Erik Farney
Erik is a Facilitator, Teacher, and Program Organization & Learning Design Coordinator at MBEI. He is a certified Healing with Nature trauma care practitioner, and is committed to exploring how contemplative practice, connection with nature, trauma healing, and community can support individual, collective, and ecological flourishing.
His journey took him through a few other paths before this one began - including studying philosophy, serving as an officer in the Navy, co-founding a non-profit, and managing startup operations. For most of his life, he sought nature as a place to escape the distractions of modern life, stressful operational tempos and to find solitude. His view of the natural world was conflicted though, he found respite when outdoors but had also inherited a view of nature as something to be overcome or endured.
When he embarked on his own healing journey, Dr. Rochelle Calvert's work helped him deeply transform this relationship. Through reverence and connection to the natural world, practices for nervous system regulation gave him the tools to turn toward trauma, hyper-vigilance, and existential anxiety, rather than away from them. Nature was no longer something to be survived, but a place of grounding, surrender, reciprocity, and true belonging. Rooted in this understanding, Erik is especially curious about how healing the planet may require healing the patterns of separation within ourselves: from the body, from one another, from place, and from the living world.
Erik is naturally drawn to bodies of water, wooded forests, fog and moss. He holds a particular fondness for sea turtles, marveling at their ability to navigate the open ocean using Earth's electromagnetic field.
Erik is an aspiring psychologist who spends his free time meandering through and marveling at the natural world with his partner, Amanda.
Training & Certifications
Healing with Nature, Trauma Care Certification (Dr. Rochelle Calvert)
100-hr Restorative Yoga Teacher Training (RYTT)
BA in Philosophy
