Lisa Miriam Cherry

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Editor and co-author of Stories From the Yogic Heart, Lisa is an avid yogini and Pisces who aspires to be as healthy in her '90s as was one of her primary yogic mentors, Vanda Scaravelli, Lisa practises yoga and reiki daily. She strives to better the world through her writing, and her articles on social, spiritual and health issues have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, MacLean's Magazine, The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star and more, and as radio documentaries she produces for Canada's CBC Radio. Her Yogic Heart Radio show interviews soulful people creating positive change in our world. Lisa is a Street Yoga Teacher for inner-city youth and women in need, and is currently studying Storytime Yoga to also offer pre-teens a balanced start in life. You may find Lisa at lisacherry.ca, breathofyoga.blogspot.com, yogicheart.com, and at Yogic Heart Radio online.

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Nance Thacker

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Nance is a yoga practitioner and Certified Hypnotist based in Burlington, Ontario. Her practice incorporates Shiatsu Therapy, Lomi (Hawaiian Temple Bodywork), Lomilomi, Hypnosis, Soulwork and Dreamwork. She became a yoga teacher in l976 in B.C. and Ontario, and says she was blessed to find her spiritual teacher during a Straightwalk workshop with Swami Radha, whose piercing insight and loving compassion touched her soul.

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Neal Arbic

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Neal is a hatha yoga and meditation teacher, and author of Yoga for the Soul. He began practicing and studying yoga over 27 years ago, trained and certified at California's Ashtanga Yoga Institute, and has been a full-time yoga and meditation instructor since l990. Neal has appeared on TV and radio nationwide and has been offered positions with companies such as Husky, Orenda Aerospace and Ford, but chooses to happily teach in Caledon, Ont.

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Janet Aschkenasy
 

Janet was a financial writer and yoga teacher who directs the volunteer yoga teaching program at the Callen Lorde Community Health Center in Manhattan and teaches at Reflections Yoga near Times Square. She lives with her husband, Jimmy Napoli.

 

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Katherine Culp

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Katherine is working toward reaching enlightenment within this lifetime and says she may have to live much longer than the normal life span to do so! She has been painting and creating pretty much since the day she was born and works in the investment banking industry, painting water colors on the side. She hopes to retire soon and paint full-time while living in the beauty of nature.

 

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Reema Datta

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Reema runs the Usha Yoga Foundation and teaches yoga worldwide. In an effort to remember these early teachings of using yoga to create world harmony, yogis around the world work with the Usha Yoga Foundation to bring yoga to remote areas as well as to battered women's shelters, old age homes, hospitals, and rehabilitation clinics. The idea for the foundation was sparked by Reema's grandfather, who has been practicing yoga for most of his 86 years and who now runs a yoga and community center in Khaknar, a tribal village in Central India. The foundation supports projects in India and worldwide.

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Lorraine Gane

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Lorraine Gane is a poet, writer, teacher, and editor on Canada's Salt Spring Island. Her poems, articles, essays, and reviews have been widely published across North America. She is the author of Even the Slightest Touch Thunders on My Skin, and is now working on a new volume, The Blue Halo. She teaches writing through online courses, private workshops, and at various universities.

 

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Sharon Gannon

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Sharon is the co-creator, with David Life, of the Jivamukti yoga method and is a pioneer in teaching yoga as spiritual activism relating ancient teachings of yoga to the modern world. She is the author of several books and has produced numerous yoga-related DVDs and music CDs. She feels blessed by her teachers Sri Brahmananda Sarasvati, Swami Nirmalanda and Sri K. Pattabhi Jois.

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Sabine Gifford

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Sabine Gifford lives with her husband and daughter in the mountains of North Carolina, USA. Besides holding a Master's Degree in Education, a degree in life coaching and a yoga teacher certificate, she has added stay-at-home mom to her list of proud achievements.

 

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Linda Handiak

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Linda Handiak is a high school teacher in Quebec. She has recently channelled her summer volunteering experiences into a book, 101 Green Travel Tips, published by Life Tips. Her stories can also be found on the Matador Travel website and in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

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Rosanne Harrison

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After owning and operating a yoga and website business in Chicago, Rosanne received a Masters degree in secondary education and was an educator for six years in Chicago's public schools where she integrated yoga into the schools curriculum with great success. Currently, Rosanne is designing and researching a small high school model for her doctoral degree in Urban Educational Leadership with a focus in Curriculum Design. A major aspect of the model is the linking of yoga throughout all disciplines. Rosanne plans to open this small school in south Florida where she now lives with her young son and baby girl both of whom have saved Rosanne, she says, from her restless nature!

 

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Mariel Hemingway

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Mariel is a veteran of over twenty movies, including Manhattan, (in which she was nominated for an academy award) Lipstick, Personal Best, and The Contender. She made her television series debut in the critically acclaimed Steven Bochco series Civil Wars, and earned a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. She has also produced and starred in many environmental documentaries. When her love of health and yoga became paramount in her life, she turned to writing books such as Finding My Balance; Mariel Hemingway's Healthy Living From the Inside Out and Mariel's Kitchen: Simple Ingredients for a Delicious and Satisfying Life (published in 2009). She also has a company called Mariel's Kitchen whose products include Blisscuits (gluten-free organic cookies).

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Robert Knoss

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Robert is a former UK investment banker whose health crisis with cancer propelled him to pursue a career in the field of nutrition and to do yoga teacher training. Iyengar yoga is an important part of his life, as are his many ventures on African safaris to quench his passion for wildlife.

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Wade Imre Morissette

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The twin brother of Alanis, Wade is a sought-after British Columbia-based yoga instructor and talented musician whose appeared on television and radio nationwide. In 2004, he took his debut album, Sargam Scales of Music, on the Lululemon Yoga Pilgrimage worldwide. In 2006, Wade signed on with Nettwerk Records to release his second album, Strong as Diamonds: Om Vajra Kaya Namaha, where he combined his two passions yoga and music to create an original blend of indie rock/pop music with Sanskrit and English chants. Wade is also a reiki master, certified Phoenix Rising yoga therapist and Viniyoga Therapist

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Zo Newell

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Zo discovered yoga at age 14 under the guidance of R.S. Mishra (Sri Brahmananda Sarasvati) of Ananda Ashram, New York. She later earned her Master's of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School with a focus on Indian religions, and completed her dissertation for her Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University's Graduate Dept. of Religion. Her book on asana and personal development, Downward-facing Dogs and Warriors: Wisdom Tales for Modern Yogis, was published by the Himalayan Institute Press in September, 2007 and won a Nautilus Silver Medal for Book of the Year. She lives in Nashville, Tennesee, with her husband, James, and their dog.

 

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Adelheid Ohlig

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Formerly a journalist and editor for major news agencies, Adelheid has spent the past two decades as a Luna Yoga teacher and as a translator living in Switzerland. She has studied yoga and other body therapies since 1966, and has taught worldwide since 1983. Her book, Luna Yoga, describes in detail her powerful method of healing and is available in North America or in Europe in several languages.

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Danny Paradise

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Danny Paradise is a traveling Ashtanga yoga teacher who has practiced Ashtanga Yoga since 1976. He studied with the first Western teachers of Ashtanga, David Williams and Nancy Gilgoff in Hawaii, then with the father of Ashtanga yoga, Sri Patabbhi Jois. Danny has introduced Ashtanga Yoga to sports champions, film directors, and celebrities such as Sting, Paul Simon, Eddie Vedder, Graham Nash, Madonna and John McEnroe, and has taught yoga in all corners of the world. He draws from the teachings of Krishnamurti, Buddha, ancient Egypt as well as many indigenous cultures, and his life goal is to help people develop a sacred, joyful, meditative, pain free, personal self-practice.

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Martha Patt

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Martha teaches yoga specifically for MS clients, including classes in San Francisco. On June 30, 2000, Martha was awarded her first grant from the Betaseron Champions of Courage. A subsequent award in 2002 from them allowed her to take the idea of yoga for MS patients to Denver and Chicago.

 

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Father Joe Pereira

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In 2009, Father Joe Pereira won a Padma Shri Award, granted by the Government of India to Indian citizens who have made a distinguished contribution in various spheres of activity such as social welfare and public life. He previously won the Mother Teresa National Award in 2008. In l981, he founded the Kripa Foundation (now with fifty-one centres across India and four collaborative centres abroad), which includes yoga with psycho-spiritual and psycho-social aspects as in the twelve step program. In 2009, for the remarkable foundation's 25th anniversary, Father Joe produced a DVD and guide book by Medio Media WCCM (World Community for Christian Meditation) titled Yoga for the Practice of Christian Meditation which addresses HIV/AIDS, addictions and more. He has also created a program teaching yoga for priests-to-be.

 

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Manuela Rohr
 

Manuela has been practicing and teaching yoga for over twenty years and is a certified Hatha Yoga Teacher by the German and European Yoga Association. She moved to the United States in 1987 where she continued her studies and became a Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapist, in 1996. Manuela's personal path has been guided by a deep interest in self-awareness and self-expression, and her wish to support others in realizing their full potential. She lives with her husband and fabulous daughter, Sarina, in Germany and hopes to one day write a book about Sarina. Currently, she teaches a wonderful program called Tiny Islands

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Sonny Rollins

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Sonny Rollins, 80, will go down in history as not only the single most enduring tenor saxophonist of the bebop and hard bop era, but also as the greatest contemporary jazz saxophonist of them all. His fluid and harmonically innovative ideas, effortless manner, and easily identifiable and accessible sound have influenced generations of performers. His latest CD, Road Shows, Vol. 1, was released in 2008. Rollins continues to performm worldwide and is the recipient of countless awards, most recently the rarely-bestowed Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art.

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Rabbi Joseph Gelberman

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Rabbi Gelberman, was a pioneer of the interfaith movement, founded New York's New Light Temple with Sri Swami Satchidananda and the Rev. Jon Mundy in the early 1970s. Ten years later, he helped establish The New Seminary for Interfaith Studies, the first of its kind to train interfaith ministers who could serve people of all faiths, and at age 87, he opened the All-Faiths Seminary International, a source of advanced spiritual education for clergy and professionals. A modern Hassidic rabbi, who ordained rabbis through his Rabbinical Seminary until his 98th year, Dr. Gelberman was also a dedicated yoga practitioner who wrote several books including Physician of the Soul (A modern Kabbalist's Approach to Health and Healing). He auspiciously chose to leave this earthly plane on Sept. 9, 2010, during Rosh Hashanah, a time of rebirth and new beginnings for people of the Jewish faith.

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Taz Tagore

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Taz is an author and social entrepreneur who studied human biology and chemistry at Queen's University and received an MBA from Harvard Business School. She is renowned for her work with homeless persons via The Reciprocity Foundation, which she created and directs. The foundation uses spirituality, creativity and community to help break the cycle of poverty in the US. Taz has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, as well as television and radio, and is a featured parenting expert on Deepak Chopra's website.

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Tracey Ulshafer

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Tracey is the owner of One Yoga & Wellness Center in East Windsor and Ewing, New Jersey, which holds yoga classes and teacher trainings. She gives free yoga classes to local charities in need, and looks forward to having more opportunities to work for her community in the future. Tracey aims to combine her passions for both yoga and writing as she continues her amazing journey. Her second self-published novel, Wolf, was released in 2010.

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Amy Weintraub

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Author of Yoga for Depression (Broadway Books) and founding director of the LifeForce Yoga Healing Institute, Amy leads professional certification trainings in LifeForce Yoga for Depression and Anxiety for mental health professionals and yoga teachers. She is also a senior Kripalu teacher (E-RYT 500) and Mentor, featured on the CD, Breathe to Beat the Blues, and the DVD Life Force Yoga to Beat the Blues. She leads workshops and Continuing Education Units (CEU trainings) throughout North America at such venues as the Psychotherapy Networker Symposium, the American Holistic Medical Association's Annual Conference, and the Omega Institute. Her newsletter includes current research, news and media reviews on yoga and mental health.

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Sting

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Sting has evolved into one of the world's most distinctive and highly respected performers. As lead singer and bassist for The Police, Sting, along with Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland quickly became a success, scoring several number one hits and five Grammy awards. As a solo artist, Sting has earned an additional eleven Grammys, two Brits, a Golden Globe, an Emmy, three Oscar nominations, Billboard Magazine's Century Award, and was MusiCares's 2004 Person of the Year. In 2003, he published a memoir entitled Broken Music, which spent thirteen weeks on the New York Times Best Sellers list. He has appeared in fifteen films, executive produced the critically acclaimed, A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints, and in 1989 starred in a Broadway play, Threepenny Opera. Along with wife Trudie Styler, Sting founded The Rainforest Foundation in 1989 to protect both the world's rain forests and the indigenous peoples who live there. Husband and father of six, masterful guitarist and bassist, he stays centered as a devoted yoga practitioner.

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