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In 1996,
a graduate of anthropology, Meg received a Watson
Fellowship to spend 16-months SE Asia living and studying
the community life of Buddhist and Catholic nuns. During
this time, Meg was a temporary English teacher for 100
Tibetan refugee nuns in Dharamsala.
“Many of
the nuns I worked with were refugees who had fled Tibet
and come to India to be near His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
With little more than the robes on their bodies and some
barley flour, these courageous women make month long
treacherous journey over the Himalayas to escape to India,
knowing they will never see their homeland again.”
Upon
returning to the US, Meg established the Berkeley office
of the Tibetan Nuns Project, a non-profit based in
Dharamsala dedicated to providing basic needs and
education for these nuns. For more information, please
visit
www.tnp.org.
In the
summer of 2002, Meg led a group of high school students to
Tibet to share the story of the Tibetan people. Watching
the students experience the beauty of the Himalayan
plateaus, the complexity of Tibetan culture and language,
and the precious thinness of air at 17,000 feet, was
profound.
“Most
importantly, I wanted the students to come away with an
understanding that being human means that we are all part
of the greater “sangha” or community. And that the
well-being of others living at half-way across the earth
are inseparable from our own.” A climbing injury forced
Meg to explore other ways of movement and connection to
the body, and she discovered yoga.
“At
first I felt it was too slow, I was bored. I was like a
fly stuck in molasses. But over time, yoga became my
meditation in motion, of breath to motion, a little more
inward, a little more quiet than climbing or skiing. It’s
a perfect compliment to climbing and a perfect compliment
to the crazy busy energy of the Bay Area energy.
“I
credit climbing with giving me incredible confidence in my
physical abilities which translated in a greater
confidence in myself as a young woman. So many issues for
women exist around their physicality. Leading climbing
trips in college, I watched shy classmates, filled with
insecurity and fear completely transformed by even making
it up one climb. And believe that confidence translates
into all parts of our lives.”
In
addition to working at Marmot, volunteering, and school,
Meg is trying to squeeze in the time to learn tele-skiing,
studying aryuveda, practicing her Nepali any chance she
gets and dreaming of a trip to Mongolia, and eating lots
of chocolate.
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