I have been meditating for forty years. I came to mindfulness through science: as a genetic counselor, I spent years sitting with people in moments of profound uncertainty and grief. Mindfulness gave me a way to be present with all of it. Not to fix it. To stay.
Over the decades, that practice deepened. I trained in MBSR, Mindful Self-Compassion and Insight Meditation. I developed trauma-informed curricula used in twelve clinical trials. And I have studied with Joanna Macy since the 1980s, learning that grief for the world is not a burden to be managed but a doorway into deeper connection.
I live on a barrier island in Florida. I watch what climate change is doing from where I stand. That proximity is part of what brought me to the MBSR & EcoAwareness Project, which I co-lead alongside Margaret Fletcher, working with MBSR teachers who are ready to bring Earth awareness into their practice and their classrooms.
What does it mean to practice, when the Earth itself is what needs our presence?