Rachel Zegerius, Environmental Educator and Advocate

Name: Rachel Zegerius

Occupation: Program Director, Circle Pines Center

Place of Residence: Beautiful Barry County, Michigan

Background and Personal History: Rachel’s life’s work in environmentalism has fueled a spirit of activism since she can remember. From walking out of her biology lab in solidarity with chicken embryos, to organizing her neighborhood’s demands for clean drinking water and designation of a superfund site, to feeding direct activists, tree-sitting in the old growth forests of Oregon, she strives to put her talents and skills to use for the greatest good. Today, Rachel is deeply involved in the anti-fracking movement in Michigan, working with others to protect the state’s most precious public lands from industrialization, to prevent commodification of invaluable groundwater resources and to preserve the character of rural communities.

Rachel lives out this grand social experiment in a small intentional community, on 300 acres of a once-farmed, now-forested landscape. This community homestead is situated amidst the rocky hills, eskers and kettle lakes of glacial terminal moraine in Southwest Michigan. Rachel practically lives on raw milk, and helps tend a small dairy goat herd, as well as three free-loading Cayuga ducks. It is in this community that Rachel pursues her epic journey in pursuit of health — mental, physical and spiritual. And it is here, at Circle Pines Center, where she is in service to hold a sacred space so that others can also seek health through communing with nature, eating well and cooperating with one another.