Marie Krueger

Q: Why do you work in wilderness therapy?
A: I believe this type of therapy can be one of the most effective means for initiating physical, emotional, and spiritual transformation. The wilderness offers a path for healing that cannot be substituted through traditional therapeutic approaches. I hope to provide guidance to students by helping them find their connection with Mother Earth, as a means of connecting with themselves and the world they are apart of.

Q: Why do you think the wilderness works?
A: Simply put, the wilderness does not discriminate nor judge when extending the most beautiful and harshest of its elements. I believe the wilderness provides a safe place for students to begin to shed those layers of unhealthy identities, which they feel they need to survive in their current systems. I find that the wilderness helps to develop creativity and resiliency, skills needed to prevail in a world that can feel unmanageable at times. Inherently, I believe that being in nature feeds the human soul and cultivates a heightened sense of existential and spiritual awareness.

Q: What are your unique gifts, experiences that help our students?
A: I offer my gift of humility and intuitiveness in working with students and staff. I have dedicated the last 10 years of my career towards working with adolescents and their families. Helping them develop their personal successes within the risk factors of addiction, violence, academic struggles, mental illness, and family dysfunction.

Q: What do you do for fun?
A: I love exploring all the little nooks and crannies that the world has to offer! I spend my free time hiking, skiing, photographing people and landscape, vegetarian cooking, horseback riding, reading, writing and incorporating new poses into my yoga practice. I savor my time with friends and loved ones, and feel gratitude for each one of them and the gifts they bring into my life.

Q: Who is a person that has inspired your life?
A: I have been deeply inspired by the unconditional love and support that my parents have provided throughout the life changes they endured during their 36 years of marriage. My mother taught me how to nurture and love amidst the most challenging of circumstances, while my father instilled in me the values of forgiveness and self-acceptance, as he continues in his recovery as a Vietnam veteran with PTSD.

Q: If you could meet anyone, who would it be?
A: I would love to go back in time with an Ancestral Puebloan descendant (Anasazi) and learn in more detail about their traditions and ways of living. I feel this deep connection to the ancestors whose land is now being used to teach our students. We find remains of their dwellings in the cliffs, and evidence of their existence through shards of pottery…and yet, the mystery prevails around their disappearance.

Q: What is one of the defining moments in your life?
A: In 2006, I sat my first 10-day silent meditation course in the Vipassana tradition. It was after my time in solitude that I began to feel the subtle shifts of deep internal change, and the rising desire to seek a way of living that aligned itself with my desires for a simpler and more meaningful life. I am learning to listen more intently to my soul and inner voice, and trust that it will bring me the truths that I need to grow and evolve as a human being.

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