Dido has taught Tibetan Buddhism for nearly 40 years, and has longstanding groups in Britain, Australia and New Zealand. She began as an art therapist, and trained in group work and psychodrama. She’s lived many years in intentional communities.
Deep concern about climate change leads her to foster social change, through transformative meditation and group work. She’s a Transition Towns trainer, and works especially in the inner transition work called Heart and Soul. She presently lives in Lower Hutt, and is part of the Environmental Advisory Group to Hutt City Council.
Dido’s work is social and spiritual permaculture: building community, and inner strength and vision. She draws on psychotherapy, ecospychology, permaculture, ecofeminism, Mother Nature; the many strands in her life contribute to a vision of how we can embody a much needed paradigm shift to regenerative life-affirming partnership culture.
She explores creative ways of working with traditional meditation, towards a natural spirituality accessible for people in our times. She leads groups in a cooperative model, with a lot of sharing and interaction, which participants find empowering.
She’s published a workbook “Storm Weathering for our Inner and Outer Climate’, http://wisebirds.org/wp/storm-weathering/ and is working on several more books.
Her main Buddhist teachers are Namgyal Rinpoche and Adzom Paylo Rinpoche. She has two degrees from Oxford University: MA in Greek, Latin and English literature and philosophy, and a Cert Fine Art.
One teacher, Cecilie Kwiat, said she became a teacher of compassion because of the suffering she had, from both painful emotions and health issues. This gave her thorough understanding of how to work with difficult emotions, a crucial part of facing into climate change and cultural transition.
Dido has lived and taught in many countries. She’s a painter, potter and singer. Her life is an experiment in how to integrate spiritual practice and daily life.