Tonianne DeMaria Barry

“When the student is ready the teacher will appear.” For years I've heard this proverb bandied about, but it wasn't until I attended my first M Meditation that it truly resonated. To say Tay and Val were indeed the teachers my practice needed would be an understatement.

What distinguishes Tay and Val from other mindfulness teachers is their unique ability to distill ancient, often esoteric and nuanced concepts and make them both accessible and immediately applicable within a modern setting. Doing so in venues where we often find ourselves on auto-pilot? Pure genius. Cultivating a community of practitioners in which others can share and perpetuate that mindfulness? Invaluable. Profoundly so, even.

We've thankfully gotten to a point in our culture where the benefits of meditation and mindfulness are indisputable - for the health and well-being of the individual, the organization, and even for the community as a whole. Our personal inner journeys have the power to scale, and I feel inspired by and derive hope from Tay and Val's brilliant re-framing of mediation as the "art of non-resistance" and the potential that mindset holds for not just for the soul of the individual, but for that of the community.

In these two women exist the wisdom of the ages. Coupled with their energy and warmth, theirs is both an example as well as a path every mindfulness journey can surely benefit from.