The Urban Forest Druid

About

Welcome to my blog, The Urban Forest Druid. If you are on this page, you are likely wanting to discover more about the person behind the words. Well, grab yourself a tasty beverage and a comfy chair and settle in for story time.

My name is Melissa. I was born and raised in the Badlands of Alberta, Canada where my connection to Earth Mother was strong right from the beginning. I grew up at a time where kids were told to be home when the street lights came on and as long as we were careful not to fall down a mine shaft or into the Red Deer river then we could pretty much ramble and roam all over the hills, coolies, and prairies to our heart’s content. Camping in a tent trailer was our typical family vacation and I spent many happy summers smelling the sweet scent of prairie sage and the listening to the call of crickets and grasshoppers on my grandparents’ farm.

When I moved to Edmonton in 1997, I had no idea how much I would come to love this city and the wild and not so wild spaces they had within the city limits. As I navigated life in my 20’s, marriage, kids, jobs, and various life challenges, I began to develop a really deep spiritual connection to Earth Mother. I explored many paths but the one that resonated with me the most was that of Druidry. The deep reverence that many Druids have for the lands that they call home mirrored how I felt about the Land, Sea, and Sky in my own neck of the woods. I did a lot of my own research and study and developed a lot of my own practices and ceremonies and in 2023 I joined the Ancient Order of Druids in America as a Candidate. Having access to a supportive online community of like minded folks has been wonderful although I do still tend to do a lot of my practices as a Hedge Druid (solitary).

As life continued along and I neared my 40’s, I felt that something about how I experienced the world was very different than how a lot of the people around me went through their days. After some interesting synchronicities and some mental health challenges (not to mention a separation from my spouse and becoming a single parent of a pre-teen), I was finally diagnosed with ADHD right around my 40th birthday (with a likely sidecar of Autism). Having the late diagnosis shone a light on so many dark areas of my life and brought disparate pieces together.

As I started working on healing a lifetime of living without the accommodations I needed, the role that Nature plays in that healing revealed itself. I realized that so many of the ills that humans deal with are due to the disconnection with Nature that a late stage Capitalistic society forces upon us. We have allowed ourselves to lose that feeling of Enchantment with the natural world that so many of us had as children. What if we could find that again? Who would we be? Society wants to drive us apart and ostracize the different, the challenging, the strange. Society tells us we are only worthy if we produce more and consume more. Could we create a society where all differences were accepted and celebrated as strengths? Would we be able to have a society where we could slow down, take our time, and remember we are, in fact,Nature and have always been? An intense passion was ignited in me to share this revelation with other people and help others to find the healing in the arms of Nature that I have discovered and guide them to find the magic in a sunrise or the joy at hearing bird song.

And so…here is this blog and the Instagram page with the same name!

Of course, there is so much more to my own story that has influenced who I am and the way I view the world. I hope to share this with you on this adventure we are embarking on together. So grab your walking stick, your warm cloak, a bag to hold your second breakfast, and let’s hit the trail together.

My Credentials:

  • Master Composter Recycler Volunteer ( from 2014)- City of Edmonton
  • Certified Pollinator Steward with Pollinator Partnership (from 2024)
  • Adult Learning Certificate- University of Calgary Continuing Education (in progress)
  • Silvotherapy Practitioner Certificate (2025)- Alma Oasis
  • Climate Connector Volunteer (2024)- City of Edmonton

Organizations I belong to:

Other Intersections I have:

  • Queer
  • Living in a large body( aka I am currently a fat person)
  • Chronic Health Conditions
  • Descendant of White European Immigrants to Canada and an enslaved Black person who escaped to Canada