Shamanic Yoga Institute

11/29/2025

11/29/2025

The teaching: the Self isn’t separate from the world. It’s woven through it.

The practice: to meet each moment inquiring, “Can I find myself here, too?”

11/26/2025

The word Ta**ra comes from two roots.

Tan implies expansion—the ability we have as individual beings to expand beyond the constructs and behaviors the mind creates.

Tra implies liberation—the state of freedom we feel when we’re no longer tied to the reactions of the ego, one of the mind’s many functions.

Ta**ra, the joining of these two concepts, also traditionally refers to weaving.

The metaphor focuses on the thread, or weft, that is drawn through the lines of yarn—the warp—to create fabric. Once the cloth is woven, you may not be able to readily see each individual thread, but it is the first threads, the warp, that create the cloth and always retain their original nature.

The activity of the mind keeps us locked into the pattern of the cloth, obscuring the thread that wove us here. Ta**ra is the view that allows us to see otherwise.

- Alan Finger

**ra

11/24/2025

I practiced in the early hours this morning, with hope as my governor. Because...

“We are bringing in a new story.”

Not waiting for it. Not wishing for it. Bringing it in.

I call it close in this time of unease because my becoming is tied to yours and ours. And we have work to do.

📖 “Prepare” by Joy Harjo

Thank you for the video of Christine!

11/23/2025

When we began connecting with Don Alejandro, he was taken by the rich mesa work we’re doing with the land. He saw allyu—the living web of relationship between people, mountains, ancestors, and the sacred. He saw kinship across 6,000 miles.�
At Shamanic Yoga Institute, our commitment is to amplify Indigenous voices and create space for medicine keepers to share their wisdom within our community. We are honoured to hold the container, so they can share their medicine.�
Don Alejandro also comes to honour the Coast Salish peoples—Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation)—whose land we gather on. This exchange is between him and this territory, between Andean and Coast Salish mountains, with those called to learn with respect.�
Mountains Calling Mountains�March 6-9, 2026 | Squamish Nation Totem Hall
�Oracle reading • Chumpi stone healing + initiation • Seven Ñustas healing + initiation • Inca Kallpa meditation • Energy cleansing • Sacred ceremony
�Space is limited. Early bird pricing for waitlist members only.
�Comment MOUNTAINS to join.

11/21/2025

Online Mentorship Series - Patanjali the Shaman- Ta**ra of the Yoga Sutras. Comment MENTORSHIP for details.

11/19/2025

In the South sits Varahi—one of the Ashtamatrikas, the mother goddesses seated at the eight directions in Ta***ic practice.

The Aṣṭamātṛkāstotram evokes her: In the south abides the revered Vārāhī, seated upon a buffalo. Red in color, holding the elephant goad in her hand, O revered Vārāhī, salutations unto you.

The Ashtamatrikas emerged from Durga during her battle with the demon Raktabija—whose every drop of blood that touched the ground spawned a new demon. They were created as cosmic protectors to fight what seemed unbeatable: the enemy that multiplies every time you wound it.

Think about that. The problems that regenerate. The patterns that spawn new versions of themselves every time you think you’ve conquered them.
But what we’re learning is this:

Varahi protects not by shielding you from difficulty, but by giving you the strength to face what you’ve been avoiding. She doesn’t comfort—she confronts. She uses her tusks to dig through the soil of our lives—unearthing what we’ve buried, exposing the roots of our limiting beliefs, demanding we look at what’s slowing our sadhana.

Her teaching method is radical honesty. She reveals akshama—our intolerance, our resistance to what is—not to shame us, but so we can develop kshama, true tolerance. The capacity to hold reality with compassion instead of fighting it.

And when we stop resisting? When we let her plow through what needs to be turned over? Bhajita sukha emerges—shared joy. The kind that only comes after you’ve stopped pretending.

This is what the South direction offers: cosmic protection through excavation. The willingness to let the earth goddess dig up what keeps regenerating in the dark.

***icGoddess ***icPractice ***icWisdom

11/17/2025

The Vijñāna Bhairava Ta**ra is a 9th-century Tantrik text that opens with one of the most powerful moments in spiritual literature.

Bhairavi—the Supreme Goddess, Shakti herself—has studied everything. She knows the teachings. She's learned the practices. She's devoted herself completely.

And still, she seeks more.

Not from doubt. From devotion.

She banters with Bhairava, her lover, "Show me the essence. Take me beyond concepts to direct experience. I don't want to understand awakening—I want to taste it."

She speaks on behalf of all of us.

What makes this text extraordinary is that Bhairavi—the feminine principle—is positioned as the gateway. She teaches us that the way to awareness is not through transcending the body or bypassing embodiment, but through Her: through devotional attention, through deep inquiry, through refusing to settle for intellectual understanding.

In response, Bhairava offers 112 practices. Not as a ladder. Not as stages to master. But as portals into centering awareness—each one a different doorway offering immediate access to the ground of being.

This month, our Shamanic Yoga Teacher Training students began studying this text together. We're sitting with Bhairavi's inquiry. We're practicing centring awareness. We're learning that spiritual evolution requires both direct experience and commitment to practice—responsive, devoted, ongoing.

What questions are you asking? What are you ready to taste rather than just understand?

**ra ***icYoga ***icWisdom

11/16/2025

Ta**ra of the Yoga Sutras: Patañjali the Shaman
A 6-Week Mentorship with Dr. Christine Selda

The Yoga Sutras are often studied as philosophy—beautiful, profound, but separate from daily life.

Through the Tantrik view, these teachings become lived experience. Not concepts to master, but practices to embody. Not stages to achieve, but an ongoing relationship with awareness itself.

This January, Dr. Christine Selda is offering a unique mentorship series for sincere practitioners ready to experience the Sutras as a living, embodied practice—not just philosophy to study, but medicine to live.

Six Thursday evenings. Philosophy, mantra, satsang, and experiential practice.

We’ll journey through Patanjali’s tenets with Shakti as our guide, exploring the methodologies for experiencing the ground of awareness and living your yoga—not someday, but in the choices you make, the way you relate, the life you inhabit.

No prior knowledge of the Sutras required.

Thursdays 5-7 PM PST:
January 8
January 22
February 5
February 19
February 26
March 19

Comment MENTORSHIP for registration details.

***icYoga

11/13/2025

This is not something that happens twice.

Don Alejandro Apaza Machaca is 73 years old. He is a master Paqo from Kiko community in the Qero Nation—the last Inca town in Cusco, one of the most sacred places on earth. He is one of the last living lineage holders of the Chumpi Paqos, guardians of cosmic balance and masters of stone healing.

For his first 40 years, he lived in the high Peruvian Andes, surrounded by sacred mountains, condors, pumas, and mystical waterfalls. He received initiations and permissions from the powerful beings of the land to carry this wisdom forward.

And in March 2026, for the first time ever, he is bringing these authentic Andean teachings to Squamish Territory.

Mountains Calling Mountains
March 6-9, 2026
Squamish Nation Totem Hall

Four days of direct transmission from a living master:
• Oracle reading (coca/bay leaves)
• Chumpi stone healing technique + personal initiation
• Seven Ñustas (rainbow spirit) healing + personal initiation
• Inca Kallpa meditation and energy cleansing practices
• Sacred ceremony on the land

This is for healers, medicine people, yoga teachers, bodyworkers, shamanic practitioners, counsellors, and anyone awakening to deeper spiritual wisdom.

The waitlist is now open.

Comment MOUNTAINS and we’ll send you the waitlist link to secure your place before registration opens to the public.

Mountains calling to mountains. Medicine keepers meeting across continents. Honouring the land and the ancestors who hold it.

Are you called?



11/08/2025

Cradling: Acknowledge at dusk and dawn what is Good, True & Beautiful about yourself - Oceanic Shamanism **ra

11/07/2025

The darkness is not something to fix.

At the winter solstice, we don’t gather to “banish” the dark or “fight” the night. We gather to honor it. To sit with what the darkness reveals. To let the longest night teach us about rest, about gestation, about the seed waiting in frozen ground.

The light returns—not because we force it, but because the wheel turns. Because this is the way of things.

This threshold is met with fire, with song, with community.

December 20th, we’re gathering for a Solstice Song Circle and Community Potluck at Squamish United Church.

No performance. No polished voices required. Just letting sound move what has been held, calling in what wants to be born.

Dr. Christine Selda and Rochelle Quarry will guide this circle.

This is how we mark the turning of the wheel. Together.

Comment SONG CIRCLE for details and to reserve your spot.