Though I don’t fit easily into an organizational chart, my primary role is as a facilitator. I teach yoga and breathing techniques. I help people develop a relationship to sitting meditation. I listen, guide and counsel, offering suggestions for maintaining balance given the challenges of life in the 21st century. I also write: articles, a blog, poetry, journals, a not-yet-published memoir.
While earning a Master’s degree in Psychology from Naropa University I was inspired by the teachings of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and discovered Buddhist meditation. I was a practicing psychotherapist for 10 years, using the model of Contemplative Psychotherapy, which explores how contemplative practice informs and aids the therapeutic process.
Within a week of discovering dharma, I met my first yoga teacher and mentor, Richard Freeman. I studied intensively with him for 10 years, completing both his basic and advanced teacher trainings, and have since hosted him several times around the world. On his suggestion, I traveled to India to study with his teacher, Pattabhi Jois.
In 2004, after spending a year studying in Mysore, South India, Pattabhi Jois gave his authorization to teach Ashtanga yoga. While in India, I also studied intensively with Dr. Shankaranarayana Jois, a prominent Sanskrit scholar and Yoga Acharya, and helped him edit his book, Yoga Bhumika.
These days, I visit regularly with my primary teacher, the Venerable Thrangu Rinpoche, studying classic Tibetan meditation texts, and also spend time each year in solitary meditation retreat in order to practice these instructions.
I have facilitated counseling groups, taught yoga and meditation in an eclectic variety of settings: a county jail, a psychiatric hospital, by correspondence with Hi Max prison inmates, luxury resorts, embassies, schools, studios and retreat centers in North America, Europe and Asia. I taught privately in Paris while working in the Inter-Religious Dialogue department at UNESCO, ran retreats in post-tsunami Sri Lanka to help garner support for victims, and from 2006-07 directed the yoga program at the Landmark Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hong Kong. From 2008-2010, I hosted yoga and meditation retreats at a small luxury resort in the Paro valley of Bhutan. Until recently, I directed a yoga program in Phuket, Thailand. Now I make my base in Chiang Rai, at New Life Foundation, with time for yearly retreat in Crestone, Colorado.
