Laurel graduated from Fairhaven College (WWU, 1997) in women’s history, politics, and psychology, and received her Master’s degree in Ecopsychology (A Psychology of Writing, Antioch, Seattle, 2005), and practiced both as a mental health counselor and an ecotherapist in Washington State. In addition, in 2005, she precepted in the Soto Zen lineage under Zoketsu Norman Fischer of Everyday Zen. In 2019 she received certification as a Green Zone leader from the Green Zone Institute. In 2020, when her love of the Sonoran desert mysteriously reignited, she moved home to the southwestern lands in proximity of her birth, and took Sokaku Kathie Fischer as her teacher. She continued practicing with Dharma Friends Circle, Everyday Zen, and at Upaya Zen Center, where she found less hierarchy and more echoes of ecofeminism, as well as greater access to wise women of the earth than she did in traditional zen practice. Currently she is becoming certified in Socially Engaged Buddhism at Upaya. In addition, She has written for Ecotherapy News, various magazines, a book on couples therapy, and has had her work anthologized in Rebearths: Conversations with a World Ensouled, ed. C. Chalquist. As a lifelong learner, there’s much more to come as she plans for her future in environmental art practices.