Dance, when you're broken open.
Dance, if you've torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of the fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance, when you're perfectly free.
​
  -Rumi
"Working with Pooja is a pure act of ArtLove;  
a journey both deeply Personal,
and generously Universal.
  Transformation. Sacred. Necessary."


-Meg Agnew
 bodyworker & dancer 
 Picture

Ritual Workshops

The memory of ritual lives deep within our blood & bones...
calling us to re-member & embody our true nature.

​Authentic ritual manifests 3 essential qualities:

Presence & Liminality

 Fully inhabiting the self as part of Life, instead of as apart from Life and Nature opens us up to the liminal threshold wherein anything can happen
​

Radical Vulnerability

Seeing and being seen in our most honest & raw states as courageous, tender, wild, and embodied sovereign beings 

Connection / Communitas 

Experiencing deep connection, inter-being, and compassion for our shared
​human (and beyond human) experience
"


Big universal truths as well as the benevolence of ordinary things converge in her delicate frame and big visions.
​Never afraid to go deeper, she is a conduit for powerful messages ​longing to manifest themselves
in a​ shared experience that invites us to feel our own human urgency:
to be as alive as possible in all states of being.

Working with Pooja is like being a small treasure in a grand collage
where each piece has been put into a light or frame that hones its
​unique, intrinsic, terrifying or poetic beauty.
​
This is only possible because of her faith in the depth and experience of every soul...
because of what she believes is possible in each traveler on the way."

-Laura Geilen
Teacher, Dancer, Clown


What is Ritual?


​When asked the question: "What is ritual?,"
​I give the simplest answer:

​Ritual is an offering of the small self to the Big Self,
or of our small heart to our Shared Heart.

And then I elaborate...

Ritual has been the primary practice of re-membering
of all of our ancient ancestors. And though its technologies can be expressed through infinite sounds, shapes, gestures, languages and traditions, ritual in its essence is about presence.

Ritual serves to mend together and to make whole that which has been torn apart or forgotten through human ignorance or arrogance. It allows us to reconnect to the wild places within us and to our most untameable longings. Ritual cherishes the whole spectrum of the self- from the most heroic to the most tender, and honors Life's way of teaching us in cycles.

Ultimately, ritual heightens our awareness of what it means to be fully alive, and fortifies our natural instinct to return Home.

In all traditional societies still connected to a culture of place, ritual has always been practiced in community. By being in a container of conscious ritual- of people earnestly searching to recover and expose their most tender and true selves - our own process of remembrance deepens & quickens. In seeing and being seen in the liminal, we step into who and what, we truly are.

​
*Gratitude to those who have come before: My understanding & love of ritual & ritual spaces is deeply informed by the ritual traditions of Kerala, my Body Ritual Movement  teacher Diego Piñon, and the writings of Malidoma Patrice Somé , Sobunfu Somé, Martín Prechtel & Victor Turner.

 Offerings

The Shared Heart: Finding Faith in Uncertain Times


We are experiencing a time in our shared history where the world as we’ve known it is literally “falling apart”. For many of us too, our personal worlds may also be unraveling, and we may be feeling uncertainty, grief, hopelessness, and even rage about all this rupture.

This ritual honors both of these vulnerable processes - the dissolution of our old self, and that of the world as we’ve known it. Through simple guided breath-work and sound, we'll enter into the one heart we share as human collective, and discover just how personal the political is. While our disconnected modern culture leaves each of us feeling separate and isolated; ritual serves to remind us that we are not alone, and that when our heart breaks, there is a wild and hidden honey to be found. Within our shared heart, we can experience a deeper resilience and faith which embraces the Both/And - all the complexity & possibility of our present times.

*Gratitude to Roman Hanis' adapted Amazonian & Tibetan Breathwork for the inspirational seeds of this practice.


The Flower Ritual


Flowers are medicine for our souls and our hearts: both strong & delicate, vulnerable & fearless, feminine & masculine, sweet & bitter:
​flowers are truly non-dual.
They are teachers of profound love and compassion for every aspect of our experience.
​
In this ritual, we'll become intimate with the medicine of the flowers as we make prayers for our selves and the collective, offering them to our personal and shared healing.

*Inspired by the work of Body Ritual Movement, Diego Piñon; and the wisdom legacy of Butoh master Kazuo Ôno
​

Seeing Me/ Seeing You:
Dismantling Colonialism From the Inside Out
A Radical Healing Justice Workshop


Colonization, patriarchy & racism - and the extractive culture of disconnection that underlie them all, are persistent forces that work within us to suppress our true natures - their effects being cumulative over many generations. Yet, like the wild weeds that sprout through the concrete of the dominant mono-culture narrative, our true natures live perennially underneath the pavement of our collective amnesia. To access these seeds however, requires that we decolonize our minds and hearts and feel long-buried grief, trauma and rage.

In order to do that, we have to tell the "whole story" of our disparate histories,
​and their ongoing effects on our bodies & minds

Through personal inquiry and ritual, we'll break down the components of a complex multi-layered hierarchy that plays itself out on every level in the world both within and around us - shaping each of our personal narratives, dreams, desires, ambitions, and self-actualization. Whether we play out our roles as oppressed, or oppressor (or both), we each have the work of truth-telling and healing of our ancestral lineage legacies. Rooted within a non-dual framework, this process allows us to eventually come into a radical empathy, compassion and connection with our selves and others wherever we fall on the spectrum.

By bravely facing the oppression within us and outside of us, we stand in solidarity with those who have been more recently colonized/ are most overtly oppressed, while opening ourselves and our ancestral lines to radical healing & reconciliation.

In this way, we come closer to one day embodying a world which brings forth the true liberative potential within every human being,
and which honors the shared inter-dependence of our one human family.

​

Feedback...

"

I participated in Pooja's
"Adoring the Beloved​" workshop. I was struck by her tenderness so intermixed by her power as a female force in the room. She is transparent like a mountain steam, yet forceful like the waves of the mighty ocean.

I believe, that with her as a guide, she may entice you to jump, but will always make the landing soft."

-Fay Simpson
Founder of The Lucid Body
"
​Pooja walks into a space
and brings with her 
a tender kind of magic. 
​
Her depth, humor, empathy and poetic way make her a stunning facilitator.
I have had the good fortune of having Pooja lead at the WILD WOMAN FEST
for 6 years where she guides 150 women in a feast of a ceremony annually.
We are all deeply moved.
As a facilitator, she brings her participants into a space that is both very intimate (sometimes raw)
​and also, otherworldly, theatrical.
​
​This phenomenon is what I call
​'Pooja-magic'. 
If you have the opportunity, don't miss working with this woman!"

-Chris Maddox
Founder of The Wild Woman Project
"

I know I will be deeply moved and inspired, all of my senses will be awakened, and
I will leave feeling closer to
my own heart.

Pooja is so deeply "plugged in" to her own truth, creativity, vulnerability, and profound love for the human experience, that it's a joy
​to attend anything she offers."

-Rosa Zubizaretta
creator of 'Dynamic Inquiry'
Dia Praxis

Work With Me

I am continually humbled, taught and renewed by the act of holding a container for people to find deeper connection to themselves, our shared humanity and the world.

In addition to offering workshops, I'm also available to create & facilitate rituals for organizations and groups including artist and activist collectives, women's & BIPOC groups and other intentional spaces.

Please contact me if you're interested in working together.
Header photo by Karen Andrews
Other photo credits:  Nicole Combeau, Eric Limon, Irina Aha & Marns Motions