbeing walks and writing website copy, and with a small climate education organisation called With Many Roots. I do rather less hands-on physical work these days!

I also became involved in what might be termed the ‘spiritual’ aspects of connection with landscape and nature, studying animism and training in core shamanic practice with the Sacred Trust, with teachers from Michael Harner’s Foundation for Shamanic Studies, and with lone teachers in Scotland, Ireland, Uganda, and Nicaragua. As well as finding allies in the non-material realms via inner-work approaches such as meditation, visualisation, dreamwork, etc.

My own research and practice has taken me on both inner and outer journeys into the ancient Medicine practices of the landmass called Britain. Via more formal channels, I continue to study natural history, ecotherapy, nature-connectedness and what is often labelled 'meditation' or  ‘mindfulness’. I don't define myself as a Buddhist, but I am deeply interested in Buddhist practices and philosophy.


I honoured and consolidated my lifelong writing practice by taking an MA in Creative Writing in 2016. I maintain a nature journal as part of my spiritual practice, and on a more ordinary reality level, I write experience pieces for several conservation organisations. I also research and write about wellbeing via the natural world.

All this has led me to today: to relaunch what will be the rest of my life’s work under the label of the Nemetona Project. I offer my skills and experience to anyone who thinks they might be helpful… do make contact if you think that might be you, your group, or your organisation.

updated July, 2026