THE GIVING CYPRESS
About Us
The Giving Cypress works in partnership with Nature to help humans connect with themselves through sensory embodiment and silence. We teach you the skills and benefits of being present, focusing your energy, slowing down your mind, bringing clarity to your thoughts, and experiencing a deeper connection with yourself and Nature.
About Summer
Summer Crider, a certified Nature and Forest Therapy guide, works in partnership with Nature to provide opportunities to help humans re-connect with the Earth and themselves through the healing practice of forest bathing. Born and raised in the cypress swamp of North Florida, Summer navigated through various life experiences as a human being who happens to be deaf.
After getting their degrees in Expressive Art Therapy and Deaf Cultural Studies- they decided to share their passion for language and cultures by educating folks about the gifts of Deaf Culture and American Sign Language. Summer became a certified American Sign Language instructor, teaching ASL, Spanish, and Deaf Culture in various high schools and colleges/universities. Soon after, they decided to establish an educational media company, The Giving Cypress, which focused on making accessible videos and enriching visual educational platforms for the sign language community.
After years living in the city, spending hours in front of the screen, teaching, directing, and coordinating creative projects, Summer experienced challenges with mental health and anxiety, and found their calling back home- to Mother Nature.
In 2020, Summer has completed training in Forest and NatureTherapy guiding through Association for Nature and Forest Therapy and Wilderness First Aid through NOLS. They decided to change their business focus, but keeping the same name "The Giving Cypress".
Summer is currently offering heart-centric guiding, using the tools of silence and sensory embodiment to help humans connect with Nature. Summer believes and has seen through their own life experiences that we all can heal ourselves through nature-connection and believes you can too.
We come from Muscogee, Seminole, and Timucua land.
We are currently traveling on indigenous land.
The Giving Cypress recognizes the land of indigenous people many of whom lost their lives to genocide and were forced to leave their land. We need to protect and honor the history and peoples of the land. Our forests have been protected for years by indigenous peoples (Ais, Apalachee, Calusa, Timucua and Tocobago tribes of the Southeast), so honoring and acknowledging their action to protect the land and forest is only one small part of supporting Indigenous communities.
We hope our land acknowledgment statement will inspire others to stand with us in solidarity with Native nations.