At the age of 16 looking for a way out of my home environment as well as some answers to “what’s it all about…” and willing to take a step down the road to becoming a religious brother, I entered Marist Prep.  Three years later I took my first vows, concealing the fact that I had become an agnostic and had radically different ideas about the true nature of the vows.  For me, the vow of chastity, for example, had nothing to do with sexual abstinence or celibacy.  It had to do with unconditional love; the only kind of love I recognized then and which still makes sense to me now.

My 3 years in Europe scratched my productivity itch.   I took a Masters in Philosophy at the Sorbonne, most of another in French Lit. at NYU in Paris, I trained in Karate, became fluent in French, conversational in Italian.  I spent the next 10 years in Asia where I had some significant realizations.  The most important happened in Daramsala, where I was taking teachings at the Tibetan Library.  I read J Krishnamurti and realized that my fundamental modus operandi in life, which was based on physical and intellectual domination, would never get me where I wanted to go.  In fact, most of my thinking was actually a form of suffering.  That blew my mind.  The way out of this suffering is the process of choiceless observation, which has been my main practice since that time in ’74.

Living in Rajneesh’s commune in Poona, India, and later in Oregon, afforded me a place to test out this model of inquiry and make many other experiments.  In those years I learned about the interface of meditation and sexuality, about power, jealousy, conflict, how to celebrate everything including death, and had my deepest experiences of letting go and unconditional love, not to mention punching cows and riding horses!

I moved to Santa Fe, NM in ’85 and spent a lot of time in what I could call men’s work which was essentially reclaiming parts of myself that I had pushed back into the shadow, things like fear, shame and grief.  Anger was a kind of cap on the well of these deep painful emotions and beliefs.  Sitting in men’s circles helped me get more clarity about how I was holding all this together and at what price.

I went back to school again in ’94 for an MA in counseling psychology.  I wanted more meaning in my life and saw psychotherapy as a way to contribute to others in the context of right livelihood.  In ’95 I listened to a cassette of Marshall Rosenberg on anger, which again blew my mind.  He taught me that I alone am the cause of my anger, and everything else I feel.  This insight helped me integrate my default emotion, which had been eating my lunch for over 50 years.  NVC has also given me a very succinct way of playing/working with myself and my clients on the path to getting free of conditioning and a way that interfaces so harmoniously with the other practices I had explored and continue to explore, like Byron Katie’s work.   It has also been a gateway for collaborating and co-creating with other trainers like my co-writers Jim, Jori and Jake!  May the horse be with you!

I feel blessed to have parents who never hit me, although fighting with peers was an integral part of daily life throughout much of my childhood. Wrestling matches and rock battles determined the pecking order in our local domination hierarchy.

My Dad worked for Lockheed Aircraft (an integral part of the Military-Industrial Complex) and created creative wood-working projects to salve his psyche. My Mom supported me in so many ways, to numerous to count, and loved to play games, read, contemplate and discuss spiritual matters.  She was my first Spiritual Teacher.  They both seemed dedicated to nurturing me and making sure that I would have a successful life.

At the age of 12, we moved to Marietta, GA and I transferred to a junior high school. Only 10 miles, but it may as well have been the moon. I’m still recovering!  I suffered at the hands of bullies for being small, smart, and eager to please Authority.  I developed habits of shyness and subtle and hidden patterns of self-loathing.  As I passed through puberty I found my Inner Rebel, the kind that found a way to live within Consensus Reality while doubting and subtly challenging it.  I became a “mystic” by age 15 delving into radical spiritual ideas, psychic powers and UFOs.

I “woke up” again and began enjoying life while at the University of Georgia where I majored in Journalism, Psychology and Fun.  I created an alter-ego, radio personality Ernest Lee Pyus, a star of Friday night Alternative Wave Radio at WUOG.  Once at a party (UGA was the number one party school in the country back in the day), a girl remarked after being introduced to me, “Wow, I thought you were tall and Black!”  I also discovered the importance of a Spiritual Path, exploring several and settling in to studying deeply with my first meditation teacher, Roy Eugene Davis.

My post-graduate adventures took me to Cornucopia, an intentional spiritual community based on Ken Keyes’ Handbook to Higher Consciousness. There I met many life long friends, including my wife of 31+ years, Jori.  We embarked on a Spiritual Journey of relationship based on the aspirations of unconditional love, deep honesty, and cooperative mutuality.

At Cornucopia, I began learning and integrating spiritual principles and methods that have contributed to my remarkably fulfilling and adventurous life, including Neuro-Linguistic Programming.

The birth of our first child, in 1981, coincided with the completion of the Workbook of A Course in Miracles.  Our second child arrived only 17 months later, and raising two children while running a retail business became “Spiritual Graduate School”!

I am blessed now with two adult children, Jiva and Jaya who share my passion for compassion.

I’m living my dream, sharing Radical Compassion and Compassionate Leadership. The great adventure of life has now brought me to the North Shore of Maui, where Jori and I have begun establishing a new base to continue our contributions to an awakening planet.

Nothing brings me more joy than sharing my experience of engaged spirituality with others!

I was born 2 years after the end of WWII.  My Jewish grandparents and many in their families had fortunately emigrated from Europe and had thus survived the war and thus made this story possible.  I grew up in a loving extended family hearing several languages.  Mostly English was spoken directly to me.  During my pre-teen and teen years I read many European accounts of the holocaust trying to understand how such a thing could happen and what I could do to “make a difference,” both in my own life and in the lives of others, if anything like the holocaust happened again.  This lead to social activism starting in the 60’s as well as a degree and work in Social Work and counselling.

The death of my first husband when I was 27, just weeks after my father’s death, led me to a very conscious question in my grief:  “Shall I live or die?”  I made a clear choice to not only survive this experience but to live fully.  I had a profound experience of commitment and the power of appreciating “what is” to enable me to engage in life, even within painful conditions.  What followed was a deepening spiritual quest, continuing with my practices of meditation and yoga.  I focused on the gifts of my life.  I met a Jain master, Chitrabanuji with whom I studied for several years as a Jain nun with a focus on the reverence for life and self-discovery, and from whom I learned to trust my intrinsic awareness.  One example of this was one evening  just  before his talk, when he invited me to go again with him on his yearly pilgrimage to India.  I treasured my time traveling with him and his family, and being in India.  It made no sense to me that I could not even hear his talk that evening as my inner voice loudly expressed “I do not want to go”.  I had no clarity about why that would be, as it ran counter to what I saw as my mission at the time.  I sought him out after his lecture and shared my experience, hoping he could help me to make sense of this.  His message to me was clear:  follow the voice from within as the master.  As the ancient lojong teachings of Shantideva reflect:  “Of the two witnesses, trust the first.”  I had no idea how much my life would soon change.

During this time my mother and I had a school and bookstore where I taught astrology, meditation, and yoga.  I was completing my second book, traveling, and lecturing.  Within a few weeks after my “strange” inner message not to go to India, a student recommended a book, the Handbook to Higher Consciousness by Ken Keyes, for our bookstore.  I read the copy given to me and learned there was a group of trainers coming from Kentucky to New York a few weeks later.  I attended and was inspired to go to Kentucky to attend a 3-month series of retreats at Cornucopia, the training institute based on this work.  This was 1978 and in the second month, I met Jim.  Although I was not looking for a relationship at that time, my life path changed dramatically.  We were married within months with a shared understanding that our relationship was a vehicle for our spiritual growth, an important principle that continues to guide our lives.  With 3 vows that began with “In the spirit of love and oneness, in the eternal now moment…”, we set our intentions to – with ever increasing ability – be open and honest, honor and accept each other, and cooperate in the great adventure of life.  This adventure also includes our children, Jiva Shanti and Jaya Deva, who have been two of my greatest teachers of the heart as I have stretch my capacity to love unconditionally beyond what I had ever imagined.  Together our family circumnavigated the globe, as well as the practical and emotional landscapes of life.  I revel in the gifts they bring to those whose lives they touch – including me!!

Jim and I enjoy mediating, facilitating, consulting, and training together through  Peaceworks that we began in 1993.  We also enjoy meditating, walking, snorkeling, playing, and traveling.  We are gifted with many opportunities to nurture cooperative and creative communities and organizations, and to support joyful growth for many in the world.  One of my favorite projects is Compassionate Leadership, a yearly program that brings people together from around the world by teleconference and in retreats, co-creating a supportive community focused on supporting each of us to lead our own lives and contribute to a world where we all thrive.