Featured Speakers
Kathryn Agrell
Featured Speaker
Kathryn Agrell’s early life was focused on the dramatic arts, but as she moved beyond her childhood years, it was her love of writing that became her vocation. The direction of her life though shifted when she placed her feet upon a spiritual path that led her to the White Mountain Education Association.
For almost thirty-eight years now, she has been with White Mountain as a student of the Ageless Wisdom and the Agni Yoga Teachings. Kathryn is a part of the WMEA office staff, the WMEA Web-Admin team, and is on the staff of Agni Yoga Quarterly. The WMEA brings to her life, she says, a continuous opportunity to broaden her consciousness and learn the values of cooperation, striving, and service in group labor for the Common Good.
Annakama Chrysston
ANNAKAMA CHRYSSTON is a member of the WMEA Editing Team. She was introduced to the Ageless Wisdom in 1994. In 2008, her spiritual teacher gifted her two books from the Agni Yoga Series, Agni Yoga and Aum. Her quest to learn Agni Yoga led her to the WMEA in 2018. Annakama lives with her family on the Gold Coast, Australia, and works as a lawyer, managing a criminal defense law firm.
Valarie Drost
Featured Speaker
VALARIE DROST has been a member of the White Mountain Education Group since 1984. She studied Theatre Arts at Florida State University. Her travels to other countries, such as Great Britain, Ireland, Europe, China, and Africa, broadened her appreciation of the beauty, richness, and diversity of other cultures, recognizing the common threads that connects us all.
In 1992 she moved to Arizona with the White Mountain Education Group and has spent many years studying and spreading the Ageless Wisdom Teachings, more specifically, Agni Yoga. These Teachings, especially those of Agni Yoga and the Roerichs are the cornerstone of her life. She continues to strive to understand the many levels of these Teachings and apply them in her daily life.
Kathy O’Conner
Featured Speaker
KATHY O’CONNER, a devoted wife and mother, has been married to her husband, Kevin, for thirty years. Together, they have raised two beautiful daughters and one son, cultivating a warm and harmonious family environment that mirrors the values Kathy holds dear.
Kathy’s spiritual path ignited at an early age. Her unique upbringing set the stage for a life of profound spiritual exploration. Born into a family that held a deep reverence for the mysteries of the world, Kathy’s father’s career as a paleontologist took them on a transformative path. When she was just six years old, her family relocated to Saudi Arabia, immersing her in the rich tapestry of a multicultural society. It was in this melting pot of cultures that Kathy’s heart opened to the diversity and unity of all people. Her childhood was filled with the joy of friendships with peers from countries spanning the globe, and holidays became journeys of discovery, taking her to various destinations throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa. These experiences shaped her understanding of the unity and commonality that links all people. Weekly family outings cultivated in her an unwavering reverence for the wonder and beauty of the natural world, along with a sense of responsibility to safeguard it.
Kathy is an active member of the WMEA editing committee and a contributor and editor for the Agni Yoga Quarterly. This publication plays a pivotal role in disseminating the profound Teachings of Agni Yoga, the Teaching of Living Ethics, to a global audience. Presently, Kathy and her coworkers are diligently translating, editing, and indexing volume two of The High Path, which contains valuable portions of Helena Roerich’s Notebooks.
In addition to these ongoing projects, Kathy is part of a team that has been an integral part of the WMEA initiative to compile and edit An Agni Yoga Companion. This two-volume book is now available for download on the WMEA website, offering deeper insights into Agni Yoga themes. Furthermore, she was actively engaged in the indexing and editing of the two volumes of An Agni Yoga Anthology published last year, which are now available in hard copy and Kindle through Amazon. Alongside a dedicated team of coworkers, she has contributed to the editing of a book by Nicholas Roerich. Kathy’s collaboration extends to her work as an editor with the English translation of the Helena Roerich Notebooks, which are accessible on the WMEA website.
Kathy aspires to weave the Teachings of Agni Yoga into her daily life. In this endeavor, she seeks to cultivate a life infused with the eternal virtues of beauty, unity, truth, and universal love for all.
Ginette Parisi
Featured Speaker
GINETTE PARISI. With her children now grown, Ginette and her husband decided to travel to learn more about culture, beauty, and history from around the world. They traveled throughout Thailand, Norway, England, Spain, Italy, and many other European countries, learning to appreciate, understand, and love the people of many lands.
Ginette helped to create An Agni Yoga Companion and is the focalizer of the WMEA Death and Transition focus group. Ginette says that the path of Agni Yoga taught her the wisdom of living a life of virtue and the vision to strive toward perfection. What matters to her is a life lived with beauty, integrity, joy and freedom.
