Teachers and Lineage
We honor our teachers in these fields both direct:
Sage Hayes, Nkem Ndefo, Meenadchi, DeeDe, Dawn, Shilpa Jain, Devika Shankar, Elaine Zook Barge, Dave Berger, Diane Poole-Heller, Joshua Sylvae, Mahshid Hager
and indirect: Prentis Hemphill, Staci Haines, Peter Levine, Grace Lee Boggs, Resmaa Menakem, Parker Palmer, adrienne maree brown, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and many more.
We honor the beloveds who are in close practice with us:
Our land & food home with Coming Home Seeds
Our political home with Sweet Freedom Farm
Our practice space with Yaad Wellness
Our network of colleagues and collaborating practitioners
and every client we've worked with: your healing practice teaches me every day.
About Char (she/we/love/sister/mama)
Our multidisciplinary practice includes:
Advanced training in Somatic Experiencing Trauma Resolution
Certification as a Resilience Toolkit practitioner
Certification as a STAR (Strategies for Trauma Awareness & Resilience) practitioner
Training in Emergent Strategy's Holding Change facilitation and mediation models
Training as a Conflict and Grief Circle facilitator
Training in Sage Haye's Embodied Liberation approach to SE
Training in Dave Berger's BASE approach to Concussions & PTSD
Training in Diane Poole-Heller's approach to Neurobiology & Attachment
Training in Resmaa Menakem's Somatic Abolitionism
Training in Meenadchi's DNVC (Decolonizing Non-Violent Communication) approach
Thousands of hours training & practice in Mysore style Yoga rooms
Ongoing learning with mentors, colleagues, and community in workshops, trainings, life together.
Char (she/we/love/sister/mama) practices from the commitment to end cycles of harm and violence, strengthening communities for the possibility of more justice and more care. Our work is multidisciplinary, often barefoot, and preferably around a nourishing meal.
I came to Somatics and Conflict Transformation out of desperation for change in my own life, and the journey has been through roles as harm-er as well as harmed. We are committed to mentored learning and unlearning around how to hold biography, trauma and illness, various forms of power and privilege, and the stories that led me to this work. I deeply value companioning those of us working to call in and befriend the inner monsters.
I am grateful for the deep influence of the language, values, culture, landscape and people of Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where I lived the first half of my life. We now live among the nettles, mugwort, lindens, roses and the sweet waters that flow from the Catskill mountains. & we are in a multi-generational love affair with the Atlantic ocean, currently from a distance...
We live with a fiery, mystic, chronically ill/disabled body, and our calendar is guided by the movement of the moon. 1:1 client work is by referral only.
Char is also a commitment to nourishment, and feeds the folks in our area in collaboration with Zien-Celeste at Beloved Kitchen.