About Us
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Co-founder of Wolf at the Door, Ananda is a published poet and novelist who has been a Member of the Triratna Buddhist Order since its foundation in 1968. His full-length poetry collection North of the Future was published by Windhorse Publications in 1999. His science-fiction novel Error Message is available from Amazon. Ananda retired from leading Wolf at the Door workshops in 2014 but is our continuing guide and inspiration.
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Ananda started Wolf at the Door with Manjusvara (David Keefe) in the mid 1990s and took the ‘Wolf’ to Australia,New Zealand and the US, in addition to an annual programme of weekend workshops and retreats in the UK and Europe. Manjusvara’s books Writing Your Way and The Poet’s Way emerged from the Wolf at the Door approach. Manjusvara died in 2011, but his life and work remains an inspiration and informs the play of Wolf at the Door.
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Satyalila (Jen Brown) has been writing poetry since her teens and took part in her first ‘Wolf’ workshop in 1998, since when writing has become a cornerstone of her practice. She has been co-leading retreats and workshops for a number of years, including co-leading Wolf events with Ananda in the two years immediately following Manjusvara's untimely death in 2011. These days she finds herself writing songs as often as poetry, and she enjoys co-creating retreats and workshops to help others connect with the magical depths of embodied imagination.
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Dharmavadana (David Penn) has been a supporter and friend of Wolf at the Door since his first Wolf retreat at Dhanakosa in 1999, which he views as a greatly significant experience in his spiritual life. For this and many other reasons he is very pleased to have joined the team. As a librarian, he led a poetry appreciation group for many years, and has published his own poetry in various literary magazines as well as rather odd short stories on the small press scene. He recently stood down as poetry editor of the Buddhist arts magazine Urthona, after ten years.
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Vishvantara (Julia Lewis) has been reading and writing poetry since childhood and her debut pamphlet Cursive was published by Happenstance Press in 2015. She has twice been commended in the National Poetry Competition, and won first prize in the Poetry London competition. She has been a Hawthornden Literary Fellow. She lives in a Buddhist community and teaches at the London Buddhist Centre. She earns an enjoyable living as a piano teacher.
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Satyagita writes to make sense of her world and has been doing so on and off since she was five. She went on her first Wolf at the Door retreat in 1997 and has, since then, continued to make writing an important part of her spiritual practice. She has co-led many writing workshops and some retreats in Norfolk, Dhanakosa and Taraloka.
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When Vidyacitta isn't seeking out the joys of camping in the wilds, he's sometimes compelled to commit words to paper. Writing, so he's been told, 'short muscular poems' -somewhat akin to his own appearance! He's been writing since 1998, when he first attended a Wolf retreat, writing his first two very short muscular poems, and thinking that was that! It certainly wasn't and he continues to be inspired to write about nature, friendship and meaning. He's passionate about helping to provide conditions that allow others to connect with their depths.
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Dhivan (Thomas Jones) has been involved in Wolf at the Door since its beginnings in 1996. He has written poems, novels and stories, and taught creative writing for Lancaster University. These days he is mainly engaged in scholarly work on Buddhism but remains a willing servant of the Goddess.
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Padmacandra (Pippa Meek) first attended a retreat with Wolf at the Door many moons ago, led by Ananda and Manjusvara. She says "I felt suddenly at home: able to be myself and happily anonymous at the same time. For me poetry is a state of mind that I aspire to abide in. Poetry seems to come from being embodied in the world - open to the senses as if for the first time". Padmacandra's poems have been widely published in magazines and in 2002 she edited, with much help from others, The Heart as Origami, an anthology of contemporary Buddhist Poets (Rising Fire Press).
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Varasahaya lives on the Welsh Border in Herefordshire and discovered Wolf in 2000. Some of her poems have been published in magazines and her first collection Moon Skin Coat is out in June 2016. She often leads and co-leads retreats including as a team member on our annual writing retreats at Dhanakosa and also organises poetry events in her local area with a friend.
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Satyadaka has translated poetry by various German poets (Rilke, Heine, Novalis), and has written an autobiography, Everything That Arises. More recently he has been writing songs. In the last couple of years, he has co-led several of our weekends and retreats.
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Most of the team, with our good friend Saddhajivini (front row, right)