Kelly McClelland (she-ish) is a bi-lingual (English & Spanish) rite of passage guide and Nature-based Psychotherapist. She has guided outdoor programs for under-served youth, Corporate leadership teams, and higher-education clients for over 8 years. She also serves as a global educator for social and environmental justice programs in Central and South America for Where There Be Dragons. As a guide, she brings realness and an open heart. She shares her continuous reckoning and unlearning of white supremacy culture and re-rooting the earth honoring traditions of her Scottish, Irish, English, and Eastern European heritage.

Kelly is in the inquiry of how “modern-day” rites of passage can serve as a liberatory practice. How our ceremonies can tend to our lands, our culture, our kin. And help us embody the truth of who we are – divesting from the inherited stories, oppressive systems, and identities prescribed to us by society. To live what we know to be true – that we are not separate from nature. Our bodies and lives go through cycles and seasons, we don’t fit into binaries or boxes, and that the more diverse an ecosystem is – the more it thrives.

Currently, Kelly is on the Board of Wild Mountain Retreats and is the Creative Director for the Global Biodiversity Narrative Project. She also serves as part of the Justice, Equity, Diversity, Decolonization, and Inclusion (JEDDI) Council for the Wilderness Guides Council.

What makes her come alive is feeling the pull of catching that first wave, the sweet song of chickadee-dee-dee, connecting with plants, and side cramps from belly laughs.

Email: [email protected]

Website: kelly-mcclelland.com.