Lyndsey joined Middle Way in 2021-2022 to provide support to our growing group of 3,4, and 5 year-olds in the Fawns class. Her experience working with children in that age group, coupled with her deep and extensive connection to the dharma, make her a natural fit for Middle Way. We are overjoyed to have her with us.

I’m honored and delighted to be a staff member at Middle Way School, serving as a support teacher for the Fawns class. As a child, this would have been my dream school. I spent much of my youth creating altars in the woods and making offerings to the nature spirits, delighting in creativity, play, and reverence for something beyond myself. Growing up in Southern California among spiritual seekers, including monks and yogis, I had the fortune of being exposed to various expressions of the dharma at an early age, and it’s carried me forth as the undercurrent of my life ever since.

After studying Fine Art at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, I felt moved to put my energy toward helping create a more compassionate world, so I immersed myself in the study of Nonviolent Communication with the NY Center for Nonviolent Communication, eventually joining their team as a trainer in 2017. I’ve been teaching Nonviolent Communication through NYCNVC and independently since.

Working with children has been one of the greatest joys along my path, too. In 2014, while still living in Brooklyn, I co-founded a children’s after school program called Fairy School, through which we invited local children aged 3-6 to connect to the natural world (within themselves and without) through ecological care, crafts, singing/dancing, and ritual. 

In 2016, my yearning to be nestled among the trees inspired me to move to the Catskills, and Woodstock has been my home since. In recent years, I found my way more committedly into Buddhist practice through becoming a practitioner of Cha Dao, or “The Way of Tea.” Those who walk The Way of Tea in this tradition commit to daily seated meditation and service through the art of tea ceremony. After several years practicing Cha Dao, I can say that my heart now belongs to Zen, and I’ve spent the last couple of years immersing myself in Zen training environments when I can, including Zen Mountain Monastery in Mount Tremper, NY and Korinji Rinzai Zen Monastery in Reedsburg, Wisconsin.

Being in the role of supporting the Fawns and sharing my love of the dharma with them is a profound gift, and, since Buddhist practice seems to ask us to have a lightness of heart and a playfulness of spirit, I can confidently and gratefully state that the Fawns are teachers along my path, too!