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There are so many people who contribute to Sundari with their presence, gifts and knowledge. We feel creation of beauty is one of the highest callings of humans, a place where we reflect one of the facets of divinity. Like service. Or loving. Or relatedness.
Meet our day to day team, and some of the teachers, retreat leaders, healers and artists all help to make Sundari an amazing place.
Leadership
John Shiva
Christine Marie Mason
Katie Roper
Founder, Meditation Guide
John Shiva
Co-founder John Shiva has a lifelong love of nature and friendship with the plants, and has been homesteading or developing permaculture living for many years. For several years, he lived in a yurt in the forest, bringing his water in and building things by hand. He’s a tireless seeker and investigator into the magic and mystery of optimal states of human consciousness. He leads meditation in the Advaita Vedanta tradition. He also leads ceremony, and throws great parties! John is an amateur herbalist, with an expertise in treating ailments with supplements, and an accomplished raw and vegan cook. He is also a filmmaker and has made a documentary on India and is currently writing a screenplay to develop.
Co-Founder
Christine Marie Mason
Founder of New Earth and Sundari Farms. Christine has been teaching, studying and writing on yoga and consciousness since 2000, with an emphasis on bringing yoga into daily life and human systems. Her books include Indivisible, Bending the Bow, The Invitation, Love in the Face of Everything and the upcoming 9 Gifts. She’s the founder of Rosebud Woman, an intimate wellness line, and the host of the rose woman, a podcast on waking up. She’s a Phd candidate in Philosophy and Religion, with a focus in consciousness and cosmology, at the California Institute of Integral Studies.
Yoga and Consciousness Studies: Christine’s primary teacher is Mark Whitwell. She has completed teacher training with Rod Stryker (ParaYoga Level 1 & 2), Maya Yoga (500 hours), Baron Baptiste (Baptiste Power Yoga – Level 1) and continued training with other senior teachers, including a Thai massage certification, Love and Ecstasy Training, and Yoga Anatomy coursework. She’s YACEP and YA E-RYT certified. She is a Vipassana practitioner, and a student of non-dual tantra. She holds a certificate in the practices and philosophy of yoga from the Mattamayura Institute. She is trained in ZEGG forum facilitation, and is a second year student in Thomas Huebl’s Timeless Wisdom Training program in collective, energetic and subtle healing. She is a devotional singer, an enthusiastic adventurer, and a science nerd who studies plant medicine, cryptocurrency and biohacking. Her social service work is focused on yoga in action: women’s equity, restorative justice and internet freedom.
Her paintings are tucked all around the property.
Transformational Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, Anti-Racism Avocate, Ordained Minister, Ritualist
Katie Roper
Katie is a transformational leadership and emotional intelligence coach and educator. She enjoys helping developing leaders and especially womxn lead from a place of presence, trust, and creativity. She is a documentary filmmaker, a nonprofit director, a university educator, a consultant, a coach, a ritualist, an author, and an intentional village builder. She has run a Leadership Program for young change-makers for the past 10+ years at University of Santa Cruz. She is passionate about training individuals, couples, and families through moving emotional blocks and having clean and productive communication habits. She supports people in sharing their needs and desires without layering judgement, shame, or blame. Her newest venture is working with her mother, Sheila Pudas, a master genealogist to offer individuals and families, family and lineage karmic healing work. She is especially passionate about repairing the sense of belonging to each individual and family connection.
Read her full Professional BIO here.
Offerings (Sliding scale $88-222/hr):
-Executive Coaching: For established leaders to gain collaborative support towards their visions for leading social impact organizations and teams in embodied and value-driven ways
-Academic & Life Coaching for Young Adults and Developing Leaders-Conscious Leadership Trainings & Techniques: Includes self awareness and Integrity, Feedback and Accountability Coaching
-Emotional Intelligence & Empathy Coaching, Training, or Workshop: Using NVC for personal, family, or professional communication and connection building.
Rituals (Sliding scale $222- $444)
-Weddings, Baby Blessings, Memorial Services, and other Life Transitions
-Transformational Birthday Coaching or Life Event Coordination
-Feel it to Heal it! Emotional Healing Ritual: We will be present with our often more challenging emotions of fear, rage, or grief at a sacred natural site or on campus.
-Family & Lineage Karma Healing (work in tandem with her Mother Sheila, who is offsite)
Gardens, Farm and Construction
