Adjunct Religious Advisor to Buddhist Students.

What do you like about it?

I like working with the other religious advisors. It’s a great group of people. I like the interaction with students in my meditation group. I particularly like it when a different perspective or way of being opens up for them that excites them.

What did you do before you worked here, or what do you do aside from working here?

I have done some college teaching in religious studies, first as a teaching fellow at Boston College, then at Seattle University and Smith College. But early on I found myself drawn away from that primarily conceptual relationship with things and retrained as a counselor. I have a private practice in downtown Amherst. I also am the guiding teacher for the Bodhisara Dharma Community, a local Buddhist group.

Who are some of your favorite artists?

Bonnie Raitt (I wanted her to come to my 50th birthday party, sit on my lap, and sing “Love Me Like a Man” but she didn’t show). I’m also partial to many visual artists, but recently I’ve been taken by Emily Carr and her paintings of the Pacific Northwest. For poets I like Seamus Heany and Galway Kinnell.

Talk about where you’re from.

I’m from a region of eastern Washington State called the Palouse. The soil has blown in from volcanoes and forms dune-like hills of rich farmland. I grew up on a wheat farm. When I go home, I walk up the highest hill, which we call the North Pole because the snow melts last there, and look across miles of wheat fields into the pine-covered hills of northern Idaho.

Describe your family.

We were Roman Catholic. My mother had a college education and started out as a schoolteacher, so she nurtured in my family an interest in intellectual life and the arts that was uncommon in our small town. We always seemed less farm-family-ish than most, traveled to exotic places like British Columbia and California and even one trip “back east” to NYC and Washington, D.C. That was very cosmopolitan for the Palouse.

Does your family have any traditions?

Besides being a farmer, my father was a Lt. Col in the Air Force Reserve and flew fighter planes in WWII. My sister was career Air Force. My brother, after ROTC and a stint in the Navy after college, became a lawyer and works as a civilian for the military. I was the black sheep and never went into the military. Boy Scouts was as close as I came. Playing cards in the winter was a tradition growing up, mostly Pitch and Cribbage. I’ve passed that on to my kids. Singing in the car on long trips was also a tradition. We tended to sing show tunes.

What are you passionate about?

Hiking and being in the mountains, fresh-water swimming (preferably skinny dipping in the mountains), growing vegetables, yoga, spiritual awakening, poetry, solitude, not being too busy, travel, getting out of my head and into my body.

What is something interesting about you that not many people know?

I write and publish poetry. My interest in writing starting shortly after my father’s death in 2003. I felt so much inside that needed to be expressed, and heard a certain voice in my head that knew how to say it. I’m now trying to finish a book manuscript.

What is your favorite food? Why?

This is a tough question. I’ll say very fresh wild Coho or King Salmon. I can’t say why I like the taste, but I do know I like the memories of living in Seattle that go with it. I like espresso, but that’s a drink. That also reminds me of Seattle, and the bitter taste appeals to me. (Not acidic — that’s bad espresso.).

If you could have a superpower, what would it be?

Happiness.

What is one of your proudest achievements?

My kids — maybe that doesn’t count. I dropped out of grad school to do a 3-month silent meditation retreat and traveled in Asia for 6-months, then went back and finished my Ph.D. I am also proud of founding a Dharma community, along with the relationships and deep, experiential understanding of the Dharma that has grown from it.

What advice would you give to a college student?

To educate your heart is as important as to educate the mind. Socrates’ dictum, “The unexamined life is not worth living” requires its corollary: The unlived life is not worth examining.