This is the forth video in a four part series I did with Anusara Yoga teacher, Sianna Sherman. If you’ve missed part one, you can find it by clicking here.
In this video, Sianna speaks about priestessing and teaching yoga. She also shares with us what’s next on the horizon for her teaching this year. As an added bonus, there is a second video at the bottom of the post, a excerpt from the Immersion, where Sianna talks about the Bhakti (Love) wave that Yoga is riding today.
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Transcript of the Interview, Part 4:
Q: Do you do any of that priestess work still? I saw on your bio some…
Sianna Sherman
A.Well that’s actually one way that the priestessing comes through, in a certain way, like this time, you know, it was so magical, because I was going to medical school, and then I pulled out, and then I went to naturopathic medical school, and then I left that, you know, deferred for a little while, went to India, came back from India, knew that Yoga was a huge part, a whole series of events happened. I had met Gurumayi and enormous alchemy and transformation happened in my whole being, and then I landed back in Seattle and in one day my life changed, and I ended up putting everything in storage in a friend’s basement, and I got in my car and went to Oregon. And I had heard about this women’s herbal festival, and I went to this festival, and I met my teacher who was this woman from Ireland, and she was this Celtic priestess, and so as soon as I met her she said, you know, would you like to be my apprentice? And I said yes, of course, so I lived on her land in a tent, and I learned ceremonies, and I learned about the plants, and I learned how to make medicines, and we used to take, you know, we had wedding ceremonies, we helped people make that traverse from life to death, we tended to sick people who were feeling really challenged in their health, and we helped to make medicines for them. We took young girls, who were coming of age, and we had coming of age ceremonies for them. So all of this, so now, I think it definitely slips in even to my Yoga teaching, like right now we are in the middle of a training called an Immersion, and it’s the last of three, and what we’re going to do is, everyone’s been creating these blessings for each other for the last six months, and today, they don’t know it yet, it’s going to happen in about five minutes, they’re going to write these blessings out in beautiful colors, we brought all of these crayons, markers, and big sheets of paper, and they’re are going to write their blessings out, and then we are going to put the blessing all around the four corners, all around the perimeter of the room, and then we are going to light all of the candles, and it’s a blessing temple. And so then we are going to do our practices inside of the blessing temple so that everyone has been generating these blessings for each other, and then we receive them and we will go around and read them and do the rest of our…we’ll have our grand finale practice tomorrow inside this blessing temple. So for me, that’s sort of like my worlds are bridging. In this particular training, also, has been marked by some of the very special Pagan holidays, so to speak, or Celtic holidays. So we started with Summer Solstice, and we’re concluding with the Winter Solstice, and that was on purpose. You know, so that we would go through that cycle, and it’s called Wheels of Life.
Q: So what’s next for you? What’s on the horizon? Is there going to be another big phase… or is this it? {Sianna} another name? {Ginger} or, another name!?
A.I don’t know {laughs}, I’m really enjoying what I have right now.
{Ginger} We are too, Sianna, stick with us!
I have a great schedule for next year, it’s called The Harmony Tour. I’m super excited about it. And what’s so special about next year for me is that, and you’ll see when Jeremy‘s orchestrated something beautiful, but I have about 30 friends that I am co-creating and collaborating with next year, everything from music and storytellers and philosophers and hula-hoopers and the AcroYogis. So I have arranged these events throughout the year where there’s more collaboration in bringing all of these arts together, so to speak, so it’s called The Harmony Tour, and it’s about the bigger collective creative force of coming together and celebrating life in these ways. So, next year is all about community, harmony, and collaboration, and super high vibration creative ways and there’s more festivals, the Wanderlust Festival, and Kenny and I have some really beautiful festivals that we are teaching at also.
{Ginger} Cant’ wait!
{Interview Concludes}
As a special bonus, here is some footage from the end of the Immersion where a student, Abel Gomez, describes how Anusara yoga has affected his life and what Anusara means to him. In response, Sianna describes the Bhakti (Love) wave that Yoga is riding today.
To see Sianna Sherman’s 2010 Harmony Tour schedule, check out OpentoGrace.com
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