GAIA MANDALA

OUR CORE TEAM

Cynthia Jurs met her root teacher, Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh in the early 1980s, and in 1994 received his transmission of Dharmacharya, becoming a teacher in his tradition, the Order of Interbeing. In 1990 she traveled to a remote cave in Nepal to meet the 106-year-old Lama Kushok Mangden Rinpoche (aka Charok Rinpoche) from whom she received the practice of the Earth Treasure Vases. In 2018 she was made an honorary Lama at Tolu Tharling Gompa in Nepal by Ngawang Tsultrim Zangpo Rinpoche. Today, Cynthia is forging a new path of dharma in service to Gaia, deeply rooted in the feminine, honoring indigenous traditions, and teaching an embodied, engaged, sacred activism dedicated to global healing and collective awakening. Cynthia teaches meditations and leads pilgrimages and through the nonprofit, Alliance for the Earth, she also works with former combatants in Liberia to build peace through mindfulness. She lives at the base of the Sangre de Cristo mountains in northern New Mexico where she is often found walking in the wilderness with her dog or gardening with husband. You can find more about Cynthia here.

Rick Jansen is passionate about the transformation and healing needed to wake up to the deeper interconnected reality of our lives and to find one’s true and authentic calling in service to the ‘’Great Turning’’. His spiritual path started in 2013 trekking in Nepal where he met Tibetan Buddhism and his first spiritual teacher, Lama Thubten Zopa Rinpoche. Rick also lived for two years in and around Plum Village, the monastic center of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, studying and practicing deeply and is a member of the Order of Interbeing. He carries a strong connection to both the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and Thich Nhat Hanh’s lineage. He has also trained and now assists in Vision Fast and Rites of Passage work with the School of Lost Borders in California, enacting his own calling to support primarily young adults in finding their authentic path. Rick works closely with Cynthia Jurs and Alliance for the Earth (AE) since Spring 2022 and serves as Program Director and teacher/facilitator for the Gaia Mandala. After stewarding an Earth Treasure Vase for Tibet, he now leads a Community Stewardship Project around a Vase for the Andes in Peru.

Erik Pye (he/him) is Operations Director for Alliance for the Earth, where he oversees organizational systems, communications, finances, and program logistics. Since joining in April 2025, he has supported the coordination of retreats, pilgrimages, and internal operations, helping the organization’s work move with clarity, care, and coherence.

He brings a background in facilitation, nonprofit coordination, and storytelling, with a systems-oriented and relational approach that bridges structure and heart. Working closely with Founder and Guiding Teacher Cynthia Jurs, Erik helps translate vision into practice and sustain the day-to-day rhythms that support offerings rooted in mindfulness, compassion, and planetary healing.

Alongside his operations work, Erik is a community builder and facilitator committed to cultivating spaces of authenticity, belonging, and collective inquiry. His work is guided by values of equity, collaboration, and curiosity, treating organizational systems as part of a larger practice of service to community and Earth.

More of Erik’s work can be found at www.beyondthemasc.com