Meet the Team
Ellen Slater, LICSW, YT-200
Ellen Slater is a Clinical Social Worker and Yoga Instructor engaged in deconstructing our cultural paradigm of stress and over-stimulation. Ellen received her bachelor’s degree in Human Development and Psychological Services from Northwestern University and master’s degree in Social Work from the University Of Chicago. Ellen has specialized training in trauma, anxiety, and substance use, including a training Fellowship at the Seattle Veteran Affairs Hospital. Ellen has been in the field of holistic health for 16 years, she has extensively studied neuroscience and compassion completing a year long immersion program in Interpersonal Neurobiology with expert Dr. Bonnie Badenoch. Ellen’s teachings are experiential, based in neurobiology, and shift you out of ongoing cycles of stress. She offers tools that build an internal dialogue and bio-chemistry that promotes growth, values based living, and authentic self-expression.
Ellen founded Head & Heart in 2019 as a space to host retreats and spread the teachings of mindfulness and compassion. Listen to her guided meditations and learn more about her HERE.
Abby Bange MS, RD, MHCA
Abby is a registered dietitian and mental health counselor working in the field for over 15years. Abby sees our relationship with food and relationship with ourselves inter linked. One of our 1st ways of feeling loved is through a caregiver comforting us and feeding us, we have the opportunity to show self love daily with how we nourish ourselves. Abby sees stress as a crisis in our communities, while stress is inevitable, chronic stress can be harmful. Abby has worked with people on lifestyle change to help enhance their ability to tolerate stress. She is passionate about improving people's relationships with food and most importantly themselves.
Abby has spoken at universities, clinics, community events and had an Okanogan radio show. Abby has a private practice in Winthrop learn more about her HERE.
Maria Metler, Naturalist
Maria Metler is the Education Director at Vashon Nature Center and is gifted at teaching adults and children how to re-weave their lives into the tapestry of Earth. She lives nestled in the woods on a small island in Puget Sound. With over 25 years experience as an outdoor educator, Maria believes in place-based programs that spark curiosity and ignite wonder. She is passionate about connecting people with the places they inhabit and expanding peoples concepts of their community to include the natural world. As Education Director for Vashon Nature Center, she creates hands-on science education for students and her community. After watching her husband battle a rare cancer for the past five years, she believes more than ever in the healing powers of nature. Maria awaits the chance to grow in nature alongside you.
Marni Yamada, RYT-500
Marni Yamada has completed her 500 yoga teacher training and a 2-year Master's degree in Ayurveda. Her interest in Ayurveda and how the body mirrors nature is her personal life practice. This informs her creative and knowledgeable class sequences which are inspired by her understanding of each individual as a whole. She invites her students to be strong and healthy in their body, connected to their hearts and guided by their spirits. She is also a certified prenatal yoga instructor and practices as a labor support doula off the mat.
Marni came to yoga in 1999 after a broken back in a snowboard accident. Attending her first class as yoga therapy she discovered it was a seed of healing that would later blossom into a passion and lifestyle. She is a mother of two, wife, retired professional snowboarder, enthusiast of nature and forever a student of the ancient study of yoga.
Chloe Rossano, Chef
Chloe Rossano is not only an amazing chef, but a joyful spirit who lives closely with the land. She has a deep understanding of how food impacts our bio-chemistry, leading her to combine food in a way that promotes health and well-being. She will be making you delicious, detoxifying, anti-inflammatory farm to table meals daily along with enjoying your company! Ingredients will come from Hoodoo Blooms Farm, and the planting season has already begun. Farmers Kyle and Cailyn tend the food with so much heart and soul, while Chloe takes the plants and cooks them up! From her delicious homemade Cacao Honey to her warm broth from farm raised chickens, Chloe will help you experience a deep connection to your food and a renewed energy.
Julia Lilly, MBA, CFP
Julia Lilly holds an MBA and is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™, an Accredited Behavioral Finance Professional℠ and the founder of Ryerson Financial. After working in financial services and wealth management for most of her career, Julia grew tired of the opaqueness of the industry. The complicated investment products and confusing account types don't foster a sense of empowerment.
With 15 years in the financial sector Julia was ready to break out on her own and has built a unique financial planning model guided by the questions “What is enough?” and “What does success look like for me?”
On retreat Julia hopes to de-stigmatize financial conversations by offering morning coffee chats where she will offer Q&A along with some takeaway skills. Empowering you through understanding and self-awareness to effectively manage your finances.
“Being you has never been done before”
— Ellen Slater, LICSW, YT-200, Workshop Instructor