Forest Creature MKE

The quick version: Forest Creature MKE offers forest and nature therapy for private and corporate clients as well as occasional public sessions. Forest and nature therapy is a wellness activity, backed by science, that helps reduce stress, improve health, and increase general well-being. Forest Creature MKE is a woman-owned, disabled-owned business serving clients in southeastern Wisconsin.

The full story: Hi, I’m Gemma, and I’m the forest creature behind Forest Creature MKE. Nature has always been there for me, and I hope you know it’s there for you.

As a certified forest and nature therapy guide, I work with a wide range of clients, helping them reduce stress, reconnect with nature, and restore balance in their lives. I am particularly passionate about the benefits of forest and nature therapy for people who are dealing with chronic illness and other life-altering events.

When I was 31, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was fortunate to have great support and good doctors (and decent health insurance), but it was still a challenging, often lonely experience. I found solace walking my dogs in wooded areas near my Milwaukee home. It was on those walks that I started to notice and appreciate things in a new way, from the delicate architecture of a spider’s web to fresh coyote scat. Despite being a lifelong urbanite, I rediscovered my innate connection to nature, a relationship with the more-than-human world that was rooted deep within me.

As I recovered, I taught myself how to backpack and camp, and set off into the wild. Over the next decade or so, I hiked and camped across many of the most beautiful places in the world, including fulfilling two promises I made to myself while battling cancer: I’d see the Northern Lights in Iceland, and I’d visit Mt. Doom in Mordor (or at least its cinematic stand-in, Mt. Ngauruhoe on the North Island of New Zealand). I even spent 22 months, including two winters, working at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, enjoying penguin-watching in summer and endless stargazing during the months of darkness.

After returning to the States, things took a turn. I was spending more and more time in front of a screen, captive to the grind of working in digital media. Changes in the industry reduced everything, and everyone, to data points. Storytelling and making real connections were out. It was all about search engine optimization to please the algorithms.

As the pace of work quickened, I spent less and less time in nature. Other than walking my dogs, it felt like most days I barely went offline.

And I started feeling terrible. All the time. I began struggling again with anxiety and panic attacks, something that had plagued me as a teenager. And something else was going on. I was experiencing fatigue far worse than anything I’d felt during my cancer treatments, as well as weird bouts of numbness and pings that felt like walking through a curtain of sparks.

In 2018, two MRIs and a spinal tap led to a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. I struggled for a few years, trying to understand the disease, which is notoriously unpredictable, and to find my footing in a world altered yet again by illness.

Then I remembered who I am: a creature of nature, at home in the wild.

I started prioritizing time in nature again, even if I was able to just sit on a rock. I returned to qigong, an ancient form of mindful movement based on the movements in nature, which had helped me through cancer decades earlier. While my MS symptoms continued, the anxiety and panic attacks I had been experiencing ebbed and finally vanished.

In 2022, I fulfilled another old promise to myself and spent a week camping in Katmai National Park, home to the famous “fat bears” of Brooks Falls. It was my first time camping in years, and while I’m no longer someone who can happily haul a fully loaded pack up a mountain, pitching my tent among the spruce gave me tremendous joy. So did seeing the bears that I had long loved watching on the bear cams.

One afternoon, one particular bear, known to us bear nerds as 284 Electra, sat on the bank across the river from me. She wasn’t interested in fishing for salmon and paid no attention to the other bears nearby. Instead, she sat with quiet intelligence, looking at me. It was not the gaze of a predator sizing up a potential meal, but rather a calm, questioning look, as if to say, as the poet Mary Oliver once wrote, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

The answer was not search engine optimization to please the algorithms and generate clicks.

The moment I shared with Electra set me on a path to learning more about forest and nature therapy, including how to help facilitate others reconnecting with the more-than-human world. I received my guide certification through The Forest Therapy School, and have done additional coursework through the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy.

My forest therapy sessions are informed by my training as well as my personal experiences. I like to incorporate a range of activities, all of which are invitational, including mindful movement and breathwork. For the 1:1 and small-group sessions I offer in a variety of locations throughout Milwaukee County, the process starts with a brief phone or online chat so that I can shape the session to the individual client. I also offer public sessions and wellness mini-retreats for larger groups.

This site is a work in progress, so check back as it evolves. If you’d like to set up a forest therapy session, please email me at forestcreaturemke [at] gmail.com.