Meet Your Guides
Raei Bridges (they/them)
Founder | Trip Logistics | Guide
I was born and raised in the San Fernando Valley in California and always sought out ways to deepen my connection to nature. As a child, I could be found playing in the mud, climbing trees, and observing insects in any way that was accessible to me.
My connection to nature has always been a part of learning about myself and my gifts. The land has been with me when I came out, with me when I've cried and shed dead weight, with me in times when I reclaim my power, in times of radiant joy and play, and in times of deep transformation and self-realization.
Now, I am the founder of the Rusty Anvil, a wilderness first responder, a Kripalu mindful outdoor guide, and work as an outdoor instructor at Flying Deer Nature Center. I enjoy carving spoons, tracking wildlife, birthing friction fires. skinning and hide tanning, wildcrafting, and finding radical rest in the forest.
Disha Patel (she/they)
Trip Logistics & Guide
Disha [they/she] is a genderqueer femme based in Jamaica Plain, MA who believes in the transformative power of community, the outdoors & snacks. They are a caregiver, network weaver, creative, workshop facilitator, ancestral cook, and urban farmer.
They find peace working with their hands, laughing with chosen community, backpacking in the woods, and being in close relationships with fire and fragrant night-blooming plants.
They are on a spiritual, healing journey that looks like moving into right relationship with themselves, the land, and other humans & more than human beings. They are embracing the mystery that comes with surrendering, and this bio, like them, is a continual work in progress - ever-flowing, changing and growing.
They can be reached @memoirsofadisha
Gopi Donald Shelton (He/they)
Trip Logistics & Guide
I've chosen to live close in with the Spirit of Wild things.
Wild Nature practices profound openness that embraces our whole selves. Wild nature carries no systemic oppression towards any being. What we may find, with interest in wild nature is an amazing opportunity to participate and co-create with our beloved forest kin, myriad relationships of care, communion, mutual support and learning. With intention we can carry these sensibilities of personal and communal relationship care into our lives outside the forest realm into daily lives that may be beyond the forest.
I've supported my nature practices as a wood worker, carpenter, wilderness guide, youth education advocate, massage therapist, homesteader, food producer and forest protector. I'm one of the co-founders the Julius Ford Harriet Tubman Healthy Living community of Western Massachusetts - which has brought together BIPOC youth for summer forest immersion since 2007. I look forward to growing with beloved community through journeys w Rusty Anvil this season of Warmth and outrageous outpouring of love from our blessed brother Sun and under the sacred dreamtime embrace of Mamma Luna.
Gopi Krishna - Gopi Donald Shelton lives in a hand built house with his partner and daughter in the woods of Western Massachusetts. Nipmuck, Pocumtuck, Mohican homelands.