Susan de Gaia Susan de Gaia is a meditation practitioner, author, and speaker who finds inspiration and community locally in the Mountain Communities and in international networks for interfaith, compassion, and peace movements. Susan holds a Ph.D. in Religion and Social Ethics (USC), and a B.A. in Women’s Studies (UCSB). She teaches Death and Dying and World Religions at Central Michigan University (online), is an adjunct instructor for the Charter for Compassion Education Institute, and a facilitator of Compassionate Integrity Training. She has presented at the Parliament of World Religions and the American Academy of Religion, and offered webinars, facilitated courses, and promoted programs for peace, compassion, global environmentalism, and social justice/security for minorities and women.
	Kumari de Silva Kumari de Silva began teaching yoga at the Jizo Peace Center early in 2011.  She practiced yoga throughout her life. Her appreciation for the practice of yoga deepened considerably following a traumatic injury. The discipline of yoga provided a useful outline for living a healthy life. Kumari completed her first teacher training in 2010. In addition to other yoga workshops, she has completed a 65 hour training component at YogaYoga in Newhall, CA in 2011.  Kumari also discovered a deep affinity for the Kundalini style of yoga through teacher Lisa Weill.  Kumari now teaches at Yoga Yoga - see www.yogayogaonline.com and at several other locations including Miss Fit in PMC, and The Work of Heart gallery in Frazier Park.  She has lived near Pine Mountain Club for many years and raised a son, now an adult.
Dr. Annie Rikel Dr. Annie Rikel is a long-term chiropractor who teaches how to decharge accumulated stress daily so it cannot lead to disease.  Through the techniques she learned during a one year training in India with Swami Sri Kaleshwar, she gives a practical method that releases stress from the body.  She decharges through the Five Elements of nature to relieve physical, emotional, mental and spiritual problems.
	Joyce Dvoren Joyce Dvoren has been a healer for over 15 years.  She is a yoga teacher (RYT), a certified Reiki Master, and has trained in pranic healing and Theta Healing I and II.  She shares a Oneness Blessing she learned in India - a transfer of Divine Energy which is one of many deekshas (benedictions) that helps to align the chakras (energy centers) of the body and to balance the right and left hemispheres of the brain.  This process can enhance an ongoing awakening process.  Joyce and her husband Ken are week-end residents of Pine Mountain.
Reverend Master Phoebe Reverend Master Phoebe graced the Jizo Peace Center with a talk on August 2, 2008 during our 24 hour vigil commemorating the anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. She is the Abbess of the Pine Mountain Buddhist Temple, see www.pinemtnbuddhisttemple.org. In earlier years, she received her training as a monk at Shasta Abbey in Mt. Shasta, CA under Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett. We look forward to Rev. Master Phoebe visiting the Center again soon and invigorating us with her discipline, dedication, and mastery of Buddhism.
	Sister Moutique Ayodele El Sister Moutique Ayodele El has co-led the Jizo Peace Center's celebrations of Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday for the last three years. She is active in The Million Mom March, the Greater Kern County Brady Campaign for Gun Safety and has directed local performances of the Vagina Monologues. She is an empathic masseuse who has facilitated retreats and fasts in Harlem, New York. She continues to be busy with her husband and three children in Pine Mountain.
	Rachel York-Bridgers Rachel York-Bridgers, co-leader of weekly Yoga and Meditation at the Jizo Peace Center, has been practicing various styles of yoga for fifteen years and teaching for six. She finds yoga and meditation a means for nurturing inner peace and compassion, becoming a gift we receive and give anew. She is also a dedicated parent, partner, environmentalist, and activist originally from Canada, now living in beautiful Pine Mountain Club, CA. One of Rachel's favorite quotes: "The universe is not a collection of objects, it is a communion of subjects" Thomas Berry
Sarah-Jane SunJay Owen Sarah-Jane SunJay Owen, a lovely art professor, musician, yoga teacher, and sound healer has given teachings generously at the International Peace Day in 9/07 and also the Universal Love Workshop in 2/08 held at the Jizo Peace Center. She brought her large ceremonial drum “River Song” on both occasions to include as many as 8 beaters keeping rhythm and singing at the Peace Pole. Due to the sacredness of the process, no photos were taken of the drumming. Also at both of the above events, SunJay led chakra balancing sessions in the Jizo Meditation Room where we all lay with our heads to the center. SunJay played a combination of rattles, drums, and gongs that relaxed and centered us for a nice energization and healing. Ms. Owen helped out with the Pine Mountain Roots and Shoots’ entry at the Chalk Festival in Frazier Park in the fall of 2007. She outlined the tree on the pavement and showed the children how to use chalk to create the desired affects for bark and fruit. SunJay’s current schedule is listed at www.powwowlodge.com. We look forward to Sarah-Jane Owen sharing interesting and enlightening activities with us again.
	Michael Attie Michael Attie, a long-time meditator, founder, and teacher of the Don't Worry Zendo, presented his Squeezebox Swami Show on April 13, 2007 at the Jizo Peace Center. He has been a student of Zen, Vipassana and Advaita Vedanta for over forty years. Mike has written several original songs with inspirational themes to the accompaniment of accordion. In India, in 1973, the revered Guru Neem Karoli Baba told him to teach Dharma in the West and gave him the name of Vivekananda. Mike also spent time meditating at a Zen monastery on the slopes of Mt. Fuji in Japan. After a trip to Nepal, he became the founder of Dharma Banners, a company that designs and manufactures prayer flags of all the worlds’ religions. He is a poet and performance artist who has authored three books, Many Ways, Middle Way, No Way—a Guide to Meditation, Spiritual Awakening and Fun, This Smiling Heart—Collected Poems, and The Love Beggars, poems 1995-2005. He continues to lead an informal, friendly, non-sectarian meditation group on Tuesday nights in Los Angeles as well as an all day sitting once a month at his home at 444 Flores, Los Angeles, CA. For further information see www.dontworryzendo.com. Mike led a privileged childhood and for a time inherited his father's lingerie store on Hollywood Boulevard where he became known as “The Lingerie Monk”. After learning the trade of converting gas refrigerators to propane, he was called “The Blue Flame” by his neighbors in a remote area of Northern California.