CALL TO ACTION
We look around and see suffering in the world. Much violence has been done to women’s bodies and spirits in the imbalance of power and repression of the sacred feminine. We rise to take action by empowering other women to be healers and yoga teachers in their own communities so they can awaken to their own value and power.
Meet Psalm.
When Psalm traveled to India to do yoga for her own healing, she felt called to connect with sisters there to share some of her learning’s. This story is the beginning of the need to take action, the need for the “Courage to Rise.” Listen to her story in her own words.
“i am teaching yoga and kundalini tantra to sex workers in calcutta the city of joy and the city of much suffering. why? because these practices transformed my life from feeling like there was so much suffering in myself and the world that i didn’t want to go on living, to having the strength to turn the poison of suffering into medicine for myself and then share that medicine with others to turn into into gold, the gold of human compassion.”
Do Things Change?
“one kolkata sister told me a story of growing up with a mom who didn’t believe her when she said her stepdad was molesting her. so she ran away. but she didn’t get far and so she came back and fought her stepdad. and later her mom sent her away to school and there she heard people whisper. her mom was a sex worker and the children shamed her and her mom drank poison to escape a cruel life. and this woman telling me the story, pinkie, her story didn’t stop then. no it didn’t stop when i was ready to be done, when i flinched and wanted to look away. she told of leaving the school, living in the terror of her stepdad again and running to an uncle who offered her money for sex, and when she said no, he said, “why not,your mom did. and she told a story of running to the police, a group of men who tried to molest her and how she hid in a burlap sack that almost caught fire and she had to run again.”
Yes. Change Comes With the Courage to Act.
“and finally she was given some chance, though meager. and she is living in the sex workers co-op building even though she says she is not a sex worker herself, even though it is hard to turn down the money. but she says she can’t repeat her mothers life. she realized that when she put a bottle of poison to her mouth, wanting to end it all, seeing no escape. but something in her rose up, and she said, “i won’t let them say her mother did it and she did it” and some function of survival or pride drove her forward. and that’s how i met pinkie.”
The Courage to Rise and Empower Others.
“practicing on a dusty concrete floor with a tin roof overhead the women made me promise to come back in august, i gave my word today because we are forming a bond here. and i have full faith the money and means will be provided for. i want to bring a small group and i want to train others to do this outreach. in calcutta alone, there is a great hunger. pinkie, who is a beautiful young woman living in calcutta going to business school, who says everyday is still a struggle but her smile lights up the room and she speaks very good english. and i came to witness but at some point in her story i made her stop. It was time to move forward. yes we must be honest about our wounds, we clean the wounds by telling our stories, but we are not confined to those stories. that is why this practice is so strong. we move forward. the power of the breathing changes lives, flips a switch and we are not those dim selves anymore, we are not trapped by the stories anymore.i asked pinkie if she wanted to keep teaching the classes after i left, and she said yes. and things do change. they do change one seed at a time, and the seed is the most potent, because it contains all the information of the life sleeping inside it. and pinkie is still teaching that class now for the sex workers on a dusty concrete floor, under a tin rooftop in kolkata.”
Pinky now is teaching yoga to over 40 sex workers in Kolkata. And there is need for more; more teaching, more healing, more change.
Mission Statement:
1. To host women’s empowerment circles with concrete tools of yoga and transformational breath work to heal emotional wounds, blocking our power and to reclaim the sacred feminine energy that lives in our bodies.
2. To train women teachers who in turn form and lead circles in their own communities and around the world.
3. To create awareness and advocacy around women’s issues through the story telling of the documentary: Shakti.
4. To connect communities with access to more resources to areas where suffering is more prevalent.