Shamanic Yoga Institute

04/10/2026

22/09/2026

Today, light and darkness meet.
Neither asking the other to disappear.

For a moment, they stand together in equal measure — a reminder that the life we are living is made of both.

May we honour what is illuminated�and what is revealed in the dark.

Happy Equinox, family.

14/09/2026

On being a lightcarrier:

Know your way in the dark
and be good company to those who need it.

Remember the ceremony,
the songs,
the prayers.

Make offerings to your human
and more-than-human family.

Remember that every space you enter
is shaped by what you bring to it.

See yourself and the other
with the eyes of the heart.

Trust that purpose emerges through presence.
It is as near as your breath.

07/09/2026

Four days.

Registration for our 2026–27 Medicine Wheel training closes September 10th — and so does our application period for financial support.

We have two remaining bursaries available, as well as a BIPOC scholarship for those who are eligible.

The Medicine Wheel is the foundation of the Siyám̓ Smánit Dharma Mesa Path — a living body of work that continues to unfold through ceremony, practice, place, and the relationships we cultivate along the way.

It is an invitation to enter a deeper conversation with the land, with lineage, with community, and with what it means to live in greater reciprocity with the world around us.

Our first ceremony begins September 25th on Gambier Island.

Four days to step toward the Wheel.

Comment WHEEL and we’ll send you the registration details and information about financial support.

03/09/2026

Yantra Creation in the East Direction of our Shamanic Yoga Teacher Training

Under the guidance of Mandakini Puri Rox, we explored yantra creation — the practice of working with sacred geometry as a doorway into meditation, concentration, and relationship with the divine.

This sacred art piece is a temple to house the energy of Durga.

As Mandakini shared with us:
Durga is the eternal fearless one.�It is She who plays through us.�All that is manifest is Her power.�A power that moves through you.

A support, since we are here to take care of the world.�Compassionate, and standing for the truth.

May the Goddess call on us again and again.

Om Śrī Durgāyai Namaḥ

01/09/2026

What happens when we carry a piece of home into another sacred landscape?

This summer, our family carried kuyas from Squamish to the Austrian Alps and into the Dolomites of northern Italy.

In Innsbruck, we offered a kuya into the river, giving thanks and beginning a relationship between the waters of home and the waters of the Alps.

Later, we carried a lineage stone from Siyám̓ Smánit — Stawamus Chief into the Dolomites, placing it in prayer at a mountain pass among the great peaks.

At the end of our journey, we carried a stone from the Squamish River to a mountain spring, offering it to the sacred feminine mountain beings of that place.

For us, the kuya is not simply a stone.
It carries relationship. Memory. Prayer. Place. Intention.

When we carry a stone from one place of power to another and offer it with prayer, we are consciously creating relationship between landscapes.

A thread in the web.�A line of prayer.�A bridge between places.

This practice has become an increasingly important part of how we understand the Siyám̓ Smánit Dharma Mesa Path— a living map shaped through ceremony, relationship, offering, and responsibility to the places and traditions that have shaped our work.

This month's Community & Connection newsletter goes deeper into Christine's family pilgrimage, the practice of building ceque lines, and the larger body of work we are continuing to articulate through the Dharma Mesa Path.

Want to read the full piece? DM us “SACRED WEB” and we'll send you the link and add you to our mailing list.

28/08/2026

25/08/2026

Some of the deepest work happens within us. Some of it happens in relationship.

One of the things we care deeply about in the Medicine Wheel is the quality of the relationship that holds the work.
The teaching matters.�The practices matter.�The ceremony matters.

But so does the community that surrounds you as you move through them.

As one of our graduates shared:
“Christine and Rochelle weave wisdom and knowledge together in a way that allows you not only to learn but to have a transformative experience. They will take you on a journey deep within yourself and bring you back into the outside world.

The support that they, their assistants, and the rest of the group give is insurmountable. Rest assured, they will meet you where you’re at and raise you up.”

We are deeply grateful for the people who have trusted us with this work, and for the relationships that continue to grow long after.�
Registration closes September 10th.�The ceremony begins September 25th.

Comment WHEEL and we’ll send you the details.

20/08/2026

What if part of the journey is becoming aware of the stories we have been living inside?

The stories we inherited.�The stories our families told us.�The stories we created to make sense of what happened to us.�The stories we continue to tell ourselves about who we are, what we are capable of, and what is possible.

We don’t always recognize them as stories.
We experience them as truth.

But when we begin to see them — really see them — something can shift.

Not necessarily because the story disappears.
But because we are no longer completely inside it.

There is a little more space.

Space to question.�Space to listen.�Space to choose.�Space to imagine another way of being.

This is what the practice offers us:
Not a new story to replace the old one, but the awareness to recognize that we are more than the story itself.
And from that place, something new can begin.

Carl Rogers wrote:
“The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination.”

This is the invitation of the Medicine Wheel, too — to keep turning toward the different directions of our lives, meeting what is there, and allowing our relationship with ourselves, our ancestors, our communities, and the land to deepen.

The work is not to arrive somewhere else.
It is to become more awake to where we are.

14/08/2026

Before I had a relationship with Stawamus, I was a student of Grouse. Along these trails, I was taught lessons of patience, humility and the power of surrender. It was here that I came to understand that a mountain can offer counsel. I was shown such grace.

It has been a few lifetimes since I have visited, changed by new lands, children, relationships, but we met as old friends do.

Today, I walked up the entire trail behind a pilgrim, he was barefoot and conscious every step.

What a gift, this returning.

Xox
R