Asana and Alignment
Subtle Body
Nutrition
Self Inquiry
Sacred Texts
Yoga Therapy
Kundalini Energy
Cynthia’s classes support the power of curiosity. It is through investigation and attention to detail that the experience of the body, breath, and heart begin to tune our attention to its finest point. The body is included in this attention, and becomes a map for our reverence. The purpose of the practice is to simply notice ever deeper into the silence and the pulsation that is the root of all form.
In addition to teaching asana Cynthia teaches courses in yoga philosophy, the subtle or energetic body, human anatomy for yoga, the sacred texts of yoga and Tantra, and yoga ethics.
Her passion for biomechanics, Tantra, the energy body, non-dual self-inquiry, and the beautifully rooted grace of the yoga asanas themselves shines in her classes. She believes time on the mat should be playful, fun, inquisitive, and a celebration of this amazing dance we call experience.
She has been instrumental in the creation and leadership of Yoga Soup’s 200 and 300 Hour Teacher Trainings, is E-RYT 500, YACEP (she teaches continuing education), C-IAYT (is a certified Yoga Therapist), is Pilates certified, and holds a Masters degree in Nutrition (MSNE). She has over 25 years of study with world class teachers in several schools of yoga, including Yoga Therapy, Ashtanga, Iyengar, Vinyasa Krama with Srivatsa Ramaswami, modern flow blends. She has studied with many beloved meditation, Advaita, non-dual Tantra, kundalini-Shakti, and self-inquiry teachers, particularly Rupert Spira, the late Bonnie Greenwell, the late Sally Kempton, Sravana Borkataky-Varma, and other leading scholars in Tantra.
For information on her ongoing trainings, see TheEmbodiedPathYoga.com
Cynthia believes strongly in educating students about Kundalini energy (not to be confused with the system of yoga in the same name). The poses of Yoga are designed to wake up our subtle body, and yet when this happens- as it inevitably does for many people- we often find ourselves without a compass or a safe community. Cynthia offers support and education.
This site will offer writings and explorations on topics related to the body, the breath, the subtle energies, non-dual literature and self-inquiry, Kundalini energy, & meditation techniques in order to facilitate understanding and conversation around these complex and beautiful topics.
About Tantra
Tantra:
Tantra is a complex philosophical and scientific system similar to Yoga. The two have a lot in common, including many of the terms and philosophical ideas around the self and the universe. Tantra is a vast series of sacred texts, practices, and schools, some of which had practitioners really going more for personal powers of manifestation and some of them were more about awakening into complete saturation with the divine.
Yoga, which many of us know well, means union (yuj) or withdrawal of awareness along a sequential, dedicated path that culminates in a drawing inward and cessation of thoughts, emotions, sensations, perceptions, and notions of individuality so completely that one disappears into the divine. This is called Samadhi.
Tantra is expansion through that same state of union, meaning there is no one path inward but rather infinite paths that may or may not require a sequenced approach. The word tantra is made of tanoti- expansion, and trayati- liberation, liberation of energy from the bonds of matter. Instead of following a singular path inward and toward cessation, tantra uses any and all tools or materials from daily life as a valid resource for awakening and describes that awakening as dynamic, pulsating, shining, inclusive, and whole.
Quote from the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra:
Tantra never seeks to reform, instead it says there is a path for you, whether you are a saint or a sinner, religious or atheist, enlightened or ignorant, sensual or abstemious, emotional or intellectual, attached or detached. Do not wait for the day when you conquer your inner qualities and emotions, but start where you are. Do not do the impossible.
The Feminine Divine:
Because of this approach where we start where we are, the key Tantric practice is called single pointed focus, or dharana. Dharana is extreme focused concentration and means “to hold, to possess” -the state is attained when we are able to hold something to the exclusion of all else, success in dharna leads to dhyana or meditation, complete and spontaneous absorption in the object of dharna.
Once dharana is practiced the person begins to dive that focused awareness into the heart. In many ways Tantra is a heart-centered practice. The heart is considered that fundamental aspect of ourselves that notices itself, that is self-reflexive. A crystal, beautiful as it is, can reflect the world but it cannot reflect back upon itself, or see itself. The heart can. Therefore the heart is the seat of the self, the center upon which we may notice what we notice. In tantra this noticing, this self-reflexive heart, is the core of awareness.
As the feminine divine, all of life becomes a mirror for the heart. I believe that these mirrors are everywhere, in all thought, actions, sensations, and emotional responses. In this play of the feminine divine we shine that mirror upon ourselves. We are here to immerse into the whole, complete, overflowing core of the heart.
