Testimonials

Because we do scary things, when we accomplish it, it makes us proud and helps me to have more confidence in myself in the world.
~ Rite of Passage Participant

I love how whenever you arrive, no matter how your day was you can’t help but feel happy.
~ Wildflowers Participant

I found myself looking forward to growing up rather than dreading it. I now feel proud to be a woman!
~Rite of Passage Participant

Gaia Passages is always a huge relief in my week, and I feel more confident in myself and with others. I am a lot more connected to nature and the earth, in some way protected from what I don’t like about most middle schoolers’ behavior, like bad attitudes, judgment, and self-depreciation, and insecurity. I also feel I have a much better relationship with my mom.
~Rite of Passage Participant

Gaia Passages is a really fun thing to do after school. I feel accepted and comfortable about what I am wearing and I can express who I am. And it is so awesomely amazing when I’m at summer camp. It is really fun and I feel at home and I LOVE Gaia Passages. I really really really recommend Gaia Passages. I look forward to Gaia Passages every day! I love to learn about plants and awesome stuff. And I know how to make a fire with a piece of burnt fabric and a rock and a piece of metal!!
~Rite of Passage Participant

From being a part of Gaia Passages for three years, I can express myself more and have learned more about plants and animals. I think that I can be more happy and positive in my life outside of Gaia Passages too. I love being able to tell my friends about Gaia Passages. And I really make friends anywhere now! It is probably the funnest thing I have ever done! I LOVE IT!
~Rite of Passage Participant

Sophie has found her [group]! She loves connecting with the earth, learning about nature, and meeting other women and girls. It has been an experience that I never could have given her on my own.
~ Jenny Beck, mother of Sophie

I see my daughters are using, seeing, and connecting to nature in a more profound way. It has helped them with their confidence at school & with their peers. I really like how they are learning the power of sisterhood.
~ Deirdre Murphy, mother of twins Aoife & Socha Shen

Gaia Passages was incredibly positive for Aili, me and our whole family. Our family has applied the tools we learned about nonviolent communication and that has been very helpful and healthy.
~ Emilia Sumelius-Buescher, mother of Aili Buescher

After a really hard day recently for our country, my daughter repeated over and over again, how perfect it was to be at Gaia Passages on that day. She said that it was exactly what she needed to be able to cope, to be outside in the woods with a bunch of girls talking about our feelings around a fire. She has been quietly singing the gentle heart song that she learned at Gaia Passages over and over, and I keep coming in on her singing that to herself as this calming, empowering mantra.
~ Gwen Loeb, mother of a Gaia Girl

One of the things that my daughter has struggled with has been stepping out and sharing her voice. After a year of being in a Gaia Passages group, I can see that Kayla’s confidence is growing. I was so proud of her when she recently made a petition at school and spoke up in front of the entire 4th and 5th-grade classes. I really believe that these seeds that are being planted in her and the support she is receiving through Gaia Passages has helped her to find her voice.
~ Lori Hess, mother of Kayla

Gaia Passages is so central for my daughter. It is a place where courage and power are supported in a really fun and playful way. I feel that her spirit really gets fed. When she comes home her eyes are shining bright and she feels happy. It has also been really special for her to have older girls who she is close with to be positive role models for her.
~ Alyssa, mother of Kiara

Gaia Passages has provided a space for both my daughter and I to experience community. As newcomers to the area, we cherish the opportunity to find friends who share similar ways of thinking. I love the ways in which Gaia Passages conveys its values to the girls, and I especially love it when the mamas get to play a role in it.
~ Camila Loew, mother of Olivia

Gaia Passages has been such an incredible experience for both my daughter and myself. I have seen my daughter come into a whole new side of herself since starting, a side that was much more dormant before. Gaia Passages has opened her up to a new community of like-minded girls, and she is being guided towards deepening her earth connection, honesty, and authenticity, and doing creative projects that actually draw out her unique gifts, kindness, and courageous individuation. These are virtues that I am not seeing nurtured and encouraged very much anywhere else. At this tender age, when so much is about to change, for her and also for me, I do not know what I would do without the support of Gaia Passages.
~ Melita Silberstein, mother of Leilah

Gaia Passages has, truly, felt like a gift from the heavens. In the wise, creative, fierce, and loving care of the Gaia Passages guides, I know that my daughter is seen deeply and honored for who she is, and equally as important, is being taught to see and honor others, and the natural world, in the same ways. The effects of this kind of connection, and of being seen, known, held, and honored in these ways, I believe to be profound, and life-impacting. Also, a powerful antidote to some of the less honoring experiences girls have in our general culture. I am grateful to Gaia Passages, for what it’s making possible – both in my daughter’s lived experience, as well as in all of our newly-inspired imaginations of what life can look like, growing up girl.
~ Tanya Pearlman, mother of Ayla

At her core is a sense of security, self connectedness, love, groundedness, and earth connection, that Gaia Passages has been instrumental in helping her develop. She’s so ready for her independence. And at this point, it is a given that we, as mother and daughter, are intimately woven into this Gaia Passages community. It’s really cool. And it has been great for me as well – because Megan has guided me into an amazing community of women (the other mothers) who I feel so inspired by!
~ Laura Amen-Kroeger, mother of Megan

Our experience at camp was profound and utterly magical. In a culture that can be stressful and disconnected, where raising children and staying connected with your family can be forgotten in the midst of survival and materialism, I have prayed to be part of a village of loving, caring, and conscious individuals who understand the importance of honoring the earth and each other as well as the sacred magic that we are. This camp and Gaia Passages has strengthened my bond with my daughter by plugging her into the energy of her source and the knowledge of who she is, as a girl emerging into a woman and as a human being.
~ Amy, mother of Skye Manley

If I’m into something, she’s more likely to resist, but if it comes from Gaia Passages and it’s cool, then she’s into it. In that way, Gaia Passages is giving her a connection to the earth that would have been hard for me to give her as her mother. I really want this for her and I can see that through meeting the plants and relating to the natural world she is gaining a sense of freedom and security in the world.
~ Laura Atkins, mother of Cassy

After a year and a half of Gaia Passages, my daughter now wants to roam free when we arrive in a forest. She used to be scared and stay close to us, her parents. Recently, when we found her on a redwood path, she welcomed us to be silent and follow her. She led us to a fairy house she had built, complete with a food offering to the spirit of the woods. This is the only antidote to the direction the world is heading, with media grabbing hold of our children.
~ Anonymous