Joan writes and talks about nonduality, awareness, presence, and the wonder of simply being alive. She invites a contemplative exploration that is direct, non-methodical, awareness-based and non-result-oriented. Joan has a background in Buddhism, Christianity, Sufism, Advaita, radical nonduality and nontraditional meditation and inquiry, but she identifies with no particular tradition. Joan spent time with many different teachers and was especially close with Toni Packer, a former Zen teacher who left that tradition behind to work in a simpler and more open way. Joan's background also includes somatic work, addiction recovery, political activism, martial arts, and visual arts. She has been a bodyworker, a college professor, a janitor, a barista, a clerical worker, and many other things along the way. She has held public and private meetings as well as occasional workshops and retreats since 1996. In addition to writing books, she writes articles on Substack and currently meets with people on Zoom. Joan believes everyone has a unique path and that no one's path can be a template for anyone else to follow. She describes her writings and meetings with people as explorations, "like a child exploring its toes or a lover exploring the beloved," and she adds, "There is no end to such explorations, all of which are forms of play." Joan grew up in the Chicago area, has lived in both New York and California, and currently resides in southern Oregon. She is the author of Bare-Bones Meditation: Waking Up from the Story of My Life (1996), Awake in the Heartland: The Ecstasy of What Is (2003), Painting the Sidewalk with Water: Talks and Dialogs about Nonduality (2010), Nothing to Grasp (2012), and Death: The End of Self-Improvement (2019).