OUR TEACHERS & HOLISTIC CARE PROVIDERS
Hannah Muse
Ever since yoga found her, Hannah’s heart has been bursting open and spilling over with love. She feels so blessed to live the life of a yogini and is honored to share it with YOU. Her classes are more than just a series of physical poses: Her teachings encompass pranayama, meditation, mudra, mantra, philosophy and her asana instruction combines therapeutic physical alignment with dynamic pranic flow that will nourish, strengthen and align both your physical body and your subtle energy body.
Hannah is a devotee of this Great Mother Earth and has led many environmental efforts on her behalf. She is eternally grateful to the teachers who have blessed her with wisdom along this path, especially Baba Hari Dass whose teachings have most inspired her sacred daily sadhana, Kamalesh Hooven, Sianna Sherman, Jane Austin, and many others. Most of all, her practice is inspired by the grace and unconditional love of her family, especially her 6 year old daughter/Zen master Ruby Bea.
Hannah (RYT-500, E-RYT-200, RPYT) teaches classes, workshops, festivals and retreats in her hometown of Santa Cruz, CA and internationally. She also co-teaches Divinitree Yoga’s 200-hr Yoga Teacher Training as well as Mount Madonna Center’s Prenatal Yoga Teacher Training. Hannah does not believe that yoga fixes us or fills up something missing; instead she knows with all of her heart that we are already whole divine beings just needing a little reminder – and yoga is the best reminder she has ever found. Jai Maa!!
Willow Brown, LAc.
Willow Brown LAc. of Ojai, California, became a Licensed Acupuncturist in 2008, after studying healing arts and bodywork extensively since 2000. Willow is also a certified birth doula and a teacher of Taoist Sexology. Gynecological health is a strong focus of her practice.
Ten years of teaching yoga brings her classes to a sophisticated level that is fun and appropriate for all students, integrating a wealth of knowledge in health and body care. Qi Gong is another passion that she shares with her classes, a slow form of movement exercise that builds internal strength, including immune system, hormonal balance, and overall cleansing.
Willow has been administering bodywork of various styles since 2001, including Thai, chi nei tsang, polarity and craniosacral. She understands the many complex layers one has to work through in order to bring the body into a state of balance and health. Her signature Yin Wellness™ treatments typically incorporate 20 min of myofascial release massage, 20 minutes of acupuncture and 20 minutes of craniosacral therapy. Her treatments leave you feeling whole on all levels.
Carrie Mann
The benefits of yoga have been a strong current in Carrie's life since she began practicing in 1993. In teaching yoga, her commitment is to the health of people and the planet, with a special interest in women’s health, mental health and the mind-body connection.
In 2008 she completed her teacher certification program with an emphasis on prenatal and restorative yoga. She is a registered Yoga Alliance teacher (RYT-200, RPYT). Carrie was pregnant with her second daughter during her teacher training and became interested in the positive effects of yoga during and after pregnancy. So in addition to the standard teacher training, she has also completed a combined prenatal yoga teacher and doula training. She continues to attend workshops for prenatal and restorative yoga, focusing on the Iyengar approach. She also studies Shadow Yoga and continues to study with a variety of teachers and approaches to broaden her experience.
Carrie also has a master’s degree in international environmental policy and is a certified permaculture designer. But most of all she loves to travel and learn languages. Carrie was born and raised in Tiburon, California. She now lives with her husband and two daughters in Prunedale. When she isn’t teaching yoga or with her daughters, she tends to plants, chickens, and bees on their permaculture property -- Dancing Earth Farm.
Caitlin Clarke, DC
Caitlin became a chiropractor in 1998. Her fascination with identifying and preventing the emotional, physical and spiritual causes of dystocia (difficult, stalled or painful births) led her to become a perinatal chiropractor and birth doula (DONA). She has advanced training in Webster Technique, Birth Passage Dynamics™ and Spinning Babies™ technique. She is also a craniosacral therapist and certified Blissborn™ Birth Hypnosis instructor. In addition, she teaches prenatal yoga and has completed Mount Madonna's prenatal yoga teacher training program.
Caitlin grew up with a deep love and awe for pregnant women and birth, which continues to expand with each birth she attends. She attended her first births at ages 2 and 6, when her brothers were born at home. She is the daughter of a retired homebirth midwife who played an integral role in the "homebirth revolution" of the 1970s and 1980s in the Boston area. She is also the grand-niece of a midwife who attended homebirths in London during World War II. When Caitlin isn't attending births or working with pregnant mamas, she stays joyfully occupied
as her homeschooled/unschooled/nature-schooled, son, Ryan's, learning facilitator.
Lori Frenner, CD(DONA), CST, CMT
Lori is a birth doula, advanced craniosacral therapist, massage therapist and prenatal yoga instructor. She has extensive advanced craniosacral training through Upledger Institute™, including training in craniosacral for pregnancy. As a busy birth doula, Lori incorporates CST into facilitation of easeful labor and birth.
Lori is also an animal rights activist who has worked as an animal rescue mama for various organizations.
Czarina Bowers, CD
Czarina believes that pregnancy and childbirth are the most powerful and profoundly transformative events in a family’s journey together. She helps mamas prepare for birth and early parenting so they feel confident and empowered on their baby’s birth day and during their first moments, days, and weeks together as a family.
Czarina has a background in psychology, early childhood development, education, and early intervention. Before birth work, she was an early childhood educator for over ten years.
As a birth professional, Czarina has received training from the Doulas of North America (DONA), the Childbirth and Postpartum Professional Association (CAPPA), Cornerstone Doula Trainings, the Nursing Mother’s Counsel, Birthing from Within, StillBirthday, Sacred Pregnancy, GentleBirth, the Association of Placenta Preparation Arts, and Birthing the Future.
Anna Whalen, CST
Anna Whalen is a craniosacral therapist with a practice focusing on prenatal mamas, postnatal mamas, infants and children. She completed advanced trainings with midwife and craniosacral therapist, Carol Gray. In addition she is studying craniosacral therapy for breastfeeding with Allison Hazelbaker. Anna is passionate about honoring mamas' innate wisdom.
Anna's personal yoga practice germinated in a small thatched roof building on the coast of India, where she attended hatha yoga classes and developed a profound appreciation for the traditional roots of yoga. In college, Anna embraced the intensity of Bikram yoga as a complement to her athletic endeavors playing water polo. Eventually she faced hip and back injuries that taught her the consequences of overexerting and disrespecting the body. She is grateful for these injuries, however, because they invited her to cultivate a deeper understanding of her body, which ultimately re-routed the course of her life.
Anna completed her teacher training at Prana Yoga Teacher College in Vancouver, British Columbia. She teaches hatha yoga with an emphasis on breath and safety, and brings an enthusiastic and nurturing spirit to all of her classes.
Sara Dietrich, RN
Sara is a labor and delivery nurse with a unique background. Sara entered the field because she believes strongly that mamas be supported in having the births they desire, including unmedicated ones. She traveled throughout the US for three years working at a wide range of hospitals, all with different labor and delivery protocols.
The births of Sara's three boys were as diverse as the births of the women she serves. During her first pregnancy, she planned a midwife-assisted home birth, but pre-eclampsia late in pregnancy warranted a change in plan to a a hospital induction. Her second birth was a natural, unmedicated midwife-assisted birth at a birth center. And her third boy was born via planned caesarean section due to breech position.
Sara offers mamas a treasure trove of both professional and personal experience. She is especially dedicated to facilitating communication between mamas and hospital staff, so that mamas' birth plans are not merely acknowledged, but honored.
Womb Song
Music is powerful medicine connecting mind, body and spirit. Womb Song is a community based singing circle for pregnant women, female birthworkers and female support partners. Songs are taught in simple call and response style, no musical experience necessary. Participants can prepare for labor through vocal toning and breathing exercises, strengthen connection to baby through sound, and discover a deeper sense of their own voice and power -- an essential element in approaching birthing and parenthood. Learn beautiful, simple songs and lullabies from around the world to calm the mind, strengthen the heart and lift the spirit in pregnancy, labor and postpartum. Begun in London at Westminster Hospital, Womb Song has reached the United States and is now centered in Santa Cruz. Learn about this growing movement to reclaim singing as a part of birth.
Deva Cassandra, LAc.
Deva is an acupuncturist devoted to serving prenatal mamas. She received her Masters degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine from Five Branches University. While doing an externship with the renowned Dr. Holly Guzman, she fell in love with Japanese style acupuncture as taught by Dr. Guzman and her teacher, Kiiko Matsumoto. This effective style of acupuncture is palpation based; the practitioner looks for tender points then needles corresponding acupuncture points to relieve the tension. The needles are often smaller than Chinese needles and are not put as deep in the skin.
In her free time, Deva can be found hiking, practicing yoga, listening to bluegrass or playing on the beach with daughter Scarlett Grace, husband Daniel Sebastian and puppy Stella May.
Julie Lefmann, CMT, CD
Julie Lefmann has been a Certified Massage Therapist since 2001, specializing in Pre- & Postnatal Massage, and she has been a Birth Doula since 2006, attending over 150 births so far. She was also a nanny for 15 years, & has been a Certified Reiki (energy healing) and Watsu (warm-water massage) Practitioner since 2004.
Children, Healing, and Water play important roles in Julie’s life, and she is thrilled to discover new ways to marry all of her passions together. She uses as her compass the things that most fascinate, interest, ignite and inspire her. Julie grew up in South San Jose and earned a B.A. from Chico State. She then directly attended massage school. For more than the past decade, she has worked for day spas, chiropractors, physical therapists, and for her own private clients.
A Triple Pisces, Julie is very much a water-baby, and this informs her bodywork, both on the table and in the water. Her fluid-like movement is a combination of Hawaiian LomiLomi (patterned after the ocean) and deep tissue, both of which she has studied extensively for over ten years. She enjoys using acupressure (sometimes to stimulate labor), long yummy strokes to relax and nurture, passive stretching, and more. Julie feels her best service is the presence she brings to each client; her greatest joy is “mid-wifing” others into finding Presence and Power within themselves.