Founder, Creative Longevity and Wisdom
Chair of Doctoral Faculty, School of Human and Organization Development
Fielding Graduate University

We are likely to live twenty to thirty years longer than we had imagined. My hope is that through the work of our Creative Longevity and Wisdom center we will make these years joyful, productive and beneficial for coming generations. Our focus is on the creative and wisdom aspects of aging, those aspects which George Vaillant’s great research suggests are aspects of “Aging Well.” There is much reason to believe that health and well being follow from the development of wisdom and creativity, rather than the reverse.

My second book is an edited volume on the ways in which images of women in the arts and mass media have often inflicted negative stereotypes upon my gender (Visual Images of Women in the Arts and Mass Media, with Phil Mayes, 1995, Mellon Press).

Mindful Inquiry in Social Research (with Jeremy Shapiro as co-author) (Sage, 1998), was designed to help researchers and practitioners bring forward their work from their creative and wise inner self. We drew upon four wisdom traditions: phenomenology, hermeneutics, critical theory and Buddhism to discuss the range of alternate epistemologies, or cultures of inquiry which form a basis for research and practice.

My latest book, Shifting Our Lifeworld: Transforming Self and Professional Practice through Phenomenology (co-edited with David Rehorick, under consideration for publication) presents studies of ways in which practicing phenomenologists changed themselves and their worlds. It includes studies of cancer recovery (written by Creative Longevity and Wisdom Fellow, Dr. Dudley Tower) and Chicana identity development (written by Fellow Dr. Gloria Cordova).

Areas of Research and Practice: I am a speaker and facilitator in areas of somatic learning, consciousness development, participatory research, cultures of inquiry, emotional/spiritual development, theory construction and creation and whole body learning. I am especially interested in ancient Vedantic teachings as sources of wisdom. I play the piano, bassoon and am learning the flute. I am a certified yoga teacher and regularly teach yoga for aging persons. I have twenty years experience as a psychotherapist which I integrate with my body-based practice as a certified massage therapist.