About Marion Miller

My Story 

The Roots of Connection and Creativity

I was born in Tasmania and spent my earliest years on a farm, raised by my immigrant mother from Hamburg, Germany, and my father, a former pastry chef and cattle farmer from King Island. My parents and grandparents, who worked hard on the land, and in family businesses, instilled in me the values of nature connection, creativity and entrepreneurialism. The move to Melbourne to take over the family cake-making business, Rose Marie Cakes, brought turbulence—my parents' divorce and my mother's struggle with generational trauma from post-war Germany. In reflection, it feels like most of my life has been a journey to get back to that earliest life and in early 2026 we're about to embark on small-scale organic farming and establishing a land-based retreat on the Surf Coast Victoria. My private practice is based in a Glen Iris studio in Melbourne.

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​​Finding Presence and Purpose

I was educated at a private Anglican School and loved to challenge our school chaplain Mrs. Jean Penman, (wife of Archbishop Penman) on matters of history, spirituality and religion. She always listened patiently to my questions and her presence inspired a spiritual connection. When she found out I was leaving the school she gifted me a beautiful silver Jerusalem Cross on necklace she had bought on her travels. She encouraged me to continue seeking and living a spiritual life.  

My mother was involved in psychology and neuroscience research at Swinburne University. She introduced me to contemplative practice in my early twenties. Since then, I’ve explored Western philosophy, psychology and the mythology. I have facilitated a women's circle for a decade, weaving in many of these themes. Both my grandmothers were creative practitioners; I continue to paint on an easel and treasure the folksy textiles I've inherited from my great grandmother I got to meet in Hamburg at 105. Through my own creative arts practice at the studio, I explore a cultural, spiritual and nature-based lens through painting, sculpture, textile and earth-based materials.​

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In my early twenties, I traveled west along the coastline of Australia for 6 months, making it as far as Darwin. Spending time with remote Indigenous communities in Fitzroy Crossing, Katherine, and Shady Camp N.T., I fell in love with the spirit of Country and I witnessed the initiation ceremony—a pivotal experience that deepened my awareness of what true belonging looked like. I was gifted a wild turkey wing by a local elder named Cedric Fortimer.

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I've had a long journey with meditation and contemplative practice, exploring the Eastern philosophy of my children's paternal lineage.​ Finding authenticity in teaching mindfulness that is embedded in a 30-year practice and training in the international gold-standard, evidence-based Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). A retreat that explored how the Dharma informs Mindfulness based interventions sparked my interest in learning more about the Buddha's teachings. I've studied and draw from Zen, Tibetan and Insight meditation (Vipassana) with decades of silent retreat experience and wise elders to guide me. I’m currently undertaking Dharma teacher training in the Western Insight Meditation tradition and volunteer at Melbourne Insight Meditation Southside Sangha, located at Port Phillip Eco Centre. I have been fortunate to teach mindfulness in leadership, education and the community. I truly believe mindfulness and compassion is a superpower that can change the world, one breath at a time.

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Wholeness in Complexity

My career path has been driven by a desire to bring heart, soul and wisdom into the world of work. Always a creative entrepreneur, I founded several businesses in creative production, coaching, and mindfulness (including Melbourne Coach, The Coaching Hub and Artists on Location). I formalised this expertise with a Coaching and Counselling degree (ACAP) and ICF certification, integrating coaching with mindfulness to create a framework to take people on transformative journeys and developing conscious leaders. I have also dived deep into Depth Psychology studies and find the intersection of east/west philosophy and the arts/sciences to be authentically aligned to who I am. I am processed focussed, taking people on journeys to develop their character, agency and greater courage and resolve. 

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I have facilitated hundreds of events in corporate workplaces, education, allied health and the community as well as offering private practice coaching and counselling. I was a co-facilitator of an organisational coaching psychology pilot program using mindfulness and leadership principles to reduce psychosocial hazards and injuries in twelve workplaces across Victoria, funded by WorkSafe. After working at all levels of organisation—from coaching executive leaders of large corporations to providing well-being counseling in the public and private sector—I observed a pattern of stress, anxiety and sometimes burn out. I offer a social and emotional approach that supports shifting from fear-based thinking and transactional ways of relating to collective wellbeing and servant leadership with a felt sense of groundedness and connection to community and the natural world. This is about not just surviving but cultivating an intention to ethically steward a flourishing ecosystem at home, at work and out in the community.

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​Life-Sustaining Systems and Global Hope

By bringing an embodied mindfulness, systems thinking, compassion, creativity, and nature-insight to my work, I hope to empower leaders to be more eco-centric, working in harmony with the wider web of life in their career, community, business, place and home. I support leaders who are globally aware and interested in creating "islands of sanity," small localised ecologies in their organisation and community. I love working with thought leaders, visionaries and servant leaders working to build a more integrative approach to working, and living that actively supports us to rise to the challenges of our time with clarity, strength, moral imagination, creativity, and collective purpose and action.

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Life as an Adventure, Lived Joyfully

Life is an incredible adventure for which I am truly grateful. In my personal life— I've naturally birthed four daughters which taught invaluable lessons about rites of passage and midwifing human nature. Raising my children, for many years as a single mother has provided me a selflessness, humility and devotion that still informs my sense of stewardship today. I'm a bi-racial mother and proud parent and value diversity in all that I do. My husband's contribution to raising the girls has been a gift to us all. Supporting my husband's executive leadership journey as a co-founder of a successful global technology company taking the built environment on a decarbonisation journey—has profoundly shaped my perspective on ethical leadership, high performing teams and social purpose. I value my self-care and have a regular meditation practice, spend time in nature, dance, write, create art and love gardening as a way to resource myself. From teaching English in a Buddhist temple in Japan, hiking and sailing the Whitsundays and crewing on a tall ship voyage provided rich, learning experience. We are now planning our next chapter—beginning a land-based project in 2026 on the Surf Coast in Victoria. I’m privileged to still wake up feeling incredibly grateful and energised for the opportunity to serve both people and the planet. I continue to offer a small boutique consultancy and leadership coaching program in Glen Iris, Melbourne.