About

Hazel Acland Tree is a women’s circle facilitator, holistic childbirth educator, doula and celebrant. She initially worked as a lay birth supporter in Guatemala supporting friends and family after the birth of her own son before returning to live & work in the UK.

She is a co-director of the social enterprise The Nest Southwest Community Interest Company that is working with the local Exeter community to improve the lives of women, girls and menstruators during the rites of passage of menstruation, pregnancy & childbirth and menopause. Find out more: https://thenestsw.org/

She has studied and taught workshops on various healing modalities, including Reiki, Emotional Freedom Technique, massage and Touch for Health Kinesiology.

She was a birth doula for 16 years and represented the UK in the European Doula Network for 6 of those years.

It was in Latin America (Mexico & Guatemala) that she apprenticed with traditional celebrants and studied the art of ceremony and more specifically the calendar of days. This training built on her instinctive understanding and body wisdom through studying the old ways of her native land England.

She has spent her early adult life travelling the world; living, learning languages and immersing herself in different cultures. This love of anthropology brought her back to her native land on England with fresh eyes and an open heart, and it was here she rediscovered love of rolling green hills, streams and wooded glens; the hazel tree and oak, ash, holly and beech. Having lived so long without the traditional change of seasons she was delighted to notice all the little signs as one month rolled into the next, connecting how what was happening outside was being reflected within.

Her book : A Birth Path – stages & states of consciousness is about the essence and wonder of birth, and has become a favourite of doulas and childbirth educators, many using the book with their clients in preparation for birth.

An integral part of her life is daily connection with nature through mindfulness. She lives near Exeter in Devon, on a smallholding farm with her family, growing organic food, baking sourdough bread, wild food foraging and keeping bees.

Hazel profile

Hazel Acland Tree

  • director of The Nest Southwest CIC a social enterprise supporting through menstruation, pregnancy, birth and menopause
  • an independent celebrant
  • a peer breastfeeding supporter
  • teaches workshops and offers one-to-one support
  • facilitator of sacred women’s circles
  • author of A Doula’s Journey (a novel)
  • author of A Birth Path – stages and states of consciousness
  • Representative of UK Doula community in European Doula Network (2016-2022)
  • a Reiki master (2001)
  • EFT practitioner (2006)
  • Touch for Health kinesiology practitioner (2005)
  • massage therapist (2002)
  • bilingual in English & Spanish
  • a mother and step-grandmother