Tantra invites us to embrace every aspect of experience with presence, compassion, and curiosity.  Tantra Yoga cultivates our connection with ourselves and with life, honoring ourselves and all life as sacred.  In this class we’ll explore gentle yoga postures, pranayama (breathwork), meditation, visualization, and energy awareness techniques designed to awaken vitality, balance the nervous system, and allow inner stillness.  We may explore partner or group exercises around communication, presence, and authentic connection—always with clear consent and boundaries.  This workshop welcomes students of all levels who may be seeking greater self-awareness, emotional balance, spiritual growth, or a more embodied way of living.  Come as you are and discover a practice that nurtures your body, calms your mind, and opens your heart.

Vanessa will guide a 90-minute asana sequence focused on poses to open the hips and shoulders.  In yoga we recognize that addressing the body at the physical level can impact our emotional and mental states and wellbeing.  Conscious practice to release the hips helps us to surrender, accept the cycles of life, and flow with our emotions in any context or situation.  Targeting tension in the shoulders and inviting it to soften supports heart-healing through empathy, self-love, and compassion.  The practice will be suitable for students with all levels of experience; Vanessa affirms that, “Yoga belongs to all of us. Yoga is the path of reminding us who we really are and why we are here."  We will take about a 20-minute break before reconvening to explore traditional Yoga philosophy around the concepts of Karma and Dharma.  These are themes that we can consider and apply in our lives, having to do with the energy we put into the world and what we receive, and understanding our inner being and sacred mission or purpose.  If you’re curious about Yoga and wellbeing, don’t miss the opportunity to connect with yourself and awaken the beautiful energy that vibrates inside you.  Please dress to move, and bring water, a Yoga mat, towel, pen, notebook, and a snack for the break.

9:30 - 11:00 AM Asana Practice 

11:00 - 11:20 AM Break 

11:20 - 12:30 PM Yoga Philosophy Discussion

​In the first half of this workshop 9:00 - 10:30, Vanessa will lead Asana practice guiding us through hip-opening and arm-balancing sequences building up to inversions as peak poses.  She will emphasize where to bring our awareness as we advance, illuminating the subtleties of inversions.  Our hips help us to feel our center of gravity when our bodies are in the air, which is essential to find balance.  While opening the hips happens with consistent practice over time, we should feel grateful for wherever we are in the process and continue to practice with dedication free from attachment to an outcome.  Working with arm-balances builds our strength and develops our focus creating the steadiness required to find bliss in inversions. Vanessa will offer cues to engage our entire body strength rather than trying to carry these balances with only the shoulders and wrists.  She offers a safe and accessible approach for practitioners of all levels and will teach modifications to accommodate any injuries or body cycles.  

After a time for break, we will reconvene from 11:00 to 12:30 to explore Yoga Philosophy starting with the Yamas and Niyamas.  Traditionally students began to practice Yoga with the Yamas and Niyamas, the ethical guidelines for daily practice, and were required to develop a good foundation applying these principles before they would receive instruction with Asana.  This has changed in modern times with the commercialization of Yoga, the emphasis shifting to physical practice and only students with dedication later finding their way to philosophy.  This discussion will explain the significance of these ten precepts and offer insights on how we may apply them in our daily lives.  We’ll talk as well about Karma Yoga with the Bavaghad Gita, a beautiful book from the Mahabharata, a sacred Sanskrit scripture which elucidates the tenants of Yogic philosophy.  Set on the battlefield between the Pandava and Kauranva, two groups from the same family lineage, the story centers a dialogue between Pandava prince Arjuna, who feels doubt and confusion overwhelmed by his duty to flight in the war, and Lord Krishna, who guides Arjuna to realize his duty, or Dharma, and stop suffering.