ELYSIAN Spring 2021 "Women in Wellness Issue"

ELYSIAN Inspiring Women. Graceful Living.

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1969 est.

www.tirolergoldschmied.it South Tyrol - Italy

the art of refinement diamond-studdet falconhoods

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la bella vitaSophia Loren

The Italian film actress Sophia Loren, circa1955.

PICTORIAL PRESS LTD / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

by Laurie Bogart Wiles

ELYSIAN Volume 7 • Issue 1 • le printemps 2021

The Power of PREY

BY INKA PIEGSA-QUISCHOTTE

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authentic states

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Jocelyn Lee’s photographs interrogate traditional notions about beauty, women, and aging.

Call of the Wild

By emphasizing the connection between nature and civilization, biophilic design helps humans live healthier and more graceful lives.

BY ELLEN HONIGSTOCK AND REBECCA ELZINGA

FEATURES

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A big city nature-phobe finds solace among the falcons at Gleneagles.

BY DEBRA SPARK

the Alt women Carol Dara Torres who inspire us

page 118 page 132

INTERVIEWED BY KAREN FLOYD

FEATURETTES

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entertainment

A master class on manifesting happiness with Tina Turner. BY JOEY KIPP

my U-turn

30 food&dining

A greater good. BY KATIE SHEEHAN

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Spa food elevated to an art. BY ODOCHI IBE

wellness

48shopping

Massages and their therapeutic value. BY MARTHA WIEDEMANN

shopping

146 change creator Created with kindness. BY GERALDINE VISCO

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Flower power. BY KAREN FRAGALA SMITH

152 158philanthropy Shayna Tejada from Liquivida. BY MEGAN ROBINSON

mind&body

The powerful effect of psychedelic retreats. BY MAKAYLA GAY

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Actress Taraji P. Henson responds to a national crisis. BY GEMMA M. BARRITEAU, PHD

the gospel according to Nightlife maven Carmen D’Alessio

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back story / the cover

Carol Alt photographed in New York City by Luciana Pampalone.

E publisher

Karen Floyd interim editor-in-chief

Karen Fragala Smith c r e at o r - i n - c h i e f

Ryan Stalvey

Kimberly Fly

chief media director

Rob Springer

managing editor

Kristen Henson

e ly s i a n i m pa c t d i r e c t o r o f p h i l a n t h r o p y

Kelly Nichols

inspiring women

Karen Floyd

graceful living

Rhonda Fischer arts

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c u lt u r e e d i t o r

Hannah Shepard

l i t e r at u r e e d i t o r

Kathie Bennett

wellness editor

Martha Wiedemann h e a lt h e d i t o r

Dr. Katherine Birchenough

senior writer

Laurie Bogart Wiles a s s o c i at e e d i t o r

Megan Robinson

contributing writers

Gemma M. Barriteau, Rebecca Elzinga Makayla Gay, Ellen Honigstock Odochi Ibe, Joey Kipp, Inka Piegsa-Quischotte, Debra Spark Geraldine Visco, Martha Weidemann copy editors

Diane High, Hadley Inabinet, Baker Maultsby, Phil Randall c o n s u lt i n g e d i t o r

Jason Spencer advisor

Abby Deering director of web design

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development

Elliot Derhay

d i g i ta l m a r k e t i n g m a n a g e r

Nika Wolf

d i g i ta l s a l e s d i r e c t o r

Don Bailey

social media specialist

Haley Hudson

post-production editor

Elise Rimmer

post-production graphics

Ty Yachaina

comptroller

Anna Christian

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ELYSIAN Magazine is published four times per year by Palladian Publications LLC, 113 W. Main St., Spartanburg, SC 29306.

For subscription information, call 888-329-9534; visit subscriptions@elysianservice.com; mailing address: Subscription Service, Elysian Magazine PO Box 2172, Williamsport, PA 17703 All rights reserved. Printed in the USA.

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From top to bottom: The stunning Carol Alt, considered the first ever “Supermodel,” with Karen Floyd in New York City for her Inspiring Woman interview. • ELYSIAN Publisher, Karen Floyd, in Delray Beach, Florida, with Inspiring Woman and 12-time Olympic medalist Dara Torres. • In West Palm Beach, ELYSIAN’s Media Director, Rob Springer, adjusts the camera in preparation for Karen Floyd’s interview with Shayna Tejada, the co-founder of Liquivida Lounge.

chief financial officer

PRADA POPCORN CHROMCHROMOGENIC PRINT ON KODAK ENDURA

BY TYLER SHIELDS

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EVERY LIFE HAS ITS KERNEL, ITS HUB, ITS EPICENTER, FROM WHICH EVERYTHING FLOWS OUT, AND TO WHICH EVERYTHING RETURNS.” —HAMNET, BY MAGGIE O’FARRELL

WINNER OF THE 2020 WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION

ast month in my bi-weekly Pure Barre class, a young female lawyer and I took up a conversation. We are typically stationed side by side on the front bar of our socially distanced studio. I always arrive early, so I have the space between the two strongest in the class, the instructor and Marghretta. This prime spot allows me to emulate their precise exercise movements and rhythm counts, much needed to offset my ineptness. On this particular day, Marghretta asked me if I had read the book Hamnet, which she was reading; and which she kindly lent me the following week.

Our lives always become richer when we listen to the quiet messages from others’ acts of kindness. The timeliness of Hamnet, selfdescribed as “A Novel of the Plague” is undeniable. Agnes, the fictional wife of Shakespeare, loses her only son to “the pestilence,” aka the bubonic plague, and yet she perseveres; she overcomes. Remarkably, in the storyline is the strength of her/our humanity, her sheer willpower and Hamnet’s affirmation of life over death.

In every interview and throughout these pages, there is an undercurrent of how the pandemic has influenced and impacted lives, causing a recalibration of sorts. The need to be wellness “centered” is critical because, in the final analysis, we (individually) are “the source from which everything flows.”

The resounding theme of the novel Hamnet, inspiring interviews and wellness-focused content is simple: Life is short, live it well.

Inspiring women. (Anecdotal stories)

As we further our mission to inspire and connect women globally, ELYSIAN’s interviews provide an even deeper and more extensive exploration into the lives of two exceptional women. Inspiring Women Carol Alt and Dara Torres share remarkable similarities and also stark differences in their life’s journeys.

Both “ascended” with no road map to follow, broke through the unknown and achieved what others dare to dream. They share the title “first”; Carol Alt—the first supermodel and Dara Torres—the first five-time Olympian and 12-time medalist, winning three silver medals at age 42. At the forefront of both Inspiring Women’s interviews was a notion of harnessing God’s given talent and joining that with willpower and determination. While both women graced the cover of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, their paths to the cover could not be more different. Abundant life lessons are shared by these amazing women in their New York and Florida interviews.

As in each issue of ELYSIAN, the perspectives of accomplished women are juxtaposed with a “Change Creator” who is embarking upon her journey, like that of Liquivida’s CFO and co-founder, Shayna Tejada.

Graceful living. (Deliberate, spirited and bold)

In keeping with the idea of living well and the constant theme of change, ELYSIAN’s Karen Fragala Smith introduces two new featurettes: My U-Turn—dedicated to women’s lives’ focus shift and/or evolving second careers and The Gospel According to—words from wise women selected for each quarterly issue. My U-Turn’s inaugural column spotlights Katie Sheehan, the founder of Loft & Daughter. Inspired by the simplicities, natural elements and colors of India, a woman reroutes her life and her business. The words of Carmen D’Alessio are captured in The Gospel According to… offering a new twist for our readers to enjoy.

Finally, the iconic lives of Tina Turner and Sophia Loren exemplify graceful living and serve as a reminder of “a life well-lived.”

Philanthropy (Impact giving, creating legacy)

In the spring season of growth and rebirth, we encourage purposeful giving. ELYSIAN IMPACT’s vision, to eradicate violence against women and children, undergirds our support of local Domestic Violence and Children Advocacy centers. In this Wellness Issue, we also bring attention to Taraji Henson and the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation, whose focus is on mental wellness among the underserved African American communities.

In closing

We dedicate this Wellness Issue to all women’s quest for wellness. Dara Torres (physical), Tina Turner (mental) and Martha Wiedemann (spiritual), we salute you… and the many who follow.

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With much love,

Karen Floyd Publisher

STANLEY KORSHAK

SYLVA & CIE

WWW.STANLEYKORSHAK.COM

entertainment

A Master Class on Manifesting Happiness with Tina Turner

BY JOEY KIPP

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Prancing and posing for studio portraits in 1969, young rocker Tina Turner is resplendent in a crocheted mini dress, but her home life with band leader Ike Turner was turbulent.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JACK ROBINSON/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

Are we in Thunderdome?

Lights are flashing everywhere. Fireworks! Explosions! Sequins! But nothing is as blinding as those legs. Those legs! She tosses her hair with the pride of a lion, and charges across the stage in black Louboutins.

She prowls, glides, careens. She runs to the metal claw platform, and hovers over thousands of people, ferociously leading them in a call and response while she dances and sings her hit Nutbush City Limits, a song she wrote as an homage to her former hometown in rural Tennessee.

Dancing in those shoes is a feat for a person of any age, but she is 69 years old. And this eruptive scene isn’t in the fictional dystopia of Thunderdome, it’s in Sheffield, England on the final night of a world tour to mark her 50th anniversary in the music business.

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This is Tina Turner, the High Priestess of Rock ‘N’ Roll and Buddhism. Stilettos and sequins perhaps, do not immediately spring to mind when one pictures a spiritual leader. Yet the longevity of Tina Turner’s career—in a relentless industry known for sacrificing its heroes on the altar of youth—is mirrored by the endurance of her spirituality, the key to her success. While scores of her contemporaries were decimated by drugs, alcohol, greed, and depression, Turner has been able to keep those demons at bay and maintain clarity through her practice of faith. For Turner, faith is not devotion towards a specific religion (though she draws her inspiration from the well of Buddhism). Rather,

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THEY SAY THAT THE SECRET TO ANTI-AGING IS TO KEEP THE BODY MOVING. TINA HASN’T QUIT SHAKING IT SINCE

1957.”

Road warrior Tina Turner enjoys a moment of peace at her home in Los Angeles with youngest son, Ronnie, c. 1976.

ZUMA PRESS, INC. / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

faith is an accountability for one’s actions, their effects, and their relationship to nature. Not a single one among us escapes this life without pain. So the only way to survive, and indeed, thrive, is to learn how to “change your poison into medicine.” For Turner, this alchemy happens during the Buddhist chant Nam-myoho-rengekyo. It saved her life, and she thinks it can save yours, too.

Tina Turner’s new book Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good, is a masterclass on manifesting happiness from a woman whose experiences have run the gamut, from her humble origins as an African American woman in the American South to the stratospheric heights of her blockbuster career in music, theater, television, film, and publishing. Her mythical origins story was the subject of an awardwinning biopic in 1993, but it is so compelling that it bears repeating.

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bandoned by her parents at a young age, and raised by her grandmother, young Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock) was a shy girl who loved to sing in church. A chance meeting with a charismatic band leader named Ike Turner became the teenager’s entree into the music industry. When shy Anna Mae hit the stage, she became the golden-voiced goddess, Tina Turner. She also became a victim of domestic violence, during her 20-year relationship with Ike Turner.

Somewhere in between the sold-out shows, the child-rearing, and the brutal beatings, Tina Turner discovered meditation.

“If there’s one lesson I’ve learned, it’s that encountering adversity, as I have, isn’t necessarily a bad thing,” writes Turner in Happiness, “It’s what we make of it, how we use it to shape

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Tina Turner takes the stage with her husband Ike in Las Vegas, 1970.

PHOTOGRAPH BY GJON MILI/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION VIA GETTY IMAGES

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Tina Turner touring Paris during the 1980’s.

TRINITY MIRROR / MIRRORPIX / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

ourselves and our futures, that ultimately determines our success and happiness.” Turner’s wisdom isn’t merely theoretical: it’s born of experience. “Busted lips, black eyes, dislocated joints, broken bones, and psychological torture became a part of everyday life. I got used to suffering and tried to keep myself sane while somehow managing this insanity. I felt there was no way out,” recalls Turner.

While her personal life was descending into a bottomless pit, her fame as a singer with the Ike & Tina Turner Revue was skyrocketing. In 1966, her collaboration with mega producer Phil Spector, River Deep-Mountain High, shot to the top of the European pop charts, and Turner was invited to tour with the Rolling Stones. The disparity between her public notoriety and private hell became too much to endure, and in 1968, Tina Turner sucked down 50 sleeping pills in an attempt to end her life.

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After she woke up in the hospital, Turner came to the realization that she had survived for a reason. Her life had a greater purpose, and she was determined to find it. A few years later, she was introduced to Buddhism by a series of random encounters. But nothing is truly random, is it? “Apparently, the universe was trying very hard to send me an important message. This time, I was ready to listen.” recalls Turner.

In 1973, at the age of 33, Tina Turner, rock star, wife, Californian, and mother of four, became a Buddhist. She began chanting every day and studied books on Buddhist thought by Japanese philosopher Daisaku Ikeda. It was Ikeda who introduced Turner to the ancient notion of the “Ten Worlds,” or states which classify our human experience, ranked from lowest to highest: Hell, Hunger, Animality, Anger,

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CHANEL CHAMPAGNE CHROMOGENIC PRINT ON KODAK ENDURA LUSTER PAPER

BY TYLER SHIELDS

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Buddhist Tina Turner performing her morning prayers at her home in Los Angeles during the 1970’s.

JOHNSON PUBLISHING COMPANY ARCHIVE. COURTESY OF THE FORD FOUNDATION, J. PAUL GETTY TRUST, JOHN D. AND CATHERINE T. MACARTHUR FOUNDATION, ANDREW W. MELLON FOUNDATION AND SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

Opposite: Turner chants with appreciation in New York City while on a press tour for the blockbuster film Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in 1985.

BRIAN LANKER ARCHIVE

Tranquility, Heaven, Learning, Realization, Bodhisattva, and Buddhahood. And yes, Tina Turner has experienced the gamut.

The first four worlds are dominated by their insatiable desires, ego attachments, and conflict. For Turner, these were the worlds she inhabited during the emotional and financial scarcity of her youth, and in the throes of Ike’s abuse. The fifth and sixth worlds are defined by temporary elation. Certainly, scenes of the rock ‘n’ roll Queen in stilettos shimmying, dancing, vocalizing in rhythm to an ecstatic audience must veer between tranquility and heaven.

The four remaining worlds are referred to in Buddhist texts as the Four Noble Paths, and they can only be manifested through sustained inner effort. Learning is a state in which truths are attained through the lessons of others. Cut to Turner reading Ikeda. Realization is a state in which truths are attained through one’s own experiences. When she wrote her memoir I, Tina, the bestseller on which her blockbuster biopic was based, that was Turner accessing the 8th World.

Bodhisattva is a state in which altruism rules, and one finds joy in seeking enlightenment and helping others to do the same. What is more symbolic of the Bodhisattva state than Tina

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Turner’s writing Happiness Becomes You? The highest condition in life is a state of total freedom in which there is no separation between thought and deed. In Buddhahood, there is perfect unity between the individual and the force of the universe.

“We all have the potential to manifest any of these ten conditions at any moment, and as we are experiencing one of them, the other nine conditions remain dormant,” writes Turner.

“At any given moment, we are always experiencing one of these conditions, and the qualities of that condition inside ourselves reflect outward into every area of our lives.”

At age 81,

Tina Turner has been a practicing Buddhist for almost half a century. She is mostly retired, happily remarried and living in Switzerland. Her life is not a testament to luck or talent or kismet, although all three attributes have held a significant place in her journey. She is best known for her resilience. When she walked out on her abusive marriage to Ike Turner in 1976, she left behind her material goods, and had nothing to her name,

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Turner returns to the studio in 2017 after undergoing treatment for a life-threatening illness.

XAVER WALSER/URS GANTNER

except her name. Her comeback in 1984, with her Grammywinning album Private Dancer sold more copies than all of her music with Ike combined. She was 45 years old at the time, ancient in popstar years.

Just as there is no triumphant comeback without a fateful fall, there is no personal growth without hardship. But it’s important to note that hardship should be viewed as a tool, not as an impermeable part of the status quo. “Each of us is born, I believe, with a unique mission, a purpose in life that only we can fulfill. We are linked by a shared responsibility: to help our human family grow kinder and happier,” writes Turner. “As I write this now in my eighties, I can say to you with absolute assurance that a lifetime can zip by in what feels like only a few turns of a kaleidoscope. Unless we make conscious efforts to achieve our own personal human revolution, too many of us end up spending our precious days just busily running around, but never getting anywhere.”

As Turner was finishing the Happiness manuscript in 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic began spreading throughout every corner of the globe, and one of her great life lessons began to resonate with increased power. “There were so many circumstances and forces I couldn’t change or control, but my life-altering revelation was that I could change my way of responding to these challenges.” Indeed, happiness isn’t

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attained through the amassing of material wealth, fame or accolades. Rather, an individual chooses happiness by relinquishing the desire to control the outside world and embraces the power to control one’s inner world. “When we do our best to lift ourselves up by increasing our self-love, thoughtfulness, and kindness in all our behaviors, we can then live out a true revolution of the heart.”

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rom her small-town upbringing, through the pit of domestic abuse, to the great stages of the world, Tina Turner’s life is a testament to the power of meditation as a tool for personal transformation. “I happily and gratefully accept everything I went through in the past because every detail of my life is both my karma and my mission.” Tina Turner invites you to absorb her wisdom and use it to inform your own journey through the Ten Worlds. “When you infuse your life with a greater purpose beyond your individual self, every aspect of your karma can become a brilliant facet of your mission. You can transform sorrow and adversity of any sort into joy, stability, health, and prosperity. By changing poison into medicine and accomplishing your inner revolution, you can use every experience of karma to encourage others who suffer from the same problems that you overcame.” ■

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my u-turn

Vintage filling carriers of an Indian loom with a spool of colorful threads inside.

LEONOV.O / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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A Greater Good

BY KATIE SHEEHAN

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I was on the frontline of fashion.

I sat at negotiating tables all over the world, leveraging the cheapest, fastest, biggest retail volumes I could. It was the career I thought I wanted.

And then I gave it all up. No backup plan. No other job lined up. I walked out and into a vast world that had more to offer me than I ever realized.

Leaving had everything to do with the future I saw for myself.

I saw myself being a mom, and the high pressure, long hours, and frequent international travel would have given me virtually no time to raise a child.

More than that, I envisioned myself doing something better, something ethical, something sustainable. I had been selling high volume products, made at such a low cost, that their origins and means of production were largely unknown and unquestioned. I knew that my work was having a negative impact somewhere along the line because, at the end of the day, I was supporting an industry that valued profit over people and the planet. It was time for a change.

I had just gotten engaged. Lovestruck and free, my fiancé and I set off on a backpacking journey. I had traveled throughout my 20’s, frequenting India and Southeast Asia. This time around, as we traversed India and parts of South America, I was overwhelmed with the desire to do something worthwhile. I wanted to use my skills in a way that would benefit others.

India was like another home to me. It was exhilarating, tangible, colorful. I had a connection with the country, and I adored its handicrafts. I had no doubt that India would be the place where my next chapter would start.

When my travels ended, I returned home for a month, but I couldn’t stay. The need to return to India was so strong that in 2017, back to India I went. When I arrived, I began my search, scouring the land for creators and cooperatives, makers and manufacturers.

If I was going to start something, I needed partners.

Out of 30 initial meetings, I came away with three or four people I really saw myself working with—three or four more people than I had before, and they were all I needed to get my vision off the ground. I’d spent my whole working life in a big industry. Now, I relished the task of proving that small could be successful.

At first, I was attached to the idea of a clothing brand. That

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changed when the most inspiring makers I met specialized in jewelry and homewares, a sure sign that would point me toward the rest of my life.

The name for this new venture came from one of my fondest childhood memories. My mother—a boho, hippy, wild child—kept an embroidered yoke gypsy dress and a pair of navy blue clogs in her room from her college days. She met my father in that dress. I played dress-up in those clogs.

They were the antithesis of fast fashion. They protested throwaway culture. They were more valuable to me than the most expensive brand names.

They were also the inspiration for the name Loft and Daughter.

I wanted my products to tell stories. I wanted them to be passed down for generations. I wanted them to feel like home.

Now, I have five key suppliers. I know each one of them personally.

One is Fair Trade Certified, while those without certifications follow strict fair trade practices. One women’s cooperative pays above the national wage, gives out pension schemes, educates their employees’ children, and runs fully on solar energy.

My suppliers work with me to make jewelry and homewares that mean something. Each piece tells a story. My next collection will focus on protective and empowering elements. They draw from divine femininity, from goddesses, from the moon and stars.

My favorite piece is the Freedom T-Bar Chain. Each link of the chain is hand-hammered. It’s designed to be worn multiple ways. Just like you have the freedom to choose how you wear it, you have the freedom to choose how you live. Freedom can be found in the smallest things.

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From Mexico, through Central and South America, to India and Sri Lanka, Katie Sheehan uprooted her entire life to embark on a nomadic adventure that would lead her to establish the roots of her business in India. She and her husband had been dating for a few years, and he, too, was eager to travel.

Sheehan had been taking trips like this one since her early 20’s, so she was undaunted by the conditions she encountered in rural villages.“I was well aware that you see things which are difficult, and you’re in situations where you’re exposed to a lot of heartache and hardship.” Fueled by the experiences of her travels and her previous career, Sheehan was determined to find work that did more for the world. Opposite: Inspired by the Indian city Benares, which was once called Kashi, the Long Kasha Pendant in silver is a standout staple piece that can go with anything. It comes with tree-free paper tags, recycled tissue paper, and a recyclable eco postal box.

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Loft & Daughter’s gold Peacock Hoops come from a small group of artisans in West Bengal who are Fair Trade Certified. Meticulously handcrafted, not mass produced, they are currently on backorder, due to high demand. Each set is packaged in an organic pouch made by women in Jaipur, who stitch each one uniquely. Opposite page: A physical representation of shakti, or the female principle of divine energy, this reversible ring is meant to inspire the wearer as it adorns her hand. The stone, a stunning dark blue Lapis Lazuli, is meant to awaken your strength, truth, and inner peace.

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As

a business-owner, it feels amazing to know that my work is good for the world, but I have to remember that I’ve only just begun. There is always room to be more ethical, more sustainable, more purposeful. My goals for 2021 are to offset my carbon, reduce the amount of plastic used when importing products from manufacturers, locate lab-grown gemstones, and do more to give back to women’s charities.

As much room as there is for improvement, though, it can’t be perfect.

As a businesswoman and a mother, I remind myself to strive for improvement, but not be dejected when I fall short of perfection. This planet only asks us for our best, and that is all we can give.

I think my son, Raffie, will be part of a generation that will be more ecoconscious and more socially aware than ever. I’ve started those conversations with him now so that he can carry them into adulthood with the realization that every one of his decisions has an impact on the world, either to its betterment or its detriment. I am confident he will make the right ones. ■ Editor’s note: Katie Sheehan is the founder of Loft & Daughter, a jewelry and housewares brand that is based in England, and sources its products from Fair Trade artisan communities in India. For more information, visit loftanddaughter.com.

What happens when you are going confidently in the direction of your dreams and then everything changes? Yep, you make a u-turn.To share the story of a u-turn in your life with ELYSIAN readers, please message the editors at info@readelysian.com.

Once determined to make womenswear, Sheehan’s plan took a u-turn. After falling in love with India’s handicrafts and the lovely people who made them, she landed on jewelry and homewares. These Palolem Tuft Cushion Covers are part of her “Another Woman’s Treasure” collection. Above: Beautifully crafted by a team of artisans displaced from West Bengal, the Unity bracelet is a symbol of solidarity.

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food & dining

Spa Food Elevated to an Art

BY ODOCHI IBE

THE LUMINOUS GLOW OF THE CUISINE AT THE OJAI VALLEY INN

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Pacific Yellowtail Crudo with Orange and Fennel is a highlight of the menu at Olivella, the signature restaurant at the Ojai Valley Inn.

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rtfully placed lettuce leaves. Tomatoes carved into the shape of a rose.

Chives propped up vertically. Let’s face it, spa food isn’t exactly known for being easy on the eyes or the palette. But 80 miles north of Los Angeles, is a spiritual oasis called the Ojai Valley Inn, where reality exists in a slightly altered, and altogether enhanced state. Settled by the Chumash people more than 10,000 years ago, the valley’s original name, “Awhai” (which translates as “moon”) is an homage to its splendid nighttime vistas. The Chumash people believed the mountain emitted a sacred, tranquil energy, and indeed, the rock formation is embedded with quartz which is said to generate positive vibrations. Each year, thousands of people flock to the Ojai Valley to witness a “Pink Moment” when the sun creates a luminescent sunset 6,000 feet above sea level on the Topatopa bluffs. But the area’s chief attraction is the Ojai Valley Inn, a splendid resort with landscaped gardens, an 18-hole championship golf course, tennis courts, swimming pools, and award-winning dining—even in its spa restaurants.

Opened in 1923, the Ojai Valley Inn recently went through a months-long, $5 million renovation, including the addition of a spa penthouse suite. “As part of our commitment to being a premier getaway destination in California, we took time during the resort’s temporary closure to completely renovate several areas of the property,” says General Manager Chris Kandziora. “We look forward to welcoming guests back to the resort to experience the Inn’s warm hospitality amidst these reimagined settings.”

Spa Ojai has five dining concepts including the signature restaurant Olivella, the only establishment in Northern California to hold

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both the Forbes Four Star and AAA Four-Diamond designations.

The 240-seat restaurant features several private dining rooms and a large patio which offer a perfect view of the famed pink sunsets.

Olivella’s three-course menu—developed by Chef Andres Foskey— features locally-grown produce and wines prepared with techniques borrowed from traditional Italian cuisine. The food constitutes more than a mere meal: it is a gastronomic experience. Each dish is concocted with a complex flavor spectrum in mind and plated with exquisite artistry. Highlights include Pacific yellowtail crudo with orange and fennel, black truffle risotto with wild mushrooms and estate herbs, and California squab in pickled gooseberry.

World-class food culture has never had a more picturesque home than The Farmhouse, a 50,000 square-foot gastronomy center at the Ojai Valley Inn, designed by Howard Backen and Silvia Nobili. The center, which was established in 2019, pays homage to notable chefs who specialize in sustainably produced ingredients and products created by the region’s most meticulous food artisans.

This spring, the center will be hosting Chef Christopher Kostow who is best known as the former proprietor of the Restaurant at Meadowood which was destroyed by wildfires last fall.

“While planned well before the Glass Fire that devastated The Restaurant at Meadowood,” explains Kostow, “Our time in Ojai will serve as an opportunity for my team to continue to cook and

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The Ojai Valley Inn is California’s premier resort, with its landscaped gardens, championship golf course, tennis courts, swimming pools, and award-winning dining.

CHANEL MOUTH II CHROMOGENIC PRINT ON KODAK ENDURA LUSTER PAPER

BY TYLER SHIELDS

igifineart.com

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Pixie Tangerine on the rocks, anyone? Demonstrations from expert mixologists and chefs at the Farmhouse give spa goers the opportunity to learn something new. The venue maintains an active calendar of artisans in residence throughout the year, featuring the most acclaimed culinary talent from California and beyond.

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The Farmhouse is dedicated to using the finest local and sustainably sourced ingredients prepared with classic culinary techniques.

work together. We look forward to crafting menus that encompass the divergent terroir of the valleys of Napa and Ojai, and to sharing our work with a new audience.”

Chef Kostow will be joined in the kitchen by Chef de Cuisine Jacqueline Dasha, and they will collaborate on a six-course meal that showcases the same food philosophy that was integral to their Michelin Guide 3-star restaurant in Napa Valley. Kostow is known for creating palate-awakening flavor profiles which challenge, excite and nourish both the body and soul. Eating a Chef Kostow meal is a bucket-list experience, on par with seeing the Aurora Borealis in Norway or catching a U2 concert in Dublin. To put it simply: Kostow’s pop-up at The Farmhouse is an absolute MUST for world-class foodies.

At $475 per person, the six-course tasting menu will feature produce sourced from Meadowood’s surviving farm space as well as other local farms in Napa and Ojai. The opening menu for March includes spiny lobster a la presse with pumpkin-preserved tomato and rice koji cream with puffed wild rice. Guests will also enjoy wine pairings selected by Meadowood beverage director Micah Clark. Additional selections will be available from Olivella’s expansive 900-label wine list, which boasts bottles from around the world with particularly strong representation from California, France, and Italy.

Ojai Valley Inn guests seeking a casual meal must find their way to The Oak. Its vast outdoor space is decked with heaters to keep guests warm as they gaze upon mountain vistas dotted with majestic oak trees tucked among the green of the golf course. The restaurant serves breakfast, lunch and dinner, and its delectable options include brioche French toast with caramelized almonds, kale Caesar with white anchovies, and seared local albacore with smoked beet risotto. And there’s no need to eliminate cocktails from your wellness regime, especially when it’s a meticulously crafted Lavender Lemonade with Hangar One Buddha’s Hand Citron Vodka meshed with lavender grown on the Inn’s grounds. After dinner, you can indulge in frozen delicacies from Ojai Ice Cream, which has been serving cold treats since 1979. For sweet treats that won’t melt in your trunk on the way home, check out the fudge and other nostalgic candies from the shop which was famously featured in the film Easy A. After dining your way to homeostasis, a trip to the spa is the next logical step at the Ojai Valley Inn. The resort’s 31,000 square foot spa offers a wide range of body treatments including a CBD Oil Massage for deep relaxation and pain management, a hydrafacial with clinical grade dermabrasion, and an energizing cabana massage by the Tranquility Pool. The scenic Ojai trail

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Owner of four acclaimed restaurants in Los Angeles, Nancy Silverton is also the prolific author of 11 cookbooks. She was named Culinary Ambassador for The Farmhouse in 2019.

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which wraps around the valley is convenient for power hikes or gentle strolls, either self-guided or in the company of a local expert.

In deference to the Ojai Valley’s history as a mystical site for the Chumash people, the Inn offers counseling in a range of spiritual healing modalities such as sage rituals, drumming circles, Native American Prayer Song, and crystal readings with spiritualist Nancy Furst. Individuals seeking self-empowerment and chakra clearing can schedule sessions with Reiki master Katie Manzella.

Mood balancing techniques and the stimulation of one’s healing soul can be found in Cristy Candler’s Sound Healing therapies and Ixchel Leigh’s Aromatherapy counseling. For further self-discovery and creative expression, visit the Artist Cottage & Apothecary which offers walk-in activities during open studio hours. Options include candle making, succulent terrarium composition, pottery planting, paper marbling and mandala making.

“Today, the Ojai Valley is a haven for artists, writers and movie stars who find inspiration in its serene beauty,” says Shelby Sabat, the public relations manager for the Inn. “Tucked within the Topatopa Mountains, the Inn is known as a Shangri-La where the relaxed glamour of Southern California is balanced with the region’s natural beauty for an unrivaled experience that embodies the authentic spirit of Ojai.”

The healing power of a visit to Ojai Valley Inn is infused into every aspect of the experience, from the exquisite cuisine and beautifully manicured gardens to the gentle waves of the Tranquility Pool and the enlivening scents of the potpourri at the Artist Cottage. Although each visitor’s time at Ojai Valley is merely an interlude from the tumult of life, it is also an opportunity to relearn how to be in the world. It is the chance to usher in a more conscious way of being, by savoring every bite of food, every breath, and every vista of beauty that we encounter. ■

Expertly curated by Los Angeles style icon Lisa Kline

ShopLisaKline.com

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Artisan in residence, Scott Daigre, serves as The Farmhouse’s Culinary Gardener. His love for horticulture took him away from a career in marketing and allowed him to flourish as a professional grower.

His work brings fresh vegetables and herbs from farm to table, empowering the chefs to create a work of art on every plate.

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wellness

MASSAGES AND THEIR THERAPEUTIC VALUE

BY MARTHA WIEDEMANN

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The therapeutic touch given in a massage transmits energy, which also has tremendous healing potential. We all need human connection, and in many ways, massage is the caring, nonjudgmental, therapeutic touch to which we are most receptive.

JADE THAICATWALK / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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O n e

Preparing For a Massage Treatment

way to enhance our state of wellbeing is to have therapeutic massages as part of life’s routine. It helps to maintain balance and prevent the onset of disease. Alternative medicines such as Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine consider massage therapies as an integral part of managing health.

It is important to understand our body’s strengths, weaknesses, potential and limitations. As individuals, we have unique health goals. It is therefore helpful for us to try to understand how we can attain optimum health for ourselves. We do not have to wait until we have an ache or ailment before we opt for treatment.

How can massage benefit us in achieving better health?

There are hundreds of therapeutic massages and it is not easy for the layperson to be able to decipher what is best suited for them.

The best way to choose a massage treatment is to take a moment to observe your own state of wellbeing. Are you feeling lethargic, mentally stressed, suffering from physical strain or pain? If you are undergoing treatment for an existing medical condition, it is advisable that you should check with your medical practitioner about what massage treatments you can receive. When booking your treatment, make sure you are clear to communicate your needs whilst providing a brief outline of your ailments. Do not consume any food or alcohol at least an hour before your massage. Avoid any screen time for approximately 30 minutes prior to your treatment. It is also advisable to go to the bathroom and take a lukewarm shower so that you cleanse, encourage the body’s circulation, loosen toxins and prepare the skin to absorb the therapeutic oils used during the treatment. Doing a few stretches and slow deep breaths before and after your treatment is extremely beneficial as it helps to open the channels within the body.

Plan to give yourself about 20 minutes to rest and drink a cup of warm herbal tea or water at room temperature after your massage.

This will encourage the elimination of toxins from your system.

Types of Massage Therapies

DEEP TISSUE MASSAGE - Muscles may tighten and become ridged from either overuse, poor posture or stress which often results in restriction and pain. A deep tissue massage is a penetrating muscular massage, which works on loosening and releasing muscle tension whilst draining the toxins held within and surrounding the restriction.

Benefits of Massage Therapies

Massages vary and so do their benefits. They mainly promote circulation, breakdown toxins for elimination, dislodge stagnation, improve mobility, correct posture, reduce pain, manage stress, energize, slow down the aging process, tone the skin, and strengthen the immune system.

The therapeutic touch given in a massage transmits energy, which also has tremendous healing potential. We all need human connection and in many ways, it is the caring, nonjudgmental, therapeutic touch, to which we are most receptive.

It is especially nurturing for children to grow up receiving the caring, non-judgmental therapeutic touch, as it will help them to feel safe and respectful of their physical being.

Most massage therapies focus on giving a holistic experience unifying the mind, body and spirit into oneness. This is effective in reducing mental or physical stress as we tend to direct excessive energy to areas of stress, depriving other parts of the system of vitality. Superficial or restricted breathing is a common occurrence when under stress. The therapist may ask you to participate in visualization and breath-work during these treatments. The breathing exercises and keeping a vision on opening the channels, allowing energy to flow within, is a simple meditative exercise, which you can practice during treatments.

Abhyanga is a massage therapy following the Ayurvedic principles of health. It uses either herbal oils, herbal powders or herbal pastes to balance the ‘Dosha’--or individual constitution-- of the client.

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ILYA KARNAUKHOV / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM OPPOSITE PAGE: STUDIOBYTHESEA / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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Ancient art murals depicting the sen lines (energy lines) used for Traditional Thai Massage at Wat Pho (Buddhist temple).

HELISSA GRUNDEMANN / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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SOOTHING TOUCH, WHETHER IT BE APPLIED TO A RUFFLED CAT, A CRYING INFANT, OR A FRIGHTENED CHILD, HAS A UNIVERSALLY RECOGNIZED POWER TO AMELIORATE THE SIGNS OF DISTRESS. HOW CAN IT BE THAT WE OVERLOOK ITS USEFULNESS ON THE JANGLED ADULT AS WELL? WHAT IS IT THAT LEADS US TO ASSUME THAT THE STRESSED CHILD MERELY NEEDS “COMFORTING,” WHILE THE STRESSED ADULT NEEDS “MEDICINE”?

—DEANE JUHAN

JOB’S BODY: A HANDBOOK FOR BODYWORK

SWEDISH MASSAGE - The Swedish massage is sometimes referred to as a classical or relaxation massage. It is best suited for those wanting to enjoy a relaxing massage that also energizes the system. The massage aims to promote circulation, oxygenate the system and reduce lethargy.

LYMPHATIC DRAINAGE MASSAGE - This therapy is best suited for those suffering from fluid retention and all types of edema. It is very effective in removing toxins through the water systems of the body. The process uses specific light massage techniques to assist the lymphatic system in its elimination process.

AROMATHERAPHY MASSAGE - Aromatherapy uses specific essential oils to treat various disorders such as stress, anxiety, depression and insomnia. The aromatherapy massage uses essential oils in a blend, suitable for absorption by the skin for its therapeutic purposes. Some treatments may include inhalation of the essential oils as part of the therapy which can be continued as a home care remedy.

HERBAL POULTICE MASSAGE - This is effective in treating conditions such as arthritis, which are in localized areas of the body. The treatment commences with a full body massage with a warm herbal oil specific to the condition. Poultices filled with herbs are steamed and then applied to areas in

the body which may need either detoxification or rejuvenation.

THAI MASSAGE - This treatment helps to improve posture and flexibility. In some cases, it is beneficial to follow this treatment with a deep tissue massage. The Thai massage is a fusion of traditional Eastern therapies. Its method is to work the body into a series of Yoga like stretches, muscle compression, joint mobilization and acupressure.

SHIATSU MASSAGE - This massage is effective in treating various internal health conditions, improving the energy flow and balancing the qi within the system. Shiatsu is a Japanese massage technique where pressure is applied on acupuncture points of the body to stimulate and distribute energy throughout the system.

ABHYANGA - This treatment helps to remove the excesses and restore what is deficient. It detoxifies, rejuvenates, improves movement in the joints and balances mobility. Abhyanga is a massage therapy following the Ayurvedic principles of health. It uses either herbal oils, herbal powders or herbal pastes to balance the dosha or individual constitution of the client.

This is a holistic therapy, which ultimately enhances total wellbeing.

SHIRODHARA - This ancient Ayurvedic therapy helps to regulate the mind and treat mental stress. In treating most conditions, it commences with a guided meditation in preparation of the continuous rhythmic flow of warm medicated oil over the forehead with special focus on the Ajna or sixth chakra. This blissful experience helps to instill peace and harmony within.

REFLEXOLOGY - This treatment helps to improve the functions of one’s internal organs. The application of pressure on specific points of the feet taps into various areas of the body to help promote the natural function of the organs and systems.

WATSU - This therapy can benefit those who suffer from physical or emotional trauma and is especially beneficial in rehabilitation. Watsu is an aquatic bodywork therapy where the therapist cradles and gently moves the patient in a warm pool. The body’s composition of 60% water has a natural tendency to relax in the warm water at 95°F (35°C). The therapist aids the patient to gently stretch and move in the water whilst massaging with acupressure. The process releases pain and helps in the healing process.

KIDS MASSAGE - A holistic therapeutic massage for children, which supports healthy growth. It focuses on treating growing pains. The use of aromatherapy oils in the massage is further beneficial for specific conditions to either reduce anxiety, calm or energize.

Self-Care

It is impossible to list all the various massage therapies but what is clear is that there are numerous ways for us to seek wellness through massage.

As we explore the wellness journey, we soon learn several methods of preventing disease, maintaining balance and achieving good health. We do not always have to remain disconnected on how to treat our own state of wellbeing. Understanding our own health and making it a priority helps us to make better overall lifestyle choices. It may commence with implementing better breathing techniques, meditating, extending and stretching our body, using herbal oils to massage and nourish ourselves and perhaps even extending a healing touch. ■

ABOUT MARTHA WIEDEMANN Martha Wiedemann is the Principal and Wellness Advisor of Badrutt’s Palace Hotel in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Martha was the leader of the multimillion-dollar expansion of Badrutt’s Palace Wellness Center to incorporate Ayurveda and Feng Shui. She is a world-renowned wellness and Ayurveda expert, nutritionist and has opened wellness centres in various five-star hotels and medical centres around the world. She is responsible for the concept, design and functions of Badrutt’s Palace Wellness Spa, as well as introducing the practice of Ayurveda to Switzerland.

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Illuminate your escape.

Loma de Vida – a spa and wellness destination. Experience elevated in the San Antonio Hill Country for those seeking soulful reflection, joyful celebration, mindful movement, and vibrant living. It’s an escape that’s yours and it’s all within reach.

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Gaâla gaala.com

Fashion trends are short-lived but style is eternal. Such is the mantra of husband and wife design duo, Kelly de Gaalon and Alexander Zhalezka. The couple—and the brand-represent the melding of two cultures: French and Belarusian. Each dress, jumpsuit, top and overcoat is constructed of production leftovers and deadstock fabrics. Although the fabrics were sourced from the recycling bin, the designers hope that their clothing, like their love, will last forever.

2.

.1 7.

House of Hackney houseofhackney.com

Sprawled across a British-made cushion in black velvet, this white sabre-toothed tiger takes inspiration from traditional Tibetan motifs. For each one sold, House of Hackney will donate a portion of the proceeds to Panthera; a charity devoted to protecting the world’s wild cats. In addition, for every order placed, House of Hackney will make a donation to Friends of the Earth’s campaign to double the UK tree cover by 2045.

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3.

Fortress of Inca fortressofinca.com

In 2004, Evan Streusand left Texas with a backpack and the desire to experience the real culture of South America. He returned home with a pair of handcrafted boots and the blueprint for Fortress of Inca, a shoe brand which works with family-owned factories in Peru. The company’s signature is its chunky heels which pair fabulously with cozy sweaters and jeans. Strutting around in your cool-girl heels, you can rest assured that your footwear is made under fair-trade conditions.

shopping

Created with

Kindness Able livefashionable.com

Barrett and Rachel Ward founded Able in 2010 while living in Ethiopia. At first, they established a factory to make scarves, providing employment to women whose lives had been impacted by regional wars. Now based in Nashville, Able has become a full-fledged lifestyle brand which produces bags, clothing, shoes and jewelry.

Everything is sustainably produced, and 95% of the staff are women because UN analysis determined that women invest twice as much of their earnings into their families as compared to men.

A

BY GERALDINE VISCO

fashion revolution is upon us. Accounting for nearly 2 trillion dollars in annual sales, the apparel business is the ninth most polluting industry on the planet. Now, it’s beginning to respond to consumer demands for garments and accessories that are ethically sourced and manufactured by laborers who are paid fairly. Entrepreneurs are responding to the call with business models meant to improve the lives of workers, and designs that feel as good as they look. ■

6.5.

G. Viteri gviteri.com

EOE eoe-eyewear.com

Emilia and Erik Lindmark, the founders of EOE eyewear, live in Northern Sweden where snow sticks to the birch trees a good deal of the year, and reindeer wander the plains in search of vegetation. Their goal is to leave as little footprint as possible, so they source the steel for their frames from a recycling plant, rescue horns from reindeer carcasses, and harvest quartz and birchwood in local forests.

Sun protection couldn’t get more sustainable and stylish. This Shade Hat in White Champagne is made 100% by hand in Ecuador. With intricately woven Toquilla Straw, it keeps your skin safe from the sun’s rays and your conscience appeased with the knowledge that your hat was ethically produced from Fair Trade, local artisans. Techniques like green marketing and upcycling make it possible to protect yourself from UV rays while protecting the planet.

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BITE bitestudios.com

In 2016, a group of designers situated between Stockholm and London decided to create a line of meticulously tailored womenswear consisting of suits, separates, outerwear and knits. Environmentalism isn’t just a selling point; it’s their raison d’être. It’s also their name:

By Independent Thinkers for Environmental Progress (BITE).

Each garment is designed to last a lifetime, and made from organic, recycled or certified lowimpact fabrics.

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la bella vita Sophia Loren on living well by Laurie Bogart Wiles

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S

OFIA VILLANI SCICOLONE was born September 20, 1934, at the Clinica Regina Margherita in Rome, Italy, and raised in Pozzuoli, an ancient shipping and naval port on the Tyrrhenian Sea on the western coast of southern Italy near Naples.

“Naples is so strong, so vital. It’s about music and dance. Books and books of history,” reflected the greatest foreign-language actress in motion picture history in an interview, saying she considers herself a Neapolitan first and an Italian second.

The young Sofia called her mother Mamina, “Little Mother.” Romilda Villani was a ravishing young woman, but her own dreams of becoming an actress were vanquished when her strict parents refused to permit her to claim her firstplace prize as winner of a Greta Garbo look-alike contest—a trip to Hollywood for a screen test. Indeed, she would only realize her dreams vicariously through Sofia, the eldest of her two daughters by Riccardo Scicolone.

“My father did not live with my mother, my sister, and me,” Sophia once explained of the cad who reluctantly gave only the eldest of his two illegitimate daughters his surname and nothing more. “He even managed to be absent by mail. It’s amazing to think that even though I never had a real father, I can still call myself Viscountess of Pozzuoli, Lady of Caserta, a title given by the House of Hohenstaufen, Marchioness of Licata Scicolone Murillo.”

It was her maternal grandparents, Mamma Luisa and Papa Domenico, who raised, nurtured, and protected Sofia and her sister, Maria, throughout their childhood against a bleak backdrop of poverty, hunger, peril, and all the hardships of World War II in Mussolini’s Italy.

“For the Allies, Naples was a key target: it was one of the most important ports in the Mediterranean, at the center of the supply route to North Africa, which the Axis powers controlled. At the outbreak of the war, the Allied attacks were aimed at military targets, but after a certain point, the bombs started to rain down on the town and the coastline. Houses and schools, churches and hospitals, hotels, and markets were struck repeatedly. I remember everything as though it were yesterday. As soon as the siren sounded, we’d race off to take refuge in the railway tunnel, on the Pozzuoli-Naples line.

We would arrive there with our mattresses and lay them down on the gravel, next to the tracks. We’d all huddle together in the middle—it was dangerous to stay close to the exit—and prepare to spend the night. Sometimes it was humid and cold, other times it was muggy without the slightest breeze. But it was always infested with mice and cockroaches. And it was filled with the roar of the airplanes and by our anguish and our fear that we would not make it out of there alive.”

In

1960, Sophia would recreate the trauma of those terrifying years in her role as Cesira, a widowed shopkeeper struggling to protect her 12-year-old daughter from the horrors of war in Two Women (“La Ciociara”), Vittorio De Sica’s brilliant, harrowing film adaptation of the Alberto Moravia novel. It would earn Sophia an Academy Award for Best Actress—the first to ever be bestowed

upon a foreign actress in Oscar history.

Her life was also marked by great love. “Carlo was 39, 22 years older than I was. He had already made a name for himself, and he was at the height of his brilliant career. ‘Shall we take a stroll through the park? It’s a charming place…”

That gentle evening in 1951 on the Oppian Hill in Rome, Sophia Loren first met the great love of her life—Italian producer Carlo Ponti, whom she would wed in 1957 and have, after many miscarriages and difficult pregnancies, two adored sons—the noted international orchestral conductor Carlo Ponti, Jr., born in 1968, and director Edoardo Ponti, born in 1973.

“I’ve always liked playing strong women,” Sophia has said. “They’re interesting. They inspire me. And one of the reasons I decided to come back to acting for the film The Life Ahead was that I admired my character, Madame Rosa, so much. She’s strong, but she’s not scared to show her vulnerabilities either. And she is a lover of life, just like me.”

Reflecting on his parents’ careers, Edoardo Ponti stated “Honestly, it was never about stardom or glamour. It was always about the craft. My parents, if anything, were more like artisans. It was like they were a pair of Italian shoemakers.” His father, the great Italian director Carlo Ponti, died in 2007 at the age of 94.

THE NAME Italian director Giovanni Roccardi directed Sophia in her first starring role, in Africa Under the Seas (1953). He didn’t like her acting name at the time, Sofia Lazzaro, and he liked Scicolone even less.

“He wanted to give me a short name that was easy to pronounce, a name with a certain allure,” Sophia recalls. “So, while staring at a poster hanging behind him, which showed the beautiful Swedish actress Märta Torén, he recited the alphabet … Toren, Soren, Roren … back to the “L”—Loren! And he decided to replace the f with ph—and voila! Sophia Loren!

Sophia Loren’s storied career has spanned seven decades, and with her late husband’s help, she catapulted to international fame. With 100 major motion pictures and made-for-television films to her credit, her incomparable acting skills are equally adroit in drama and comedy, in which she has starred opposite some of the silver screen’s greatest actors: Clark Gable (It Started in Naples, 1960); Frank Sinatra (The Pride and the Passion, 1957); with Paul Newman and David Niven (Lady L,1965); William Holden (The Key, 1958); Alan Ladd (Boy on a Dolphin, 1957); Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon (Grumpier Old Men, 1995); Richard Burton (Brief Encounter, 1974); Peter O’Toole (Man of La Mancha, 1972); A Countess from Hong Kong (1967) opposite Marlon Brando and directed by Charles Chaplin; Gregory Peck (Arabesque, 1966); Charlton Heston (El Cid, 1961); Peter Sellers (The Millionairess, 1960); and famously with Cary Grant in House Boat (1958) and also The Pride and the Passion—in which an onscreen romance that Grant had privately hoped, but failed, to wrench Sophia from the arms of Ponti. Most famously, she was paired with her great friend, the late Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni in 14 films—notable among them, Marriage Italian Style (1964), Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (1963) and A Special Day (1977), and for the last time together, two

Encouraged to enroll in acting lessons after entering a beauty pageant, Loren began her film career at age 16 in 1950.

She appeared in several bit parts and minor roles in the early part of the decade, until her five-picture contract with Paramount in 1956 launched her international career.

PHOTO 12 / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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Sophia Loren on the set of Legend of the Lost. A 1957 Italian-American adventure film produced and directed by Henry Hathaway. It was shot in Technirama and Technicolor by Jack Cardiff. Loren starred opposite John Wayne and Rossano Brazzi.

The location for the film is a small village just outside Tripoli, Libya.

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Sophia Loren tried her hand at bullfighting, but her courage failed her at the last minute. The Italian film star was in Madrid for the making of a new film, and was a guest at the home of Mrs. Luigi Miguel Dominguin, wife of the greatest of all Spanish bullfighters.

Miguel Dominguin offered to give her bullfighting lessons in the private bull ring in Villa Paz, near Madrid. Sophia had no problem entering the ring, but as soon as the bull moved toward her, she lost her resolve, and dashed out of the ring.

KEYSTONE PRESS / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Opposite: The Italian film actress poses for press photographs for her appearance in The Pride and The Passion, which costarred Cary Grant and Frank Sinatra.

ALLSTAR PICTURE LIBRARY LTD. / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

years before his death, in Mastroianni’s final film, Ready to Wear (1994), directed

by Robert Altman in 1996. For these and countless other reasons, Sophia Loren is listed as No. 21 on the American Film Institute’s Top 50 Screen Legends,” which is comprised of 25 actors and 25 actresses—of which she is the sole living legend.

ON ACTING “When I started out in this business, I didn’t know where I was going. I took it one day and one film at a time. For me, it was hard because when I began to make American films, I couldn’t speak English. But I worked day and night and learned very quickly because, of course, that’s what it takes. You have to believe in yourself. And as an actor, you always have to give and give, even when you sometimes feel you can’t. If you work hard enough and don’t give up, your dreams do eventually come true.

“I made sure to never let anyone define me or my career. If things didn’t feel right [with a project], I didn’t do it. Early on, I had the opportunity to work with the great director Vittorio De Sica on The Gold of Naples in 1954, and he taught me that what matters most are your self-esteem and your dignity. Everything else comes second.”

CONFIDENCE “My confidence came from having clarity. It came from being grounded and knowing where I wanted to go with my life. It also came from knowing what my strengths and weaknesses were. But I am not weak. I’m so strong that, when I’m in character, I can always really go for it. But even after years and years of acting, I have never really felt like a movie star. Even now. Never. For me, it’s more about my work as an actress and choosing projects that I thought I would be best in.”

THE WOMAN BEHIND THE IMAGE Sophia Loren, at 86, has remained beautiful in body, spirit, and heart. Here are some of her secrets: OLIVE OIL: Miss Loren includes two tablespoons of olive oil in her diet every day. Loaded with antioxidants and among the top sources of vitamins A, D, K, and E, olive oil protects the skin from free radicals— those unstable atoms that damage the cells in the body, leaving the skin red and inflamed from the sun’s UVB rays and air pollution, and triggers aging, developing brown spots, fine lines, wrinkles, and a dull, uneven skin tone. Olive oil contains squalene, a compound which keeps the skin

hydrated and increases collagen levels in the body.

NATURAL BEAUTY: “Sofia, have you ever thought about…you know, softening your…your…dominant profile…?”

“Carlo, if you’re suggesting that to be able to make movies I’m going to have to slice off a piece of my nose, well then I’m going back to Pozzuoli because I have no intention of getting a nose job!”—Sophia Loren after her screen test for Carlo Ponti in 1951.

Despite being admired throughout the world for her unique and natural beauty, Miss Loren was pressured by film executives early in her career to have plastic surgery to shorten her long, aquiline nose. Carlo Ponti—who first laid eyes on his future wife in 1951 in her first film in an uncredited role as Lygia’s slave in Quo Vadis, suggested plastic surgery— just once. Miss Loren recalls, “Carlo said, ‘The cameramen, they say that your nose is too long. Maybe you have to touch it a little bit.’ And I said, ‘I don’t want to touch nothing on my face because I like my face. If I have to change my nose, I am going back to Pozzuoli.”

“I always tried not to listen to these people,” she said. “They were saying that my nose was too long, and my mouth was too big. If you want to look always young, maybe you should make the mistake to do some surgery, but I don’t like that very much. People get so unhappy because they make mistakes. I would be so much afraid of it. So much!”

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January 1st, 1969—The ‘’happiest family in the world,’’ Sophia Loren and Carlo Ponti with their newborn son, Carlito, presented to more than 200 photographers from all around the world at Geneva Hospital.

KEYSTONE PRESS / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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Loren in a famous scene from Arabesque, the 1966 American comedy/thriller/spy film directed by Stanley Donen and starring Gregory Peck. Written

by Julian Mitchell, Stanley Price, and Peter Stone, the movie is based on The Cypher, a 1961 novel by Alex Gordon.

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Opposite: The actress on the set of Judith, 1966.

PICTURELUX / THE HOLLYWOOD ARCHIVE / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Miss Loren is glad she never gave in to plastic surgery. She embraces who she is and credits a healthy diet and daily exercise to remain fit and youthful.

BEAUTY AT ANY AGE: Aging—the process of getting older— comes to us all who are fortunate enough to see the years add up to a lofty number. Yes, DNA has much to do with it; where and how we choose to live, as well. However, the way you embrace aging is entirely up to you. To the young-at-heart, it is simply a number.

“Things don’t change too much,” Miss Loren observes. “The body changes. The mind does not.”

WHERE DOES BEAUTY COME FROM? Beauty comes from within.

From inside, from the spirit, from the soul. You can’t touch it, you can’t feel it, but you can see it in a person’s eyes because the eyes are the window to the soul. “Beauty is how you feel and what you feel from inside. Nothing makes a woman more beautiful than the belief in herself that she is beautiful.”

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with everything in her life, Miss Loren has formulated, and follows, her own rules: BELIEVE IN YOURSELF. Beauty is how you feel inside. Beauty is not possible for everyone. But if you believe in yourself, you will be able to assess your strengths and weaknesses.

Build on your strengths and strengthen your weaknesses. “Ahh, that’s something that has to be within us, to be able to do that,” Miss Loren observes.

SELF CONFIDENCE. Everyone is plagued with self-doubt at various times along the road of life, its detours, highs and lows. The question is, how to suppress self-doubt and build up your confidence? When asked whether she has had periods of doubt, Miss Loren replies, “Yes, well, maybe sometimes. But then I say to myself, ‘Shut up. Be strong. Just keep going and try. Sometimes you make mistakes and sometimes you win.’ I made some mistakes. But still I won! After all these years, I am still involved in the process of self-discovery. It’s better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe. Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.”

MARRY AN HONEST AND LOVING HUSBAND. The great love between Sophia and Carlo Ponti blossomed in sunny times and survived the onslaught of times beset with great difficulties. She advises, “Marry

an honest and loving husband. If, that is, you—as I myself—have been fortunate enough to encounter one. For a marriage to sustain two people as one there must be friendship. Love, friendship, trust, respect, and humor: these are the ingredients of a successful marriage.”

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF. Miss Loren, begins every day with a chilly, ten-minute shower, which she maintains is beneficial for preserving the shape of the breast and “recharges” her energy.

SOUND SLEEP. Sleep is essential for natural beauty, happiness, health, and critical for healthy skin. Miss Loren tries to be in bed at 8:00 on a typical day and is up at 5:00 a.m. This affords her nine good hours of sleep almost every night.

EXERCISE. Fitness is a key to staying young. Miss Loren stretches in the morning to loosen up after a night’s sleep. “A little exercise is good. But I walk, walk, walk, walk! I walk an hour every day. That’s very good for your heart.” The mornings she doesn’t feel like going out, she exercises a positive attitude and goes out just the same and looks for new and beautiful things to see along the way.

“Physical exercise makes you more graceful. Walk as if the whole street is yours.”

ATTRACTIVE EYE MAKEUP. The eyes are the window to the soul, it is said. Miss Loren’s eye makeup has accentuated her large, elegant eyes. It is dramatic—not because of her profession, but because her facial bone structure and striking features can tolerate eye shadow, liner, and mascara in the manner in which she applies her makeup. This will not do for most women. Apply your

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Candid Shots of Sophia Loren from Clifton Webb’s Estate. Webb co-starred with Sophia Loren in Boy on a Dolphin (1957), her first U.S. film. Featured here are 11 photos from Webb’s personal archives which show him at work and at play with the beautiful Sophia.

There are shots of an April 1957 studio cocktail party which introduced her, as well as shots on a boat, and on location. Two of Webb’s favorites feature Jayne Mansfield paying her respect to Sophia (as Clifton stands by bemused), and he and Sophia dancing “cheek to cheek.”

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makeup to best accentuate your own features. “At the dressing table, every woman has a chance to be an artist and art, as Aristotle said, completes what nature left unfinished.” As for hairstyles, she says, “I always prefer a simple hairstyle, no matter how formal the occasion.”

KNOW HOW TO DRESS. Stand in front of a mirror and be critical of your reflection. “To dress to advantage, you must cover your imperfections and choose colors and patterns that emphasize your personality,” Miss Loren says. “I never thought much about being a fashion icon or anything like that. I just like beautiful things. I like fashion, and I like things that look nice and make me feel good. But good style is something that allows people to see you, not the clothes that you are wearing. A woman’s dress should be like a barbed-wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view.”

BE HAPPY AND KEEP CALM. Avoid stress at all costs—easier said than done, but make every attempt to try, whether it is listening to music, taking a brisk walk, meditating, or simply having a relaxing cup of tea when life gets tense. This is key to taking care of yourself. “Relax a little bit, read, look at the sunset—you know, things that please you,” Miss Loren recommends.

BE CAREFUL ABOUT THE COMPANY YOU KEEP. “Always be surrounded by people that you like, people who have a nice conversation, to learn something more about other people and about yourself through the communication.

There are so many positive things to think about,” Miss Loren suggests.

TREASURE YOUR FAMILY. In this day and age, this advice is perhaps the most difficult to achieve. Distances and, in the past year, Covid-19, have made it hard—but not impossible. Phone calls, video calls, and the almost-forgotten, old-fashioned letter writing will keep you close to your loved ones. Family is not just blood relations. Family are friends who you treasure as you would a blood relation. “I have two sons and four grandchildren, and my life is a very happy one because of them. I want to be remembered as a woman who has found strength and meaning in her passion for both her work and her family.”

DIET. Miss Loren eats three meals a day and observes a low-carb, portion-controlled, Mediterranean diet. Like all Italians, she enjoys preparing and eating good food. She has a small and simple breakfast—usually an English muffin and a cup of decaffeinated coffee. Around mid-morning she has a sandwich. Lunch is considered the main meal of the day for most Italians and so it is for Miss Loren. She will have pasta, chicken, salad, and fruit. She enjoys a light dinner and then to bed, by 8:00 p.m.

• Never smoke! Limit alcohol! Smoking and alcohol are enemies of youth.

• One tablespoon of yogurt beer yeast a day will improve your digestion.

• Miss Loren has found that a serving of fresh pineapple a day helps get rid of fat.

• Eat sufficiently—enough but not too much. When you overeat you gain weight. Small portions are best. Include fresh fruits and vegetables, and fresh juices in your daily diet.

Every month, Miss Loren observes a regimen she has developed over years of experience to effectively cleanse the body. It is a three-day diet of approximately 1,000 calories a day. The core ingredient—one that no Italian can live without—is pasta! ■

Sophia Loren by Ron Lesser, paperback cover, circa 1970. Oil on paper laid on board.

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During the 1960s, Loren was one of the most popular actresses in the world, and she continued to make films in the United States and Europe, starring with prominent leading men. In 1965, she received a second Academy Award nomination for her performance in Marriage Italian Style, where she starred opposite Italian sex symbol, Marcello Mastroianni. She would share numerous on-screen performances with Mastroianni, including Embassy Picture’s Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (pictured here).

AF ARCHIVE / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Throughout her highly-decorated career, Sophia Loren accumulated many awards for achievement, including a Grammy Award, five special Golden Globes (including the Cecil B. DeMille Award), a BAFTA Award, a Laurel Award, the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival and the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1991, she received the Academy Honorary Award for lifetime achievements.

PHOTO BY PICOT/GAMMA-RAPHO VIA GETTY IMAGES

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THERE IS A FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH: IT IS YOUR MIND, YOUR TALENTS, THE CREATIVITY YOU BRING TO YOUR LIFE AND THE LIVES OF PEOPLE YOU LOVE. WHEN YOU LEARN TO TAP THIS SOURCE, YOU WILL TRULY HAVE DEFEATED AGE.”

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THE POWER OF REY

by Inka Piesga-Quischotte

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Portrait of a Golden Eagle.

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The awk glided through the gray Scottish sky with muscular elegance. His dark iridescent wings, with patches of brown and white, clothed him smartly like a Savile Row suit. The long feathers of his outstretched pinions pointed to the horizon like fingers, while his flesh-tearing talons tucked discreetly into his tail. His round black eyes were keenly attuned to prey—rabbits, rodents, and small birds—while his curved yellow beak was slightly ajar and poised for the hunt. I had to keep reminding myself about the rodents and rabbits. “He doesn’t want to attack you.” I told myself, with the bright sternness of Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins. But there had been an attack on a jogger, which appeared in The Telegraph a few years ago. After all, they aren’t called birds of Gouache with gold prey for nothing. It wouldn’t take long on paper. Suraj Mal for him to poke my eyes out, entangle (r.1613-1618) was his talons in my hair, or scratch my an early Nurpur ruler visage into unrecognizability. But who died in exile after I wasn’t at the British School of rebelling against the Falconry in Gleneagles, Scotland to emperor Jahangir. In this posthumous portrait be brutalized or terrified. I was here of the jharoka window to partake of the ancient dance of type, the veteran warrior life and death between man and strokes the breast of his raptor. I took a deep breath, filling prize hawk. Pahari rulers up the chest cavity of my borrowed were often portrayed Barbour coat while standing firmly with a hawk or falcon, as in my borrowed Wellington boots. a mark of their hunting I held up my right fist, as the chief prowess and regal demeanor. falconer had instructed me, and a two-pound Harris Hawk named Opposite: Japanese Blair floated gently onto my fist. Our woodcut entitled Yatsushi eyes met for the first time in a furtive Takajo by Utagawa, sideways glance. I exhaled slowly, Toyohiro, circa 1798. feeling energized, exhilarated even, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS as I experienced, for the first time, a bit of what has been known since the Middle Ages as the sport of kings.

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Where are they that lived before?

Hounds they led and hawks they bore And had both field and chase?

Ladies rich in bowers fair, Nets of gold bind up the hair, Rosy-bright of face.

They ate and drank and made them glad Their life was all with pleasure led…

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I am an unabashed enthusiast of medieval poetry. Give me troubadours and their adored ladies clad in velvet and silk, adorned with jewels. Hawks and falcons feature heavily in these poems, with ladies on horseback and their personal birds riding on bejeweled gloves. Mary Queen of Scots, the child monarch of 16th Century Scotland was a great falconer. In fact, it was my research on her that led me to discover The British School of Falconry in Gleneagles, and it was my love of Medieval poetry that lured me to book my trip to the Scottish Highlands. But instead of velvet and silk, I found myself clad in rugged outerwear borrowed from the resort. What was I thinking? All my life, I’ve been a city dweller. I was born in Berlin, and I’ve lived in London, New York, Miami, and Istanbul. I love fluorescent lights, world-class shopping, cinemas, theatres, museums and Michelin-starred restaurants. When friends tried to lure me to trips in the country? Oh no, not for me. The nearest park with welltended trees and flower beds was just fine, thank you very much. The

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idea of going anywhere near wildlife terrified me. Spiders made me hysterical. A flock of pigeons flying too close to me in the park was alarming. But the global pandemic has changed everything. Cities aren’t currently a refuge for cosmopolitans.

They’re testing grounds for epidemiology where social distancing is a near impossibility.

Wellness must be sought among the flora and fauna outside of town.

I end to associate wellness with floating in a luxurious spa, being pampered with cosmetic treatments and exotic massages, maybe a spot of yoga and meditation. For those who share my affinity for such indulgences, Gleneagles has a vast menu of vitality treatments, from Pumpkin Enzyme Peel Facials to Purva Karma Four Handed Ayurvedic Massages. But as I discovered recently, there are other rewarding ways to build a connection with oneself and nature. Arriving at the glorious 850-acre Gleneagles estate in the lush green hills of Perthshire, I was greeted by Duncan Eade, the chief falconer and instructor. He showed me around the beautiful grounds and the building in which the hawks and falcons are kept. To my surprise, they didn’t make any racket and didn’t seem the least bit disturbed at having a visitor peer at them curiously. Each bird had a name and sat at attention when Duncan called roll.

“Starter lesson for you,” he said.

“But first we need to kit you out.

The grounds are muddy and we don’t want you to slip, especially not when you carry a falcon on your fist.” I changed my Burberry trench and Hermes boots for hotel-issued Wellingtons and a Barbour. I felt like a Highland fisherman out for a catch: Family portrait of a young boy, holding a falcon, together with his two sisters dressed in white satin gowns with blue shawls by Dutch master Jan van Noordt.

An Algerian Lady Hawking, oil on canvas, was created by Horace Vernet in Orientalism style.

not as romantic as a bejeweled medieval maiden on a horse, but nevertheless quite fetching. “Your bird,” said Duncan, “is actually a Harris Hawk and he is called Blair.” Harris Hawks are the most popular birds of prey in England, but they are originally from the Americas. The bird was named after Edward Harris, an amateur ornithologist and philanthropist from the 19th Century. Harris Hawks, unlike other raptors, are social birds who enjoy hunting in groups of 2-7 which are usually led by an alpha female. Harris Hawks rose to prominence among falconists in England due to their optimal size, intelligence, heartiness and temperament.

Duncan brought out Blair, the magnificent raptor on his glove, and for the first time in my life, I was within striking distance of an actual bird of prey. “He doesn’t want to attack you,” I told myself, while Duncan began coaching me in the ancient art of bird carriage: “Glove on. Thumb up. Elbow in. Forearm straight.” The hardest part is the onehanded maneuver used to tie Blair to my hand so he wouldn’t go off when he shouldn’t. I was marvelling over how light Blair was—I had expected him to be much heavier. And then the realization hit me. I was so focused on learning the proper techniques for basic falconry, that I had forgotten to be terrified of

AND PELEUS’ SON WENT AFTER HIM IN THE CONFIDENCE OF HIS QUICK FEET. AS WHEN A HAWK IN THE MOUNTAINS WHO MOVES LIGHTEST OF THINGS FLYING MAKES HIS EFFORTLESS SWOOP FOR A TREMBLING DOVE, BUT SHE SLIPS AWAY FROM BENEATH AND FLIES AND HE SHRILL SCREAMING CLOSE AFTER HER PLUNGES FOR HER AGAIN AND AGAIN, HEART FURIOUS TO TAKE HER;” —THE ILIAD BY HOMER BOOK XVII

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Model Olga Machikhina holding a falcon in the desert, Liwa, United Arab Emirates.

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the sharp talloned beast sitting on my fist. Once Blair and I looked each other in the eye, the thought of him attacking me seemed totally out of place. Sitting on my fist, responding to my direction, he looked so comfortable and trusting. The first time that I threw Blair off, called him and he actually came back to my glove and gobbled up the piece of chicken that I had left for him as a treat, was an incredible moment of bonding.

“Now it’s time to go rabbit hunting,” announced Duncan. Hawks and falcons had once been used by hunters to strike down small mammals, but the rabbit in this case was a roll of wool, attached to the belt on the posterior of an assistant who proceeded to run full tilt across the field, with the ‘rabbit’ bobbing behind him. I gently pushed Blair off, and he went right for it, hooking his beak into the rabbit with persistent vigor, until he was fed a piece of chicken.

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Opposite: Renowned Mongolian eagle huntress Aisholpan holds tight to her trusting falcon.

KATIEKK / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

alconry in Scotland, traditionally, goes back thousands of years. Falconers were highly regarded in the Middle Ages, and royals and the aristocracy considered riding with falcons to be a sport of great prestige. Originally, the birds were used to catch rabbits and rodents, to be eaten as food, without the need of a gun. Nowadays, the sport isn’t bloody at all. Hawks and falcons are trained to fly on command towards trees and to return to their owners when called.

They know that each time they obey, a treat awaits.

The history of falconry dates back to before the Middle Ages. Many experts place its beginnings at the steppes of Mongolia around 4000-6000 BCE. Other experts name the deserts of Arabia and the Middle East, China and Japan as falconry’s birthplace, where it was used both for sport and procuring meat for food.

Historians believe that falconry was brought to Europe at around 400 CE when the Huns and Alans invaded, whereas it was the Crusaders who introduced falconry to Western Europe where it reached the height of popularity during the Middle Ages. To this day, falconry is a sport of great repute in the Middle East, and annual tournaments in Mongolia bring spectators from around the world. Nowadays, the sport’s emphasis, and the aim of the International Association for Falconry is on the protection and preservation of birds of prey. As it has been for thousands of years, falconry championships tend to be dominated by men. But in 2014, a 13-year old Mongolian girl named Aisholpan Nurgaiv became the first Mongolian woman to compete in the country’s Golden Eagle Festival. The A Golden Eagle returns to the hunteress’ story of her unlikely ascent is depicted in arm during The Golden Eagle Festival in the 2016 documentary The Eagle Huntress.

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Bayan Olgii in Mongolia.

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woman named Emma Ford is the driving force behind the British School of Falconry. When I met her, she was returning from a trip to the Middle East where she does a lot of teaching and consulting at the invitation of His Excellency, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi.

Tall, with flowing blonde hair, Emma Ford carried a magnificent Peregrine Falcon on her glove when she came to greet me. “She is temperamental and can be skittish,” explained Ford, in reference to her bird. “So she needs to wear the hood when I carry her around.” Ford’s Falcon was wearing a simple leather contraption, unlike the hoods worn by the birds of medieval ladies, which were often bejewelled with diamonds.

The story of how Emma met her husband, Steve, could be right out

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The razor-sharp talons of a perched falcon.

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of one of my beloved medieval poems. Since she was a young girl, Emma had loved and cared for different types of birds, but once she discovered falcons, she devoted herself to their care and training. Emma grew up near Chilham Castle in Kent, an area southeast of London. One day, she peered out the window and saw a knight in shining armour passing by, with a falcon on his hand. He was in town for a jousting tournament. The next day, a banquet and ball were held in Chilham Castle and Emma went, carrying her own falcon as her “date.” And there he was again, her knight, Steve. Their enthusiasm for birds of prey and medieval lore proved a durable bond. In 1982 they founded the British School of Falconry in response to an uptick in public interest in the art of falconry. Years later, the opportunity came up to take their school to Scotland and to partner with the renowned Gleneagles resort and hotel, where there is also a school to train hunting dogs.

Emma Ford has been flying birds of prey around the world for more than 50 years.

She honed her skills with local falconers in the Middle East, has written six books on the subject, and served as an expert consultant on movies and television programs. Her enthusiasm for these magnificent animals—which she describes as a combination of power and grace—exudes from her every pore. She even allowed me to hold her falcon and I was happy to notice that she wasn’t skittish on my fist either.

Author Inka Piesga-Quischotte, in her Barbour coat and Wellington boots, learns proper techniques from Chief Falconer, Duncan Eade.

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Opposite: Emma Ford, British School of Falconry in Gleneagles, Scotland.

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ellness is about peace and balance, and the ability to cope through difficult times like the one we are all experiencing now with the global pandemic.

Falconry is a natural paradigm for wellbeing. The sport is practised on foot in woodlands and fields, where the air is fresh, and the beauty of nature resounds in its many shades of green. Gazing over the wildflowers and the meadows, it is hard for me to recall why I was so reticent to spend time in the countryside. But the most powerful aspect of falconry lies within the birds themselves. When you play, train and care for birds of prey, some semblance of their power and grace is transmitted into your soul. When you see a powerful raptor soar through the sky and return to your fist on command, the communal spirit between man and bird becomes more than the sum of its parts. Standing in my Wellingtons, with Blair the Hawk on my hand, I began to understand that if I could overcome my initial fear and make friends with a bird, I can probably deal with anything life throws at me. If that isn’t “wellbeing,” I don’t know what is. ■

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IN WHAT DISTANT DEEPS OR SKIES BURNT THE FIRE OF THINE EYES? ON WHAT WINGS DARE HE ASPIRE? WHAT THE HAND DARE SEIZE THE FIRE?” —WILLIAM BLAKE THE TYGER

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Portrait of a Harris Eagle in flight.

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84 Jocelyn Lee’s photographs interrogate traditional notions about beauty, nature, women, & aging.

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Dark Matter 4 Floating Purple Dahlia by Jocelyn Lee.

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by Debra Spark

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ocelyn Lee didn’t want to throw the flowers from her October wedding in the trash—the ranunculus were too gorgeous for that—so she put them in a tub of water in her backyard, not thinking about the temperature. They froze overnight then defrosted, changing shape and texture, turning, Lee remembers, into “something super beautiful and strange—part laboratory and part surreal science experiment.”

“This is a subject,” she realized.

Later, Lee started different tubs with her husband’s sunflowers, seaweed from the nearby beach, blossoms from her property’s dogwood, apple, and pear trees, and even a pomegranate. By day, the tub’s water reflected the sky and also revealed subterranean layers, the pooled and exquisitely colored vegetative matter becoming increasingly complex.

Jocelyn Lee is not a still-life photographer. The work that has brought her recognition from the Guggenheim Foundation, as well as inclusion in major art museums and exhibitions at galleries stateside and in Europe, has always been portraits, often nudes, and frequently nudes in the natural world. Sometimes those nudes—draped on moss in a forest, hair tied to a tree, or even visually merging with the surrounding vegetation—suggest landscapes. But still life? No, that was something new.

And yet, Lee’s backyard project clearly paralleled her portrait

Riding the Apple Tree by Jocelyn Lee

practice at the time. In 2015, when she married for a second time, she had been photographing female nudes over the age of fifty-five, often—though not exclusively—in or near water.

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ow, five years after she married her second husband, the results of her twinned exploration of how time complicates (rather than eradicates) beauty have been published in Sovereign. The collection pairs Lee’s post-wedding, decomposing still lifes with nudes of older women and an essay in which Lee pays tribute to her mother, a sensualist who lived comfortably in her body throughout her life, even finding a late life lover, after her husband died. Of the inspiration for the images, Lee (who is in her late 50s herself) says, “I use photography to help me understand things I don’t understand and that I am curious about. I am looking for role models and a way to not find it limiting to be a woman in my 60s and 70s.”

The body is, of course, the source of all our experience. Everything comes down to it. For Lee, the body is a visual starting point, but also means to a narrative, allegory, or idea. As a younger woman, she used her body for art. She was a diver in high school and a professional dancer in the years between studying philosophy and studio art (as an undergraduate at Yale) and photography (as a graduate student at

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Dark Matter 5 Sunflower and Sky by Jocelyn Lee.

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91 Sinking White Dahlia by Jocelyn Lee.

Hunter College). She might have continued on with modern dance, but she “did not want to be the source of someone else’s expression,” as she says. She wanted to be doing the expressing herself. And to be doing so as honestly as possible: “For me, taking clothes off strips you down to the essential self, standing on the earth. This is what we are: a body standing on the earth.”

This is the truth of the human condition, her photos seem to say. What do we, as viewers, make of it? What do we make of it when we are looking at bodies traditionally hidden from public view?

In the early aughts, Lee received one answer while visiting with an internationally known curator—a man long supportive of Lee’s work.

Back then, Lee shared a nude of Rita, a Holocaust survivor in her 90s, and the curator’s hand immediately shot out to cover the black-andwhite image, an implied “ugh!” in his gesture.

Another artist might have been instantly disgusted with the curator’s response. Here is a woman who has been through the worst of what the 20th century has to offer, and who has chosen to frankly reveal herself (save for a large Band-Aid over the number tattooed on her arm), and you find her too repellant to look at?

Another woman might have raged about how men are all too happy to look at naked women when they are young and nubile (and offering themselves up as sexual objects) but not so much when they are old and depicted in a stance that suggests their own comfort or

pleasure, rather than someone else’s.

But Lee is much like her work: empathetic and complex, never happy with easy interpretations. She knew the man didn’t consider his gesture before he made it, that he’d simply been presented, as she puts it, “with too much information.” In the silence that followed his response, she suspected her worldly colleague was as ashamed by his instinctive reaction, as she was troubled. Men, after all, are as trained as women to view certain bodies as acceptable and others as unacceptable.

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ven before her most recent spate of work, Lee’s artistic practice focused on bodies that were, in some way, vulnerable. One particularly compelling image (from her solo show The Appearance of Things, most recently exhibited in 2018 at London’s Huxley-Parlour Gallery) is of a woman with one beautiful round breast, standing in a forest, her legs sunk so deeply into moss that she might be a tree herself, her mastectomy scar an afterthought but plainly visible to the viewer. Another nude is of a heavy, sunburnt young woman, sitting on a brightly colored blanket before a hedge of daylilies, her body and the landscape’s lushness contrasting with the woman’s firm, somewhat inscrutable gaze, and the dark gap in the vegetation behind her, an indication, perhaps, of a cave of trouble.

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92 That these images are meant to be read as beautiful rather than about how cancer disfigures or society demands slimness is apparent.

Lee’s gaze is loving, but it is more than that. Her portraits reference Old Masters, and the images they found beautiful—Lee’s nude of an older woman standing before crashing waves winks at Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, the orange-black lighting of a different night-time nude seems Caravaggesque, and Lee’s multiple images of older women floating in the water (not to mention her general obsession with lush hair, often seen from the back) seems a clear nod to the pre-Raphaelites in general and John Everett Millais’s Ophelia in particular.

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ee’s nudes are often personal yet anonymous, identifying details of place or dress kept to a minimum, the focus on what all human bodies share: a frame, and flesh subject to aging.

In one photo that she eventually cut from Sovereign, “Nancy” stands next to her grandniece on an empty beach. The young woman’s body is slim, her skin unlined and luminous, undeniably beautiful. Wind blows her hair across her face, entirely obscuring her features. Meanwhile, Nancy’s face and body are fully revealed.

The similarities between the women are plain—same frame, same curly hair—but Nancy’s skin and body are textured by a life lived.

The Bath by Jocelyn Lee.

Unlike the grandniece, whose absolutely smooth, uniformly colored skin stands in opposition to the surrounding scene, Nancy appears apiece with the sand below and the ocean behind her. Time has written on one woman, and not yet on the other, and that is not a fact to be regretted but noted with an awareness of the merits of both youth and experience.

When she was younger herself, Lee sometimes photographed in anonymous interior spaces, as in the days when she found models through newspaper ads and later Craigslist. Back then, she’d simply meet strangers at a motel in Albuquerque or Portland or New York Chelsea’s Hotel. In the photographs published in Lee’s second book Nowhere But Here, the motel rooms’ bare bones accoutrements and natural lighting give a Vermeer-like quality to images that include an older man naked save for his bunched, white underwear and oxygen tube, or a contemplative, older bearded man, his chest and arms covered with aging blue tattoos.

But more recently, and especially since she moved to Maine fulltime in 2014—after living in Brooklyn for eleven years and teaching (for most of that time) at Princeton—Lee has photographed outdoors.

Here, location can be more complicated, given the absolute privacy Lee requires to shoot her subjects. Her two-acre back yard has been a great plus in this regard.

“I approach photos a little like a choreographer,” Lee explains. Also

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Wedding Flowers by Jocelyn Lee.

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97 Raising the Cherry Tree by Jocelyn Lee

perhaps like a filmmaker: she scouts locations and then considers her chosen space as if it were a stage set that a dancer will enter. Once her model is present, the “shoot” is, for both Lee and her subject, “weirdly contemplative and quiet,” Lee says. Though Lee works off an idea formulated before she composes, her images come together organically.

Lee and her model work together till they have a suitable gesture or stance for the space. Lee finds herself telling her models things she first heard as a dancer: “Let your weight fall into the earth.” “Don’t hold your rigidity.”

One of Lee’s subjects in Sovereign is Katarina Weslien, an artist whose work Lee will showcase in a spring 2021 exhibit at SPEEDWELL projects, the Portland gallery that Lee established in 2015—a side endeavor that is side, in the way, parenting her two children, i.e., not side at all. (SPEEDWELL is now a gallery focused on exhibiting the work of female, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ artists.) Katarina is a breast cancer survivor, so she knew that posing for Lee would involve revealing her mastectomy scar. This did not bother her. Even so, she felt somewhat shy and wanted to be partially submerged in water during the photo shoot. In other words: no full-frontal nudity. In the moment of being photographed, however, Katarina felt so at ease, that she emerged from the water to fully reveal her body. “I felt really strong and beautiful,” she remembers. “I felt so good standing there.”

This is the truth, she had thought in the moment, this is the truth of what I look like.

Later, she says, “Not that I actually looked good,” an assessment (and bit of self-deprecation) that viewers of the image are unlikely to share.

As “Judith,” who Lee has been photographing since 1995, notes, Lee’s talents aren’t just about her ability to make others comfortable or her visual acumen. “When Jocelyn is working,” says Judith, “she is totally present to the moment. As a model, you kind of share in that moment.” Judith pauses and says, “Sharing in a present moment … that is how you define intimacy, isn’t it?”

The answer? Yes. There are layers and layers of things to admire in Lee’s photographs— visual echoes within individual images and correspondences across the body of work that emerge the longer you look, and suggest what a lifetime in a female body is actually about—but in the end, it’s Lee’s intimacy that compels.

Whether you observe Lee’s work in a book, a gallery, or at a museum, she gifts you the opportunity to look at an authentic self, not a nude so much as a person as openly herself as she can possibly be.

An exposure of an actual exposure, the very thing that historically degrades younger women manages, in Lee’s hands and when focused on mature women, to uplift us all. ■

call of the wild

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BY EMPHASIZING THE CONNECTION BETWEEN NATURE AND CIVILIZATION, BIOPHILIC DESIGN HELPS HUMANS LIVE HEALTHIER AND MORE GRACEFUL LIVES

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Casa Sierra Fria

These pages & previous spread: Fauna and flow are integral to this four-person home in Mexico, designed by the awardwinning architectural firm, Esrawe. Winner of a 2021 Dwell Design Award, the building features a horseshoe shape that allows for a sort of unwinding as one walks through the structure, as opposed to an orderly space with hallways on a grid. Brick is the single most utilized material, making the space monolithic and introspective. The intimacy of the home was designed for a four person family to do some unwinding among themselves, whether on the patio garden or rooftop terrace.

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY CÉSAR BÉJAR

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rom time immemorial, when our huntergatherer ancestors roamed the earth, all flora and fauna—including humans—were part of the majestic tapestry of life. There was no indoor or outdoor, and the concept of “wilderness” had no meaning. The itch for nature didn’t exist because our closeness to nature fulfilled it. As civilizations developed, however, infrastructure and technology steadily divorced us from our agrarian roots. Eventually the concept of “wilderness” was born, drawing a distinction between the natural world and the civilized world.

The natural world, which had once provided the primary and direct habitat for humans eventually faded into the background, and for some people, nature became practically irrelevant.

Yet despite our acclimation to modern civilization, our primal connection to the natural world remains strong. Our connection to nature is instinctual; while some interior spaces fill us with a sense of peace and calm, others generate a feeling of defeat or discord. Born of our evolutionary past, humans have an innate connection to the natural world and a subtle longing for the characteristics found in it. This is the philosophy behind biophilic design, or design that intentionally mirrors and incorporates nature. Coined by German psychologist, Eric Fromm in 1964, the term “biophilia” simply denotes the “love of life.”

Spaces with bright natural light, visible greenery, steady air movement, scenic vistas, and even the sound of trickling water have a unique effect of both stirring and soothing us. Think of how you may feel in a stale, windowless cubicle compared to an airy sunroom. The difference is remarkable.

The more time we spend indoors or siloed off in concrete jungles, the more disconnected we grow from the earth itself. Incorporating the principles of biophilic design into our spaces is one way to rebuild that connection and satisfy our intangible itch for nature.

As our conception of the natural world changed, human-centered priorities started to take precedence over the well-being and stability of our ecosystem. The problem with this mindset is that when we consider nature to be separate from the human experience, it becomes a commodity that can be exploited for shortterm gain. Rapid industrialization propelled the over-use of fossil fuels and other destructive

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Towering Monuments

The high-tech Supertrees at Gardens by the Bay, a waterfront park in Singapore, are lush sculptures covered in greenery which stand up to 160 feet tall. Designed as a marriage between nature and technology, the Supertrees provide shade from the sun during the day and ignite into a display of light and sound after dark.

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Pan Pacific Orchard

Climate change, loss of biodiversity, population growth, and urbanization are all addressed by the biophilic components integral to the design of Singapore’s Pan Pacific Orchard from South Asian architectural firm, WOHA. The structure features four stacked stratas and three sky terraces, connected by columns of live greenery. The innovative design is an example of what WOHA calls “high-rise tropical hospitality,” and has an estimated completion date of May 2022.

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY WOHA

Fallingwater House

environmental practices. This is disastrously demonstrated by the exponential rise of carbon emissions and global temperatures during the last century. Through our own disconnect from nature, we humans have ushered in the dangerous conditions to destroy it.

It is important to recognize that not all of humanity interacts with nature the same way; nor has every community contributed to the destruction of the earth’s atmosphere. Many indigenous peoples maintain a prosperous relationship with nature still today, despite the encroaching structures of the developed world. Traditional cultures tend to approach the environment with care and humility, never forgetting the truth that humans are part of nature.To repair what we’ve broken, the developed world will need to take a page from the biocentric book of these communities in order to restore humanity’s connection to the planet on a global scale.

Most modern buildings, aside from disconnecting us from nature, also take an environmental toll on our planet by polluting the atmosphere with carbon and other byproducts of burning fuel. In urban environments, buildings are the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions. We burn fuel and consume electricity for heating and air conditioning, to provide light and hot water, and to run all the equipment that we use daily. These contaminants have caused a slow and steady warming of the planet, ringing global alarm bells, yet at the same time, spurring solutions.

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his is where biophilic design comes into play. Urban environments aren’t going anywhere, in fact they are likely to become even more prevalent and densely populated in the decades to come. So the question then becomes, how do we create and

Designed in 1935 by Frank Lloyd Wright, Fallingwater is one of the architect’s most acclaimed works and is often cited as the earliest example of biophilic design in the United States. Originally built as a private home, Wright envisioned Fallingwater to be a harmonious union of art and nature. Although the construction and preservation of the structure have proven less than harmonious due to the logistical challenges of building over a waterfall, Fallingwater remains one of the most beloved buildings in American architecture and has attracted millions of visitors to its site in rural Pennsylvania.

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Traditional Inner Courtyard Residences, palaces and temples with an inner garden surrounded by walls on each side

became prominent in China during the Yuan Dynasty between 1271 and 1368. Often referred to as a quadrangle or siheyuan, these structures were typically built facing south in deference to feng shui, with an orderly layout that reflected and reinforced Confucian notions of hierarchy. The north side of the quad was reserved for the family’s main house, and servants’ quarters were located on the south. The eastern wing was considered superior to the west, so it would be allotted to the eldest son and his family, and the western wing was often given to a widowed daughter or unmarried aunt. The majority of China’s siheyuan have been demolished to make way for modern skyscrapers, but in recent years, there has been a renewed interest in preserving China’s architectural heritage, particularly in areas that were once the more upscale neighborhoods of Beijing.

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One Pearl Bank

One Pearl Bank embodies a modern, multiuse vision for real estate development which includes flexible spaces for work, recreation and relaxation. Designed cooperatively by the UKbased architectural firm Serie and the Singaporebased firm Multiply, One Pearl Bank will feature a first-ever series of sky gardens which extend vertically from the edges of the roofs. Residents will be able to walk out onto a flora-filled ledge overlooking a bustling city, enjoying a stunning perspective of the urban world from the soothing sanctuary of a green utopia.

PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY CAPITALAND LIMITED

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occupy spaces that connect us to nature without wreaking havoc on nature in the process? It is counterintuitive to celebrate nature through design and then ignore the impact that the design will actually have on the planet; we need spaces that are functional, beautiful, grounded in nature, and also sustainably built.

WOHA, creators of the Pan Pacific Orchard project (pictured), find architectural inspiration from the environmental challenges currently faced by the modern world. Climate change, loss of biodiversity, population growth, and urbanization all fuel the biophilic feats that WOHA’s incredible architecture and design team produces. With a projected completion date of May 2022, Pan Pacific Orchard features four stacked stratas and three sky terraces, each with a different theme.

Connected by columns of live greenery, each strata is a spectacular example of what WOHA calls “high-rise tropical hospitality.”

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rchitecture that better connects occupants to nature results in a variety of mental, physical, and environmental benefits.

In Asia, the use of zen gardens, featuring rocks, ponds, sand and vegetation goes back to the 7th Century. A design component of royal residences and temples, zen gardens are intended to be used as a meditative tool. Rocks are arranged with great specificity to represent tenets of Buddhist thought, and in fact, each waterfall, lantern and stretch of sand is designed according to complex philosophical symbolism.

In the United States, biophilic roots are far more recent. One of the earliest—and most famous—approaches to biophilia dates back to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater House built in the early 20th Century. “I go to nature every day for inspiration in the day’s work,” he once said. “I follow in building the principles which nature has used in its domain.” Built surrounding a waterfall

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Nature is Unpredictable

A cascade of succulents nestled into glass vases reflects the randomness of nature, while maintaining homogeneity in color and form. Their various sizes and shapes are consistently inconsistent, giving the eye something new to behold as it scans the row of plants.

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“Biophilia” refers to an innate affinity for life or living systems. The term was coined by 20th Century German philosopher, Erich Fromm, to describe the psychological orientation of being attracted to all that is alive and vital. From an architectural perspective, biophilic design echoes the natural world while also taking into consideration the health and well-being of the planet to ensure that our connection with nature is authentic and sustainable.

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• le printemps 2021 • readelysian.com in Mill Run, Pennsylvania, Fallingwater captured a biophilic response, but a deeper examination of the project reveals fatal flaws in the design which didn’t reckon with the other natural forces in play. Moisture buildup corroded the steel cantilever beams so much that the building needed to be almost entirely rebuilt to keep it from falling into the river.

Nevertheless, Fallingwater’s stunning location atop a wooded ridge in the Appalachian Mountain range, and its unique design have captivated more than 5 million visitors since the structure was built.

Aquatic features are a staple in biophilic design. According to the Biophilic Design Initiative produced by the International Living Future Initiative (ILFI), the component of unpredictable motion—such as water rippling—appeals to one’s non-rhythmic sensory stimuli. Additionally, the sound and atmospheric feel of water can enhance one’s non-visual connection with a space and affect the air flow of the room to better mimic an outdoor environment. In accordance with the ebb and flow of a water feature, another integral aspect

of biophilic architecture is the creation of a space with an element of complexity that lends itself to mystery. A building replicates nature most efficiently when it strays from predictable patterns, instead presenting a structure that is as unpredictable as a walk in the woods, with twists and turns, hidden elements, and a space that is ever-revealing itself to the inhabitant.

The home is a perfect setting for incorporating biophilic elements due to their propensity for reducing stress. According to “The 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design” by sustainability consultancy Terrapin Bright Green, exposure to natural elements eases hyper-alertness, thereby decreasing stress levels. Several studies have confirmed this theory, revealing that blood pressure and heart rate levels were drastically improved after being subjected to a natural environment.

Productivity and cognitive performance are also positively impacted. Attention and Restorative Theory states that natural environments give one the euphoric feeling of “being away,” redirecting the dweller psychologically to focus on what the space

presents. A natural environment can be one of soft fascination or hard fascination, either gently engaging the dweller in a way that encourages reflection or entirely captivating the dweller in a way that captures and holds all attention. True biophilic restoration entangles the dweller in a way that is familiar enough to be comforting but dynamic enough to be engaging.

Time spent in nature can be restorative, and the more our indoor spaces mirror that, the better and healthier we will be. As asserted

by Terrapin Bright Green, biophilic design is being used to address workplace stress, improve student performance, facilitate patient recovery, and build community cohesiveness in buildings all around the country. The best biophilic projects also consider the health and well-being of the planet to ensure that our connection with nature is authentic and sustainable. As ideas about biophilia proliferate beyond the design industry, we will see many more examples of buildings that remind us of the care that our bodies and our earth both need. ■

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Well-rooted

Modern humans spend the majority of their lives indoors. We rely on technology to transport us, educate us, organize us and feed us, resulting in an estrangement from the natural world. This disconnection from plants, animals, and the wilderness, in general, has allowed for an unmitigated increase in ecosystem degradation and species loss. Therefore, reestablishing a connection with nature has become critical to conservation and ecology.

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THE WOMEN WHO INSPIRE US INTERVIEWS

BY KAREN FLOYD

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Our Inspiring Women have been selected because each has carved out a unique path through life that is recognized by others as exceptional. You will see a commonality in the interviews. These remarkable women have achieved greatness by following their internal compasses while facing the circumstances they are dealt in life. None had a road map.

Interview videos are available to watch at elysianwomen.com

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CAROL ALT International Supermodel; Graced over 700 magazine covers; Multi-award winning actress in over 45 films; Successful entrepreneur; Founder of Raw Essentials skincare; Raw food enthusiast with a Doctorate in Alternative Health Studies; Best-selling author; Hosted A Healthy You & Carol Alt on Fox News; Received the CFDA’s Model of the Year award and The Woman of the Year Award.

DARA TORRES Most decorated US female Olympic athlete of all time; 12-time Olympic medalist, winning 4 Gold, 4 Silver and 4 Bronze medals; Inducted into the United States Olympic Committee’s Hall of Fame in 2019; Former Wilhelmina model; First athlete model featured in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue; NY Times best-selling author; Motivational speaker; Entrepreneur; Philanthropist.

Carol Interview Date: February 11, 2021

In CAROL ALT’S early modeling years, it was understood that a model’s career ended at the age of 25. It was also understood that models couldn’t act and, in general, were not intelligent. Carol refused to accept this as fact.

Beyond gracing over 700 magazine covers, acting in over 45 movies and being the world’s most renowned Supermodel, she also became the first model to create consumer products with her own brand, including the first exercise videos by Cosmo magazine. Carol has gone on to be a successful entrepreneur, creating her own line of raw skincare, a best-selling author on Raw Food and Nutrition, and was the host of A Healthy You & Carol Alt on FOX News Channel. As a student of the world, Carol will never give up on helping women to be better, eat better and be healthier.

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How was a West Point cadet the catalyst for your modeling career?

When I met Michael at 13, he was a hippie that was afraid to meet my father because he had long hair, and he knew my father was in the military. Everything I touch turns into something involved with the military; I suppose it’s because I am from a military family.

I was in army ROTC at school. My brother went to West Point, and then my long-haired boyfriend from high school ended up at West Point. I was with Michael from age 13 to 18 until we broke up. I’ll never forget it. He wrote a letter to me that said I think that you have bridges to cross, but you have to cross these on your own. I’ll always be there for you and will always be watching, but it’s not right to be together. When he broke up with me, I left Long Island and went to the city and started modeling. He was coming home from school, and I didn’t want to be that girlfriend that was left behind.

Have you remained connected through all these years?

IS PHYSICAL BEAUTY GODGIVEN?

Yes. Initially, we kept up until he got married, and then we lost contact.

We reconnected when he was divorced. I was shooting in Florida, and he was working in Cocoa Beach. We talked a lot. When he found another girlfriend and got married, we lost contact again. We were never both single at the same time, but he will always be one of the loves of my life because I spent my entire high school years with him. I remember my girlfriend saying, “Oh my God, there’s such a cute guy diving into the pool. We have to go and see this guy.” The next week in church he picked me up. He came up behind me and said, “Don’t ever stand in front of that lady. She’ll hit you with her purse.” He walked me home, and that was it. I talk to him every other day or so. He has kids and grandkids now.

It is interesting how people’s lives ebb and flow, but I keep relationships.

Do you believe that the friendships you make when you are a child have a different flavor than the friendships you have when you are a mature adult?

No. I approach every friendship as if it was a great gift. I don’t like letting friendships go, and I will go to great lengths, probably sometimes too much, to keep a relationship with someone. In fact, I really think that one of the only people I don’t have a relationship with is my ex-husband. Not for lack of trying because I don’t carry that grudge. If people are together and then for some reason their paths diverge, it’s life, and that’s how it goes. You grow out of somebody, and you grow into somebody. Those things happen.

I also have longstanding friendships like Susan. I went to Saint Fidelis in College Point with her up until sixth grade. Her father owned the crystal store. We lost contact and then reconnected. I know her family, have been to her house for birthday parties, and I know her parents. It’s nice to have friendships like that. I have girlfriends from high school and college. When I run into some of the girls that I modeled with like Julie Wolf, Kim Alexis, Paulina, Elle MacPherson, I am so happy to see them.

I have no problems reaching out to keep friendships either.

Do you find it easy to trust?

I do actually. That almost stopped me in my tracks, Karen. I find it very easy to like people. I find the best in people. I find it easy to compliment somebody on the street walking towards me to lift their day up. I have no problems lifting up people around me. I enjoy seeing their joy at being recognized or commended about something that they do in their life. I have no problems giving trust away.

Most people that have ascended keep a very tight bubble. Why don’t you?

I don’t know. I think because I always look at myself as a student of the world, as a spiritual person. I don’t think to myself, “Oh, I’m so successful and on top of the mountain.” That never crosses my mind. I don’t look at life as ascending a mountain. I look at life as though we are constantly climbing, always changing and learning. Covid-19 shut me down. It has been very hard not to have people around you. I do not like it.

During Covid-19, I realized how much I love having people

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around. I love reaching out to friends. I love teaching at the Brooklyn Law School. My friend Mitchell Littman invites me over to teach classes there. I also lecture on raw food and health because Sagittarians are natural-born teachers. We’re philosophers and creative and extremely honest. Initially, I self-described as a creative.

As my career continued on, I became interested in the philosophy of life and the spirituality of life. Teaching other people and trying not to let people fall into the same pits that I fell into is important for me.

You are an extrovert?

Some days . . . some days, maybe not so much.

Do you require alone time each day?

I have no problem being by myself. But I have moments. Like today, when I was getting my hair done, it took an hour and a half.

During that hour and a half, I can talk, or I can find quiet moments.

I find people, especially in this business, are very respectful of space and time. They will ask you if you want to talk or if you need anything. Their interaction with you is related to the energy you put out. I always find that you receive what you give.

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Carol with her two sisters, from left to right: Karen, Carol and Christine.

The idea that whatever you put out comes back. When did you learn that?

It took a little bit of time because this is a business where endings can be abrupt. I have been with several athletes. My husband was a hockey player. When the retired athletes would come around, everyone said, “Oh, they’re retired.” When your professional career ends all of a sudden, you become aware of your mortality, and you realize there is an end to this. I always realized that when I judged someone else, I was immediately judged by that same criteria. The Bible says, “Don’t look at the piece of wood in your friends’ eyes, but look at the splinter in your own eye.”

Take the splinter out of your own life first before you point to the splinter in someone else. I think that is so true of women who are judgmental about someone’s looks. They say, “Oh, that girl’s not so pretty, she’s heavy, or look at her body.” All of a sudden, when you hit 50 and everything falls apart, you will remember what you said about her. It will come back to haunt you. I tell young girls to remember whatever you put out there one day, you too will be old. You will be dealing with the same issues. Don’t put anything out there because you don’t want it to come back.

Your parents had four children, and you have two sisters. Are you close?

Yes. Yes. I will see them tomorrow. I speak with them daily during Covid-19. It has been weird because I’m the only one not working. Our industry is shut down. My older sister, Karen, is a nurse, a frontline essential worker. We were very worried about her. My younger sister works in a law firm, and even though she was working from home, she was working all the time. My mother, God bless her, at 88 is still working in the town library. Everybody was working but me. I tried to be very careful not to call all the time and overindulge, but I call my sisters, and we’ll end up talking for hours. We are very close. Out of the four women in the house, my mother and my two sisters are constantly getting together.

How old was your brother when he died?

Every man in my family died young. My father made it to 53.

My grandfathers died at 47 and 49. My mother’s brothers died at 37 and 35. My brother died at 50.

Were you surprised?

It’s so strange. I was at our house on Long Island, and I got a phone call saying, “Where are you? You need to go into the city because your brother’s not feeling well. He is at the hospital.” I got everything together, and I started to head to the city. Then, I realized, “Wait a minute. I need to bring my mother and my sister.” I don’t know what made me do that. I picked up my mother, sister and my brother’s wife, Pamela. As we were driving into the city, sitting at a light talking, all of a sudden, a coroner’s van pulled up next to us. We all turned and looked at the van. The whole car went silent. I remember turning around and saying, “I hope that’s not a bad omen.” The van cut us off as the light turned green, and we pulled forward. “At least he’s not going to the hospital,” I thought because the GPS was taking me another way.

When we arrived at the hospital, they came and asked, “Are you Tony’s wife?” I said, “No, I’m his sister.” They said, “We tried everything when we heard he was an Alt (because my father was chief Alt). We worked on him forever.” I had to get over the fact that he was able to leave me. My sister, Karen, is a nurse, so for her to have no reason for his death was much more difficult. But for me, I thought, “Tony, God bless you.” He went quickly. I wish I will go that way. Who wants a long, drawn-out death? If you are going to go, go quick. It was quick. It was painless. The pain is with the rest of us who were left here.

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Your father died when you were 22 years old?

I had just turned 22 and was a newlywed. We were married November 21, 1983, and my father died Christmas morning of that year.

He was a fire chief.

He was a fire chief. He was a colonel in the army reserves and had gone to Korea. He was a great man. I never felt any kind of racism or anything in my family. My father never mentioned black, white, Chinese, old, young, he didn’t care, male, female, transgender. My father would save you if you were in trouble. I learned from a young age that everybody is equal. I don’t judge people at all by their choices.

Your mother always worked?

My mother always worked. She had four kids and no help.

She’s my hero really.

She was an airline stewardess and a model. Was she a professional model?

When I first decided to go into the city, my mother said, “That’s lunchtime standing . . . you’re not going to like it. Don’t do it.” She did not like her daughter leaving for New York. My mom was beautiful. I look exactly like her. At 10 years old, my Tanta Mitzi held up a picture and said, “Who do we think this is?” I thought it was a trick question because it was me. But I could not recognize who I was standing with.

She said, “No, that is your mother standing with her two brothers.” I kept that photo. We look so much alike.

When you look at her now, do you envision yourself to look like that at her age?

I know that everything my mother has, I will get. It is inevitable. I have this little corkscrew hole here (points to her nose). My mother has the same one. I had this little vein in the back of my leg. My mother had the same one in the same place. Whatever she is going through as she ages will be me as well one day. It’s funny. When I first started changing my lifestyle, the first person who reached out to me about it was my mother.

You grew up in a traditional Catholic family.

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Yes. But I learned more about religion afterward.

AT 60, I WORK AT MY APPEARANCE. AT 20, IT WAS EASY.

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Though Carol was hailed as the “Most Beautiful Woman in the World”

by Playboy magazine and the “Next Million Dollar Face” by Life magazine, it is clear that she is more than just a pretty face.

PHOTO BY LYNN GOLDSMITH/CORBIS/VCG VIA GETTY IMAGES

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IS THERE SOMETHING YOU WOULD’VE DONE DIFFERENTLY? Do you and he talk about the different perspectives?

How so?

I went every week to church where they read the same scripture over and over again. The priest tells you what the homily means, which is all fun and good. I read the Bible every morning and learn from a teaching Bible, the King James Version, about the morays of the times. I also have learned a lot from different religions traveling the world. I love the Jewish faith with thousands and thousands of years of religious practices. I love the ceremony. In Buddhism, I love how they view the world and peacefulness. I love Christianity and following the teachings of Christ. He was brilliant. They were trying to catch him on everything, and he could outsmart them by saying just the right thing. Think about it . . . 2000 years later, we are still talking about when he was born, basically, the beginning of time.

Your partner Alexei Yashin is from Russia and is Orthodox? Is it similar to how you were raised?

They have more saints, like Saint Nicholas, than we do. I went to his brother’s confirmation, and I was not allowed to wear pants. I had to cover my head, and we stood through the whole thing. We are used to church where you sit, you kneel, you stand, you sit; you get breaks. Try standing for an hour and a half. It was hard. But you know, the church service itself is also very similar. I had no problems assimilating. Going to church in Russia with Alexei was fascinating to me. Russia in general is fascinating to me. It’s amazing. Their history is incredible. I remember when my father was in the military during the Cold War, and I asked him, “Do you think we’ll ever be friends with the Russians?” He said, “Not in my lifetime.” If my father had lived, he would have loved to have spoken with Alexei and his father, who was in the Russian military. It was really quite an education for me because I always saw the Bay of Pigs invasion from our side, and I never saw it from the side of the Russians.

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Yes. Alexei’s father and I could have big arguments because my perspective is based on family experience with the American military. Alexei, my boyfriend, was a Russian hockey player. When he was traded to the NHL from the KHL, he still had to go back to Russia and serve his one-year military service commitment. We don’t have mandated military service in the US like in Europe. Even my Italian friends have to give one or two years of service after high school or college. Alexei went back to do that because he wanted to play in the Olympics. We would have quite big arguments over it.

Sometimes we would have to sit in separate-neutral corners of the room to calm down. I like that journey. I don’t like it when people are closed-minded, and it has to be just their way. I am willing to learn and hope to understand.

How long have you been together?

We met in 1999 when I was shooting Amazon with C. Thomas Howell. The series was written by Peter Benchley, who wrote Jaws. It was about a plane going down in the Amazon. I met Alexei at the NHL awards that year. It was love at first sight. I thought, “He’s cute; maybe he is not, maybe he is, and maybe he’s not.” He walked over to me, and that was it. The rest of the night, I knew where he was every moment. I could feel his energy. I remember signing autographs, and I saw him leaving. I asked the kid, “Can I steal a piece of your autograph paper?” He said, “Go ahead.” I wrote down my number, and I walked over to him, and I said, “If you’re ever in Toronto ...” and he grabbed my hand and took the paper. He called me the next morning, but I was already gone. I left at 4 a.m. to catch a flight to Monte Carlo.

I didn’t get the message until I came back two weeks later, and the message was on my message machine. We’ve been together ever since.

I can’t get rid of the guy; he’s always there. I spoke with him four times yesterday, six times the day before. He is stuck in Russia because of the Covid-19 travel restrictions, so tomorrow I’ll check on his parents because they are here in the states. I just love him. I will always love him. Even if I found somebody else that I cared to spend time with, they would have to deal with the fact that he will always be in my life.

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Carol at the 2016 Annual Charity Day hosted by Cantor Fitzgerald at the BGC office in New York City.

EVERETT COLLECTION / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Opposite: Actress Carol Alt at the world premiere of The X-Files, in Los Angeles,1998.

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Would you ever consider marriage with him?

No. I never want to ever get married again. Marriage ruins everything.

When did you make that decision?

Why would I get married again after I got divorced the first time? People completely change once married.

Why do you think that?

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When people first get married, in their mind, they “captured” the other person. Then it gets too difficult to get out of the marriage, and people become complacent. When you divorce, people are hurt.

You have never been complacent about anything? Do you work at beauty?

I think beauty is in two things. There is most definitely a physical part, which we all agree is pleasant, but there is an underlying soul. When you open your mouth, everything beautiful can change.

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YES . . . I JUST DON’T THINK THAT WE’RE MEANT FOR MARRIAGE. LIFE IS LONG, AND WE CHANGE. BY THE TIME I WAS 30, I WAS A DIFFERENT PERSON. BY THE TIME I WAS 40, I WAS DIFFERENT AGAIN. NOW I’M 60, AND I’M DIFFERENT AGAIN. I DON’T WANT TO BE TIED DOWN. I’M NOT TALKING SEX. I’M TALKING RELATIONSHIPS.

That’s not completely factual because as I sit here looking at you, your thick hair, the shape of your face, the ice blue color of your eyes … perfection. That is beauty.

That is the physical beauty. What if I opened up my mouth, and I was a real jerk?

Is physical beauty God-given?

At 60, I work at my appearance. At 20, it was easy.

A God-given component but also an at-will element?

Yes, but I have seen women who are physically beautiful, and the minute they open their mouths, you want to clear the room because they are not nice people. Some are angry or mean. I have worked with so many beautiful women that you do not want to be in the same room with.

Their inside crumbles the outside beauty. It ruins what God gave them.

It really does. They were not born that way. They created the ugliness themselves. For me, there are two components to physical beauty. I really believe that what comes through your eyes is what people really see.

What do you think people see in you?

When people ask me, “What do you want people to see when they look at photos of you?” I want them to see someone who is enjoying themself and having a good time.

You have been on over 700 covers. Was every photography session fun?

Over the years, I have gone through a lot of sadness. One of my favorite covers was of Vogue Italia. I shot it with Renato Grignaschi. They brought pale pinkish fabric over my head, and you could see the flowers.

I was crying because my father was dying, and I didn’t want to be in the studio. They said they would let me go by 5:30 or 6 o’clock. But I could only see my father until 8 o’clock, which meant I had very little time. I

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had to go to Long Island for the visit, but first I had to get home to get my car. I was literally crying. It is the most beautiful cover.

I was so angry and upset, yet in my eyes, there was a serene look that said, “I have to just do this and get it done.”

You are different. Not just the outside but your internal drive. Talk to me about that.

I think my mother always pegged me as different. I always pushed the envelope. She used to tell me I had to learn the hard way, by trial and error. I took risks. By the way, that has nothing to do with what I look like.

My mother made our clothes and dressed all three of us alike until age 13 or 14. I have pictures of the three girls wearing the same red dress with little yellow roses on it and kerchiefs. I was just different. I annoyed her. I was always in her face, asking questions, wild and pushing boundaries. If she told me to be home at 9:30, I would be home at 9:30 and 30 seconds.

You are a life learner. Why don’t you go back to school and get your law degree?

I began classes online. It was so boring, and I don’t do well with computer learning. If I’m going to go back to school, I’d be better suited just taking classes. I need to hear other people ask questions.

I need to get feedback. Before Covid-19, I didn’t think of going to law school because I was always so busy.

My hope for you is that you go to law school. I think you would be amazing. There is a chance Covid-19 is going to be around in some form or fashion for some time. Can you imagine if you could walk into a courtroom and handle cases that you literally felt passionate about?

Let me ask you something. Do you think anybody would look at an ex-model and say, “Yes. Let me give her a serious case.”

People don’t treat models with the gravitas that they should.

Models are extremely bright women.

If anyone studied your background, you would be their first choice. You are an astute businesswoman; the first model to create consumer products with your own brand. How? First, I did posters. Then, I went to calendars, and finally, I did the first exercise videos through Cosmo magazine.

All were “creations or inventions” of yours?

Yes, it began with ideas. John Casablanca walked out of a meeting at the restaurant Commedia up on 58th Street because I said I wanted to do a poster. “No posters. I’m out of here,” he said.

He dropped his credit card and walked out. I was left with his vicepresident Monique. I asked her, “How do I do that if I want to do it?”

And John was the owner and founder of …?

John was with Ford in Europe, and then he came here and opened Elite. He was the owner of Elite, and I was his model.

You were how old?

My first poster was in ’83, so I was 22.

The idea just came to you?

Necessity is the mother of invention, right? When I first started modeling, my father said to me, “You have until you are 25 years old, and then it’s over. You can only sleep in one bed at a time, wear one pair of pants at a time, one pair of shoes. So don’t waste your money. Save your money. When it’s over, it’s over.” That was the general thinking back then.

I was enjoying the experience too much. I didn’t want it to be over and was approaching 22 or 23 years old. “If I only have two more years of this left, what am I going to do for the rest of my life?”

I asked myself. I love doing this. I love entertaining. That’s what I was born to do. I’m an entertainer. I thought, “How do I extend my career?” In the beginning, you are doing Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Sports Illustrated covers. All of the covers change. You are in Brides and Talbots. I saw the changes coming. Back then, he was right. Women

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didn’t last after 25; you were too old. I remember shooting Cover Girl at 29. The guy went in to tell the makeup artist that I wanted to change makeup artists because he said, “You know how these older models are . . . she wants her own people.” Nothing could have been further from the truth. First of all, I was 29. Second of all, I work with everybody. If you mess me up, you don’t deserve to be on a set. I always gave people a chance, a new makeup artist, whoever, I always give them a shot. Let’s see what he can do. If I don’t like something, I know how to change it. I’m a big girl. 29 was ancient back then.

I pushed those limits because I just enjoyed what I was doing. When they said models can’t act, the first thing I did was work with Bob Fosse.

I went for the jugular. I am going to do this. The same with books. They said, “Nobody is talking about raw food.” Doctors were calling me out saying, “What does a stupid model know about health and nutrition?”

You had two important mentors?

I learned from two of the most brilliant doctors, Dr. Timothy Brantley Ph.D., naturopath, and Dr. Nicholas Gonzalez MD. They were my gurus. I thank God every day because I use everything I learned from them on myself.

Raw foods. What does a raw food diet entail?

I would just say it means eating healthier, a diet where you are eating less processed foods, less cooked foods. You look for more natural foods.

The fewer hands between you and God is the most nutritious food. For me, raw food is the best diet, the one that is anti-aging, that can give you back your health and control over your health and your life.

Do you ever get hungry for pure protein?

Protein is in everything. It’s even in vegetables if you don’t cook them.

What about animal protein?

People always think I’m vegan because I focus on eating raw food. I’m not vegan. A girl wrote me when I shared a ceviche recipe, “I thought you were vegan.” No, I am not vegan. I eat mostly plants, but every now and then my body says I have to have protein, fish sometimes.

What about your skincare regime. Tell me about what you use and why.

I had a line of skincare, and I asked them to let me go because it wasn’t all-natural. It wasn’t raw. It was all chemical. I wasn’t using it, and I wouldn’t give it to my mother and my sisters. When they sent me a sample, it went into the graveyard under the bed because I couldn’t throw it out. I felt disrespectful. But I wasn’t going to use it.

Next, I created a line of raw skincare called Raw Essentials. The education curve just wasn’t there at the time. It was hard enough to teach people about raw food, filtering water, air and trying not to put too many chemicals on your clothes.

A focus is on a healthier lifestyle?

Yes, because I know what an unhealthy lifestyle did to me with the many health issues I have had, starting with allergies as a kid, because I ate so much gluten.

It was a constant battle to be healthy before I went to raw foods.

When I hit 30, physical changes took place. I started gaining weight, my skin started looking bad, my hair became brittle and my fingernails were breaking off. I couldn’t keep the weight off and with PMS, everything bloats and hurts. It had never happened before. All these things were changing in my body, and I didn’t like it.

I thought, “If I keep doing the same thing over and over again, I’m never going to get a different result.” I prayed on it, and I got the answer from a phone call from a friend of mine who said, “You have to talk to this doctor. You will not look at food the same way again.” I said, “whatever,” and hung up. That little God voice inside me said, “What are you, an idiot?”

I picked up the phone and called the guy. “What can I do for you?

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Carol Alt at Annual Charity Day hosted by Cantor Fitzgerald at the BGC office.

WENN RIGHTS LTD / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

What ails you?” He asked, “What do you eat?” When I told him what I ate, once he stopped laughing at me, he told me what was wrong. What had become normal in my life was unhealthy; taking an antacid for my stomach, taking aspirin for my headache, taking something to help me fall asleep and taking coffee to make me wake up. This was normal because everybody was doing it.

I started thinking, “If this is me at 30 or 34, what am I going to be at 44, 54, 64?” I don’t like this path and don’t want to be a 64-year-old who has arthritis and is hunched over, who can’t eat with her teeth falling out and who is on pills for everything because everything aches and hurts.

Tell me about your workouts. How many hours do you work out a day?

It depends. Today I worked out maybe an hour, which I do two times a week. Two times a week it’s an hour and a half. Three times a week, I do Core46, which is how I developed my abs. I didn’t have abs at 20, even when I was doing Sports Illustrated. I was lean and mean, but I was flabby. It was Core46.

My friend Chris Chelios introduced me to the cycle sauna. And I thought this guy’s a psycho for doing cycle sauna. I’ve loved that.

Now, I do that three times a week. I did that today as well. Cycle sauna cleans everything out. I also do weights and a little bit of yoga and stretching. Twice a week, I do the Pilates chair. I jump the trampoline every single day. It’s small. I bought one for my mother with handles. It cleans the lymph. You just have to jump, and it makes you sweat and raises your heartbeat. I keep my knees bent, so my legs get a workout. You can dance on a trampoline and do all kinds of stuff, but I jump a minimum of seven minutes every day.

What do you do for your skin?

I put on my face the same things I eat because whatever you put on your skin, you absorb into your body. Coconut oil and olive oil. Then, of course, I mixed my own raw skincare line.

And you sold that in?

In 2010. Actually, it was earlier than that. I had to focus either on skin or food. I was in the middle of doing food, and I had four or five books out about health and nutrition. I was also doing the show on Fox News about health and nutrition. I didn’t want to split my time too much. It got to the point where I couldn’t find anything except olive oil or coconut oil to put on my skin. My line was sold to a company that was going to make it bigger, and they eventually shut it down. I was released from that, and then I started work on another skincare line.

You also have had roles in two reality television shows.

Yes, Dancing with the Stars in Italy. The list of participants included A-list actors and royalty. I danced with a prince. It was a little bit different. I was not so great, but I danced my way out and then back in again, and then I danced my way back out. Do you know what got me? The hustle. It’s the simplest dance, but if you don’t start off on the right foot, you’re screwed.

I started off on the left foot, who knew? I danced the hustle my whole life, and I never realized you only can start with one foot. Then, I did Celebrity Apprentice here with Donald Trump, who I’ve known since I was 19 years old. I remember him telling me early on, “If you’re ever working with a charity, or you need to sell a table, always call me.” I appreciated that.

You also hosted a segment on Fox News about health and wellness.

Now, every show has a little health section, although they do conventional health. I offered an alternative. I find what is off the beaten path, and I give you the reasons it’s good or bad. I don’t play favorites. For me, health, the body, food, what we do to the body, what we don’t do to the body, all these things are so fascinating.

Would you do another TV show?

Oh, in a heartbeat. I just do not want to be the lead. That kills you because it is 24/7. I just want to have fun and support whoever is the

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NOW I LOOK AT EATING AS A WAY TO FEED MY BODY AND KEEP ME YOUNGER. IT’S NOT ABOUT STARVING YOUR BODY, BUT TREATING YOUR BODY LIKE A FERRARI. YOU DON’T PUT IN THE CRAPPIEST GAS YOU CAN FIND. YOU USE SUPREME. IN THE LONG TERM, YOU’LL RUN CLEAN. lead on a great show. I’m looking for a family. I’ve been alone for a very long time, my whole career. I’m not talking about personal. I’m talking about professional family. I thought I found that with Fox until I was injured. During a massage, an elbow cracked my ribs. It ripped the fascia, released my ribs, which then came around and attacked my organs. It took three years to completely recover. I couldn’t talk without coughing. I could barely breathe. I had to take a hiatus.

Do you believe the best years are still ahead?

No. I have had such a great life. I’ve been able to do things that I never thought a fireman’s daughter, living on Long Island, would ever be able to do. I’ve always gone where my heart and my soul and my passions have taken me. That’s where I plan to go in the future. I will never give up on trying to teach people to be better, eat better, eat healthier, be healthy. Anti-aging makes them feel happy. I will never give up on that. I will never give up on trying to elevate women because too often we knock each other down. We don’t support one another. I will always be vocal and call people out when they do not help somebody who needs them.

This idea of living life to the fullest. ... Do you push harder because you experienced so many early deaths of the men in your family?

I have lost so many people in my life. You can’t imagine. I lost a friend at age 10 who was bitten by a mosquito, got encephalitis and died. It could have been any one of us. I was just very aware of that from that moment on. My girlfriend, Chris Flack, brought me to

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my first concert in high school, the Beach Boys. The next week she died in a car accident trying to get to people who were drunk driving home from a party. She dies, and they live. The guy I went to my senior prom with died in a car accident. I have had a lot of loss in my life, and maybe that’s why I treasure each relationship and each moment. My sister commented on how many friends I have a couple of weeks ago. I make an effort. I reach out on Instagram, in texts. I put everybody’s birthday into my phone. Everybody gets a text from me on their birthday. I don’t leave any man behind because I understand it’s over so fast. I’ve lost so many people, and that has changed my life.

So, when I’m there in the moment, I think, “Let’s have fun. Let’s do it.

Let’s have a great time.” When we go to the next thing, I bring those people forward with me. If there’s something I think somebody would be great at or should do, I will call them out of the blue and say, “Listen, I think this is right for you. It’s not right for me, but it’s right for you.”

“Why are you giving this to me?” they ask. “Because it’s right for you.”

Do you live in the past, the present or the future?

All three. I can’t forget my past. It comes up every day on Twitter. I love the present because whatever I’m doing, I just have fun doing it.

And the future is just a big black hole. That is always exciting because I never know where my passions are going to take me. I never know where I’m going to be next or what I’m going to decide. This is what I want to do. Or this is where I need to be. Or this is what I need to teach.

Is there something you would’ve done differently?

Many things.

Give me the one that you would have.

I never would have gotten married.

Marriage did touch you at a very visceral level.

Yes. I never thought I was the marrying type. My father was dying.

I knew that he wanted to make sure I was okay. He loved Ronnie, and I loved Ronnie, too. So don’t get me wrong. But I just don’t think that we’re meant for marriage. Life is long, and we change. By the time I was 30, I was a different person. By the time I was 40, I was different again. Now I’m 60, and I’m different again. I don’t want to be tied down. I’m not talking sex. I’m talking relationships.

Give your younger self one piece of advice?

Don’t get married. I always fought convention. Don’t let anybody stifle you or your ideas. The only reason anything is good is when you’re the first to do it. You don’t make the most money, but creating an idea, now that’s what is most exciting.

Give me one piece of advice.

I remember when I first started modeling, everybody tried to fit you into a box. If you were a model, you were stupid. You didn’t know anything. You couldn’t do books. You couldn’t act. You were just a face. I would tell any young girl coming up, “Don’t let anybody put you in a box.” Nobody puts Baby in the corner, right?

From Dirty Dancing. Don’t let anybody put you in a box. For so many years, I was told, “Models aren’t creative.” Then my girlfriend from college sat down with me and said, “Oh my God, you’re the most creative person.” She remembered when she had forgotten to write a short story that was due in a class she was taking. I went over to another table, wrote the story and gave it to her.

I had forgotten the incident until much later because in this business you listen to people telling you who they think you are.

And you forget who you are. Never forget who you are. Never be afraid to let people know who you are either because that’s the worst. Especially if you’re going to marry somebody. Let them know who you are. That way they know everything upfront, and then there are no surprises. I think that people are beautiful with warts and pimples and frizzy hair and everything. ■

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Carol considers herself a student of the world, always learning how to help others feel better through health & wellness.

LARRY BUSACCA/GETTY IMAGES PORTRAITS FOR RUBENSTEIN PUBLIC RELATIONS. (PHOTO BY LARRY BUSACCA/GETTY IMAGES)

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PHOTOGRAPH BY LUCIANA PAMPALONE

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DARA Interview Date: November 17, 2020

“It is amazing what the mind can do,” says 12-time Olympic medalist DARA TORRES. The mind, yes, but also willpower and discipline helped push Dara over the finish line to become the most decorated US female Olympic athlete of all time. Dara’s career was catapulted at the young age of 15 when she broke the world record for the 50-meter freestyle. Despite suffering from a severe eating disorder and receiving ageist comments, Dara’s competitive spirit pushed her through 26 years on the Olympic stage, earning 4 Gold, 4 Silver and 4 Bronze medals. If that wasn’t impressive enough, she was also a Wilhelmina model, named the first athlete model featured in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue, as well as a NY Times best-selling author, fitness advocate, motivational speaker, entrepreneur, and mother.

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At age 15, you broke the world record in the 50-meter freestyle.

Was that God-given talent or was it discipline and willpower?

At that age, it was a God-given talent. I could take a couple of weeks off, come back to the starting blocks and set records. When my body changed and I became a woman, winning was from discipline and willpower.

Your body has a unique anatomy?

Yes. When I was 16 years old, while I was training on a team called Mission Viejo in Orange County, Southern California, I underwent testing of both muscle fibers and oxygen content. The result was fascinating. They tested everyone by taking a little piece of muscle out of the thighs of probably 150 athletes. There were two people who tested 70 percent fast-twitch muscle fibers while everyone else tested under 50 percent fast-twitch muscle fibers. Greg Louganis (the diver) and I had the highest percentage of fast-twitch muscle fibers. Physiologically, having fast-twitch muscles differentiates you, and consequently, I am fast.

In 2008, you won a silver Olympic medal competing globally at age 41 . . . talent or willpower?

Some talent but more willpower. Everyone was making such a big deal about my age. Can she do this? I did not even know if I could do it, but I set a goal in the fall of 2006 to make the comeback for the Olympic trials and the summer Olympics of 2008. That goal was in my head every single day for almost two years. It is amazing what the mind can do. You need to have some talent, but you must work hard.

During that two-year period, there was not one day that you did not … fill in the blank.

That I didn’t think about winning a gold medal.

Talk to me about visualization.

Visualization is a very interesting technique, and it works for some people and may not work for other people. I think a lot of athletes will visualize what they want to do, but I don’t harp on it.

It’s not a necessity for me in order to swim fast. In fact, it almost is a detriment because if I start thinking about what I need to do before I swim, I think too much, I overthink, I get discombobulated. I start to get really nervous. When I step on those starting blocks, I do not want to think about anything. I want to go out there, enjoy the moment and have fun. So, I’m not a big visualization person right before a race, but I think all athletes do when they’re training.

ELYSIAN Publisher, Karen Floyd, with Dara at her home in Delray Beach, Florida, during the Inspiring Woman interview.

CHRIS JORIANN PHOTOGRAPHY

You retired and then came back to compete in a fifth Olympics.

Why did you retire? Was it no longer fun, or were there other factors?

Each time I retired, I was in a different stage of my personal growth. My first retirement was in college. I had another year of eligibility remaining, but I decided to play volleyball instead. I wanted to participate in a team sport, try something different. I was burned out. I had been in two Olympics, and I was dealing with an eating disorder. When I decided to make a comeback and train for ’92, it was because I missed swimming competitively. I also wanted to be in three Olympic Games and see if I could come back at the ripe old age of 25, which in the ’90s was considered very old. After the third Olympic Games, I thought I was done and was too old. I “needed to get on with my life” and took seven years off.

Then one night I went out to dinner with some friends, and they planted the thought of trying for a fourth Olympic Games. It was something that no one had done before. That became more of a challenge. So, the first time I retired was because I was tired and burned out. The last time I entered the Olympics was definitely for the challenge. Afterward, I thought, “Okay, I am 33 and have been in four Olympic Games. I am done.”

Peer pressure lured me into seeking my fifth Olympics. “We need someone to represent the middle-aged population in the Olympics,

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and you have to do this.” “All right, I’ll try this,” I said. That was how the fifth Olympic Games happened. Every time I retired and came back, there was a reason. It wasn’t boredom or having nothing to do. I really did miss the sport. That love of swimming helped me achieve what I wanted to achieve in the Olympics.

You have been very transparent about your eating disorder as a young athlete.

When was the first time that you knew that there was something amiss?

When you become obsessive about your weight, you know something is not right. Even if you’re not doing anything physically to yourself, you know there is something wrong.

Aren’t all women, to a certain extent, obsessed with their weight?

I think we all are a little bit self-conscious about something on our body that we don’t like. But when you’re obsessive to the point that all you think about is food, there is a problem. If you get jealous that another girl can eat something and you can’t because you feel that even if you look at food you will gain weight, that is obsessive.

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bed. My mind and body were not used to that type of training.

The penalty for not making weight was doing extra workouts. We were already doing nine workouts a week, so if we missed weight, we would have to do 11. We had two mornings off, Tuesdays and Thursdays, so we would have to come in those mornings for extra training. We were called “the breakfast crew,” and I didn’t want to be a part of that.

I was in the dorm, and someone explained binging and purging.

You can eat whatever you want, and you get rid of it and make weight, no problem. “Wow, that actually works,” I thought.

If you are obsessive about food and your weight, you’re going to be obsessed with what you put in your body and take out of your body. It was a very, very dark time for me.

How many years did that last?

Physically, five years. It began my first year of college, and it continued until one year after I graduated. Overcoming the mental part of the disorder was longer. It took years for me to get over my fear of food and thinking about food a lot.

Do you still think “bad food” and “good food”?

I do not. People make fun of the way I eat because I can eat whatever I want and do not gain a lot of weight. I could look at food and gain weight when I was in college. I guess my body was going through changes.

When I decided to make a comeback in ’99 to 2000 after seven years off, I called coach Richard Quick out at Stanford and asked if I could come train with them. He sat me down when I got there and said, “Okay, this is how you’re going to eat, and this is what we’re going to do.” It was effectively the Atkins diet where you can eat more protein and fewer carbs. If you want to have a burger, don’t have the bun, but you can have a few French fries. Protein can basically offset the carbs. There was this whole new way of eating.

Making that comeback and having a coach guide me really taught me to fall back in love with food again. Before that, I definitely had fears of food and felt I could never eat again in my life. I was able to train and realized that I needed the food for fuel and that my metabolism was much better in my early 30s than it was in my early 20s. I slowly let go of those fears of food.

Do you correlate activity with eating?

Food obsession distracted me from my swimming because all I thought about was what I was going to eat at my next meal. How can I eat and not gain weight? Do I have to go exercise more to make weight?

I had a great coach, which is one of the reasons I went to the University of Florida. It was the mid-’80s, and no one really understood eating disorders. It wasn’t talked about, and he didn’t really understand that women might hyperfocus on weight. He was pretty adamant about us trying to make weight. I had never been to workouts like his before, where I was so exhausted that I had to crawl back to the dorm to get into

Q

For a long time I did. I thought, “If I’m going to eat this, I need to go exercise.” Now, I actually like to exercise because it makes me feel good. Exercise has always been a staple in my life. I really like the way it makes me feel on the inside and the way it makes me look on the outside and how it helps me with stress. If I didn’t exercise, I would probably be eating a little bit less.

Let’s talk about “the outside.” You were a Wilhelmina model. Your mother was also a model. Do you two favor?

Yes, we do. I did not think I would ever be a model. I was a tomboy growing up. I wore tube socks, dolphin shorts, OP brand and was really a

. . . YOU HAVE LED AN EXCEPTIONAL LIFE. DO YOU PRACTICE HUMILITY TO STAY GROUNDED?

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Dara Torres (R) of the United States competes in the women’s 50m freestyle swimming heats at the World Championships in Rome August 1, 2009.

REUTERS/WOLFGANG RATTAY

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a

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I DON’T. IT’S FUNNY BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL ASK ME, “WHERE ARE YOUR MEDALS … WHY AREN’T YOU WEARING THEM?” OLYMPIC ATHLETES DO NOT WEAR THEIR MEDALS. tomboy surfer girl. I never thought I would model. But when I moved to New York after swimming in the ’92 Olympics, I needed work.

Gabby Reece had paved the way for women with a more muscular build. Wilhelmina had a smaller agency and focused specifically on sports modeling. I needed to make money and decided to try it. It blossomed from there. I thought I would only be doing one or two shoots and be out. It ended up flourishing a little bit.

A little bit? Sports Illustrated?

Yes. That was a crazy shoot. There is a photographer that did a story on me for Sports Illustrated when I was 16, 17 training for the Olympic Games. I would always see him at meets. As it happened, he was one of the top Sports Illustrated photographers for the Olympic Games and for different sports. We really had a great connection and friendship. I had been friends with him over the years, so when I told him I wanted to get into modeling, he took pictures of me in his New York studio. I actually took the photos to Wilhelmina, which launched my career in modeling. Unbeknownst to me, he also placed the photos he took of me on the desk of the Sports Illustrated editor. When he mentioned my name at first she said, “No, no, you know, she does sports.” Then he put my pictures on her desk. When she saw the pictures, she decided that it might be nice to have an athlete in the magazine which is how it all started.

everything changed. They were less focused on sports and weren’t as determined as I was. They wanted to experience everything. I was very obsessed and focused. But a couple of my brothers could have been incredible athletes had they kept up with the sports that they were in. They just found other things to focus on.

My assumption is they genetically share fast-twitch muscles. Is your daughter fast?

On land, I’m not fast. Believe it or not, I am not good at running or jumping high …

But you have great eye-hand coordination.

I do, and my daughter also has great eye-hand coordination. She is not the fastest athlete on the lacrosse field, but she is very good with her stick and ball. Her dad was a distance swimmer. Everything is slower for him, but he has more endurance. I think she might have a little bit of a mix. She probably could have been good at swimming, but she didn’t like it. I won’t push her into something that she doesn’t like.

This idea of perfection . . . where does that come from?

It is very deep-seated. I think my dad was a little bit OCD and always had things a certain way. We had to do things at a certain time, and everything sort of had to be just right. If it wasn’t, he would become upset. I am sure it’s probably genetic. I feel like once you do something, you want to be the best that you can be. You have to try to be as perfect as you can be. I don’t know if that is necessarily something I learned or if it is a trait that was already inside of me.

Of six children, you are number four with all older brothers.

Do they have the same quest for perfection?

I was the first girl. I think my mom, after she saw me, decided she should have another child because she needed to actually have a “real girl.” My brothers were all very athletic and excelled in their own sports until they found girls. Then

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Dara hugs her daughter after missing an Olympic 50-meter freestyle berth by 0.09 seconds.

You spoke about happenstance and timing … but in actuality, you have led an exceptional life. Do you practice humility to stay grounded?

I don’t. It’s funny because people will ask me, “Where are your medals . . . why aren’t you wearing them?” Olympic athletes do not wear their medals.

I always look to the next day, and I don’t think about what I have done. If someone is interviewing me or a parent of one of my daughter Tessa’s friends asks me something about my past, it is fine.

But I will never just bring my past up and never say who I am. People come up to me quite often and say, “God, you just, you look really familiar.” I never say what I’ve done, because I don’t think I am any different than anyone else. I happened to excel at something, but I’m a very down-to-earth person. And I don’t consider myself any better than anyone else, whether I’m an Olympian or a waiter at a restaurant or whatever it is. I try to treat everyone the same.

What’s the most difficult of these three characteristics; trusting people, believing in people, believing in yourself?

I believe in myself because I can control what I do and don’t do.

Trusting people is probably the toughest one.

And why?

I have trusted people and been burned in the past. I always want to give everyone the benefit of the doubt first. I am not a person who judges others. If someone says something about a person and I don’t know them, it may be in the back of my head, but it doesn’t have an impact. I try to find the good in people and trust at first. But it has been hard because at 53 years old I have been hurt and have had trust issues.

Now, it is harder for me to trust a person until I get to know them and feel them out. I believe I’m a pretty good judge of character.

Are your closest friends from childhood or “life’s journeymen”?

I can count my best friends on one hand. I am very particular about who I let into my life. I am “there” for a lot of people and quite a few rely on me. But I am specific about who I let into my life.

One or two of my closest friends are from childhood, but the others I met on my journey. We just connected.

Male or female?

Both. Though I probably have more guy friends than female friends. I suppose it is that way because of trust issues. My closest friends would do anything for me, and they know I would do anything for them. That is most important to me.

Are you equally yoked? Imagine oxen carrying equal loads … sharing the same values and principles?

I would absolutely say yes. We are equally yoked. People have drained me over the years and taken so much out of me, but in the past two years, I have weeded out the negativity. The people that are in my inner circle share many of the same qualities.

You are of the Jewish faith?

I rely on myself for most everything I do. My actions, everything is on me. My parents divorced when I was young. My dad grew up an Orthodox Jew, and my mom was Christian. We lit the menorah at Hanukkah and then celebrated Christmas at Christmas. I was raised with little knowledge of the Jewish faith or the Christian faith. My ex-husband was from Israel and Jewish. When I met him, I chose to learn more about the Jewish faith, and I did a conversion.

My husband was Jewish, and I wanted my dad to be proud. I consider myself Jewish and Christian.

Your daughter?

My daughter’s father and my dad are Jewish. We are raising her as Jewish. She attended Hebrew school for a little while,

but once she was diagnosed with dyslexia, we had to forego it.

Dual languages were becoming very difficult for her. We did the 23andme and learned she was 57 percent Ashkenazi. She was so thrilled by that and considers herself Jewish.

You were inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame for swimming?

It was obviously an incredible honor. It was so touching because it happened to me when my dad wasn’t around, and I know that he would have been so proud. It’s funny because he never imposed the Jewish religion on us, but it is something that I don’t take lightly. I was extremely proud to be in the company of such amazing Jewish athletes. I am very proud of that honor.

What are you afraid of ?

I’m not afraid of a lot. I think my biggest fear is making sure that my daughter is okay and that she’ll be taken care of for the rest of her life and be happy. It is not really about me but about my daughter and making sure she’s okay.

I’m going to give you three choices. You live in the past, you live in the present, or do you live in the future?

I live in both the present and future. I definitely do not live in the past.

You know, once I won my gold medal, I was done. Okay. What is next? I remember right after the 2008 Olympics, I flew from Beijing, got home at 11 o’clock at night, and the sitter left. The next morning, I opened the door, and my daughter popped into the bedroom. She ran into my arms, and we got ready for preschool. Literally, two days earlier, I was on the award podium getting a silver medal at the Olympic Games. Fast forward, I was getting her ready, taking her to preschool, going to the grocery store, getting food and getting back to my life. I live in the present, but I also look ahead and ask, “Where’s my life going? What am I going to do? What’s best for Tessa?” So, I live in both.

You had Tessa and within two years set the American record in the 50-meter freestyle. You were rumored to have taken enhancements. Did that bother you?

You know, it did. A lot of times you say to yourself, don’t listen to what other people say, but sometimes it does bother you. Imagine doing something your entire life, doing it the right way, hours and hours of training, learning about discipline, sacrificing, working hard day in and day out so that it becomes your life basically. Then someone comes in one day and says, “No, she’s cheating. She’s not doing it the right way.”

It was devastating. I really wanted to make sure that when I was going through this process, people understood that I was doing it the right way.

There will always be naysayers, and there is nothing you can do about that. I never put anything in my body that was not pure. I was clean, not to mention, I don’t like cheating. Anyone who knows me knows this.

Even though I didn’t feel I had to prove anything, when people started saying I was using enhancements because I was doing something that no one had ever done before, it bothered me.

Negative publicity. One of the disadvantages of being a public figure is everyone feels that they own you. The antidote to that is to insulate yourself and then who owns you?

I decided to keep going on with my life and not worry about what other people were saying. I am my own person. I make my own decisions, especially at 41 years old when I was in the ‘08 Olympics or when I was training for 2012, which would have been my sixth Olympics. My life was and is on me.

When you are younger and more naïve, it is different because you can be influenced by your coaches and surroundings. One of the advantages I had, that other people were missing, was I knew how to deal with it in my mind. I know how to deal with the negativity and can turn things into a positive.

I remember something that happened when I decided to make a comeback for the 2012 Olympics. I flew up to New York with Tessa

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and met with Mayor Bloomberg. We had lunch at Gracie Mansion, and I was trying to figure a way to ask him to sponsor me. He is very to the point and blunt. We were having dessert, and I still hadn’t asked him. Finally, I looked at him and I said, “Mayor Bloomberg, I’m really here for a reason.” He said, “Yes, I was waiting for you to ask me something.” I said, “I wanted to ask if you’d be willing to sponsor me. I’m thinking about making a comeback for swimming.”

And the first words out of his mouth were, “Aren’t you too old?”

I know that is just the way he is. But that comment lit a fire under me. I heard it many times throughout my comebacks. If someone says something negative, I use that as fuel. Okay, you think I’m too old. I’m not just going to disprove that, but I will show them instead.

That’s what I did. That one sentence resonated in my head. I used that to work even harder and train harder and to be the best version that I could be . . . to go up there and do what no one else had done before. I try to turn negatives into positives.

In the process do you ever self-doubt? Truth.

Yes. Truth. I had self-doubt when I decided I was going to make the last comeback. But it wasn’t about what other people said. It was whether my body could do this. I had shoulder surgeries before. Was

I in good enough shape? Could I keep up with the kids?

You do have self-doubt and probably with age, more questions going on in your head.

Once I asked myself those questions, I decided what to do next.

I remember going to my orthopedic surgeon and asking him if he could take some x-rays to see if my body could do this again. He laughed and said, “All right, everything looks pretty good.” I knew my mind was okay but had concerns about my body. Once he said, “You’re good to go.” I still didn’t know how I was going to do it.

I hadn’t hired anyone yet. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but winning a gold medal was in my head the entire time I made that almost two-year comeback. Was I exhausted at certain times? Absolutely. Was I crying on my coach’s couch because I couldn’t move? Absolutely. But it didn’t mean I was going to quit. My goal was winning a gold medal, and I would not reach that goal if I sat there on my coach’s couch and said, “I’m done. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

You have to set goals, and when you have those self-doubts, or for me, when my body is exhausted, just know that you can get right back up and do it again. You may need to take a little longer break. Maybe you need to take a workout off but listen to your body, listen to your mind. Then get back out there because that goal is still sitting there for you to obtain.

Will you ever compete globally again?

I’D PROVEN TO THE WORLD THAT MATURITY, EXPERIENCE, DEDICATION, AND INGENUITY CAN MAKE UP FOR A LITTLE SENESCENCE. MUSCLE TIGHTENING IS NOT THE ONLY THING THAT HAPPENS TO OUR BODIES OVER TIME. WE GAIN KNOWLEDGE, FOCUS, AND UNDERSTANDING, AND THOSE THINGS CAN HELP US WIN.” —DARA TORRES

AGE IS JUST A NUMBER: ACHIEVE YOUR DREAMS AT ANY STAGE IN YOUR LIFE

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No, not after I missed the Olympic team by nine one hundreds of a second. It would have been my sixth Olympics in 2012. When I got done, I thought, “All right, that’s it.” I moved to Massachusetts, and it took me almost a year to want a swim. The coach had a stopwatch.

I said, “Let me just explain something to you very quickly. I have trained so hard my entire life. I am never doing anything fast again in this pool. I don’t care if there’s a guy next to me who wants to race me, I am going slow.” I don’t ever want to have to compete again.

I think I exhausted all of those options. Never say never, but it has been ten . . . no, eight years since my last competition . . . so long ago I almost miscounted. Even though I have no desire to get into a pool, it doesn’t mean I don’t feel competitive.

You create huge milestones for yourself that appear to keep you going. Why and what is your next milestone?

I think that’s just how I’m built, but I have not decided on my next goal or milestone.

Is that strange for you?

Yes, it is a little bit. I thought I knew what I wanted to do, which was to give motivational talks. Athletic teams would reach out to me, and the kids would ask me questions. Everything just stopped in its tracks with Covid-19. I do get to spend more time with Tessa, which is a lot of fun. What the future holds is a little unnerving.

What piece of advice do you give your teenage daughter that you might share with others?

Teenage girls can let emotions get in the way of things. Whether it’s with friends or decisions you make. When my father died, I learned you grieve, and you deal with the emotions, but then you have to reset. Sometimes my daughter gets emotional about things, and you have to let her get it out. Then I sit her down and say, “Look, this isn’t the worst thing in the world that’s ever going to happen to you.” I help her put things into perspective, so she can understand rather than just dwell on the emotions.

What do you have to do to be the best that you can be?

You have to give it your all. When I went to the Olympic Games and in 2008, I was ranked fifth in the world. I went to swim the 50 freestyle and ended up ranked first going into the finals. Everyone was gunning

Dara with her daughter, Tessa, who is also a talented athlete.

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CHRIS JORIANN PHOTOGRAPHY

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for me. I ended up with a silver, losing by one one-hundreth of a second.

For me personally, that was devastating because you can’t even blink one hundreth of a second. It is so fast. In my head, I started replaying it over and over again. What could I have done? I was looking at tapes and thinking about my race. Meanwhile, I had 30 minutes to get out of the pool, warm down, go to the award ceremony and get back in what’s called the ready room to prepare to swim as an anchor in a relay.

I had to erase the thoughts from my mind and compartmentalize. I told myself I could think about it when I’m done. For now, I had to focus on the task at hand, which is anchoring a relay. I remember thinking to myself, “Once the Olympics were over, how am I going to live with myself knowing that I lost by one hundreth of a second?” On the plane ride home, I had time to think about it. I thought to myself, “You know what? I gave it everything I had.” I left no stones unturned. There was nothing more I could have done. It wasn’t my race to win that day. On that day, that was the best that I could be. That is all anyone can ask for. So how could I be upset at myself for winning a silver medal, not losing, but winning a silver medal in the Olympic Games when I gave it everything I could? That is the best version of yourself.

Do you think God puts favor on certain people?

I do not know. When I spoke up for the first time about my eating disorder, I thought maybe there’s a reason why I had this so that I can help other people. I don’t really think God makes you better for a certain reason. I do think things happen for a reason.

What about the example you gave where you missed making the Olympic team by nine hundreths of a second. Was it favor, predestination or just that one person at that one moment had more desire/talent than you did?

It’s a tough question. I don’t know. I remember watching the race the night before when Michael Phelps won by a hundreth of a second and thought to myself, “Oh my gosh, that poor guy lost by one hundreth of a second. That has to be the worst feeling in the world.”

Do you think by you saying that you planted a thought … a self-fulfilling prophecy?

I don’t think that’s how things work. My coach thinks I didn’t touch the touchpad hard enough, but who knows.

You have to let it go.

You have to. You can’t dwell on it, or you’re never going to move on. I learned that on the 17-hour plane ride home. Did it still hurt? Absolutely.

Was it raw? Absolutely. But I gave it my best. So how could I be mad at myself and start questioning everything if I gave it everything I had?

I left no stones unturned. That just happened to be my fate that day.

Fate?

Fate. Yes. I knew you would get that.

No one knows. How does perseverance play into the equation?

Obviously, perseverance has been a way of life for me because I have been in sports for so many years. People ask me, “What gold medal or what medal or what world record, was your favorite?” It really is not about that. If you asked me that question at age 17, my answer would have been different. But now at age 53 and even when I swam in the Olympic Games in my 40s, it was not about winning but more about the journey that a person takes to get there. It was the reward of knowing that you were in one place and then all of a sudden, you find yourself standing on a podium at the Olympic Games, winning a silver medal. The journey, but not the outcome, becomes more important with age. What got you there is perseverance.

When I am really pushed to answer the question, “What are you most proud of ?” I would say perseverance. I’m probably most proud of being in the sport for as long as I was because not many people have done that. Hopefully when someone sees that it will make them feel like they can do that too. That is what’s most important to me.

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Isn’t it interesting how little things that seem so insignificant can have such an impact? What about a former swimmer who gave you her towel?

Oh, yes. She was my idol. I was 14, a skinny, little kid, and she was 21, a big, strong girl probably 50 pounds bigger than me. We swam in nationals in Gainesville when I was 14, and I beat her in the race that she held the world record in. I eventually broke her world record.

A year later, we were at a meet in Indianapolis. I had beaten her at nationals. We would eventually be swimming in the same race, but at that time, she was swimming in the heat right after me. There was a false start rule. My start is very fast, so the referees called it a false start.

The pool was really cold. I got out, and I was really cold. But she saw I was cold and gave me her towel. I learned sportsmanship from that experience, and it made me look up to her more afterward.

What was her name?

Her name was Jill Sterkel, and she was at the 1984 Olympic Games.

I swam poorly in the morning at my first Olympic Games because I was so nervous. She was my replacement and slated to take my spot in the evening. That day she took me under her wing. We did puzzles, watched soap operas (I had never watched in my life) and she put me at ease. They made the decision later on to put me back on the relay.

What she did was true sportsmanship because she was the one that was going to take my spot. She didn’t have to be so kind. It was something that I often remember and will always stay with me.

Do you think a lot about aging?

I do. I don’t know what woman doesn’t think about aging. People come up to me and say, “You look so different from when you were swimming.” I was in the sun and pruned for so many years. Going through menopause, you have a little pooch here, and things change.

Periodically, I look at pictures taken when I was really ripped and in shape, and I just don’t look the same. That is just nature and what is going to happen. You have to be okay with it. That is not to say you are not going to try to fight it. I do fight the process by working out a lot, using good skin creams, staying out of the sun and just being more aware now than I when I was younger. I definitely think about it.

You are wired as a “giver,” not a “taker”?

Yes, I like to take care of people. I do not like to be taken care of generally. Every once in a while, it is nice for your partner to take care of you, but I definitely look out for others. It is just who I am. It makes me feel better to give than to receive. Whether gifts or just doing something for someone. I feel so much better when I do something for a person or help someone do something.

And why is that?

I don’t know. That’s the way I have always been. I don’t think that’s something that’s learned. I think either you are like that or you’re not.

Do you feel that it might be because God blessed you?

I don’t know. Other people are touched with talents that are unexplained, and they are not wired like that. Maybe it is how you grew up and what was instilled in you early on, like what is right and wrong. This is something that is deep inside of me. I have always been the type that wants to take care of others.

What is your legacy?

Do not put an age limit on your dreams, and never think you’re too old to face your destiny. Set goals and try to do whatever brings you happiness, even if you don’t think you can do it, because you might just surprise yourself. ■

Dara knows that while it is helpful to have God-given talent, it is more important to work hard with discipline and willpower to reach your goals.

CHRIS JORIANN PHOTOGRAPHY

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Nourishing Shampoo/ True Botanicals

truebotanicals.com When Hillary Peterson was a young mother, she found out that she had thyroid cancer, and the diagnosis forced her to examine the ingredients in every beauty product she used. She vowed to stop polluting herself and the environment with toxic ingredients, so she founded True Botanicals.

The Nourishing Shampoo and Conditioner are packed with antioxidants such as green tea, aloe, and coconut, and scented with orange, lemon and ylang ylang. Most importantly, they are free of toxins, hormone disruptors and synthetic compounds.

Flower Power

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hether it’s sipped, gulped or slathered on your skin, it’s hard to avoid the restorative powers of natural botanicals which are turning up in everything this spring, from hair care to nail polish. The trend toward natural ingredients in skincare and supplements is a welcome respite from the chemical-clad multisyllabic components in the wellness salves of yesteryear, whose allergens were mysterious yet plentiful. The good news is that unlike the beta versions of these natural products, which started flooding the market a decade ago, the latest generation of wellness potions are as effective as they are gentle.

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The Super Elixir/WelleCo welleco.com

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Yerba Mate Wake Up Eye Gel/Good Molecules

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Original Flower Remedies/Bach

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Scientifically speaking: they may not help, but they can’t hurt.

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Hwa Ae Rak Women’s Balance Ginseng/Korea Ginseng Corp kgcus.com Packed with antioxidants, the sacred root has been used to treat fatigue, promote immunity, support healthy blood circulation, and enhance cognitive function. Women’s Balance, the proprietary blend from Korea’s top ginseng exporter, is specially formulated with soy extract and pomegranate to balance hormones for women in menopausal transition.

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Kombucha/Health-Ade

health-ade.com Daina Trout founded Health-Ade in 2012 (along with her husband, Justin, and best friend, Vanessa) after experimenting with homemade kombucha and selling it at the Brentwood Farmers Market in Torrance.

Nine years later, Health-Ade is the fastest growing kombucha brand on the market. The rest of America is becoming hip to what shoppers at the Brentwood Farmers Market knew back in 2012: good kombucha should taste like effervescent, fruity tea, not vinegar.

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Liquivida Lounge offers kits to medical professionals, medical spas and clinics to help patients treat vitamin deficiencies, stay hydrated and boost energy levels.

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ANDREY_POPOV / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

change creator

Elixir of Life

BY MEGAN ROBINSON

SHAYNA TEJADA WAS A HEADSTRONG EXECUTIVE DEDICATED TO THE WELLNESS OF OTHERS. THEN SHE DECIDED TO START TAKING HER OWN ADVICE.

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O verstuffed and comfortable, the chairs at Liquivida Lounge have wide armrests to accommodate the optimal arm position for an IV drip. There is gentle music playing in the background, and the light scent of lavender and rosemary linger in the air. “What are your wellness goals?” asks an attendant. Are you looking to boost athletic performance or cognitive ability? Do you want to counteract the effects of aging? Are you combating chronic illness? Feeling hungover after a night of indulgence? There is something here for everyone.

Liquivida Lounge, an intravenous nutritional company founded in 2013 by Shayna and Sam Tejada is on the forefront of the latest trend in radical wellness. Nutrients and hydration are pumped directly into your veins, improving absorption and thus having a more pronounced effect on the system than vitamins administered orally.

And who could be more in need of intravenous nutrition than a young entrepreneur? Getting a new business off the ground is a notoriously grueling process. There are sleepless nights. Subpar food eaten on the run. Elevated stress levels. Scant time for exercise. Since she and her husband, Sam, started the Liquivida Lounge, Shayna Tejada has gone through the gamut. Initially, she worked a second job

while lining up investors for Liquivida’s launch. She handles operations and finance while her husband raises capital and establishes strategic partnerships. But when your company is dedicated to wellness, your own health becomes a billboard for the brand, for better or worse.

Shayna and Sam have always understood the importance of good health. They started their first company, Rescue 101 (a training program for CPR) just out of college. Sam embarked on a career as a firefighter paramedic, and began working at a wellness center. Part of his job was concierge phlebotomy work, which involved visiting people’s homes, drawing their blood, and delivering it to doctors. He saw the high-end of health where IV therapy was an opportunity for the wealthy, but he had a strong desire to make those benefits accessible to everyone.

After partnering with a local doctor, Liquivida opened its first vitamin IV therapy storefront lounge in Fort Lauderdale in 2014, two years after Sam and Shayna first sketched out their business plan over lattes at Starbucks. Liquivida Lounge offers the relaxing indulgences of a modern spa, while the treatment includes a scientific analysis of the deficiencies in the client’s blood work.

More blood work is done post-treatment to track changes. The blood work is comprehensive and the report is several pages long.

In all her work to ensure Liquivida continues to make an impact in the wellness journeys of others, Shayna found that her own wellness had taken a back seat. She had been making empty promises to herself to take control of her health, but finally, at the beginning of 2020, she dedicated herself to fulfilling them. Shayna left her second job, and made Liquivida her top priority. She established a daily exercise routine for herself, along with monthly Liquivida IV drips for general wellness.

Her blood work suggested some potential for future heart disease, so she cut red meat from her diet, and now eats mainly vegetables, whole grains, and the occasional piece of chicken or fish. After eight years at the helm of one of the fastest-growing wellness companies in the country, Shayna is now applying the same tenacity that served her in business, to the advancement of her own well-being. “Practice what you preach, you know?” she said. “I finally stopped sacrificing myself and my body.”

In order to manage the demands of an expanding business, Shayna is learning to delegate some of the tasks that she has handled since Liquivida began. She is fortunate to have a tight and loyal support circle, which includes her husband and several other friends and family members who have been part of Liquivida’s growth. “I value loyalty over any other characteristic that somebody can have,” Shayna says. More than anything, she wants to be known as someone who impacted the lives of those around her in a positive way.

For Shayna, the most rewarding aspect of Liquivida, and her greatest measure of success is the impact her company has on the health of those who seek treatment. “When people can walk away feeling better, that’s the big thing,” she says. “That’s why Liquivida exists.”

Throughout the sleepless nights, the strategy sessions at Starbucks, and the stress of working multiple jobs, Shayna has learned this: “The sky is always going to fall or is always falling.

And you have to know that and not be surprised when it happens.

It’s all about how you react to it.”

In essence, as a business owner, things will go wrong. But the entrepreneurial woman is always equipped to handle it, whether she knows it or not. Success is never easy, never overnight. It is relative and changing. It is contingent upon hard work, but most importantly, it happens when one puts just as much effort into the success of her own well-being as she does her business. ■

ELYSIAN Publisher, Karen Floyd, with Shayna at the Liquivida Lounge in West Palm Beach, Florida.

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the

powerful effect of psychedelic retreats

BY MAKAYLA GAY

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Fresh Psilocybe cubensis mushroom, also known as “magic mushrooms.

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mind & body

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he had been struggling with depression and anxiety for more than 20 years. He was unable to open up to loved ones following the death of his wife. Both, participants in a psilocybin therapy program, took a 3-gram capsule of the psychedelic compound, and in the company of an experienced guide, spent five hours in a subconscious dream state. After three nights of exploration during a seven-day period, each returned home, feeling inherently renewed and utterly transformed.

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ith newly relaxed restrictions on the therapeutic and research uses of psilocybin, a hallucinogenic compound derived from certain species of mushrooms, the American medical community is taking a serious look into the healing potential of psychedelics. Far from images of recreational use during the 1960s, the modern-day approach to dosing with hallucinogens is a clinically controlled process supported by research from elite global institutions of health, including Johns Hopkins in Washington D.C. and the Imperial College of London.

Mounting scientific evidence shows that psilocybin and other plantbased hallucinogens can have a significant impact on patients being treated for depression, addiction, migraines, anxiety, trauma, and other psychological conditions.

Researchers from UCLA, NYU, and Johns Hopkins have compiled scientific statistics—spanning 70 years—regarding the use of plant-based psychotropics for patients struggling with various forms of mental illness.

In the most recent trials, patients were administered a dose of psilocybin and monitored by a medical professional in a controlled environment.

In case after case, after talk therapy and psychiatric drugs had not significantly improved a patient’s concerns, the addition of psilocybin to a comprehensive treatment plan ushered in significant breakthroughs.

In other words, when nothing else works, psilocybin has emerged as

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an unlikely but powerful remedy.

These studies have focused on psilocybin and other psychedelics’ success in treating specific issues such as anxiety and depression. In a 2016 investigation conducted by Johns Hopkins in concert with New York University Langone Medical Center, 51 adult cancer patients suffering from anxiety or depression were given a single therapeutic dose of psilocybin under controlled conditions.

Six months later, participants were questioned about the status of their depression and anxiety: 80% showed dramatic improvements in mood; 83% reported increased well-being; 70% viewed the psilocybin experience as one of the top spiritual events of their lifetime. Typically, patients with life-threatening cancers are treated for depression and anxiety with talk therapy and antidepressants or benzodiazepines. The success rates of traditional pharmaceuticals are nowhere near that of psilocybin, and often include troubling side effects.

So,

what exactly goes on during a psilocybin experience to yield such powerful changes in the brain? Participants often find it difficult to describe a “trip” to someone who hasn’t experienced psilocybin. However, one common assertion is that the auditory and visual hallucinations which accompany the consumption of ‘magic mushrooms’ border on the sublime, and what one experiences during the dosing affects the deeper consciousness of the individual.

From a scientific perspective, this involves a powerful rerouting of the neurological pathways of the brain. Let’s say for instance, an individual experiences trauma that makes it difficult for him or her to live peacefully. In the brain, this trauma is like a road cut with deep potholes and half eroded from frequent storms. Psilocybin is like a new coat of asphalt, repaving this pathway, making it easier to travel.

In addition to psilocybin’s use for psychological disorders, the compound has been associated with relief from acute migraines since the

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‘psychedelic 60’s.’ However, evidence was mostly anecdotal—until last year. A team of researchers from the Yale School of Medicine performed a double-blind, placebo-controlled study on the impact of psilocybin micro-dosing for individuals who frequently suffer from acute headaches.

They found that a single dose of psilocybin reduced the sufferers’ headaches by an average of 50 percent, and none of the participants reported any significant side effects or withdrawal issues. Scientists believe the chemical compounds in the mushrooms activate certain chemical receptors in the brain that correlate with migraines and cluster headaches.

Despite the promise of psilocybin for therapeutic purposes, it has been listed as a Schedule I drug—with high potential for addiction and no recognized medical use—since the United Nations’ 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances. Its use remains somewhat controversial, but for thousands of users all over the world, psilocybin in a controlled, therapeutic environment has been the key to a lifechanging breakthrough in physical or emotional wellness.

To accommodate the demands of global travelers seeking to deepen their consciousness or remedy a physical or emotional ailment, resorts around the world are creating packages which include guided psilocybin dosing in the context of a wellness retreat. These sites are located in countries where plant-based psychoactive drugs have been legalized for medical purposes and are therefore in full compliance with local laws.

Here are several renowned locations: MYCOMEDITATIONS Jamaica Nestled in the quiet beachfront town of Treasure Bay, MycoMeditations offers guided or group psilocybin dosing under the supervision of trained facilitators and licensed therapists. The resort partners with a locally sourced mushroom cultivation company to produce uniform 3-gram capsule dosages to ensure that guests have a safe experience. The resort’s concierge service includes private beachfront villas, a freshwater pool, a butler, and a personal chef who

creates three-course meals from locally sourced seafood. Because a psilocybin experience changes the neural pathways of the brain, the resort offers telecounseling for participants who want help integrating back into the “real world” after their experience.

TRUFFLES THERAPY Costa Rica Truffles Therapy in Costa Rica offers experiences that are designed specifically for the goals of the individual or group that wishes to participate. The program’s founders, Chi and Lety, are professional psilocybin facilitators who found their calling after an extended spiritual journey through multiple healing modalities and global religious traditions. Truffles Therapy is best known for its transformative microdose events in the areas of yoga, hiking, meditation, dance and sound healing. The center grows its own organic mushrooms and hosts the retreats at its intimate facility in the jungle of Costa Rica.

SYNTHESIS The Netherlands Every year, the Synthesis center in the Netherlands hosts a wellness retreat specifically designed for women in leadership. The five-day program takes place in a pastoral farmhouse, and the programming includes two psilocybin ceremonies, and success coaching on the topics of parenting, business, personal wellness, relationships, and how to have a greater impact on the world.

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rom the indigenous tribes of the Amazon to the early peoples of Siberia, psychedelic plants have long been used for spiritual ceremonies and the treatment of various ailments.

Now there is modern quantitative and qualitative data to support the therapeutic power of natural hallucinogens, including the little magic mushroom. ■

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Leila Heller Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition Mia Fonssagrives Solow.

A dynamic retrospective of sculpture

by Fonssagrives Solow, the eponymous show will survey the artist’s iconic works, from seminal abstract forms cast in bronze or carved from wood to her most recent bronze and aluminum aliens and monumental fiberglass forms.

10 W 58th Street New York, NY 10019 info@leilaheller.com 212-249-7695

Apple Tree At Night, 2016

“Sovereign seeks to shine a bright light on the natural beauty of women of all ages and all body types. No body is deserving of invisibility and I believe this work marks a long overdue paradigm shift. It’s time we revolutionize the image world and flood it with women in real bodies, feeling sensual and wonderful in their human skin.”

— JOCELYN LEE 2020

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philanthropy

Searching for Peace of Mind

BY GEMMA M. BARRITEAU, PHD, LMHC

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ACTRESS TARAJI P. HENSON RESPONDS TO A NATIONAL CRISIS

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EVERY HUMAN WALKS AROUND WITH A CERTAIN KIND OF SADNESS. THEY MAY NOT WEAR IT ON THEIR SLEEVES, BUT IT’S THERE IF YOU LOOK DEEP.” —TARAJI P. HENSON

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hen I was growing up in Brooklyn during the 1970s, I spent a lot of time people-watching, and these observational skills became the foundation of my career in mental health. I saw children as young as five balance household responsibilities with fun, playing games of street skully in between loads of washing at the laundromat. I saw grandmas pull out a switch and whip their grandkids for spilling milk or soiling their school uniforms, and boyfriends sweet-talk their furious girlfriends into forgiving their lascivious misdeeds, only to repeat the cycle from the beginning in a few weeks’ time. Sometimes, my mother would press a $5 bill into my hand and send me to Cacho’s Bodega for milk and eggs. That’s when I saw the neighborhood men sitting on the corner playing cards and drinking beer while complaining about how hard it was to find a job.

My parents had emigrated to the United States from the Island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, and they tacitly forbade us from playing with other children in the neighborhood. We were West

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African American youth, particularly those in urban areas, are exposed to trauma and stressors that warrant an increase in mental health resources, however, the Black community is seeing a decline in those resources. The Boris P. Henson Foundation is working to make mental health resources as prevalent in urban schools as math and science.

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Indian Blacks and they were African American-who-originated-fromthe-South, Blacks. This “colorism,” (a term used by Alice Walker in her book, In Search of Our Mothers Gardens), is “the prejudice that exists and resides within a group or culture.” My mother’s intention was to protect her children from the dangers she perceived in her adopted country, but she could not have imagined the impact that such elitism would have on the Black community as a whole.

I was always a keen observer, so rather than seeing the impermeable differences among the families in my neighborhood, I saw a community of people who were all struggling against systemic oppression which controlled our academic and economic opportunities. This journey of self-loathing enticed us to use alcohol and drugs as misplaced coping mechanisms, which led us even further down the wrong path to physical, sexual and emotional abuse, codependency, anxiety, depression and toxic shame. We learned from sources outside of ourselves to not ask for help because to do that was—and sadly still is—perceived as weakness.

As a gay child growing up in a religious family within a predominantly black community, I learned (as many children living under the rainbow do), to stay quiet and assess for safety before

speaking my truth. This silence is a deadly silence. It’s called shame.

It was the storm cloud that hung over me every day of my life until— at the age of 28—I met my first therapist, Mary Walker. She gave me the tools I needed to thrive, which in turn saved my life.

Mary was a perfect fit for me. She was kind, gentle, knowledgeable, empathetic, competent, non-judgmental and funny. She listened and created a safe space for me to be vulnerable. Finding someone who can be all of that for you, when you are feeling broken is everything. Sadly, many in the African American community are not as fortunate as I was. To this day, the mere mention of mental health therapy is often considered taboo. Award-winning actress, Taraji P. Henson (known to many as Cookie Lyon on Fox’s Empire) is working hard to change that.

Henson recently launched a Facebook Watch show called Peace of Mind with Taraji, devoted to destigmatizing and normalizing mental health therapy for African American women and families. This program is the offspring of the Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation, which she launched in 2018 and named in honor of her late father.

Ms. Henson is not new to advocating for mental health awareness in the African American community. On June 7, 2019, she went to Capitol Hill to testify before the Congressional Black Caucus Emergency Taskforce on Black Youth Suicide and Mental Health. During her impassioned statement, Henson revealed that she suffered from “depression and anxiety.” In 2003, her high school sweetheart, ex-boyfriend and father of her son was brutally murdered. Two years later, her father passed away after years of struggling against his own mental health issues; a result of his time in the Vietnam War. The after effects of these two major deaths contributed to the actress’ mental distress.

According to the Anxiety & Depression Association of America (ADAA), Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) “affects 6.8 million adults, or 31% of the U.S. population, in any given year. Women are twice as likely to be affected.” ADAA also reports that while “anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older, or 18.1% of the population every year,” it is not uncommon for people diagnosed with anxiety to also be diagnosed with depression. Statistics reported by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) indicate that in 2017, “an estimated 17.3 million adults in the United States had at least one major depressive episode.

This number represented 7.1% of all U.S. adults.”

Henson’s emotional trauma drove her to seek therapy for herself and her son, but finding the right provider was an ordeal. “It was impossible to find someone that looked like us or that was culturally competent.

The thing about therapy is that you have to feel like you’re in a safe enough place to be vulnerable. And how am I to feel vulnerable sitting across from someone that clearly does not understand what it’s like to walk in my shoes as a Black woman, or a Black young man? . . . If you culturally can’t understand or have no empathy, you know, how can you give me tools to something that you don’t understand?”

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he struggle to destigmatize mental health therapy in the African American community is pervasive. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) reports that “Negative beliefs toward people who live with mental conditions are particularly strong within the black community. In one study, 63% of African American respondents held that a mental health condition is a ‘sign of weakness.’” In my own practice over the last two years (2019-2020), I serviced a total of 73 clients. Of that 73, 46 were White and 14 were African American—a mere 19% of my clientele. As a practicing Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) with over fifteen years of experience, I can honestly say that a White client has never stated to me that they perceived seeking therapeutic treatment as a weakness. However, that sentiment is frequently revealed from my African American clients. To go a step further, some African American clients have lied about their problems because of the shame they feel, thus causing them to leave therapy altogether.

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Taraji P. Henson (best known as Cookie Lyon on Empire) at the Academy Awards in 2018. Having worked as a school teacher prior to embarking on an acting career, Henson’s experiences inspired her advocacy work in mental health.

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Growing up in a home where mental illness is apparent and undiagnosed often leads to self-medicating behaviors as a coping mechanism, which serves to numb negative feelings associated with the behaviors of the struggling family members. One significant study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Kaiser Permanente between the years of 1995 and 1997 indicates that children and families who experience frequent stress brought on by trauma such as violence, abuse, incarceration and addictions are more likely to experience a significant impact on their physical, emotional and mental health throughout their lifespan.

Results of the CDC showed that besides having lasting, negative effects on health, “adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and associated conditions, such as living in under-resourced or racially segregated neighborhoods, frequently moving, and experiencing food insecurity, can cause toxic stress (extended or prolonged stress). Toxic stress from ACEs can change brain development and affect such things as attention, decision-making, learning, and response to stress.” In fact, the CDC reports that “women and several racial/ethnic minority groups were at greater risk for having experienced 4 or more types of ACEs.”

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for help. The foundation is partnering with other nonprofits which celebrate the journey of mental health wellness, and also provides a comprehensive Resource Guide of Licensed African American therapists, information for support in Urban schools, Community Outreach Programs, cultural training programs for licensed therapists of all ethnicities, and Covid-19 Virtual Support programs to help empower parents to build their family’s social and emotional learning skills.

Ms. Henson is committed to using her celebrity status to normalize mental health therapy for African American communities across the nation. Her empathy and enthusiasm come not just from her personal history, but also from having been a teacher prior to becoming a successful actress. When she testified on Capitol Hill in 2019, Henson reflected on her experience teaching young African American boys who had been placed in her Special Education class.

Many of the bright Black boys who had been designated for Special Education were in fact cognitively competent but had behavioral issues due to undiagnosed and untreated traumas. In her testimony, she drove home the point that a mental health crisis is decimating African American communities across the nation. Black youth are confronted with a deadly combination of adverse experiences coupled with the stigma surrounding mental health, and a dearth of culturally competent therapists to service the demand. This has resulted in a 73% rise in suicide attempts among African American youth in recent years.

In his statement entitled the Crisis of Black Youth Suicide, the Director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Joshua A. Gordon, M.D., Ph.D. reports that “as of 2018, suicide became the second leading cause of death in Black children aged 10-14, and the third leading cause of death in Black adolescents aged 15-19. By combining data from 2001 to 2015, researchers were able to examine suicides among children ages 12 and younger and found that Black children were more likely to die by suicide than their White peers.”

Further study is required to assess the impact of mental disorders on all of our nation’s racial groups. Although members of ethnic minorities remain underreported in most studies of mental illness, they are overrepresented in studies of the conditions thought to generate susceptibility to mental illness such as poverty, racism, homelessness, incarceration, substance abuse, and poor access to health care. Taraji Henson admits that she doesn’t have all of the answers, but she is determined to be a part of the solution by getting the conversation started, both on her Facebook Watch show and through her Foundation’s initiatives. She’s also advocating for mental health education to be added to school curriculums, because her journey to mental wellness taught her—as mine taught me— that healing can only come after the conversation begins.■

he Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation (BLHF), led by Executive Director and long-time Henson friend, Tracie Jade Jenkins aims to destigmatize mental illness and raise awareness on issues in the African American community so that those who are struggling will be more likely to reach out

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Confined to home with an abuser could mean life or death.

The very measures put in place to reduce the spread of the coronavirus take away some of the few outlets survivors of abuse have for respite. Additionally, many crisis centers have canceled or postponed their annual fundraisers, adding tens of thousands more in lost revenue. Crisis centers have also had to pivot to provide their services via telehealth, adding unplanned expenses. Some need basic equipment, like laptops. And with fewer people donating due to economic uncertainty, we have a horrible perfect storm. Please consider supporting your local center during this global pandemic.

Silent Tears advocates on behalf of women and children by taking a systematic approach to addressing the complex issues associated with child sexual abuse and violence against women. Silent Tears provides resources that help frontline organizations as they support victims of these pervasive crimes.

To learn more about Silent Tears, please visit SILENTTEARSSC.ORG

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Let’s reignite your sense of wonder with a NYC getaway. When the time is right, AC Hotel New York Times Square is ready with an amazing stay designed for your best night’s rest. Guestrooms are an oasis of sleek furnishings, designated workspaces, and floor-to-ceiling windows to bring you closer to city views. Peruse original museum quality artwork or seek inspiration in the AC Library. We’re steps from everything the city has to offer, yet just enough removed to spread out and enjoy classic cocktails, iconic views and cozy spaces by the fireplace at our rooftop lounge, Castell. le printemps 2021 • readelysian.com •

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the gospel according to

Carmen D’Alessio

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PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF BILL KING

here are certain women walking among us who have reached a stratum of higher consciousness. Laughter is her sanctuary, friendship is her wealth, inner peace is her salve. Her aphorisms flow effortlessly, and her joie de vivre is infectious. Carmen D’Alessio is indeed such a woman.

The eldest child of a Peruvian industrialist, D’Alessio left her hometown of Lima and moved to New York in her early 20s. She traveled and socialized, constantly expanding her circle, and never failed to take down her friends’ names and numbers, as Andy Warhol famously noted. It was Carmen D’Alessio’s hallowed book—which contained everyone from Halston and Calvin Klein to Michael Jackson and the King of Spain—that became fundamental to the success of the most storied nightclub in history: Studio 54.

As legend has it, two scrappy outer-borough nightclub impresarios named Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell were determined to open a club in Manhattan, but they didn’t know any of the right people. They implored nightlife maven Carmen D’Alessio to work with them, and their collaboration is still the highwater mark for nightclubs around the world, often imitated but never equaled. For D’Alessio, Studio was one of many colorful chapters in a life well lived. She shared her greatest lessons with ELYSIAN: Life is a celebration. I am on a mission from God to help people celebrate life! Every moment we have on this planet is a gift. Take time to smell the flowers, luxuriate in the sunshine, take a walk in the park with a friend. Cloak yourself in gratitude.

Don’t drown in a glass of water. It takes a lot of work to pull off a legendary event, and I am meticulous about every detail.

When I would get into a frenzied state, my mother would remind me that I was “drowning in a glass of water.” And she was always right! Everything did turn out for the best, time after time.

There is beauty in variety. Make friends everywhere you go, all over the world, from all walks of life. Downtown and uptown. That was the key to Studio 54: the mix. We had titans of industry, beautiful people, creative people. You’ve got to have variety in a party, and in your life.

Go with the flow; you can’t swim against the current. Nothing ever stays the same, so I always embrace change. When I was doing Studio, I was called the Queen of the Night, but now the sun is my fuel. I’m doing rooftop lounges and sunset brunches in New York, Ibiza, Tulum, Rio. I’d rather spend time with my friends and head home before it gets too boozy. I catch a good night’s sleep so I can get up early, slip into my bikini and head to the beach.

Find peace with yourself in order to be at peace with others. Take time alone every day to meditate and pray. Get in touch with your body and soul. I’m into health, vitality, and wellness. I exercise every day, and I watch what I eat, mostly paleo and organic. I listen to my body and follow my heart. That brings me peace. ■

back story

PHOTOGRAPH BY LUCIANA PAMPALONE

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eemingly untouched by time, Carol Alt is as exquisite today—at 60 years old—as she was in 1979 when she shot the first of 700 magazine covers during her prolific career as a supermodel. Today she is best known as a role model for wellness. The bestselling author of four books on raw food cuisine, Alt believes that the key to aging gracefully is natural food, restful sleep, and a positive mental attitude. And she practices what she preaches. During our cover shoot in New York, Alt mingled cheerfully with the ELYSIAN photo crew while sipping on Health-Ade Kombucha and munching on raw almonds and an Active Greens protein snack from Organic Food Bar. ELYSIAN is dedicated to telling the stories of women whose journeys are ongoing; who evolve as they age, breaking down stereotypes which suggest that beauty, empowerment and personal growth come with an expiration date. As we compiled this issue, with its focus on wellness, we were continually reminded of the adage “beauty comes from within,” because it manifests in the physical form based on how we care for our minds and bodies. Carol Alt is an amazing representation of this ideal, and we are delighted to have her as one of this issue’s Inspiring Women.

As a woman who has carved out the unique path of a multilingual, multi-hyphenate model-actress-authorentrepreneur, Carol Alt has defied archaic conventions which suggest that beautiful women can’t be smart; models can’t act; and actors can’t write. “Don’t let anyone put you in a box,” she exhorts in her Inspiring Woman interview.

We hope that Carol Alt’s words—and her life—will serve as a clarion call to us all. ■

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Pearl Floral Ring

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Meet Annabelle, the star of the children’s book series “Annabelle’s Best Ever.”

Composed of beautiful watercolor illustrations, Rhonda Atkins Leonard’s work is aimed at children up to age six and is sure to spark every child’s imagination and bring a smile to their face.

annabellestore.com