Chanel first visited Quail Springs in 2018, arriving on foot after walking for 5 days through the the mountains between Santa Barbara and Cuyama Valley. Inspired by questions of how to feed nourishing futures, Chanel turns to the memory that the land speaks and the ancestral peoples and tenders of place she finds herself. Devoted to cultivating resilient and caring relations, Chanel spends her time witnessing the histories of our time with bravery and imagination and finds herself in conversation through poetry, crafting beauty with her hands, tending plants and animals, and singing in the streets. Chanel’s life work has led her to become a youth mentor, educator, community organizer, seed saver, land tender, farmer, goat herder and is currently a clown in training. Chanel is dedicated to supporting land access, repairing colonial legacies of harm, and supporting the revitalizing of land based life ways.

Through a desire to continue to deepen her skills of living in reciprocity with the land, Chanel was drawn to Quail Springs to commune with those like minded, committed to reducing harm and seeding beautiful and healthy futures for the next generations.