Break Toxic Patterns and Rediscover Your Strength: Kat Ripley, Juniper Moss Guide Services

Today we get back to my wild fan-girling business with Renaissance woman and Registered Maine Guide, Kat Ripley.

Kat and I recently worked together on an amazing event hosted by Anna Heath and We Built This, where eight wanna-be carpenters were brought together for a weekend of learning, building, mending, yoga and outdoor mindfulness - that last part was where Kat came in for this event.

One of Kat’s most potent talents involves bringing people into nature in a meaningful way, which she’s now doing through her Juniper Moss Guide Services. Kat walked us all through an amazing exercise at the end of our weekend, which she is generous enough to share again today.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg of value and inspiration this exceptional woman brings - Kat’s many interests and multiple resets and restarts might just get you fired up to try something new yourself in the new year, or at the very least, start putting yourself first in ways that truly matter!

As a gift for yourself this holiday season, make for darn sure that you follow Kat Ripley everywhere: check out her website, JuniperMossGuideServices.com, where she’s already got some very fun-sounding stuff brewing for 2024; then head over to Instagram and give her a follow @junipermossguideservices and @kat_rip so you can bask in her thoughtful longer-form captions and the fun pix of her adventures and yurt life!

**IMPORTANT NOTE: Content warning for this episode - we don’t get into a ton of detail, but we do discuss domestic abuse and child abuse. If those topics will be hard for you, maybe take this week off - but let me also say that your home should be a safe place, and if you ever feel even remotely like that is not the case, please reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233. Help is available, please keep yourself and your family safe this holiday season and always.

You can also find help locally:

In Maine - https://www.mcedv.org/get-help/

In New Hampshire - https://www.nhcadsv.org/ 

In Massachusetts - https://www.mass.gov/info-details/list-of-domestic-violence-services-by-massachusetts-county 

In Vermont - https://www.vtnetwork.org/ 

In Connecticut - https://www.ctcadv.org/ 

In Rhode Island - https://ricadv.org/ 

In New York - https://www.nyscadv.org/find-help/program-directory.html

A few more links from our conversation (many more on the  episode page over on GuidesGoneWild.com!):

• Bikepack Maine
• Flagstaff Lake Hut
• Lindsay Currier on Guides Gone Wild
• We Built This
• Thunder Ridge Ski Area (NY)
• Maine Huts & Trails
• Merino Wool Neck Gaiters by Buff
• Evans Notch Lodge

Transcript

Kat Ripley: 0:00

Every time that I share the less pretty parts of what has happened in my life, it tends to help other people feel seen.

Jen: 0:11

Welcome to the Guides Gone Wild podcast. What is Guides Gone Wild, you ask? This is where you'll fill your ears and minds with the stories of everyday, extraordinary women who will inspire you to take your outdoor adventure game to the next level. Whether you're starting your journey from the couch or the trailhead, this is the place for you. So let's get a little wild.

Jen: 0:34

Welcome to Guides Gone Wild. This is Jen, and I'm back in action after my little break and ready to get back to my wild fangirling business with Renaissance woman and registered guide, kat Ripley. As you'll hear, kat and I recently worked together on an amazing weekend event hosted by Anna Heath and we built this where eight wannabe carpenters were brought together for a weekend of learning, building mending, yoga and outdoor mindfulness. That last part was where Kat came in for this event. One of Kat's most potent talents involves bringing people into nature in a meaningful way, which she's now doing through her Juniper Moss guide service. Kat walked us through an amazing exercise at the end of our weekend, which she's generous enough to share again today. But that's just the tip of the iceberg of value and inspiration this exceptional woman brings Kat's many interests, and multiple resets and restarts might just get you fired up to try something new yourself in the new year or, at the very least, start putting yourself first in ways that truly matter.

Jen: 1:34

Quick content warning for this episode. We don't get into a ton of detail, but we do discuss domestic abuse and child abuse. If those topics will be hard for you, maybe take this week off, but let me also say that your home should be a safe place, and if you ever feel even remotely like that is not the case, please reach out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233. I've also dropped some links to local resources in the show notes and on the episode page over at guidesgodwildcom. Help is available. Please keep yourself and your family safe this holiday season and always. Okay, now, without further ado, it's time to get inspired by the nine lives and counting of Kat Ripley of Juniper Moss guide services. Kat, it's so nice to see your charming face again. I feel like it's old home days, since we were just together a couple days ago at the amazing we built this event. Welcome, thank you. I'm so glad to be here. This is great.

Kat Ripley: 2:38

This is Kat. I probably have already said this 15 times in the intro but this is Kat Ripley from Juniper Moss guide services.

Jen: 2:48

She is yet another every woman superwoman I forgot to. I forgot to ask you over the weekend. You must know Lindsay. Do you know Lindsay Carrier, who lives up here? Yeah, I was going to say your kids probably go to school together and everything. I just dropped her episode yesterday and I'm like, oh, I should have asked you if you guys knew each other, because you're both really cool and you live in the same town, so hopefully you would. Yeah, yeah.

Kat Ripley: 3:10

I've kind of like met Lindsay a handful of times and we had never really like had a chance to connect. And then somehow it turned out that she and I were both doing like remote work one day at the sugar loaf Outdoor Center and just like kind of waved at each other from across the room and then started chatting and found out that we had a lot of stuff in common and I had actually. I went to her event in early October, the foliage Fundo.

Jen: 3:37

Oh yeah.

Kat Ripley: 3:38

Yeah, stravaganza with pack rafting, and all of that up at Flagstaff Hut.

Jen: 3:43

Did you do the 90 hundred mile kilometer bike ride?

Kat Ripley: 3:46

I did not. I skipped that part. That was the weekend I was trying to study for my guide exam. So I was like you know what I prefer gravel, riding over single track, and I know that a lot of what you guys are going to be riding. It's going to be a little hairy, plus it was supposed to rain all weekend. I think I'm going to take that Saturday and just study and stay inside and have like kind of a catch up day for myself, which that was a really nice thing that I did. But then pack rafting on Sunday was amazing and I got there were a few cancellations going into the weekend, kind of because of weather, so I ended up getting like a private bike skills clinic with Lindsay on Friday, which was pretty sweet. So yeah, it's. It's been really good. And she's kind of loosely reached out to me about being part of next year's next year's event, either doing something with yoga or something guide related to that. That'll be pretty sweet. I'm really interested in doing that with her.

Jen: 4:39

Yeah that's on. It sounded like a really cool event and I yeah, I think that would be really hard for me, but I think that if I start now and start training for it might be something that I could accomplish, because it's just such a nice area, I love it up there, so, but let's, let's, so, let's dial it back. So Kat Ripley is lives in Kingfield, maine, up by sugarloaf, and we're talking quickly before she goes skiing on opening day, hopefully at sugarloaf today, right, yeah, yeah. And I wanted to have Kat on just because she is, you know, like everybody else that I pretty much talked to on this, somebody who I started talking on the internet and then reached out to. And in her case, I reached out to her with a fairly big ask because I was trying to help host an event that was going to build a tent platform and had yoga and had some nature outdoor stuff integrated into it. And I'm like, hi, you've never know, you don't know me from the whole in the wall, but would you be possibly interested in being involved in this event? And she's like, yeah, that sounds really cool. And so, not only to Kat Com, but I met my new BFF, george, her son, and we had a fantastic weekend and it just happened and I'm still kind of like flying high from all the good vibes from it, because it was just so inspiring and cool to watch you know, eight people who knew nothing about carpentry become like a well-oiled machine less than 24 hours after they met each other. And that's like a whole other side thing that maybe I'll talk about some other time. But but then I was like Kat.

Jen: 6:07

We got to get on the podcast because Kat does a lot of. She's got a really cool background, got a lot of cool stuff going on. She just became a guide, as she just mentioned, but has been in the outdoors for a long time has. She is a pilot, she is a yogi, she is all the things. So why don't you take me back to the olden days of Kat and how did you kind of get interested in all these disparate things? And she just like built a yurt for herself that I'm watching her talk from in Maine. She's like off grid, yet online talking to me, which is also very cool. So tell me about little Kat and how you got into being interested in lots of stuff.

Kat Ripley: 6:45

Well, I always kind of have like this drive to do something adventurous. Why do you think?

Jen: 6:52

let's, let's put a, put a right now. Put a, put a pin in it. Where did that come from your parents, just you and Aitley, or something happened or whatever.

Kat Ripley: 7:01

So there was a lot of abuse happening in my home growing up. It was not a good place to be. Okay, well, that was not what I wanted to push you into talking about, so I apologize.

Kat Ripley: 7:12

Totally okay and I'll get into why that's okay. But I always wanted to like go out and like journey off and do something else, and a lot of that I'm finding like kind of looking back later in life has to do with just really wanting to get away from the situation I was in, and I don't even think I fully had realized at the time that that's what I was doing was trying to run away. It was just like there was just a draw to go somewhere else and do something grand. I mean, at this point I'm pretty much estranged from most of my family, so like I've gone off and done something grand Maybe not as grand as what I had initially planned on.

Kat Ripley: 7:52

I, when I was 15, I had the opportunity to start taking flying lessons. I'm from Danbury, connecticut. We had an airport right in town which was a great place to learn, had a really good school. So I started taking flying lessons and I had this dream of like wanting to just go fly remote cargo runs to nowhere, like weird places that like we're just so far off the map that like you're going where. So I continued taking lessons. I got my license when I was 17 and I was well on track to go to college. I was going to double major in aviation flight and aviation maintenance so that by the time I finished I would have all of my flight ratings and a full mechanics license so I'd be able to fly anything and fix it. I was really looking forward to doing that.

Kat Ripley: 8:37

But this was 2008 and the aviation industry at that time was falling apart. The housing market had just crashed and there was just fallout everywhere. So the admissions people at the college had told me pretty candidly that they would love to have me, they had given me a partial scholarship and all that. But they're like you need to be aware of the fact that you're taking on a significant amount of debt to do this, because flight time isn't included in tuition and it's expensive. So you're taking on a lot of debt and may not have a job that can actually help pay that off by the time I finished school. Because, like it did just, I mean so many pilots got laid off in such a short window of time and it did take a long time for the industry to recover.

Kat Ripley: 9:20

Looking back, I'm not I don't have any regrets that I chose not to take that path. So I tabled flying. I didn't fly again for 13 years and I started leaning into sound engineering as a profession. So the high school that I went to was the second biggest in the state. We had like almost a full professional grade theater as our auditorium so I got really into that program. I started as a band kid and then kind of had this big rebellious fallout with my band director. That was very dramatic. What?

Jen: 9:53

were you playing, just so I can visualize Well.

Kat Ripley: 9:57

So this is part of the drama was that I played flute, piccolo, oboe, English horn, very sax, tenor sax and trombone. I wanted to play more things and I was just really good at picking things up and figuring out how to play them.

Jen: 10:07

Seriously, that's all over. That's like, that's reeds, that's horns, that's everything. Like you got it all going on there, like just no guitar pretty much.

Kat Ripley: 10:15

Yeah, I didn't get into strings and I didn't get into percussion, but definitely, like wins, I just have a really good ear and I was really good at sight reading. Like I had taken flute lessons for seven years and it took two years for my teacher to figure out that I had never looked at any of the stuff that she had assigned to me. So yeah, but I had this big fallout with Van. I moved into technical theater and I learned a lot while I was in high school and I'm not your typical grumpy old sound man.

Kat Ripley: 10:44

Like. So not only did I really know what I was doing, but I also stood out like aesthetically. So a lot of jobs that you get the sound engineer are through networking and through referrals. So I ended up with quite a lot of work. I worked in New York City. I've had jobs all over, like the Hudson Valley in Western Connecticut, and I did that pretty steadily until like the end of 2012 when I realized, at 22 years old, I had become the grumpy old sound man. I was just so jaded and hateful. So alongside doing all of that, in 2008, I started teaching skiing. It's kind of like an extra thing to do because all the work that I was doing was at night. So my days were pretty wide open. A friend of mine had kind of turned me on to the idea. So senior year of high school we were, we were ski instructors, and that was kind of cool.

Jen: 11:37

And was that in Connecticut or?

Kat Ripley: 11:38

where were you? Where were you skiing? So it's this little ski area that I'd actually never even been to prior to this. It's called Thunder Ridge, it's in Patterson, new York, and it's just to give you an idea. You can take the train from Grand Central and get off in the station in Patterson and we had a shuttle that would go pick you up. So like super deep in populated areas, like tons of people would come there. It was a very, very high volume, small ski hill. As an instructor it meant you could make a lot of money, but it also had a really high rate of burning people out because they would oftentimes oversell the lesson times. So the first two seasons I worked there, I was a ski instructor within the kids program.

Jen: 12:21

I was doing like groups of four and five year olds and I'd have like 12 of them and they're like, oh my God never, they've never skied before and they're just like all over the place falling down and I and that's when you're still having like the my boot hurts, like people like randomly peeing themselves, like they're not quite at that area where they're independent yet. So that is a lot of work, that's a lot of kids. I'm not even sure that's legal anymore.

Kat Ripley: 12:48

It might not be. So I'd have this huge group of kids and sometimes I'd have a helper and sometimes I wouldn't. But I don't know like where I pulled it out of, but I would. Just I'd be really good at managing this group of small kids. It was like hurting cats, but somehow I was. I was very good at it. So they kept putting me in position to teach these lessons. So at the end of my first season I was so burned out that I was like I'm never doing that again. And then the next fall I found myself sitting at refresher training. And second season went pretty much the same way. By the end of it I was like I'm never going to do this again. This is terrible. And then the next fall I'm sitting there going you know what. I either need to just commit to this and really go for it, or I need to stop doing it. So I decided that I was going to commit to it. I was going to start chasing certifications through PSIA and like, really go professional with it.

Jen: 13:37

And was the goal to move out of the four and five year olds at Thunder Ridge and just like go to a bigger resort and do like rich older people who need babysitting Kind of.

Kat Ripley: 13:46

I mean, I didn't really have like a straight, like a clear goal as to what exactly I wanted to be doing with it.

Kat Ripley: 13:54

Just I knew that I wanted to really lean into the whole like very professional side of like getting certified and really learning my stuff and making sure that I knew what I was doing. Also, once you get up past like once you get into like the level two, level three range for PSIA certifications, they're internationally recognized so that in itself opens a lot of doors. Like if I wanted to do two winters and go to the Southern Hemisphere during our summer, like that would that would allow me to do that. So I got my level one alpine during my third season. Then I learned how to snowboard and fell in love with it and it's like I don't want to ski anymore, I just want to snowboard. This is so much more fun. I got my level one in snowboarding at the end of that season and then started working towards my level two. I started training staff and being more part of like the supervisory operation side of the ski school, which I really liked and I was really good at. And during my sixth season there I was the children's program director. I'd finally passed my level two. I loved what I was doing but I'd kind of hit this point where I'd realized like we don't have anyone to train me. I also don't have the terrain. I need to work on the things that I need to work on to try to go from my level three.

Kat Ripley: 15:08

So I felt like I'd kind of hit a like a. I needed a bigger mountain is where I had kind of landed and that's how I ended up at. Sugarloaf was like, okay, I like what bigger mountain can I go to? I don't really want to go out west just yet, I'd like to be in Maine. I had spent two summers in Maine at that point working on the coast at this seaside cottage rental and I was like, okay, I want to be in Maine, where do I go? Sugarloaf seemed like a good option. So I went to Sugarloaf. I taught there for one season and that was the only season I taught at Sugarloaf. The ski school was very, very different from what I was used to. The value on certifications was significantly less. The volume of lessons was also significantly less and I had put this is how obsessed I am. Why I was at least with snowboarding was I had planned my pregnancy around the ski seasons, which was amazing that I was even able to do that Some people like can't like struggle really hard to get pregnant.

Kat Ripley: 16:02

I was like I'm going to get pregnant in December and then he's going to be born in September. So that worked somehow. So I was kind of taking it easy that first season when I was teaching there and by like April I was having a hard time strapping in. Like I was just a little bit too big and I was just tired and snow at that point is kind of harder to ski because it's slushy. So I had my son in September and then it wanted to kind of keep teaching because at that point it just felt like such a big part of my identity I didn't know how to not do it. Like it just felt weird to not be a part of what I was doing.

Kat Ripley: 16:39

But financially it just it didn't make sense. Like if I didn't get a lesson for the day, I was losing money because I was still paying for daycare. And even if I did get a lesson, it was not even really covering the cost of daycare. And then at that point it's like I'm not even making money. So this, this doesn't make sense. So I took a job with mountain operations because it was year round. I spent almost five years working behind the scenes and mountain ops and an office job. I managed the work order program. I was in charge of procuring parks and services for lift maintenance, so I'd be talking to vendors and like really getting into like deep schematics of things, which was not really your early interest in like doing that for planes.

Jen: 17:19

It's like you've got kind of a bent toward that and you'd absolutely seen how the you know ski resorts operate and behind the scenes. So, yeah, I could see that being a pretty, was it? Did you enjoy that work or was it like that's just what I have to do for now?

Kat Ripley: 17:34

I really liked it.

Kat Ripley: 17:35

It the work itself was great.

Kat Ripley: 17:37

I like really getting to deep dive into kind of more technical things and then find ways to present them to people in a way that makes sense, which is part of why I really liked teaching snowboarding and skiing and I had created this whole database for tracking when the lifts were running and when they weren't running and reasons for why they're not running, and that then allowed me to generate all these really detailed reports that helped us see where we were being really efficient or really inefficient in mountain operations and then apply that data to actual policy changes. So I enjoyed a lot of what I was doing. The culture was really problematic though. For example, I was basically running the lift maintenance department but was not allowed to have the title of lift maintenance manager because my boss was afraid that if I was in a position of actual power that I might get promoted over him. So there was always this undercurrent of people being very defensive and trying to kind of get in the way of other people just being successful. So that kind of sucked.

Jen: 18:43

Yeah, well, it's like, and I would imagine the year-round community up there is pretty small, so it's like and these are people that you have to make nice with, or, yeah, I would imagine it would get a little bit difficult because these are the same people you're going to see at the grocery store and at the bus stop and yeah, that's rough.

Kat Ripley: 19:03

Yeah, and it's kind of amazing the snowmaking department has so many cool women in it, like it's so so spectacular, but every other part of Mount Nopps, like lift ops, has a handful of women but it's kind of a it's not so much in like the operation side. There's some other parts of operations that's more customer facing, but all the like most of the other departments are so male dominated that it's hard for women to even like get in there. Like the only reason I had a job in that department is because I was working in an office so like I fit into like the box that they were willing to let me exist with them and that there were. There was frustrating parts of that too, because I had a handful of times I had wanted to go out and like get some more hands on experience in the field and working on lifts and being part of like summer maintenance and line work, and I was essentially told that no, you can't do that because you're a small little girl, and I was like, wow, that's cool, thanks.

Kat Ripley: 20:01

Like yeah, really, actually. Like I mean I'm like my just for even a little bit more background, my dad is a welding shop and he has a welding shop and he's a demolition contractor and that's that's the family business that I grew up within. So like I know how to weld and I know how to build stuff and use tools and like I'm pretty savvy not, like you know, I'm going to go build a house savvy but I definitely had a deeper background of qualifications than even some of the people that were hiring to be lift mechanics, those frustrating a lot of the time, kind of being sidelined just for that reason, and then not feeling like the culture within the whole sugarloaf environment was at such a place that I could do something about feeling that way, like there really wasn't a good venue for me to advocate for myself against that situation.

Jen: 20:51

Yeah, it's one thing to have those assumptions and, like you know, unfortunately there's a lot of generational shit in there that happens but, like, where, where you need the change to be, is that those same people need to be willing to step back and be open to like, hey, I know how to weld, like, and you know, in your case, like you're small, which would probably come in handy sometimes when you have to like climb up into those little towers and like, hey, I don't have like eight inches of plumbers crack sticking out, I'm like I can get in there and do these precision things.

Jen: 21:23

So, like, give me a chance. So it sucks that you didn't feel that the culture would welcome that, that you couldn't just like make you know incremental change because, like, hey, by the way, reminding you of all my capabilities, like that somebody wouldn't be open to that after making an assumption, because you are a teeny little thing, but you're a teeny little thing with skills and it shouldn't matter if you do a little thing, if you know how to like if you know how to leverage your body to do things that need to be done, it shouldn't fucking matter if you're a teeny little thing right it shouldn't, but perceptionally it did.

Kat Ripley: 21:55

And I, you know, I'm always someone who's trying to fix what I think can be fixed and try to make things as best as they can possibly be. So I, I mean, I spent my time working there, little by little, trying to stop or any kind of like advancement that I could make, just anything that was small, like any little like opportunity. I was like, yes, I'll do that, and just really trying to claw my way around and kind of get into whatever I could get into, just like have an opportunity to be like, look, I can do this.

Jen: 22:27

But you didn't see the results that you. Not really. That would make it worthwhile. Yeah, yeah.

Kat Ripley: 22:33

So while all this was going on, my personal life was falling apart, my marriage was eroding my identity, and it didn't help that my now ex husband worked also in the maintenance garage. So he was like very controlling. He needed to know where I was, who I was talking to, what I was doing, what I was saying, and it was like it could be about work even. He wanted to know every single detail of what was going on and then would like find ways to punish me for things If I didn't do something that he thought I should do.

Kat Ripley: 23:04

So it was really making me feel like I couldn't even be myself. I couldn't even like be a person and as that was going on, the environment of our home, because of the controlling nature of things, was beginning to feel really, really isolating and also was getting to a place where it was feeling very unsafe. I was essentially single, parenting while being married, and then being expected to show up as a wife and perform in that role while also working full time, and it just it was so draining Like I'll see people now that had known me then and they're like Jesus, you just had looked so hired all the time, just like so, like you weren't even there, and I was like.

Jen: 23:49

I was like because that's exactly what was going on. Yeah, Right, yeah.

Kat Ripley: 23:53

It was like I just I had no agency to like take care of myself. So when I filed for divorce in 2019, I learned through my lawyer who I had been referred to through a domestic abuse hotline because it had gotten that bad. I learned through her that my story is not unique and that there are people women in particular who end up in these situations and there are like people who are smart and talented and like have great stuff going on for them, and they just end up in these marriages that drain the life out of them and just like leave them feeling so wrecked. And I remember feeling as I was kind of coming out of all of this and regaining some footing on like my life. I remember feeling like I needed to figure out a way to help these other people who are going through this same thing, just at least suffering and maybe like not even realizing that they need to get out or not seeing a path to get out, or just like you know they're just suffering and struggling and having a really hard time and not feeling like they have any kind of community or way to kind of do anything for themselves, and at the time I really didn't know what that was that I could do. Like I felt this great need but I really didn't know, like I didn't have a path for, like what I could even do.

Kat Ripley: 25:13

But I had learned through that experience that there is a significant value in telling your story. Not only does it let you kind of take back the narrative of your own life and help you feel empowered to do something about what's happening, but every time that I share the less pretty parts of what has happened in my life, it tends to help other people feel seen, because it's like, oh, someone else is going through this thing that's very similar to the thing that I'm going through. Like, oh my God, I didn't know that other people were doing that. Like wow, because like I mean, when you're so far in that like you know, survival state, it's so hard to connect with other people and to even be that you know there's so much community around you and there are so many people who do truly understand what you're going through.

Jen: 26:03

So when I think in your case, well, and I think a lot of these cases are a slow burn, like you were saying, like it's not like you know, oh, I started doing this, I'm doing this guy and on our second date he hit me with something a two by four.

Jen: 26:17

Like so many of these situations are such a slow burn and are so incremental and it's like it's so hard I would think I mean thankfully, I don't necessarily I don't, I can't relate to this on a personal level, but just knowing some people who've been through similar situations where you do you like you lose yourself slowly and you lose your agency so slowly that I can see how it would be almost impossible and you can't possibly think that anybody else can relate to you because you're like I don't know what even happened, like how did I even get here? I mean, it's, it's a slow thing and I can't imagine the how it just chips away at your, at your psyche over time and makes you feel like you can't possibly be in a situation that anyone else can relate to because, like, how did I even get her in the first place? I don't even know.

Kat Ripley: 27:03

Yeah, it's, it's. It's highly disorienting, like, especially because as you become more isolated, you lose a lot of the kind of like social, like markers that help you kind of keep your bearings as you move through your life. Because, like well, I used to have these friends that I would hang out with, but I don't hang out with them anymore. Because if I hang out with them or I take any time to go do something for myself, like there will be some kind of consequence to having done that, Like I'll get the silent treatment for a few days, or like there will be some other passive, aggressive thing that'll just happen that I know is coming, so I just don't even try to put myself in a position to have that thing happen and it just like it, just it chips away at you Like I'm so mentally exhausted and physically exhausted from the fact that I have a kid and I'm living all this life and whatever.

Jen: 27:54

It's like, yeah, how do I, how do you even get into that? And it's like, yeah, I would. And I would imagine too, just as somebody who has achieved so much, so many different things, like you know, I mean for crying out loud you timed your kid's birth, like to be successful in so many ways of controlling your environment, but yet then you find yourself in this place where you've lost all control. Like, so that's all you can control is like to try to minimize, like to try to make your life a little bit easier for like a half an hour, because I'm not going to do this but yet at the same time, it's like falling into that pattern of getting more and more isolated and more and more alone and more and more. Yeah, I'm glad you're telling your story, I'm glad we're getting into this. Of course, I didn't know any of this, but Okay.

Kat Ripley: 28:39

That's why I do this. So that's for a few years I had left my mountain operations job and the timing of leaving that job kind of worked out really strangely because I left on a Wednesday and then COVID shut the mountain down on Sunday so I could exit at both a really good time and a really bad time. I ended up kind of leaning into like I could do for my computer at home and I didn't need to go anywhere and I could have a little bit of money trickling in. I got burned out writing, switched over to editing and then I found the job that I have now.

Kat Ripley: 29:18

I manage a copywriting business, so we write marketing copy for most of the agencies people who have, like their own customers that just need like blog posts and website copy and ads, and so it's a subscription service and the company is fully remote. So I've never met anyone that I've worked with in this company that I'm now running. But the nice thing about it is that it has really opened my mind up to marketing and really getting to be very knowledgeable about how to do marketing and how to be successful in doing marketing and like what is good marketing and a lot of the time bad marketing is just people not doing anything, which I found.

Jen: 30:01

I'm a champion at that.

Kat Ripley: 30:04

Yeah, it's a significant portion of people.

Jen: 30:05

I'm really good at bad marketing.

Kat Ripley: 30:08

Yeah, so I I've kind of been exploring that. I have a handful of freelance clients that I do marketing for. I'm on the side. I also do some photography work for one of them, sort of another side shoot of what I do. I do some interiors and architectural photography. So I work with an architect who's also based here in Kingfield and I shoot all her projects and then I spend a lot of time sitting there editing and making these really beautiful looking photos of the insides of people's houses, and oftentimes it's very ironic feeling because I'll be like sitting at the laundromat editing photos of a million dollar home. Yeah, wait.

Jen: 30:45

Yeah, that tracks I was talking to.

Jen: 30:50

Lindsay about a lot was just like we were talking about this last weekend too Just like the workforce, housing and just the dichotomy that exists in these places, and it's just so like it can be so stark sometimes, and that's definitely one of those instances where you're like and then I upgraded to sitting in my year, yeah, and like I'm, I'm, I'm editing pictures of this, you know, multi million dollar home, and then I'm going and going to bathroom of my composting toilet and it's all good, all right. So then you have this ever expand like. First of all, let me just say that I am glad that you got divorced for COVID, because that could have been a really fucked up situation if you were still anyway as a side so well, were you not? Good and bad?

Kat Ripley: 31:34

So I had bought a house for us in Eustis, maine, and that was in 2016, and I bought it for $80,000. It was a three bedroom house, oh my God. And then we had built this giant, awful garage next to it way too close to the house. My ex has been needed to be like insanely large for whatever reason. So we bought this, we built this huge, huge garage, which then, of course, increased the value of the house. This is still 2019, before the market like tripled plus in pricing, Right.

Kat Ripley: 32:06

So we I just really wanted to get away from him and to not be around to him. So I had kind of taken my cut of equity from the house and I was like you know what you can have it Like, just leave me alone, I just want to be with you.

Jen: 32:21

I want to cry for you right, this second, yeah. So I mean not that anyone saw that coming, because like no, no, it's kind of like where we are in Gilead, like for the longest time that real estate just would sit and sit and, sit and sit and sit.

Jen: 32:31

And then COVID happened, and even still now it's just like you know, if stuff's on the market for more than like five days, you know there's some huge problem, right? So yeah, so I had taken my cut of the equity, which ended up being like $30,000 and just walking away from it.

Kat Ripley: 32:49

And now the house is worth like three times more, even now after prices have come back down. So I didn't win out on that piece of it. But I had walked away from the situation with enough to kind of feel whole again and to start kind of doing my own thing. So I left the, left the job at Mountain Operations, been working remotely and I found myself again in this relationship with another person where I just really wasn't feeling very good. So I decided that couldn't be a coincidence. Clearly it must be something that is going on with me. I read a lot, I started reading a bunch of hopefully it wasn't Dianetics.

Kat Ripley: 33:27

No, I read Actually I have a bunch of them right here to the right of me. I read this book called set boundaries, find peace. I read the body keeps the score. I read attached. I read just so many books like that that are kind of deep dives into sort of the psychology of the psychology part of you.

Kat Ripley: 33:52

Know what's going on with your own behavior, and I learned a lot about myself through doing that and it helped me better understand a lot of my own patterns and my own triggers and kind of develop a deeper sense of compassion for myself. I grew up feeling like I had very little self worth and a lot of that had to do with the fact that I was being abused and then also being gaslit about it. I grew up thinking that my entire family knew what was happening and that no one cared enough to do anything about it, which left me as a very angry kid I was. I felt very and very much like nothing I ever did was going to be good enough, and of course you know those sorts of things until you address them just continue showing up in different sorts of ways throughout your life. So I decided I really didn't want to feel the way that I was feeling in that relationship that I was in. So I was going to start, you know, really trying to dig down and work on some of that stuff. And I've worked on so many things and I've learned so much about myself and I've gotten myself into such a better place mentally than I've ever been in before and I've been able to kind of continue to build on that. And then I found yoga, which kind of catapulted it all to a different level. It kind of gave me sort of a framework and a structure and a community to really like start putting some of these things I was learning into practice and to start having some deeper conversations with other people who really understood what I was talking about and what I was going through and to just kind of I don't know, take it, continue taking it farther.

Kat Ripley: 35:45

I had taken this part-time concierge job at a yoga retreat center that had opened in town because I was feeling really again isolated, because I was working remotely and it had been, you know, the pandemic, so people weren't going out and I had left my marriage thinking that I was going to go out and start making friends and start like living my life, and then everything shut down.

Kat Ripley: 36:07

I ended up in this relationship with this guy who had a lot of similarities with my ex-husband in just a sense of being very controlling and very passive, aggressive A lot of the ways that he would sort of be, I guess. So I started working at this yoga retreat center just to get out of the house, and ended up taking a teacher training course and found that a lot of what I was learning as far as teaching yoga went really built off of the teaching experience that I had from skiing and snowboarding. It was kind of like just taking all of the knowledge and all of the skills that I already had been cultivating for like a decade and then just applied it to a different medium and it was like I had found something that I had lost.

Jen: 36:53

Yeah, I can totally see that.

Jen: 36:54

Yeah, and then when did the guiding come into it? Because, like, it just gives me more perspective now on the conversation we were having over the weekend, when you're like, well, kind of my unofficial tagline for my guiding business is like I want to help people feel a little bit less shitty and I'm like, okay, yeah, I like that, though that's just like saying it like it is. Call it like it is. You know, it's just like that's kind of what it is. You're not. Your most guides are not trying to, you know, bring people to Mount Everest, but you know they just want to facilitate good vibes and I think that's awesome.

Kat Ripley: 37:30

I mean I haven't put that line in print anywhere because I'm still trying to figure out the best way to say that without turning off a lot of people, because it is kind of a it's one of those really sort of you either get it or it's like what kind of statements? Yeah, and I need to find that kind of middle ground, either to find a very specific niche of people that will respond to that or to find a way to kind of dial it back into a middle ground kind of place where it's more approachable. But my inspiration for kind of getting my guide license and sort of taking it in this direction was heart pulling from that kind of early desire to like kind of do something adventurous and wanting to be able to pull some skiing and snowboarding back into what I was doing and kind of get that more element to be more a part of my life again. But what really triggered it was I went on this one night trip last March with Kimberly Triskowski, who's a yoga teacher and a registered main guide, and it was a trip that I had found out about through a few friends and it wasn't until we were standing at the trailhead in the parking lot and she was talking about when we're in retreat and I was like, oh my God, this is a yoga retreat.

Kat Ripley: 38:49

I had no idea and my brain just like started reeling about, like you know, my marketing. Brain switched on and it's like, oh my God, this is such a cool concept of delivering a retreat experience without calling it a retreat, like for the same reason that I am hesitant to go straight in with the like. I just want to help people feel a shitty line. You know, labeling something as a yoga retreat is very like it creates a barrier for a lot of people, like if you're not someone who regularly practices yoga, you're probably not going to sign up for a yoga retreat, because that sounds like a very intense yoga focused experience. But what?

Jen: 39:26

was she pitching it? She was just a biker.

Kat Ripley: 39:29

Yeah, it was like a an overnight full moon hike to poplar hut where we would like have a really nice dinner and do some yoga, and like, like the yoga was such like a small component of the overall like pitch of what this was. I thought it was just like a winter time hike with a bunch of other like chill ladies to go have dinner and like, maybe do some low key yoga, like that sounded fun. And then it's like, oh no, this is like a yoga retreat, like we're we are quote unquote in retreat, and it was just like such an amazing experience, like the way that she approached it and presented it. Just it was very approachable. Like there were people there that practice yoga and there were people there that had really not practice yoga at all. Everyone just felt very comfortable and, like you know, we talked about some themes. It was March, so still winter, but moving towards spring. So we talked about this theme of things being frozen but starting to wake up and like what inside of you is starting to get ready to, you know, start moving again. And we had kind of explored that throughout the.

Kat Ripley: 40:41

You know it was a two day, one night thing and I walked away from that being like, okay, that's, I need to do this. I need to figure out how to take the experience of a retreat this holistic, like really donating good feeling experience. I need to figure out how to package this in such a way that it would be approachable for anybody who just wants that experience, without like the barrier of this is a yoga retreat. So I I really had like kind of latched onto that and it just like everything kind of clicked at that point where it was like, okay, like this is my avenue, like you know, going back to wanting to find a way to help people that are feeling stuck and that are struggling, like this is how I can do that. So I've I've been trying to kind of explore that networking over the last few months, as I've, you know, gotten all of my certifications and licensing is and everything else in order.

Jen: 41:40

Yeah, that's, yeah, that's, that's very cool. And it was like, and you kind of brought a very, very, very mini piece of that type of experience to the event last weekend which was, in name, about you know, learning how to build and frame, and you know we built a big tent platform and a group was learning about that. But then we kind of ended it with, you know, a walk through the and we didn't do the woods, we went up going. Well, we did a little bit of woods, we went down by the river and and you had a, you taught, you gave us a bunch of thought prompts around which were like awesome.

Jen: 42:17

I mean, it was a really nice way to kind of end something that had been a very physical weekend, but like in a very reflective mental way. I'm not putting this into words very, very well, but I don't know. Do you like, if you don't mind, you remember any of the, the prompts that we were talking about? Like it would be cool to just kind of throw those out for people to think about, because it's it's a perfect time of year to be thinking about wintering.

Kat Ripley: 42:40

Yeah, so what I started with and this is something that I've found is really, really helpful is to kind of talk about wintering in a very literal sense of how, how it happens within nature everything either hibernates, migrates, adapts or dies. So we had started with kind of the beginning of our walk. I had asked everyone to kind of look around and really think about how the things that they're seeing are making changes for winter, like what is happening to the actual physical world around us. And I like to start a lot of these conversations in that way, because it helps people to kind of get into that like curious, open sort of headspace where you're looking at things and you're just trying to understand them, you're not judging, you're not like trying to put like any kind of necessarily projection on to something, you're just observing. So once we kind of got down to the riverbank and it felt like everybody was kind of in that good reflective space, you know, we talked a little bit about what people had noticed and then I kind of gave the prompt of like okay, so wintering does not have to be looked at as solely a literal thing. Like we can, we all go through periods of kind of more metaphorical winters within our own lives.

Kat Ripley: 44:11

So, thinking of how everything else in nature experiences winter, like how do you personally experience winter? Like what do you do when you kind of get to that point where it's like now or sometime in the past or maybe you feel it coming, where you feel like you have to kind of come back into yourself and take some time to just rest and kind of chill out and reflect and maybe reassess where you're headed? So then I let everybody kind of wander off a little bit and find a spot to sit and think about that for a while, and then we had kind of continued walking a little bit and I threw out that you know, wintering is not a forever season. Like winter eventually ends and it might feel like it goes on forever and ever and ever, like it'll be April and it's still snowing two feet like every other day, and you're just like God, will this please stop? And sometimes life can feel that way too.

Kat Ripley: 45:13

But spring does eventually show up and when spring does come, things are to bloom again. So as you're going through this wintering in your own life, like you need to keep in mind that it will be spring again eventually. So as you're reflecting and as you're resting and recharging and really leaning into that process of letting that happen, what kinds of things are you hoping will bloom when spring does finally arrive? Like, what do you want to see grow in this next season of your life? And I think after that we kind of just wandered around and looked at stuff, but that's a process.

Jen: 45:54

Yeah, and it brought up a lot of. There were a lot of cool conversations that came out of that and just reflections and so much of the movement, basically all of the movement. That entire weekend had been so purposeful as far as like, oh, I got to go get this tool, I got to go up the hill, I got to go down the hill, I got to do this, I got to go get lunch, you know whatever, and it was like at first it felt a little bit like a record scratch, but then it was. But then once you let yourself kind of ease into that and just it was, it was so nice. I don't know. I'm still kind of like it was just nice to all of a sudden like notice what was going on around us, because we had been so purposeful the whole time of like you know, you keep walking by the same spot and then all of a sudden you have this whole other. I don't know, you're just, you're just oriented in a completely different way, seeing the same things, and it really made a really cool thing and I love being up there.

Jen: 46:47

I was thinking to myself when I was there that what, what being in that space has kind of brought me over the last many years is just, it is a. It's a completely different winter. I have two different winners. I have a winter when I'm at home, which like stresses me out and bumps me out and makes me angry. And then I have winter when I go up there and let myself kind of just breathe it in. That is like, oh, this is actually lovely and can be very resetting and beautiful, and you know so it's nice to kind of remind myself that, oh, I could probably not be as angry even at home, like, just get out, go walk, go walk somewhere that you'll find pretty and you'll be a little bit less angry. Just do it in the you know four hours of daylight that we have, because that's part of the problem, I think. But yeah, no, it was beautiful and thank you for revisiting all that stuff. Yeah, absolutely.

Jen: 47:38

So I want, before we leave. So I want I want you to tell me three more things, and I'm sorry I'm keeping you so long, but this has gone interesting places that I didn't know was going to go, which I love. I want to hear about, as you are reflecting and figuring out where your guide service is going to go. What are you kind of looking forward to doing in the coming year or so. And then I want you to talk a little bit about your favorite things to do with George as adventures, because he is a hoot and a half and you know, adventuring with kids can be both challenging and rewarding to varying degrees. And then I'll ask you my last question. So give me that. Give me a little bit about Juniper Moss and a little bit about George and you hitting the road outside.

Kat Ripley: 48:21

So my offerings for Juniper Moss are still very much in the developmental phase. I would love to be doing what I see myself starting with is potentially some like guided hikes, or I would really love to be doing some cross country skiing with people this winter or snowshoeing. I love getting outside in winter time. So I'd love to be doing some things, possibly partnered with Maine Huts or kind of as an extension of that.

Jen: 48:50

Yeah, you're in a really good spot for that up there. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.

Kat Ripley: 48:55

And I don't know just kind of seeing where I can go from from there, seeing like where the interest really lies. So I'm still I'm still exploring that part of it, really just trying to dial in like what are people actually looking for? What kinds of things will they truly respond to? Well, and kind of get my foothold there, so kind of building off of those sort of experiences and working in elements of yoga and working in elements of you know, kind of having some of these deeper philosophical conversations that help people just feel a little bit better.

Kat Ripley: 49:28

I spent a lot of time on Instagram posting in stories there that's how you found me actually was posting about a trip that I had done. So I've kind of been using that as my testing ground to see what people respond to. Part of the reason that I end up on there as much as I end up on there is because I'm responding. I get notifications and I respond to people that are responding to me from the things that I posted, saying like oh God, that really made me feel seen, or like I really appreciate that you posted this because it just like made me think about something that I'd never thought about before. So kind of finding a middle ground between like taking adventures and kind of helping people, just like to hold space for people to feel like they can explore something inside of themselves.

Kat Ripley: 50:13

As far as George goes, he he definitely helps me explore the things inside of myself sometimes because I'm just so frustrated that I have to do those things. But the types of adventures that he really seems to enjoy the most are when we either go skiing or cost country skiing or snowshoeing and then we have like a picnic lunch about halfway through. He's really into like the let's, let's get somewhere and then sit down and have snacks. I have snacks.

Jen: 50:44

Yeah, it's always about the snacks, but that's cool that he's willing to do snacks outside. So, yeah, that makes it a lot more fun.

Kat Ripley: 50:51

Hey, I mean, he runs really hot so he's like always not wanting to wear a jacket and always like trying to hand me like hats and gloves and things that he doesn't want to wear anymore and I'm like, no, you need to carry your stuff. But yeah, he's, he's funny, he is hilarious, he's very epic and very friendly and very social. Yeah, so anytime I can kind of work all of those things into something that he can do, he's usually pretty happy, like he loved coming to that to the workshop this past weekend. He thought that was just so fun.

Jen: 51:28

He was a good helper. He, like you know, he had a good attitude about stuff. He was like talking everybody up making sure everybody had a drink, or you know some popcorn or you know, kid just needed a job and he was good to go, yeah.

Kat Ripley: 51:42

No, he, he definitely loves having a job.

Jen: 51:45

Yeah.

Jen: 51:45

So, yeah, Well, I appreciated you bringing him. He was. He was a lot of fun, yeah, so I think this is amazing and I'm so looking forward to seeing kind of where you're going to take this, because you do do a lot of very thoughtful posting on Instagram. You know, now that I follow you, I've kind of, like you know, been diving more into it and and I really appreciate it. It's like it's definitely, you know, I would definitely say, follow Kat. She said Juniper Moss Guide Services. Read the captions because they bring a whole other layer of kind of coolness to the nice photos that she puts on. So I would yeah, I would highly encourage everybody to check that out, and she does have a website junipermossguideservicescom. Anything else I should plug for you before I ask you my last question.

Jen: 52:37

I think that's that kind of covers it Anywhere else you like to interact with people.

Kat Ripley: 52:41

Well, so I have my Juniper Moss Instagram page, but I also have my personal Instagram page. I don't know if you follow me there.

Jen: 52:48

Yes, I do, oh, you do, okay. I never know People want want to like put that out there, but yeah, what is my new one? That is, I didn't write it on my sheet here. So it's.

Kat Ripley: 52:57

It's cat, kat underscore RIP first three letters of my first and last name. So my my personal page is definitely more of my personal life but and then I try to keep the Juniper Moss page a little more business focused. But the part where that gets kind of muddy is that so much of what I think the value is that I bring on the business side is the personal part of it. So I've kind of had both pages going where I kind of leave. My personal one is like for people who really want like the deep story background and then leaving the Juniper Moss page is more for like the people who want more of like they're not ready for the deep, deep dive. They just want like kind of more surface level adventures with like some of those more thoughtful pieces kind of sprinkled in in a more curated way.

Jen: 53:48

Yeah, but I do. I do love the way, you know, the content does tend to converge over time, though, because, like, what's what I think is so cool about what you're doing is that you are continuing to pursue things that are bringing you more and more value internally, so it's like, of course, you're going to be reflective about that stuff. I mean, it makes it makes perfect sense, and yeah, but I, you know, I think you you definitely walk a nice line, and it isn't repetitive at all and it's cool. I give you a lot of credit for having the ability to keep up with that, because, because I cannot, yeah, I love it, I don't know it's.

Kat Ripley: 54:27

Yeah, I also do other people's social media on top of that, so there's that.

Jen: 54:30

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true. You're like living online as for a living, so yeah yikes All right so let's get back into the real world, in that I want to understand from you what is your favorite piece of gear that you own that cost you less than fifty dollars.

Kat Ripley: 54:47

I'm easily. That would be my merino wool. They're like neck gaiters, they're made by Buff, they're super lightweight and they are amazing. I have two, because I saw one in a different color and I said I need that too. And I mean I'm big on bandanas, like when it's warmer, but when it gets into colder weather and things are wet and I just want something that's going to feel warm even if it gets a little bit damp, like those merino, just like having that nice merino there around my neck that I can also kind of pull up over my head if I need to. They're just awesome and they cost like $20, you can get them at like REI or anywhere, probably that sells that kind of thing.

Jen: 55:26

Yeah, yeah, I have a whole new appreciation for the Buffs, Just yeah, being in drafty places. But then also there was one that was like a giveaway once that had like it was an extra long one and the container that it came in, the little wrapper, had all these other things you could do with it like, oh, you could twist it in the middle and fold it inside out on one side and make it into a hat, and I was like, oh my God, it like literally my brain exploded. I was like wow look at all this cool stuff.

Jen: 55:52

So now I literally I just I have officially given into. I like to keep my house nice and cold and I used to be like suffering about the fact that it was cold. And now I'm just like I am putting on a buff and my long underwear and I'm just sitting here in my house and it's fine, like I'm too old to think that there's a division between where you wear this stuff and where you don't. If you need to be warm, it's the perfect tool for that, so I love it. That's a good one. I'm not sure we've had a buff in a very long time, so that's a good recommendation and I like the Merino wool aspect. That makes it even more fun than the nylon cheap ones that people can wear Cool, awesome.

Jen: 56:27

Well, kat, this has been amazing. I thank you so much for being so open and transparent and helpful, because I think, to the point that you made, the more stories like this kind of find the light, hopefully, the more people will realize that they're not alone and will feel like there is some hope and some desire and ability to get out of those situations. It's never a safe thing, but yeah, I just appreciate you sharing because people should know they're not alone. Every variety of every bad thing exists in this world, so whatever is happening to you is not unique, and so you need. It's good to hear these stories and understand that there is a way out on the other side.

Kat Ripley: 57:15

Yeah, absolutely, and yeah, it's just. It is truly. It's so important to let people know that.

Jen: 57:22

Yeah, and not for nothing, especially if you have kids. Like nipping that in the bud so that another generation of people don't get the impression that any of that behavior is okay, is important yeah 100%. Yeah, awesome, all right, well, on that note, thank you very much. I love that I've met you and I'm so excited that you are now in my universe and I look forward to doing all kinds of fun, exciting things with you in the coming years, because I'm all about making my life a little bit less sucky every day.

Kat Ripley: 57:57

Well, that's good. I'm glad that you're at that point, and I cannot wait to see what else comes up and what else we can do.

Jen: 58:06

Yeah, I can't wait to see what you guys are gonna put on my 10 platform next year when I finally get to finish decked?

Kat Ripley: 58:11

Yeah, Absolutely no, we ducked George and I need to come and camp there because it is such a beautiful spot with such a great view.

Jen: 58:19

Yep, any time, you guys, any time, it would be lovely. I would love to see you up there. Yeah, all right, okay, okay, can't leave you today without plugging all the things. First off, make for darn sure that you follow Kat Ripley everywhere. Check out her website, junipermossguideservicescom, where she's already got some very fun sounding stuff brewing for 2024. Then head over to Instagram and give her a follow at junipermossguideservices and kat underscore rip so that you can bask in her thoughtful longer form captions and fun picks of her adventures and your life.

Jen: 59:00

Next plug is for Rebuilt this. Anna and her fearless sidekicks Keona, erin, patty and Jonathan put together a truly amazing weekend program last month that resulted in a gorgeous, huge, solid AF hilltop tent platform and eight people acting like a well-oiled contracting machine in just 24 hours. It was truly amazing to witness. So if that kind of thing is your jam, you are in luck. We Built this already has some dates on the calendar for 2024, stool building and chair caning workshops, and there will be much more to come. So head to their new website, webuiltthismecom, and sign up to be on the hot list for notifications for their upcoming workshops and events. Final plug is extraordinarily self-serving, but if you want to enjoy the new we Built this tent platform in person. It's the place to be.

Jen: 59:52

Evans Natchelodge is on the northeast corner of the White Mountain National Forest, close to Great Skiing, hiking, fishing, all the outdoor things. It's off the beaten track, nestled between Gorm, new Hampshire and Bethel, maine, but with Wi-Fi, hot showers and comfy beds. If you have family and friends you like to spend time with, or if you're a small business owner or a retreat leader looking for a low key place to bring your people for a getaway, evans Natchelodge might just be the place for you. Head over to evansnatchelodgecom for more info. You can email us there or DM at evansnatchelodge on the socials to tell us more about your group and get some smoking hut deals as a listener of this podcast. We've still got a few winter weekends open and we're starting to book up summer and fall of 2024. I would absolutely love to have you Wild Ones enjoy my special place too. Links in the show notes get in touch already and now. I am finally done for now, but back at you in a few weeks with some inspiration to end the year, getting all kinds of wild tão scholar, so you