At the ripe old age of "over 40," I began my long term full-time graduate work at TC in 1991. That work was the culmination of a lifelong dream to attend Columbia. Early on during that time, I moved into the campus housing at Teachers College, and took in the campus and surrounding Columbia and Morningside area as if I were a five year old willingly seeing so much of life for the first time. I loved the classes, the libraries, the studying, the intellectual stimulation, and the people, too.

My sons (I was divorced; they were about 15 and 12 at the time, living with their mom) thought I had gone bonkers. I even encouraged my 15 year old to attend the Columbia summer high school program, which he did. I became friendly/ involved with various individuals and groups: some Columbia workers, some Columbia students and grads.

Some of us attended various exercise classes in the main Columbia gym. Those classes affected me so much that I sought out other forms of this type of spiritual exercise. I found a similar class offered at the 63rd Street "Y" and enrolled. It was there that I found a purposeful outlet for my challenging years in grad school. The exercise/dance form was called NIA: Neuromuscular Integrative Action. "Nia," as it was called, was new to New York City; my being introduced to it, and doing it, changed my life forever.

Friends I met during that time, doing Nia twice, often three times, weekly, from 1993-4 to the time I graduated in 1997, somehow (spiritually) helped me, and we helped each other.

We created a group called the "sacred circle": men and women on a spiritual journey, whilst never before really trusting in an "other," learned about trust and friendship, and delved into various forms of experiential activity resulting in peace, love and joy. Seven of us participated in doing the Artist's Way, twice. That Artist's Way project, along with doing Nia, and the collective support of my Nia friends, (and cohorts at Columbia I must add, also) assisted me in keeping my focus on my course work and subsequently in encouraging my research and successful completion of my Ph.D. dissertation.

Several of those secret circle friends (still friends to this day) became Nia teachers and are now well established in the New York community (one is actually a senior "executive type" at Columbia University!) bringing this life form to one and all via Nia classes all over New York City and its outer boroughs.

Through my spiritual discoveries while at Columbia, I learned to trust in people, to feel my heart and then to follow my heart many times after.

I have lived on Gozo, Malta, a tiny island/country in the Mediterranean Sea, since July 2001 as a volunteer applied anthropologist offering aspects of corporate development to the government, and education and learning and especially concepts of Nia to the kind Maltese who have allowed me to live within their very local and private community.

The isle of Gozo is the location of the oldest known man-made temple on the planet...about as spiritual a place as one can find.