Emily Frost and Quetzal Francois are the heart of Love Your Nature and core facilitators of Real Talk Curriculum. They bring over 30 years combined experience working with youth and families around the Bay Area. From the classroom to the back-country, they have worked with almost every age. Quetzal and Emily met in 2015, and it was love at first sight! Since then they have joined forces to offer Real Talk and model true sisterhood to hundreds of teens and families.
Founding Director
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EMILY FROST is an artist, educator and contemporary rites of passage guide working with youth and families around the Bay Area. She is also a devoted mama, wife, sister and daughter. She is the Founding Director of LOVE YOUR NATURE, a movement devoted to girls and women awakening to their inherent wisdom, power, and purpose. Emily offers 1:1 sessions with teen girls, young women and parents in her private practice in Berkeley, CA, and facilitates programs that develop social, emotional and spiritual intelligence, with a focus on girls coming of age.
Learn more about Emily... |
Director
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QUETZAL FRANCOIS is an educator, mentor, and activist. She works with young people and adults, in groups and individually, all over the Bay Area. Quetzal Francois brings 15 years of experience designing curriculum and facilitating groups for teens and people who work with teens. Her focus is on social and emotional intelligence, communication skills, intimacy, gender, empowered sexual health education, self harm, developing self confidence, building healthy and nurturing relationships (romantic and platonic), and LGBTQ matters.
Learn more about Quetzal... |
Guides
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CARMEN MCNEIL, As a Facilitator, Educator, and Period of Empowerment™ Guide, Dr. Carmen McNeil is committed to helping girls and women understand how impressive they really are. She holds a Ph.D. in Psychology, is a tenured professor, as well as a graduate of the California Black Women’s Health Project Advocacy Training Program.
Dr. Carmen has been a featured speaker for conferences, women’s organizations, and educational institutions. She pours her 25+ years of teaching, counseling, and training into supporting Power Parents and Community Influencers raising black girls; facilitating empowerment camps and workshops; and helping to lead the culture-shift around menstruation via her Power to the Period™, Rock with Your Menstrual Rhythm™, and Daring Daddies of Daughters™ workshops. Carmen is a devoted wife and proud mama of a teenage son. Learn more about Carmen... |
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CAITLIN MCNEELY grew up exploring the gentle sandy beaches of the southern Gulf coast and the giant sprawling oak trees in her urban Houston neighborhood. In the summer, her favorite time was spent road-tripping to the magical tide pools and rocky beaches of a small island off the coast of Maine. She has studied the intersection of nature, spirituality and creative writing in the US and abroad. She follows a path of learning from and supporting indigenous cultures and wisdom-keepers.
Caitlin holds training from the Wilderness Awareness School in Washington and is currently training in Somatic Ecopsychology and is deepening her ecotherapeutic skills. Caitlin holds experience and knowledge in permaculture, organic farming, folk herbalism and ancestral bushcraft, and is Wilderness First Aid certified. Learn more about Caitlin... |
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ISABELLA MASTERSON is a recent graduate of UC Davis, double majoring in Psychology and Human Development with a minor in Asian American Studies. During the school year, she worked at the university Sexual Violence Prevention office creating curriculum and working to educate the campus community on how to prevent sexual violence. She has been in one of Emily's groups since 6th grade, about 12 years. It is one of the best spaces she has ever had the honor of being a part of and cannot recommend it enough! She is grateful to have assisted Love Your Nature programs for 2+ years, and lead her own Davis group. Learn more about Isabella...
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CORALIE BORDER is a college graduate, writer and creative. She received B.A.s in Sociology and English (creative writing) at UC Davis in 2023, where she also worked as an academic advisor and journalist. She has been a part of the Love Your Nature community since she joined a group in her youth, and has helped mentor teens at Summer Retreat for years. Some of her passions include mental health, queer empowerment, visual arts, poetry, and music. She hopes to foster spaces where young women and queer people are free to express themselves and find their places in the world. Learn more about Coralie...
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Advisory Council
Our project is blessed to have strong circles of support informing, advising and inspiring our work. Our Advisory Council includes key individuals with key expertise in our area of focus, and a strong relationship to our project. We are so grateful for all they have done to become the friends, mentors, and anchors along our journey as we evolve our work.
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CHARIS DENISON is a nationally recognized youth advocate, teacher, parent educator, and expert on what teenagers need to develop new life skills. She brings 23+ years experience to Prajna Consulting, empowering young people to make choices that end in honor and joy rather than guilt, shame, or regret. She partners with youth, families, schools, organizations and communities around human development, social justice, and ethics. Charis has received national recognition for her work and has been on the faculty of the Urban School of San Francisco, Branson School, and Marin Academy in San Rafael CA.
Learn more about Charis via her TedX Talk or her website. |
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For twenty years, VANESSA STONE has served as a visionary, teacher, humanitarian leader, inspired speaker, group facilitator, and mentor. Vanessa has initiated and served as lead facilitator in many transformational projects including Amala Foundation, The Global Youth Peace Summits, African Youth Summits, Camp Indigo, Bhatti Mines School Project in India, Camp Mana, One Village Prison Project, One Village Farm Project, and currently co-founder of The Institute for Emerging Visionaries.
All of Vanessa’s humanitarian work is now under the One Village Project, a regenerative model of visionary education and engagement that unites a global community of active and engaged humans in service to the highest expressions of ourselves, one another, and the earth. "Our work is a response to the rising generation of young people seeking to reimagine new models of transformational education and meaningful community engagement united in service for the restoration of our sentient nature and collaborative potential." - Vanessa Vanessa is devoted to co-create in service with community, and continue to mentor and inspire people from all over the world to put voice to vision, serve creation, study nature, realize authentic freedom and live for the soul. |
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DIANA DIVECHA, Ph.D., is a Berkeley-based developmental psychologist who consults, writes, and speaks about the science of how children, teens, and families grow and develop. She is a research affiliate with the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and is an advisor to The Greater Good Science Center, Futures Without Violence, Stepping Stones, and the National Partnership for Women and Families.
She has written about children’s needs in the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Washington Post, Psychology Today, The Hill, Time, Inc., and regularly on her blog. In an earlier life, she taught developmental courses and was the Chair of the Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Development at Sonoma State University. Diana and her husband have two daughters happily launched into adulthood. |
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MARILYN HENDEE brings her Elder wisdom to the Love Your Nature community. She generously shares a lifetime of lived experience, from the early contemporary rites of passage world in the West, starting with the Wilderness Guides Council in the 1980's, and currently as a grandmother of a young women in our program. Marilyn has personally led more than 30 Vision Quests! We are blessed beyond words to benefit from her wisdom, grace, and humility. Photo Wilderness Guides Council 1980's.
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JONAS HUNTER is a lifelong learner with a deep love of nature, vision quest and solo backpacking trips. As a dual citizen (Canadian / American) who grew up overseas half his life, in India, Japan, Russia, Macedonia and the other half in the US and Canada, Jonas brings a broad perspective to his work. Jonas loves solving problems and discovering the underlying reasons why we do what we do and how to become more effective at doing what we really care about. He's run a tech company, managed a Non-Profit focused on Regenerative Agriculture, and for the past 10 years been consulting as a COO and furthering the work of organizations and businesses whose missions he cares deeply about. Love Your Nature is lucky to have Jonas' generous friendship and key professional skills at our back.
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ROCHELLE MCLAUGHLIN is an internationally known trauma and culture-sensitive anti-oppression leadership facilitator, mentor, and mindfulness teacher. Rochelle inspires individuals to turn towards their direct experience of the present moment as a source of power and 'revolutionary wellness'. She asks us to look for what deeply nourishes our heart, body, and mind and take a radical stand in our own life and health. Rochelle has touched many lives through her courses, retreats, guidance and compassionate listening. She shares the message of Revolutionary Wellness through her website, private coaching, silent retreats, radio show, and the mindfulness- based stress reduction course she teaches at San Jose State University. Rochelle's life’s work is to empower people to get themselves out from under unsatisfactory circumstances, to rise up, and thrive. “Make embodied, discerning, and courageous choices that bring you closer to the life and world you long for.” ~Rochelle
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BETH BERRY is a writer, life coach, mother of four daughters and the voice of Revolution From Home. Emily met her through Motherworthy - an intimate year-long program designed for change-maker mothers who are fed up with the status quo and inspired to get messy and courageous to cultivate change from the inside out. Beth has since become an ally to us and our work, particularly by inspiring our messages through her writing and curriculum.
In her own words... "Few things bring me more joy than witnessing and supporting people as they grow into truer, more fully realized versions of themselves. My work in the world is to keep my heart open (even when doing so is painful), to seek, honor, and revive the sacred feminine, and to hold a lantern for those ready to journey deeper within." |
Affiliated Organizations...
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We donate annually to the following...
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