Community Grieving, Healing, Metta Practice, & Ritual

"Respecting other humans at work and in the world should always be nonpartisan." – Femily, Silicon Valley's Gender/Equity Advisor (November 2024)

“Ignoring grief, individually and collectively, creates more suffering and harm.”– Octavia F. Raheem, Rest Is Sacred: Reclaiming Our Brilliance through the Practice of Stillness (October 2024)

“The highest principle of sanatana dharma is that the whole world is one family… We belong to one family, so we must learn to love others, and we must also learn to bear with others and be patient with them… Here in America I’ve witnessed that you’re often impatient with each other.” – teachings of Swami Kripalu published in Pilgrim of Love

This program was held on Tuesday, January 21, 2025.

Space Holders: Janie Ganga and Jyotika Jean Skeels

We are gathering to help grieve losses (at the individual and community level) and make space for healing through:

• Chanting of “Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu” (“May all beings everywhere be happy & free from suffering.”)
• Reflecting on how the tools & teachings of Yoga can help support us in this moment
• Metta Practice - similar to LovingKindness meditations
• a simple ritual to honor the elements

For our Ritual honoring the Elements

Toward the end of our session, we’ll offer a simple ritual. If you would like to participate at home, you might want to have some items nearby your device to represent:

• EARTH (a stone or pebble, flower petals, leaves, pine needles, a shell, or any other item that feels connected to the earth to you).
• WATER (a small bowl or glass of water or any liquid)
• FIRE/LIGHT (a candle, flashlight, string of lights, the light on your phone)

When you purchase access to this recording, you will also receive an additional Compassion Exercise PDF to support your own personal practice of healing.

More about Janie Ganga - see Santosha Instructors page.

Jyotika Jean Skeels is the author of Before You Go: A Death Doula’s Guide to Living Your Best Life (Inner Peace Press 2024). Jyotika is a Kripalu Yoga Teacher, death doula, life coach, writer, and mother. She has been teaching, presenting workshops, and working with individual clients for more than two decades. Jyotika is passionate about creating transformational experiences, and opportunities for deep personal inquiry.