ABOUT ME
If a bio is meant to let you know who someone really is then mine would be very short: "I am spirit." Just like you. I am here to contribute to us all becoming happier -- as individuals and collectively. But I guess my bio should also say something about what my personality has been up to in this thing we call life.
When I was six, I noticed how adults seemed to be asleep to who they really are. I told myself to never forget this "looking at looking" or observing awareness. But soon after, I became immersed in schooling, my parents’ divorce, and other distractions in the world of the senses. At University, I studied the nature of Self and began to understand how we each get caught in a dream. We fall asleep to the fact that we lovingly belong to one another. We forget to stay connected to this Truth and then engage in uncaring and competitive behaviour in order to maintain an illusory story of separation. We also turn this unkindness on ourselves through guilt, fear, anger, and worry.
Fortunately, we live in a time when many are waking up. As we rub the sleep from our eyes we are learning to embody the deepest truths sages have always pointed to. I am thrilled to be living in these times of transition, both within ourselves and within our cultures.
I was born in Canada to American and French-Canadian parents and have always been fascinated by how culture shapes our perspectives. I spent my adolescence in a Catholic boarding school in Québec City and then completed a B.A. in communications from the University of Minnesota. While a student, I volunteered at a consciousness research organization and a centre for the terminally ill. I also worked at a spiritual bookstore and attended a number of personal growth workshops and meditation retreats.
In 1988, I met my husband, Daniel Greenberg, who was pursuing his Ph.D. in child development and education within “intentional communities” (a.k.a. “communes”). Soon after, I received a grant to produce a documentary on these communities and Daniel and I set off in a Volkswagen camper van to over 30 communes across North America. Though amazingly diverse, they were all experiments in living wholeheartedly from our highest values and cooperatively with each other and the land. I learned a lot about applied spirituality from these communitarians and deepened into my own promise of honouring life’s wholeness.
Inspired by the midwives at The Farm in Tennessee, I became a Certified Professional Midwife and an advocate for natural birth. Over the past 30 I've attended births and practiced in New England and Ontario.
In 1992, we moved to the Findhorn Foundation, an international ecovillage in northern Scotland. Our time there was a glorious immersion into community, spirituality and personal practice. Witnessing rapid personal growth in a group of visiting university students, we were inspired to begin bringing student groups to Plum Village, Thich Nhat Hanh’s Buddhist monastery in France and Auroville; an expansive international ecovillage in South India, as well as Findhorn and other communities.
My graduate studies at Lesley University focused on integrative education and what empowers personal and cultural transformation. Then, Daniel and I decided to have children of our own and my real awakening began. As a parent, life partner and professional, I became unpleasantly and deeply familiar with my personal, familial and cultural shadows. The stories of separation, suffering and struggle, prevalent in our society, hit home. Buddhism, non-duality, A Course in Miracles, transformational kinesiology and many spiritual teachers brought me much peace and clarity. When my youngest started kindergarten I put my career aside and dedicated myself to a year-long spiritual retreat, meditating and contemplating during every minute our daughters were away in school. I frequently became completely immersed in ecstatic joy.
Afterwards, when I returned to Auroville to teach once more, it became clear that my work is to support others in this waking up that we are doing together. In times of transition it is common to have anxiety or depression and to resist what we know lies within us. Letting go is often the only way forward as we step into the new. Over the years I’ve created workshops, presentations, talks and one-on-one sessions aiming at what it takes to become established in our Essence, true purpose and happiness.