Mindful Vulnerability: Age and Wisdom in the Face of COVID-19

Glenda Hodges-Cook is a senior meditation instructor on the Earth & Spirit Center faculty - and one of Louisville’s village elders. A mother and grandmother, she spent a career as a psychiatric nurse. With roots in the Christian and Buddhist traditions, Glenda has practiced insight meditation for over forty years and has studied with meditation icons Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Jack Kornfield, and Donald Rothberg, completing the Community Dharma Leader Training Program of Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, California. She founded the Louisville Vipassana Community and has led this meditation group for twelve years. At the Earth & Spirit Center, Glenda teaches in our Mindfulness Meditation Training Program and offers courses on mindful aging, claiming elderhood, other topics. I sat down with Glenda to talk about how she is using mindfulness and meditation to navigate the uncertain territory of a global pandemic - and coming to grips with her own vulnerability.