About Susan

Susan Meyer, M.A., interweaves photography, writing, mindful awareness, and energy work to support presence, awakening, and well-being. As a contemplative creative, her work is nourished by a vibrant blend of life experience, formal education, and a lifelong commitment to evolving the Self. Her deep interest in the nature of consciousness and appreciation of the natural world infuse her art and teaching. Susan seeks out transformative moments—angles that open us to the luminosity of our essential nature.

Mindfulness is a thread that runs through the heart of everything Susan does. With nearly 40 years of meditation practice and guidance from spiritual mentors, she has trained extensively with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield, completing their Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification and Mindfulness Mentor Training programs. She maintains an active teaching schedule and is a teacher on the Insight Timer meditation app. Susan practices with a sangha in the tradition of Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh.

Susan specializes in Hudson River photography and considers the river her great teacher and muse. She exhibits her nature photography regularly and has received several awards in the annual Erie Canalway National Heritage Corridor photo contest. Several of her images are installed in kiosks along the Empire State Trail in Schuylerville, NY.

    • Certified Mindfulness Meditation Teacher, trained by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach through the Greater Good Science Center (2021)

    • Completed the Mindfulness Mentor Training program with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach (2024)

    • Studied mindful non-violent communication with Oren Jay Sofer (2023-2024)

    • Two-time graduate of Eckhart Tolle's School of Awakening (2021, 2023), including the Becoming a Teacher of Presence program (2023)

    • Completed Sound Bath Training Course with Guy Douglas and Simona Asinovski (2023)

    • Completed the 3-year Hidden Treasure program (2020) with longtime spiritual guide, Alice McDowell

    • Completed Reiki Master level training in the Usui/Tibetan lineage (2018)

    • Certified clutter coach in the Linn Method of Clutter Clearing (2018)

    • Received feng shui certification in the Earth Home School of Feng Shui (2018)

    • M.A. in Education from Goddard College (2006)

    • Graduate coursework in Social Work at Syracuse University (1991-1996)

    • Graduate certificate in Spiritual Studies from Institute for Transpersonal Psychology/Sofia University (1994)

    • ·B.A. in Psychology from Ithaca College (1988) with minor in Religious Studies

    • Received transmission of the Five Mindfulness Trainings in the Plum Village tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh (2022)

    • Initiated into the Inayati Sufi Order (1995)

    • Grew up in the United Methodist Church

  • I'm working on a mindfulness inspirational card deck as a follow-up to my deck of Loving Wisdom Cards. I've also been working on three different books for which the first drafts are mostly completed. Not sure which one will come first, but they are:

    • A coffee table book on my yearlong river sunrise photography project

    • A collection of short stories about what I've learned from the river (working title: River Stories: Mindful Reflections from the Upper Hudson)

    • An inspirational memoir about supporting my parents as their health declined and how my relationship with them and with my Self has transformed after their passing (working title: All Light Now: Losing My Parents and Recovering My Self)

Susan’s Journey

My interest in spirituality began when I was a teenager and met my first spiritual mentor, and it deepened after my grandfather’s death when I was 17. When I transferred to Ithaca College in my sophomore year, I was intent on taking a course in comparative religion, and the professor of that course became my lifelong spiritual guide.

When I started meditating way back then, my motivation was to gain insight into what happens after we die and to have extraordinary spiritual experiences. However, after nearly 40 years, it’s clear to me that the greatest benefit I’ve received from my meditation practice is gaining insight into how to live. Seeing more clearly what’s going on beneath the surface and catching habitual, restricting, usually unconscious patterns when they arise make transformation and evolution possible and help me to love better. This is why I practice.

I’ve experienced the challenges of practicing through different chapters in life and adapting my meditation practice to changing circumstances that included: raising children, going through a divorce, having a career, grieving the loss of close family members (including my parents), supporting loved ones through mental health crises, and living in this current time of deep uncertainty and division. My meditation practice has been a steady refuge through it all.

As a graduate student in social work and transpersonal psychology in the 1990s, hospice work was my passion. However, after becoming a mother, I felt drawn to working at the opposite end of the human life cycle as a Waldorf-inspired early childhood educator with a special interest in social-emotional learning. Inspired by H.H. the Dalai Lama's and Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings on educating the heart beginning when children are very young, I taught kindergarten for several years and subsequently ran a preschool program for two years. Although I was tenured in the public school system, I was a holistic educator at heart and developed and implemented research-based emotional literacy and mindfulness curricula for young children before any commercially packaged programs became available. As a parent and teacher, I was devoted to practicing, modeling, and teaching skills to facilitate both inner and outer peace. 

In 2020, I felt strongly guided to expand into working with adults and have maintained an active teaching schedule ever since. After decades of preparation (all those years, believing I wasn’t ready), this is the work I feel I am on this planet to do.

As for the creative pieces…

I have been writing and dabbling in nature photography my whole life, in the background while other pursuits and practices took center stage. During challenging times, I turned to nature photography and writing as resources for cultivating inspiration, renewal, and gratitude. Contemplative photography and writing began as my medicine and became my passion that commanded greater attention. I am particularly interested in therapeutic applications of nature photography, sound meditation, and interweaving images and meditation.

VIDEOS OF SUSAN

View Susan’s storytelling performance representing Gateway House of Peace for Caffe Lena’s True Songs: Lyrics of Life (2022)

This mini documentary film about an art exhibition celebrating the Champlain Canal’s 200th anniversary features an interview with Susan.