Hi! I’m Melissa.

I am guided by a vision of a world where all children know themselves as whole and free.

I work with adults to ensure that children’s connection to their inner wisdom is nurtured and sustains as they learn and grow. And I support adults to deeply connect with the child-wisdom within themselves.

I write, speak, teach, design learning, and lead conversations about children, attention, curiosity, creativity, energetics, and new possibilities for learning and school.

Notice. Wonder. Play. Delight. Love. Children.

This is where I attune and what I share as I write, speak, teach, design learning, and lead conversations about the world we’re living into.

Our attention is the bridge.

How we attune is what we create.

How do we get from here to there?

It’s all practice. I specialize in attention to process and delight for how we practice.

My work weaves within and between four primary layers:

Support for adults who teach and care for children.
Sanctuary for learning leaders who guide systems for children, families, educators, and communities.
Mentorship for visionaries and creatives who want to feel a deeper connection to their inner child and the aliveness of creativity.
Creative writing for children and adults.

What does it mean to live, learn, and grow up in this world we are living in now? What do curiosity and creativity look like amidst the endless clutter and noise of digital landscapes? What might learning (and schools) become if we invested attention to our inner curriculum and released the hidden threads that bind us to old systems? How do we live into our promise of a more beautiful world for our children, our communities, and ourselves?

I work with humans who are asking the question: How do we actually do this?

Learning leaders (principals, founders, directors) who want the day-to-day learning within their organization to deeply align with the original, beautiful vision.

Parents and caregivers who want their children to stay connected to their inner wisdoms amidst the mixed messages of the outside world.

Educators (and other helpers) who know what matters for learning but feel tugged in many directions and need support to remember to trust themselves.

Creatives (writers, artists, makers) who want to bring something new into the world that reaches beyond current densities of thought.

Visionaries (beyond the boxes) who see a new way and have clear ideas for transformation but feel tangled in webs of logic that seem to “limit” what can “actually” happen.

Children know the aliveness of everything.

Children know how to express themselves whole and free.

Deep within, you know this, too.

I’m a former Kindergarten teacher. Through all that I do, the 5-year-old essence of me, is present.

For 23 years, I taught young children in K-5 public schools, developed interdisciplinary play-based curricula, and led school-based professional development. In 2017, I left my position inside one school, in one district and… stepped into the unknown where I allowed myself to dissolve, unfurl, and stretch into new ways of being. Through deep and tangly layers of personal noticing, unlearning, and revision, I found a truer understanding of who I am and what I’m here to create and share with others.

I have over 30 years of experience—study, design, teaching, leadership—in the art and applications of noticing for children, educators, families, communities, and creative practice. My work is rooted in foundations of noticing and notice-to-wonder process. This lives alongside my academic background of curriculum theory, cultural pedagogy, and creative writing, my experience with descriptive documentation, arts integration, open-ended play, and liberatory learning, and my more recent studies of energetics, somatics, and holistic wellbeing.

Over the years, I’ve worked with school teams, administrators, communities of educators, museums, libraries, arts organizations, nature centers, schools of education, creative writing departments, educational conferences, technology start-ups, media developers, informal groups of parents, and gatherings of creative humans.

Whether teaching a workshop, giving a keynote, designing a learning community, advising on product development, facilitating a practice protocol, leading a listening experience, or co-creating something entirely new, I always bring with me a deeply rooted knowing and delight for what’s possible in every small moment.

My approach is emergent, collaborative, and shared with delight.

Our work together invites big questions into small moments, slowness into what feels too full, and depth into what hides below the surface.

Rich, rigorous process. Spacious listening.

And lots of play, laughter, and unknowing along the way.

I don’t work with set templates or packaged programs. Each client, context, and moment is unique and thus, what we create together will emerge as we engage in a process that’s uniquely our own.

Everything we grow together will root from trust in what’s simple, small, and already beautiful and good.

trust

Everything based in trust. Trust for what’s already here and who we already are. Allow, open, release, receive, be.

play

Revise, dissolve, unfurl, flex, fall, unknow, shift perspectives, stretch, contradict, change your mind, giggle, mix metaphors with delight.

small

We notice what’s small to access what’s immense and to remember that we, too, are small. Everything in a button.

slow

The rich and layered space of slowness invites us to attune to who we are. This is beautiful, revolutionary, and essential.

love

Open-hearted, expansive, connected, merged. You are me and I am you; we are everything and everything is us.

unlimited

We are infinite multidimensional beings with endless potential for transformation. As above, so below, as within, so without, as the universe, so the soul (Hermes).