Robin Rainbow Gate, born Lisa Sara Kaplan, spent the first 17 years of her life in Chicago. Born into a family of artists, Robin grew up with a studio in her house, and prospered from great cultural exposure and opportunity. For six summers, from age nine, she majored in art (and minored in harp) at National Music Camp, in Michigan, and refers to this time as her early college education.

The experience that had the most positive influence on her life (besides giving birth), was her experience in Alternative Education in High School. In the "Community" she learned about learning and thrived on being given responsibility for her own education. It is this experience that led Robin to believe the world is her classroom, and allows her to live by it. After one year at an alternative college in Washington State, where she studied "Science and Humanism" and the history and evolution of modern medicine, Robin lived abroad for five years. In England she received training as a Teacher of English as a Foreign Language, and got married. After two years, she moved to Bangalore, India, where she taught, lived, and gave birth. Three years later, she and her family "landed" in Lexington, Kentucky, where her then husband had a University position.

Along the way, Robin has been sole proprietor of "Underart" a small artwear business, cooked professionally (coolest job was as vegetarian middle-eastern and Indian Chef for the Princes of Dubai),and supported herself through various freelance creative projects.

In 1993, Robin left the suburbs and married life for a lifestyle more in accordance with her values. She founded the Voluntary Simplicity Support Group in 1995, which met for eight and a half years and still enjoys her simple lifestyle, based on her love for nature and care for Earth. Robin has been practicing plant medicine for years and enjoys harvesting and eating wild plants and making medicine with them. She is currently becoming acquainted with the medicinal plants that grow on the mountains where she lives.

Robin put herself through college from 1995-1999 and graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree in Integrated Strategic Communications, her career goal being Graphic Design. After several years of that work, Robin became Creative Director of the same small publishing company where she'd started, and then General Manager of a regional magazine called Health & Wellness.

In 2000, Robin was asked to interview a...