The oldest of seven children, Renee was raised in a wildly creative Montessori inspired household steeped in music, science, philosophy, yoga, and spirituality. In the mid-1970s, her parents—a physician and a musician/artist—left their comfortable, conventional life in San Antonio, TX and moved Renee and her brothers to the wilderness of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains to create a new life centered around spirituality, nature, and simplicity. They lived in a two-bedroom home with a wood-burning stove, rode horses bareback to school, wrote poetry, read Sanskrit texts, and made stained glass and pottery. Years later, between 1992–2000, Renee tragically lost her mom, dad, and 20-year-old brother. These early deaths were wakeup calls for Renee to stay awake and alive and challenged her to never sleepwalk through life.

A nationally-known catalyst, author, thought leader, and teacher, Renee has written several award-winning books on living intentionally, including The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal: How to Reclaim, Rejuvenate and Re-Balance Your Life. She facilitates women’s retreats at Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, Esalen Institute, 1440 Multiversity, the Art of Living Retreat Center, and Omega Institute and is a sought-after media expert on the topics of self-care, sovereignty, and life balance. Her pioneering work has been featured in The New York Times, Spirituality & Health, O Magazine, Good Housekeeping, and more. She and her husband live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina; their son Jonah, a jazz musician/artist, lives in New York City. Renee loves teaching Wild Souls Authentic Movement and feeling her aliveness through dancing, leading song circles, making soup with local veggies for friends and family, and taking long, meandering forest hikes under the moon.