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The Story of Healing Nature

From a little seed, something beautiful began to grow.

Healing Nature was born from a moment of profound loss, a walk through the forest, and a little heart-shaped leaf.

In November 2025, I lost my best friend.

We worked together in early childhood education, and she was one of the most extraordinary people I have ever known.

She had a beautiful love for nature, an infectious sense of humour, and the most wonderfully outlandish business ideas. She brought the natural world into her classroom, keeping stick insects and introducing children to the wonder of butterflies. Every year, she would bring in monarch butterfly chrysalises so the children could witness their transformation before releasing them into the world.

She didn’t just educate children. She inspired curiosity, compassion, and a love for life.

She had devoted almost ten years to the centre where we worked, passing away just two weeks before her tenth anniversary.

Her passing changed something within me.

It reminded me just how precious and unpredictable life is. How easily we can become caught up in our routines, our responsibilities, and the belief that there will always be more time.

More time to follow our dreams.

More time to explore.

More time to live the lives we feel called to live.

A couple of weeks after she passed, I went for a walk through one of my favourite places, O’Shannassy Aqueduct Trail in Don Valley, Victoria.

There, surrounded by the peaceful beauty of the forest, the idea for Healing Nature came to me.

I didn’t have a business plan. I didn’t know what it would become. I simply felt inspired to share the beauty of the natural world and encourage others to reconnect with it.

That day, I recorded my very first Healing Nature video.

And as I walked, I came across a beautiful heart-shaped leaf resting on the forest floor.

Something so small, so simple, yet so beautiful.

I photographed it, and that little leaf became the profile picture for Healing Nature.

A heart, found in nature, at the very beginning of a journey born from love.

Looking back, I couldn’t imagine a more fitting beginning.

Over the following months, something within me continued to change.

In January 2026, I spent a week camping at the Rosebud foreshore in Victoria. What began as a family camping trip became a beautiful experience of solitude, reflection, and independence.

Each day, I watched the Spirit of Tasmania sail past.

And somewhere in those quiet moments, I felt an overwhelming sense that Tasmania was where I needed to go.

I didn’t know how it would happen. I didn’t have every detail worked out.

But I knew I was ready for a new beginning.

On 1 May 2026, the day before my twenty-fifth birthday, I boarded the Spirit of Tasmania and left Victoria behind.

That same day, I also made the decision to leave behind two habits I had struggled to overcome for years: smoking cigarettes and cannabis.

I wanted to begin this new chapter without carrying the habits of my old life into it.

It wasn’t just a change of location.

It was a conscious decision to change the way I was living.

And in the months that followed, Healing Nature began to grow alongside me.

What began as a simple desire to share the beauty of nature gradually developed into something much greater.

Photography became clothing inspired by the landscapes I explored.

Reflections became books and journals.

Ideas became collections, projects, and eventually a registered Australian company.

And that first little seed continued to grow into a much larger vision.

A vision of community gardens where people can access fresh food, reconnect with the earth, and learn to grow together.

Of educational spaces where children and adults can rediscover their relationship with the natural world.

Of conservation, compassion, animal sanctuaries, and communities built around caring for one another and the planet we share.

Today, Healing Nature is still growing, and so am I.

I don’t know exactly what the future holds, or how every dream will unfold.

But I know where it began.

With love.

With loss.

With a walk through the forest.

And with a little heart-shaped leaf that reminded me how something seemingly ordinary can carry extraordinary meaning.

My best friend’s life taught me something I will carry forever: the love, kindness, and wonder we share with others can continue to grow in ways we may never get to see.

And perhaps that is one of nature’s most beautiful lessons.

We plant seeds without always knowing which ones will grow.

We nurture what we can.

We make the most of the time we have.

And we leave something beautiful for those who come after us.

Our mission at Healing Nature is to inspire people to reconnect with nature, so they can reconnect with themselves—and together, become better stewards of the Earth.

Because when we reconnect with nature, we reconnect with ourselves.

And sometimes, finding our way back to nature is how we begin finding our way home.

We are a part of nature, not apart from nature.

— Perrie Alandria Dubois

Founder, Healing Nature