Healing Sound Bath
Sunday, May 7 4:00~5:00 pm In-person at Shree
Yoga Nidra
With Jackie Owen, Sunday, June 4, 8:00 ~ 8:40 pm Online
$15. Advance registration required. The link to the class is in your reservation confirmation email – keep it handy for the event.
GYROKINESIS® Wednesday 4-Week Series
In-person with Whtiney Speer Wednesdays 2:00~3:15 pm, May 31 – June 28 (no class June 14)
GYROKINESIS® Wednesday 5-Week Series
In-person with Whtiney Speer Wednesdays 2:30~3:30 pm, July 12 – August 9
Stepping into the Flow: Mini Retreat
In-person with With Chaya Spencer and Tanja Israel Sunday, October 1 2:00 – 5:00 pm
Join Chaya at Shree and Tanja of Bayou for a sweet Sunday 3-hour mini retreat. With the beautiful Saddle River as our inspiration, we’ll take some precious time away from our busy lives to connect into the current that flows through our days and lives to find ways to better step into that flow and let it carry us.
Starting with an all levels yoga practice lead by Chaya at Shree, we’ll then meander across the courtyard to Bayou for tea, GF snacks and a soothing hour of making a craft. Using driftwood and other natural materials Tanja will guide us in creating our own individual craft representation of the flow we wish to cultivate and embody to bring home with us. We’ll finish out the afternoon at Shree with meditation, journaling and restorative poses.
Your mini retreat includes:
- All levels Yoga
- Crafting with Tanja
- Tea and home baked GF snacks
- Journaling
- Restorative yoga
- Meditation
Space is limited, register early. Bring your yoga mat, water bottle, a journal and pen.
Grief in Motion: A Workshop Using Yoga to Cope With Grief
In-person with With Annie Smith, RYT 200, Certified Grief Councilor on Saturday, October 14, 3:00 ~ 5:00 pm
Each of us faces many different losses throughout a lifetime: death of a loved one, separation, relocation, life transitions, pet loss, and others. A grief reaction is a normal, appropriate response to loss and affects all aspects of a person’s life: physical, emotional, cognitive, social, behavioral and spiritual. Grief is expressed through all these dimensions. The intention of this workshop, Grief in Motion, is to provide a safe and compassionate environment to explore the benefits of yoga to cope with loss and grief.
Your workshop will include:
- Theme-inspired centering
- Mindful breathing techniques
- Yoga practice (gentle yoga)
- Education–grief process, mindful awareness, transformation following loss
- Guided, contemplative journaling
- Guided meditation
- Resources to help support you in your grief
Anne Smith, MA, GC-C, RYT200, is a Certified Grief Counselor with a master’s degree in Thanatology, Death Education & Counseling from Brooklyn College, CUNY. She has been working in the field of hospice, end-of-life care & bereavement for the past 20 years. Her experience includes work with hospice patients and their families, private practice (www.grieftohope.org), bereavement program development, teaching thanatology courses at the college level, and research in the field of thanatology. In addition, she is also a Registered Yoga Teacher (200 RYT) offering the option of yoga into her counseling practice and program development.
Shree Yoga Book Club Meeting: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Sunday, October 15, 2023 3:30~5:30 pm In-person at Shree
Read the book, bring a cup of tea and come sit with the Shree community. All are welcome! Free.
From the acclaimed author of The Poisonwood Bible and The Bean Trees, a brilliant novel that enthralls, compels, and captures the heart as it evokes a young hero’s unforgettable journey to maturity
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.
Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind.
Free.
Shree Autumn Retreat: The Magic of Trees
Saturday evening – Monday afternoon October 28 – 30, 2023 with Chaya Spencer at Lifebridge Sanctuary, Rosendale, NY
Your weekend retreat includes:
- 4 yoga classes for all levels
- 2 morning meditations
- 4 vegetarian meals
- Tree meditation and group hike
- Yoga Nidra
- Fire pit gathering
- Free time
Full details and registration
Shree Yoga Book Club Meeting: Flowers and Locusts by Martha Reid Paradis with Author Visit
Sunday, December 3, 2023 3:30~5:30 pm In-person at Shree
Read the book, bring a cup of tea and come sit with the Shree community. All are welcome! Free.
The author, Martha Reid Paradis, will be joining us to discuss her book, answer questions and more deeply explore life in Etheopia.
The haunting memoir Flowers & Locusts opens a window on the legendary kingdom of Ethiopia. The author’s father brought his family there from New York City to become official advisor to Emperor Haile Selassie. The arc of the story is set against the unrest that leads to the downfall of the king.
From the girl’s earliest memory as her family drives through embattled streets during an attempted revolution, to the poignant ending as she is torn from the people she has come to love, the author brings to vivid life momentous events in this ancient African land. At nights when hyenas roam her neighborhood and during enchanted days of adventures and misadventures with a beloved younger brother, the girl’s voice – in recounting her father’s kidnapping, a gala party at the Palace, or her touching relationship with a young girl in an orphanage – memorably captures the deep emotional texture of her experience
The memoir is also a meditation on the joys and pains of childhood. It will transport you to a remote and mysterious realm of beautiful wild flowers which spring up after heavy rains and of cycles of locusts that devastate the countryside. Interwoven is the wisdom of the family’s Ethiopian caregivers and a gentle boy who opens up the girl’s eyes to both the splendors and poverty of the royal capital city outside the family compound.
As a coming of age story, Flowers & Locusts will appeal to readers of all ages. Ultimately, the book is a work of gratitude to the author’s family and the Ethiopian people. On leaving this magical country, the author feels the profound loss of the only home she’s ever known.
Free.
Shree Yoga Book Club Meeting: The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi
Sunday, January 28, 2023 3:30~5:30 pm In-person at Shree
Read the book, bring a cup of tea and come sit with the Shree community. All are welcome! Free.
Escaping from an abusive marriage, seventeen-year-old Lakshmi makes her way alone to the vibrant 1950s pink city of Jaipur. There she becomes the most highly requested henna artist—and confidante—to the wealthy women of the upper class. But trusted with the secrets of the wealthy, she can never reveal her own…
Known for her original designs and sage advice, Lakshmi must tread carefully to avoid the jealous gossips who could ruin her reputation and her livelihood. As she pursues her dream of an independent life, she is startled one day when she is confronted by her husband, who has tracked her down these many years later with a high-spirited young girl in tow—a sister Lakshmi never knew she had. Suddenly the caution that she has carefully cultivated as protection is threatened. Still she perseveres, applying her talents and lifting up those that surround her as she does.
Free. Discussion lead by Rachel Dewan, a local henna artist and yoga teacher at Shree.
Shree Yoga Book Club Meeting: The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
Sunday, March 10, 2023 3:30~5:30 pm In-person at Shree
Read the book, bring a cup of tea and come sit with the Shree community. All are welcome! Free.
The true story of a couple who lost everything and embarked on a transformative journey walking the South West Coast Path in England.
Just days after Raynor Winn learns that Moth, her husband of thirty-two years, is terminally ill, their house and farm are taken away, along with their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, through Devon and Cornwall.
Carrying only the essentials for survival on their backs, they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea, and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable and life-affirming journey. Powerfully written and unflinchingly honest, The Salt Path is ultimately a portrayal of home—how it can be lost, rebuilt, and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.
Shree Yoga Book Club Meeting: Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng
Sunday, April 28, 2023 3:30~5:30 pm In-person at Shree
Read the book, bring a cup of tea and come sit with the Shree community. All are welcome! Free.
Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. His mother Margaret, a Chinese American poet, left without a trace when he was nine years old. He doesn’t know what happened to her—only that her books have been banned—and he resents that she cared more about her work than about him.
Then one day, Bird receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, and soon he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of heroic librarians, and finally to New York City, where he will finally learn the truth about what happened to his mother, and what the future holds for them both.
Our Missing Hearts is an old story made new, of the ways supposedly civilized communities can ignore the most searing injustice. It’s about the lessons and legacies we pass on to our children, and the power of art to create change.
Shree Yoga Book Club Meeting: The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
Sunday, June 2, 2023 3:30~5:30 pm In-person at Shree
Read the book, bring a cup of tea and come sit with the Shree community. All are welcome! Free.
Esme is born into a world of words. Motherless and irrepressibly curious, she spends her childhood in the Scriptorium, an Oxford garden shed in which her father and a team of dedicated lexicographers are collecting words for the very first Oxford English Dictionary. Young Esme’s place is beneath the sorting table, unseen and unheard. One day a slip of paper containing the word bondmaid flutters beneath the table. She rescues the slip and, learning that the word means “slave girl,” begins to collect other words that have been discarded or neglected by the dictionary men.
As she grows up, Esme realizes that words and meanings relating to women’s and common folks’ experiences often go unrecorded. And so she begins in earnest to search out words for her own dictionary: the Dictionary of Lost Words. To do so she must leave the sheltered world of the university and venture out to meet the people whose words will fill those pages.
Set during the height of the women’s suffrage movement and with the Great War looming, The Dictionary of Lost Words reveals a lost narrative, hidden between the lines of a history written by men. Inspired by actual events, author Pip Williams has delved into the archives of the Oxford English Dictionary to tell this highly original story. The Dictionary of Lost Words is a delightful, lyrical, and deeply thought-provoking celebration of words and the power of language to shape the world.