I was born and raised in the arctic region of Finland. The untamed nature of this beautiful country with its very distinct seasons has been a deep inspiration for me in understanding my own nature. Sometimes sweet and peaceful, sometimes raging and wild...And in its essence completely untamable, ecstatic and free.
Over the years I have traveled and lived around the world, and been blessed to get to know many cultures. My life and my work has been deeply touched by my ancestral home Finland (North); India, which is the Mother of my Soul (East); USA, California, which was my home for nine years, and the seat of my embodied awakening (West); as well as New Zealand, through meeting and learning from the Maori healers (South). My work has come to integrate the energies of the four directions.
My road to self discovery began in London in 1989, where I discovered yoga. Profoundly affected by that experience, I moved to India in 1990. I became a certified yoga teacher in Kerala, South India, and I also studied yoga philosophy in Rishikesh, North India.
I have over the years supplemented my yoga studies with additional training in different healing modalities, like Reiki (5th degree master), Crown Healing, Chinese Energetic Healing, Shindo Healing, and Deeksha.
I learnt the Living Essence method with Arjuna in 2001. I have also worked deeply with the Waking Down in Mutuality group for several years. I have been fortunate to have met the Maori healers, who have inspired and taught me much, which has been an added blessing in my healing work.
As a woman my path has been touched by Chameli's Awakening Women templegroup work, and David Deida through his brilliant writings, as well as Mark and Elisabeth Serra's Culture of Honouring. All of them have also helped me to deepen my understanding of the dance between the masculine and feminine. The Partnership Foundation's "Trusting You Are Loved" as well as Gay and Kathleen Hendrick's "The Conscious Heart" continue to inspire me.
But beyond all of these, beyond the dance of the masculine and the feminine, what truly inspires me today is to support you in your own inner dance of uniting the masculine Principle (Consciousness) with the Feminine (Body, Heart) One. Welcome to Amrita Nadi Yoga - the Alchemy of Union, or Embodied Awakening.
MY TRIBUTE TO ALL AND EVERYONE THAT HAVE GUIDED ME THROUGHOUT MY LIFE, INTO MY DIVINELY HUMAN INCARNATION -
For my 10 year anniversary, I offer this tribute to the ones who have shown me the way;
Jesus or Jeshua has been with me throughout my life, guiding and inspiring me to be all that I was meant to be.
When I was in India at the beginning of this year 2012, a few people told me that they felt or saw Ramana Maharishi with me. This deeply touched me, as I have felt a connection to him throughout my years as a yoga teacher. He is one of the few saints that talk about Amrita Nadi, which is central to Waking Down awakening.
And Arunachala...words cannot even begin to describe the potency, the love that I experience in the presence of this hill. It is said to be Pure Shiva himself. Simply by thinking about Arunachala, I am filled with love, yearning, and a sense of belonging.
These two spiritual giants; Anandamayi Ma and Babaji, have graced me with their presence in my dreams, as well as other subtle yet obvious ways over the years.
When Arjuna Ardagh asked me "Is there anything missing in this moment?" at his satsang in Copenhagen in March 2001, something in me shifted irrevocably. In that moment, I knew, in my whole being, that the sense of separation that I had experienced all my life, was gone, permanently. The shift was cellular, not simply a "remembering".
Saniel Bonder, founder of Waking Down in Mutuality, together with his wife Linda Groves-Bonder, have been the teachers, that I owe a deep gratitude to, for welcoming me into my divinely human incarnation. In August 2002 I had my 2nd birth awakening, and together with a few of the teachers of WDM, I investigated this birth deeply before claiming it at an interview with Linda in January 2003.
Relationships have always been some of my most profound teachers. Shiva, my eternal Beloved, lured me in, time after time, through a gaze, a touch or a soul recognition, disguised in the mortal flesh of my partner at the time. These have been my greatest teachers of my humanness, revealing my wounds around relationships.
It was when I taught my first Yoga Teacher Training Course in Sweden, in the summer of 2002, that I had my 2nd birth. Truly, teaching has always been my anchor, my blessing, and my expression of Love for all.
And beyond and above it all, it has always been my very own Sacred Heart that has guided me along this path of awakening. This flame in my heart has burnt intensely, since I was very young, reminding me relentlessly of my life´s purpose and passion; to live surrendered to and as Love.
Sacred Confessions of a Tantra Yogini -
The time has come to shine the light into my closet, to reveal to you what I have kept hidden from you for so long. At least I believe I have...
For all of these years I have been hiding a skeleton in my closet; not the dirty one with warts (that one you have all seen), but the brilliantly shining, golden one.
I am writing this as a tribute to my 10 year anniversary of my 2nd birth, coming up this year 2012, in August. And it is soon 11 years, end of March of this year 2012, since my sense of separation permanently dissolved in the presence of Arjuna Ardagh, in Copenhagen in 2001.
Why do I write of two separate events? One with Arjuna and the 2nd birth? How are they different?
In my own personal experience, the moment with Arjuna was a beginning of a much deeper process, the process of dropping into my body. The "dropping in" is called the 2nd birth in WDM. What happened with Arjuna, was a Consciousness Awakening. The Consciousness Awakening was important, as the agonizing pain of separation at my core finally came to an end. It was a necessary first step in my Whole Being Awakening. Normally, when people talk about awakening, this is what they mean. What many people are not aware of, is that this is only one step, or one kind of an awakening. It is not all that there is.
As I was teaching my first Yoga Teacher Training Course, I was experiencing tremendous inner heat. It was a spiritual heat that was burning me from the inside. At the time I didn´t understand what was happening, but when I joined my first WDM weekend a month later, I got suspicious. The way the teacher in my small group was describing the 2nd life experience, I knew what she was talking about. That was what I was experiencing. And I realized that I had actually had my 2nd birth when I was teaching. The WDM teachers worked with me during the next few months, as we together investigated if this was actually the case. In those days it was not common or known that someone could have actually had their 2nd birth before getting in touch with WDM. In January 2003 I had my 2nd birth interview with Linda, and it was time for me to claim the shift for real. Doing that was such a powerful experience that I experienced an intensified blazing of Light within.
I found tremendous support and recognition from the Waking Down community during the initial years. They held me through the first phase of incarnating into my flesh, which would have been a challenging phase without all the support.
How can I even begin to describe the journey I have been on since those two most potent shifts?
I literally became all that human wounded stuff as I entered it.You know, all that humiliating human wounding and limitation, that we like to avoid. And we all tend to do that through repression in different ways, one of them being through practices that take us to a bliss realm for a while (only to drop back down again into separation, unless you rigorously keep up your practice; this way your practice can become very fear based).
What I mean by becoming it, is that I wasn´t merely watching it at a distance, trying to love it, like it or even accept it. I became the most wounded, dysfunctional human stuff that was in me. And trust me, there has been a lot. I became the human limited expression for all to see, for I could not hide it. I lived it with every breath, watching my reality reflect the seeming imperfection of myself. And yet - in the midst of all of that, was my own constant resting in and as non-separation, knowing, peace, and Onlyness. A few saw behind my human journey into my depth and stayed with me. Blessed be each and every one of you who revealed your true friendship to me during this time.
Why did I not come forward with this before now? I have to admit, that my reality has been in a state of regular upheaval for many years. Saniel calls the period (often lasting for many years) after the 2nd birth, as the “Wakedown Shakedown”. All I can say is that my wakefulness was definitely shaking things up for me. Perhaps the visual of big boulders falling on me time after time, and each time having to crawl back into life from underneath them, best describes my shakedown years. As they say, if it doesn´t kill you, it´ll make you stronger...
It is very humbling to go through such experiences repeatedly, and due to that it can feel daunting to claim your awakening, particularly in a world where many think of awakening as a sense of perfection of some kind. At least it was daunting to me.
The good news is, the shaking ends. And, you will not necessarily experience it as intensely as I did, as what you meet, is your human stuff, not mine.
I am sharing now, because I love, love deeply. I am sharing because I cannot not share. I am sharing, because Being itself is moving in me, as me, prompting me to finally confess to the Divinity of this experience, this Life, my life.
What is happening in my life right now? Yet another shift, a deepening of the awakening. A blaze, a light is beginning to shine stronger than the overpowering human dysfunction. It is as if enough of the human distortion has been healed to allow for this purifying light to shine so much more visibly to my inner eye. And remember, I said enough, not all.
This blaze is calling me forward, daring me to face my deep, cultural conditioning, that whispers in my ear; “Who do you think you are?” - and say to its face; I know I AM, HERE. I can no longer hide this light that is burning inside of me. I will not, even as I am risking deep rejection.
I have come to realize that the waking down into our flesh is a journey of continual awakening, or enlightening. It is not a path with a distinct end point. There is an end, yes, in the beginning - of the separation that tears at each one of our core. But after that end, or should I say beginning, the real journey begins.
I also know that it is not for everyone. It is rather a path where you might embark it more consciously because you recognize that this is what is a matter of fact happening to you.
It is a path of mutuality, as waking into flesh is a relational path.
It is a path of Onlyness, of recognizing that all there is, is God. How can this flesh, the world around you, be any different than what seemingly created it? How can all of this be anything else but divine? This way allows you to embrace your whole life as an expression of That. Nothing needs to be rejected or discarded, unless it hurts you. And yes, this path does allow for your distinct humanness to shine forth as equally divine in its wisdom. This body has its own boundaries that we are here to explore and allow. It is in allowing these boundaries their natural expression that we discover some of our very valuable unique gifts.
And because of this, in my experience, it is a path of profound self-love. Through each healing, holy blazing event of one more arrow of inner poison turning into nectar, this nectar is the nectar of self-love.
Hundreds have passed into their 2nd birth, as I have. I have been graced to meet many of them, and enjoy the magical presence of our awakened field together.
But in my personal life, where I have lived, far away from other WDM practitioners, I have mostly been surrounded by my community´s either mistaken beliefs about awakening, or perhaps the description of symptoms of a different kind of awakening than what I have come to enjoy. What I am experiencing has until quite recently been known only to a few. Those few who were exhausted of trying to improve themselves, exhausted by the bliss trips that always came down again, into the sense of separation, loneliness and limitation at their core. These people, myself included, found our way into the presence of Saniel Bonder and the teachers of WDM (www.whyWDMworks.com).
Saniel is an amazing awakened Being, and a powerful transmitter of this awakening. He has been bringing through this revolutionary Embodied Awakening, like none I have seen anywhere else. Through these teachings as well as the transmission of the awakened teachers many have come into their 2nd life.
In practical terms, what this means is that I can no longer pretend that the transmission of my embodied awakening will not be present during my teachings. I will consciously include this recognition into my work from this year onwards.
I will be offering the esoteric teachings of BodyRiver yoga; Amrita Nadi yoga, as well as focus time on conscious transmission, together with the traditional yogic practices. The yoginis who have studied with me and are now teachers or instructors in their own right of BRY, will be teaching the more basic, fundamental teachings of this style. They will be doing that together with the individual, unique level of recognition of the deeper principles that each of them have come to hold, as they too are awakening.
What I offer, is perhaps a slightly more radical, wild style than the traditional Waking Down School - this is in honoring of my wild, untameable, free nature, which is part of how I show up as a human. I also have a richness of diversity in human experience, from alien abduction, kundalini awakening, memories of being a holocaust victim during the 2nd worldwar, messy relationships, and being a mother - single parenting is what I have come to know and master. I have also been homeless and struggled financially (ok now, that is a kind and gentle way of wording my financial experience over the years). And beyond all, I am deeply sensitive and vulnerable, as I am profoundly impacted by all and everything around me, forcing me to withdraw at times, in order not to burn out my circuitry.
The blaze, the transmission, is potent, regardless of which teacher you approach, but it is good to find a teacher that you can also resonate, or vibrate with, humanely. This creates a much more powerful resonance field, as it allows for a natural so called green-lighting of your divine humanity. This happens with someone who can relate to you from their own experience, with someone who has healed at a fundamental level the split that was originally created by constant self judgement, in themselves. What happens to you in such a field, is that a cellular relaxation begins to take place, when resistance is replaced with acceptance. That relaxation is key to dropping in.
You might reject me after reading all of this, still caught up in how you view me only in my humanness. And that is OK. Rejection and judgement are not new to me. I am writing for those who are ready, who yearn, who recognize, that I might have something to offer here. A place where you can finally begin to relax, and begin the most incredible journey of full embodiment.
I am here for you, whether you are at a stage of conception, pregnancy, birth or the aftermath of landing.
I will not lie here, it is not always easy, rather, you will have to wrestle with your own inner snakes and demons, with no escape, but to finally allow yourself to be bitten by them so that their poison can transform into nectar through the presence of Being in every single heart beat of yours.
Because the truth of this way is, Being literally penetrates your DNA, and begins to alter you physically, cellularly, into a new human. And you don´t need to worry, if you are, like I was, emotionally not very able to be in a sustained, mature relationship. It is becoming clear to me now, that emotional maturing does in fact happen over time. There is no other way, as this way is not a way of hiding in a cave. Not for very long anyway. This way is paved with the longing to connect, no matter how frightening it can seem at times.
This is a way to embodied ascension, as I see it. You descend fully, and then, only then, can you begin to ascend. Transformed, at your core.
The blaze of the purifying light begins to take over.
