INSPIRATION
My ‘tribe’
Over the years I have worked with many kindred souls. This year I will be collaberating with two people who are close to my heart:
Iris Bens
My name is Iris Bens. I first connected with Annette through the Green Care Community of Practice, a network of care professionals dedicated to integrating nature-based approaches more deeply into the support of people with care needs.
Later, as Annette described it, we became “frien-leagues.”
In September 2023, I had the opportunity to join her on a Vision Quest on Terschelling. This was a highly valuable experience that continues to resonate with me daily.
Rituals in and with nature play a significant role in my life. At the place where I live and work, we also engage with the Celtic year calendar—not in a rigid way, but in a creative and accessible manner. Rituals offer a way to step beyond a purely pragmatic perspective and to enter a more meaningful relationship with our environment. In doing so, they foster connection with nature, as well as a sense of wonder and reverence.
Halil Sertbulut
Halil is a lifelong outdoor enthusiast. He got involved with various outdoor sports and volunteered in search and rescue. A political philosopher by education, he quit his PhD and worked as a project manager in energy business. After exhausting himself for 7 years, he left his job and travelled around the world. This helped him to make room in his rational disposition for a newfound spirituality.
He now lives up in a small mountain village near the Mediterranean cost of Turkey, surrounded by woods.
Learning from Annette lets him enhance the joy he gets from being outdoors and working with the elements and helps him deepen his understanding of spirituality of nature.