MEET YOUR HOSTS
Who we are, and why we do this work
Wild Earth Experience is hosted by people who have spent decades immersed in natural health, spiritual practice, shamanic traditions, and life on the land.
We're not here as experts or gurus, but as facilitators, practitioners, and participants – learning alongside those who gather with us.
Ingrid Cryns
Ingrid Cryns is a somatic psychotherapist, teacher, and former architect whose life’s work bridges inner healing and outer world-building. With over thirty years of professional practice across psychotherapy, architecture, education, and community leadership, Ingrid brings a rare synthesis of psychological depth, embodied awareness, and ecological intelligence.
Originally trained as an architect with a strong background in arts and crafts, Ingrid spent decades designing natural buildings, community spaces, and sustainable structures before formally retiring from architecture to focus fully on psychotherapy and embodied healing work. Her architectural foundation continues to inform her approach, offering a lived understanding of structure, containment, rhythm, and coherence as essential conditions for both human healing and collective life.
Alongside formal architectural practice, Ingrid undertook immersive, hands-on training in natural building, including timber framing, light straw clay construction, and clay plastering, through extended workshops with colleagues at EcoNest. These experiences were later integrated through the hands-on design and construction of straw bale, straw clay, and other ecological building projects on land she has stewarded since 2011, grounding her architectural understanding in lived material practice and craft.
As a Registered Psychotherapist and Certified Bioenergetic Analyst, Ingrid works at the intersection of somatic trauma healing, nervous system regulation, relational repair, ancestral patterning, and spiritual emergence. Her work is grounded, relational, and deeply attuned to the body, supporting individuals and groups in restoring safety, presence, and authentic self-expression while navigating profound life transitions.
Ingrid is the founder of Building Soul Psychotherapy and co-founder of Wild Earth Experience, an evolving field of practice dedicated to integrating the Inner and Outer Path of Sacred Ecology. Her teaching and facilitation draw from body-oriented psychotherapy, generational and collective trauma work, contemplative practice, and land-based wisdom traditions.
At the heart of Ingrid’s work is a devotion to living systems: the intelligence of the body, the wisdom of the land, and the relational fields that shape both personal and collective becoming. This orientation has been shaped not only through professional practice, but through years of solo canoe journeys in remote northern crown land during her late thirties and early forties—undertaken as a quiet inquiry into solitude, self-trust, and relationship with the natural world—cultivating embodied presence, inner alignment, and lived integrity.
Brett Hawes
Brett is a natural health practitioner, educator, podcaster, and co-founder of Wild Earth Experience. He has spent over two decades working in natural and functional medicine, alongside long-standing involvement in spiritual practice, shamanic traditions, and ongoing explorations into sovereignty, autonomy, community, and how we live together moving forward.
Originally trained in holistic nutrition and later certified in functional medicine, Brett has spent the last 23 years supporting people navigating chronic and complex health challenges, with particular focus on digestive disorders, hormonal imbalance, and autoimmune conditions. His clinical work has been rooted in holistic biology, terrain-based medicine, and a deep respect for the body’s innate intelligence. Over time, his practice expanded beyond one-to-one care into practitioner education, mentorship, and the development of educational platforms designed to empower practitioners and and strengthen the field of natural medicine.
Alongside his clinical and educational work, Brett has maintained a sustained interest in how health intersects with culture, governance, technology, and personal autonomy. His writing, podcasting, and public dialogue reflect an ongoing commitment to critical inquiry, discernment, and the restoration of agency in times of rapid change. Rather than positioning health as an isolated domain, Brett approaches it as inseparable from the structures, narratives, and environments that shape human life.
As co-founder of Wild Earth Experience, Brett’s focus has shifted toward helping people bring inner work into how they live, relate, and participate in the world. In gatherings, Brett brings depth, discernment, and a grounded perspective. He values honest conversation, critical thinking, and spaces where people can explore deeper questions about spirituality, health, autonomy, and what it means to live well...without hype, dogma or performance.
At the heart of Brett’s work is a commitment to lived coherence: the alignment of inner awareness with responsible action, ancient wisdom with modern reality, and personal sovereignty with collective participation. His path reflects an ongoing exploration of how humans can live well, think clearly, and steward both body and land with integrity.