In 1978 at 16 years old I made a connection with Buddhist meditation by jumping into a dhatun (a month long meditation retreat) at the Shambhala Mountain Center in Colorado.

Soon after I moved back to New York City where I was born and raised to attend  The School of Visual Arts. I graduated from that school with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography and received an Outstanding Student Award. During that time I also completed the program Shambhala The Sacred Path of the Warrior in preparation to attend Seminary at Shambhala Mountain Center in 1988. Seminary is a three month long retreat in which one studies the Three Yanas (Vehicles) of Buddhism. Intensive study alternates with the practice of meditation.

 In 1989 I moved to Holland and attended the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam for two years. In the following years I was making art, practicing meditation and creating a family. (Getting married and having a child)

I did the Power Yoga teachers training at Yoga Moves in 2003. Yoga became a way for me to embody the different practices in my life. Yoga means union and it has been teaching me to let the boundaries dissolve between dharma ( teachings of the Buddha) and art. 

I discovered that teaching dharma was my calling rather than yoga. Since 2004, I have been teaching meditation at Yoga Moves in Utrecht. This has turned out to be a personally rewarding and unexpected turn of events.

Now after all these years I have realized that Dharma and Art have been threads that I have been weaving together and that are woven into my being. These threads are not the same nor are they different but rather they are indivisible like the strands of DNA.

My life’s work is inspired by the notion of Buddha nature. Buddha means “awake”. I practice meditation so that I may uncover being awake in myself. I teach meditation so that I may inspire others to uncover being awake in themselves.