Summer Crider is a cultural studies educator, certified Forest and Nature Therapy guide, and founder of The Wild Cypress, a company offering retreats and educational programs for Deaf, Disabled, and marginalized communities. With degrees in Expressive Arts Therapy and Deaf Cultural Studies, Summer bridges academic insight with lived experience as a Deaf, Disabled, Queer woman whose recent journey reshaped their identit(ies) and commitment to healing.

Raised on the land of the Musocogee, Seminole, and Timucua nations in Florida, Summer learned the indigenous ways at a very early age. They founded The Giving Cypress to make visual learning accessible in sign language, later shifting its focus toward healing through nature connection. Traveling across Turtle Island in a converted shuttle bus, Summer guided Deaf communities into forests giving them access to nature in their own language and culture. They weave Indigenous Ways of being with Deaf Ways of being, and make connection with Indigenous Deaf communities, building bridges across cultures, addressing shared histories of language and cultural genocide.

Theme: Connecting The Stars: Sharing Indigenous and Deaf Ways of Healing

“Connecting the Stars” speaks to the web of relationships that weave Indigenous and Deaf ways of being and Nature as pathways toward healing. My identity as a Deaf, Disabled, Queer woman has been shaped by the forest, where I learned that listening in silence reveals deeper truths. Through tears I once thought were shameful, I discovered grief as sacred medicine—healing waters that soften the heart and allow us to begin again.

This journey also carries responsibility—acknowledging my settler ancestry, my privileges, and the humility needed to build trust with Indigenous relatives. Traveling across Turtle Island in a converted shuttle bus, I connected Deaf communities with nature, ensuring access to the forests that have long been protected by Indigenous peoples. Along the way, my relationships with Indigenous friends, elders, and Deaf community members offered me insight on many ways we can heal together—bridging cultures and repairing the legacies of language and cultural genocide we both endure in our communities.

This is an invitation to stand in solidarity, honoring these stories, to protect the land, and to carry forward stories that heal. By connecting the stars between silence and story, grief and healing, privilege and responsibility, we begin building sustainable communities of belonging to ourselves, the land, and each other.