New Candidate for Hero – Alexandra David-Neel
Just discovered this amazing personality- Ms. David-Neel was the first woman to be granted the title of Lama in Tibet. As a young anarchist and feminist, she rejected the conventional life expected of her and went off on a spiritual quest. She hiked in to Tibet when it was still forbidden to enter and wouldn’t take no for an answer. She wrote over 30 books including Magic and Mystery in Tibet, some of which became quite popular, and was still writing when she died at 101. She traveled extensively in Asia, especially throughout the Himalayas, and at one point lived in a cave as a hermit for two years.
Wikipedia describes her as “a Belgian-French explorer, anarchist, spiritualist, Buddhist and writer, most known for her visit to Lhasa, Tibet, in 1924, when it was forbidden to foreigners.” Check out this cheeky bio at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE3D61338F933A25752C0A96E948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1
