Ski bum, photographer, Zen student—
Z is for Zen is a wild ride toward awakening

Bettina Mueller is the author of A Taste of Heaven and Earth (Harper Perennial) which was nominated for a Julia Child Award, The World in a Bowl of Tea (Harper Perennial) and A Tea Garden in Tivoli (Tea House Press) winner of the Silver Independent Publishers award for best gardening book of 2015.

Her garden in the Hudson Valley also won the Gardenista International Garden Design award for 2015. At various times she’s been a cook on a working tugboat, a news photographer, owner and chef of a pioneering vegetarian restaurant, and executive of a cutting-edge Internet company.

Simultaneous with this throughout most of her life she’s been a serious student of Zen and the Japanese Tea Ceremony. She is in the pioneering generation of young American women who studied Zen in the traditional manner.

She continues to practice, leads meditation groups, and is an accomplished speaker who gives talks on how to apply Zen principles to the challenges of modern life.