"Exploring the Possibilities" Whether exploring the ocean, meditating in the Himalayas, creating art, mentoring kids, writing poetry or teaching dance, our wise women display a commitment to making valuable contributions to community and family.
Swanee Hunt - Harvard Professor and Philanthropist Swanee Hunt faces life head on with humor, insight, and tremendous passion.
Jane Fonda - An Academy Award-winning Actress, Jane has written a highly acclaimed book which honestly and insightfully illuminates her journey to the final act of her life. She is currently writing a book about this stage of life, My Third Act.
Della Reese - Della Reese is an American actress and singer. As a teenager, she toured with gospel great Mahalia Jackson. In the late 1950s She began a career as a jazz singer, best known for her 1959 hit single "Don’t You Know". She subsequently became an actress, best known as playing Tess on the television show Touched by an Angel. Today, she is also an ordained New Thought minister in the Understanding Principles for Better Living Church in Los Angeles, California. She is of half African-American and half Cherokee descent.
Tenzin Palmo - A Buddhist nun, Tenzin spent 12 years living alone and meditating in a cave, seeking spiritual enlightenment. Recently bestowed with the title Venerable Master, she is the highest ranking woman in Tibetan Buddhism. We traveled to the Himalayas in India to interview her at the nunnery she is building to expand the spiritual and educational possibilities for young Buddhist women
Marianne Williamson - A spiritual activist, author and lecturer, Marianne is the founder of The Peace Alliance, a grass roots campaign supporting legislation currently before Congress to establish a United States Department of Peace. She has published nine books, including four New York Times #1 bestsellers. Her latest professional venture is a weekly radio show on "Oprah and Friends", which airs on XM radio.
Nikki Giovanni - Possibly America’s most widely read living black poet, Nikki is a best-selling and award-winning author
of twenty-eight books. She has been named Woman of the Year by Mademoiselle, Ladies’ Home Journal, Ebony and Essence magazines. She has received three NAACP Image Awards and is the first recipient of the Rosa Parks Woman of Courage Award.
Betty Wiliams - Betty was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in bringing peace to her native Northern Ireland. In the thirty years since the award, Betty has devoted her life to creating a movement to end the injustices, cruelty and horror perpetrated on the world’s children. She is Founder of the Global Children’s Studies Center and the World Centers of Compassion for Children. She co-founded Peace People. Betty is a fierce and impassioned advocate for the world’s children.
Martha Jackson-Jarvis - This artist’s large scale installations are commissioned by corporate and public institutions in addition to private individuals. Jackson-Jarvis’s art references African culture, art and spirituality. “I’m interested in those kinds of in-between places where light, reflection, texture, and form all merge to make this unknown thing happen. This unknown thing has to do with energy and life and force, and it speaks to each of us in a different ways.”
Vivian Castleberry - is the founder of Peacemakers. She served as Chairwoman of Peacemakers’ First International Women’s Peace Conference, which was attended by over 2,000 women from 57 countries. Devoted to peaceful resolution of conflicts, Ms. Castleberry has made trips to the Soviet Union as a "grassroots Citizen Diplomat", and has co-led women’s leadership conferences in Leningrad and Moscow. An award-winning journalist, she was the first woman named to the editorial board of the Dallas Times Herald. Vivian has 14 grandchildren.
Sylvia Earle - Scientist, inventor and explorer extraordinaire, Sylvia Earle holds records for the deepest unassisted dive, for living underwater, and for piloting submersibles she built and designed to make new discoveries on the ocean floor. She is currently leading an international effort to save the oceans.
Susan L. Taylor - Editor and Philanthropist, Susan L. Taylor has defined the soul of Essence Magazine brand since its launch in 1970. Ms. Taylor recently resigned from her post as publications director (she held that title for 7 years; she was editor-in-chief of the magazine from 1981-2000) to focus on the nonprofit she started, the National Cares Mentoring Movement. The organization’s mission "is a call to action for every able black adult to take under wing a vulnerable young person, which costs nothing”
Roberta Pollard - Our “everywoman,” Roberta has been teaching dance for 45 years. After raising her family and then losing her adored husband following a long illness, she has embraced the third stage of life with her trademark spunk, ever-present wit, wisdom and impressive energy. In her mid-seventies, Roberta still does perfect splits.
Linda Leitch - Linda describes herself as a “catalyst”. Donovan, the Summer of Love troubadour of “Mellow Yellow” fame, calls Linda his muse and the love of his life. She explains the ways their marriage has grown and changed through the years, and explains how her own wisdom has grown through her colorful experiences as rock and roll wife, mother and grandmother, and through her practice of meditation.