About Us

Peo­ple fall in love with green liv­ing in all sorts of ways…for me, it began in Girl Scouts, when my father took our troop out hik­ing in the local parks, teach­ing us to iden­tify the trees and giv­ing us our first – lit­eral – taste of the wilder­ness: sas­safras, wild berries, and May apples, washed down with pure spring water.

So it was pure magic years later, when my hus­band and I became sex­tons at the old Friends’ Bur­ial Ground in Baltimore…five acres of centuries-old trees, a tiny stone house built around 1840, and two large gar­dens of herbs and vegetables.

It was the first chance I’d had to actu­ally prac­tice the val­ues my par­ents had taught…gardening organ­i­cally, spend­ing lots of time in nature, liv­ing simply.

Learn­ing to walk the talk

Through the life changes that have hap­pened since then, I have been steadily green­ing my home and lifestyle:  cut­ting energy and water con­sump­tion, switch­ing to 100% wind energy, detox­ing the house, reduc­ing waste, and set­ting up organic gar­dens and wildlife habi­tat on my prop­erty in west Baltimore.

Even so, I didn’t start out as an eco-consultant. Through­out my life I have been a writer, and con­tinue to pro­mote green and con­scious busi­nesses through my green copy­writ­ing firm, Your Words’ Worth.  And then some­one asked me — ” I don’t know about being green, but I do a lit­tle recy­cling in my office. Does that mean I’m green enough for you?” And I thought, oh my dear, you have no idea!

That was the begin­ning. I started green­ing my com­mu­nity  by becom­ing a Green Irene eco-consultant and (most recently) a mar­keter for Long Fence & Home,  pro­mot­ing their range of top-quality energy-saving home improve­ments, from win­dows and sid­ing to cel­lu­lose insu­la­tion and solar installations.

Since attend­ing the Earth Activist Train­ing per­ma­cul­ture design course, I’ve been offer­ing intro­duc­tory forums on social per­ma­cul­ture, get­ting churches and com­mu­nity groups talk­ing about the issues fac­ing them. Out of my per­sonal spir­i­tual prac­tice I’ve led cir­cles on con­nect­ing con­sciously with the aware­ness of the Earth. And I’ve become a facil­i­ta­tor for the internationally-known Awak­en­ing the Dreamer Sym­po­sium, sup­port­ing the cre­ation of a thriv­ing, just, and sus­tain­able world that works for all.

What I offer now

As I see it, being an eco-consultant and edu­ca­tor involves offer­ing a well-rounded range of options — not only the the­ory but also the tools to put it into prac­tice, whether those tools are com­mu­nity cir­cles and pre­sen­ta­tions, on-site home walk-throughs or phys­i­cal products.

Whether you are begin­ning your jour­ney to sus­tain­abil­ity, or whether you are pro­mot­ing your green vision and green­ing your com­mu­nity, con­tact me at phila@freshgreenimage.com to see how I can sup­port you!