Meet Your Guide - page under construction

When I want to feel connected and free, I go to the forest. I love helping people experience the forest and themselves in a whole new way.

Blainor McGough is a forest therapy guide, garden designer, mother and champion motorcycle racer with degrees in Horticulture, Communications, and an M.S. in Adult Education from the University of Southern Maine.

McGough apprenticed with Maine rosarian Suzy Verrier, worked in the plant nursery and as a , the Cumberland County Soil and Water Conservation District specializing in native plant design, and continues to design gardens for selected clients.

and graduate of the Forest Therapy School Guide Certification Program, and recipient of the Metamorphosis Award. Blainor was the founding executive director of Mayo Street Arts, an arts center I created and ran for 12 years in Portland Maine, and remains thriving hub of art and music today. (You should go check it out!)

Art has been an important part of my life, and at Mayo Street Arts I had the opportunity to curate the art gallery and design and produce performances and events in dance, theater, puppetry, and the visual arts. I especially love puppet theater and worked as a puppeteer for many years. I love creating beautiful stories with movement, lighting, sound, color, and texture.

The forest provides an endless theater of beauty, emotion, and change. The forest is ever present but never the same. The sound, light, color, texture, temperature, presence, and emotion is new and different on each visit. Unlike most theaters, there is nothing here to do, create, or build - everything is already in place, and as it was meant to be at each moment. This theater is a place to pause, see, feel, sense, smell, touch, contemplate, reckon, appreciate, and connect - with nature, others, and ourselves.