Suzanna Marcus worked for years as a spirtual healer and holistic therapist, guiding others towards transformation and healing emotionally, physically and spritually, in realtionships with themselves and their loved ones, at work and at play.
Then she herself faced a health crisis when she discovered she had cancer and was given only 6 months to live.
Susan notes: AWR member and fan Sadaf Shah wrote to me saying she wanted to share a story about Hafeeza, her blind masseuse. I was moved by the beautiful and simple piece when it arrived in my inbox, and I in return asked Sadaf to tell me a bit more about herself. This is what she emailed back:
Susan notes: an extraordinary woman whose generosity was recognised when she was named to the 2010 Times most influential people.
Chen Shu-chu is a seller of vegetables in a stall in Taitung County's central market, in southern Taiwan.
Out of her modest living, Chen, 59, has managed to donate nearly NT$10 million (that's $320,000) to various causes, including $32,000 for a children's fund, $144,000 to help build a library at a school she attended and another $32,000 for the local orphanage, where she also gives financial support to three children.
Byron Katie is a world-renowned speaker, author and counsellor of sorts who advocates a self-enquiry approach to happiness called "The Work."
Katie (as she prefers to be called), says she became severely depressed in her early thirties when she was a businesswoman and mother who lived in a small town in the high desert of southern California.
According her, she spiraled down into paranoia, rage, self-loathing, and constant thoughts of suicide for nearly a decade; for the last two years she was often unable to leave her bedroom.
Then, one morning in February 1986, while in a halfway house for women with eating disorders, she experienced a life-changing realization. She called it “waking up to reality.” In that moment of enlightenment, she says:
Kristina Gjerde is an expert on the law of the high seas — the vast areas of the sea and seabed that exist beyond any national jurisdiction. These places belong to the world; Gjerde’s work aims to help the world work together to protect them.
Kristina Gjerde is high seas policy advisor for the IUCN Global Marine Program.
Since late 2008, she has also been working with Census scientists and others to establish the Global Ocean Biodiversity Initiative.
She lives in Poland with her husband and son, but she enjoys every opportunity to dive into the ocean that is so much a part of her life.
Related Links:
Sylvia Earle's TED Prize Wish To Protect Our Oceans
The Mission Blue Voyage – a project of the TED Prize