…The Heartbeats & Footprints of My Spiritual Path…

Service and Spirituality have been a core part of my journey and many of my teachings are born from the confluence of these two rivers of experience.

I firmly believe that life is the best teacher. My teaching path and style is rooted in extensive traveling experiences that have given me a vast array of perspectives. My main teachers in life have been seeing someone or something that embodies a spiritual teaching or shows me the state of the world that we are living in. Along that path certain places like Nepal and Uganda have been root teachers of reoccurring growth and realization.

My teaching path has also been influenced by Buddhist meditation courses and other spiritual retreats and teachings I have taken. This includes spending significant amounts of time in different Buddhist countries, Hindu countries, Muslim countries, and Christian countries. Being able to see how life is lived in those countries has taught me more than studying their religious philosophies. My path to teaching has also been shaped by the 5 years that I worked as the assistant to the Executive Director of Zenith Summer Camp an interfaith camp in the Swiss Alps. I have also taken the Art of Spiritual Guidance and other courses from The Spiritual Guidance Wisdom School taught by my father Atum O’Kane.  

In 2020, I enrolled in Upaya Zen Center’s two year Buddhist Chaplaincy training program. During my time at Upaya, I received Jukai from Roshi Joan Halifax and was given the name Kodo which means, “ The Ancient Way”.

The different service-oriented projects that I have been a part of have given me profoundly alive teachings that influence how I see the world. I have learned so much about life and myself from working with children’s projects in India, Cambodia, Nepal, Vietnam, and Uganda that work in and with some of the hardest conditions of life. (extreme poverty, sexual exploitation/ sex workers, drugs, abandoned and abused kids, street kids, orphans, etc…) 

I believe that spirituality should be connected to all of life. My main desire is to be able to teach in a way that gives a voice to what I have witnessed, learned from, and been a part of. This includes sharing my story and the stores of others that I have met that have embodied and exemplified different life experiences and teachings. 

In 2018, I began teaching alongside my father Atum O’Kane with the Public Program(s): The Gift of Grace in Love, Life, and Service at Hollyhock Retreat Center on Cortes Island in Canada and at Zenith Summer Camp in the Tichio Swiss Alps.

Further teaching programs including the program Showing the Way: The Path, The Teacher, and The Community have taken place in Mexico, Switzerland, Spokane Washington, Seattle Washington, and Ann Arbor Michigan.

Note due to COVID, All teaching programs are on pause.