Arian Young is an Asian-Australian first-generation Naarm settler whose proud heritage story descends from the ancestral villages of Toi San and Sun Wui, Guangdong, Southern China. With 65 years of walking in the world, her life’s rich trajectory has often responded to consequential times, characterised by leaning in and remaining curious in a world that is both wondrous and increasingly unrecognisable. A former Tibetan Buddhist nun, Arian is now retired from over twenty-five years in the Oriental healing arts, counselling, corporate mindfulness, and meditation training. It was soon after the death of her last parent that an unplanned, random, and mostly unwelcome DNA result upended her life as she knew it, catapulting her into a powerful and chaotic dance—one of grief and learning to fall in love with life; both of which are twins, joined at the hip. Falling apart meant carefully learning to humbly rearrange an emerging new self into a worthy semblance her ancestors could proudly claim. Some of her teachers have included: Inta McKimm, Lama Zopa Rinpoche, Geshe Tsultrim Gyeltsen, the Dalai Lama, Bikshuni Aya Khema, Bikshuni Sanghe Khadro, Fo Kuang Shan Monastery, Master Hsing Yun, Dr. Chui Nan Lai, Jennifer Sun, Kaali & Andrew Cargill, Kevin Toohey, Lorin Roche, Freya Mathews, and the Orphan Wisdom School. Arian is currently collaborating in an ensemble performance installation, WAKE, a project exploring the audacious fun, taboos, and controversy surrounding women and aging, on October 25-26, by the powerhouse experimental theatre makers The Rabble. In response to the grief of climate change, she has enrolled at the University of Tasmania, studying Sustainable Living, while growing food and learning to safeguard and cherish Country for future generations in the Dandenong Ranges/Yarra Valley, on the unceded traditional lands of the Bunurong and Woiwurrung of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation.

Marion Miller is a Tasmanian-born woman, the daughter of a migrant mother whose family settled in Australia from Hamburg, Germany. Her father, from Victoria, had a cattle farm on the remote King Island at that time. A creative and spirited child, Marion was introduced to meditation by her late mother at age 20. Throughout her life, Marion has been a seeker of spirituality and earthly wisdom, always in awe of the beauty and mystery of the natural world, which she has sadly witnessed being slowly degraded by human activity. Marion’s education and training include a Bachelor of Counselling (Coaching) from ACAP, a Diploma in Coaching from LCIA, and certification in Mindfulness MBSR/MBCT from MTIA. She has also attended retreats and studied within the Insight Meditation tradition under senior teacher Subhana Beghazi and other respected teachers worldwide. Additionally, she holds a certificate in Advanced Ecotherapy from Dr. Geoff Berry of the International Ecopsychology Society. An active environmentalist, Marion contributes to local rewilding and climate action projects in Stonnington. She is involved in Ecotherapy training retreats and practitioner PD. Marion is a graduate of the Environmental Champion Program, Stonnington Council & Port Phillip Ecocentre, and she collaborates with Councils to run Ecotherapy events. She is a member of Psychology for Climate Change, The Ecotherapy Alliance, and PACFA. She also works part time as a senior consultant. As an artist, Marion is dedicating more time to her creative practice and learning to listen more deeply to her artistic impulses. Based in her studio in Glen Iris, she is currently exploring eco-feminism through acrylic paint and sculpture and other multi-disciplinary practice. At home, Marion and her husband are committed to sustainable living, making their home more energy-efficient, tending to a kitchen garden, and rewilding their backyard and local public land with indigenous plants to support birds and wildlife. Together, they aspire to create an eco retreat for land care, regenerative living and leadership. They’re raising four teenagers to be connected to a community that is dedicated to caring for and protecting the earth.