Phoenix Artemisia has been
practicing Yoga devotedly since 1994. She first
became certified to instruct in 1999 at the request of her main teacher
at the Kali Ray TriYoga Center and has since then completed two 200+
hour Ashtanga teacher trainings at the Mount Madonna Center of Santa
Cruz, California and at Parmarth Niketan Ashram in Rishikesh, India.
She has also studied intensively for the last 5 years with Senior
Certified Iyengar Yoga teacher Kofi Busia and has completed 45 hours
of Kofi's teacher training.
Phoenix informally began
doing Yogasanas when she was a very wee child of four years of age.
A child of the 80's, she practiced such parentally-harrowing poses
as sirsasana (headstand) and urdhva dhanurasana (upwards bow or wheel
pose), hanumanasana (the splits) and upavista konasana (seated wide
angle pose or straddle) for sheer joy and to complement her "Xanadu"-inspired
rollerskating ambitions, and had the school headstand record in 6th
grade for 13 minutes!
Her adult Yoga path began
in 1992 via instruction in Hatha Yoga at Fresno Community College,
where she was studying Political Science seeking to find a way to
make a difference in the world. It may have been the inevitable recognition
of a personal responsibility which Yoga practice produces, in cultivating
a peaceful mind and fearless outlook that must precede any attempt
to manipulate external reality--that led her away from the intellectually
combative world of political science, though the appetite to help
evoke social change and justice which was at the heart of her studies
simply found deeper roots in her commitment to pursue a B.A. in Psychology.
Phoenix moved to the Santa
Cruz mountains in 1994 while pursuing her undergraduate degree at
UC Santa Cruz in Psychology and minored in Women’s Studies.
While living in the redwoods, she began to undergo a deep process
of investigating what extended from ages 12-23 to an 11-year struggle
with clinically diagnosed depression and an eating disorder. This
time was marked by increased commitment to her Yoga practice, studying
at the Ashtanga Yoga Institute at the Pacific Cultural Center in Santa
Cruz, as well as deepening her appreciation and knowledge about herbalism,
women’s ritual and Native American ceremonies, and the traditions
of western Qabalah and Tarot. She was (and to some healthy extent
still is) thoroughly existentially frustrated with the “traditional”
pursuit of happiness and pleasure that seems to define and yet in
reality, preclude a meaningful life for humans ---exemplified by a
world engaged in environmental and cultural desecration largely predicated
on a misunderstanding of the role of materialism in Creation and the
exclusion of the Divine Feminine. She spent several years during this
period living in peaceful but complicated solitude in the forest.
Meanwhile, she remained connected to community through her work as
an environmental activist, and as a counselor at both Women’s
Crisis Support and a group home for teenaged women. She continued
to study Yoga and serve as a counselor of women and teens when she
moved to Arizona for a 6-month period, sustaining a daily practice
on the riverbanks and ancient corn-growing sites of the Hopi on Oak
Creek between Sedona and Cottonwood. She became acquainted with several
Navajo and other native elders and has been encouraged by these relationships
in her studies and practice of natural healing.
She returned to California
at the bequest and gravitational pull of the Pacific Ocean and the
necessity of reconvening her Yoga studies which were at the time based
at the Kali Ray TriYoga Center in Santa Cruz. Her teacher, Yogiraj,
encouraged her to certify to teach as the school was in need of teachers
at that time for its Basics level offerings to community, and Phoenix
was certified to teach in 1999. During this year another life-transforming
event occurred when she met for the first time Mata Amritanandamayi,
known affectionately as the "hugging saint" Amma
(meaning Mother), whose example of selfless service to humanity stands
like a sacred flame of compassionate and incisive Light inspiring
Phoenix' activity as a Yogini. Teaching Yoga was not a professional
goal of hers at any time in her life but began to mysteriously pervade
and weave together all of her past experiences and skills in activism,
counseling psychology, and social change with a method for personal
and collective evolution that has stood the test of time for thousands
of years. She has since certified in the Ashtanga tradition of Baba
Hari Dass through the Mount Madonna Center, a 230-hour training
which she thoroughly recommends for those wishing to deepen their
experience of the classical system of Yoga. She also has studied the
Iyengar Yoga method for the last five years with Kofi
Busia, whose dedication to the transmission and example of Yoga
and Dharma she feels moved by. In October of 2005, Phoenix received
a completion certificate with honors from Parmarth
Niketan Ashram of Rishikesh India during a residential 200+ hour
training by the banks of the sacred river Ganga. She has also studied
Tibetan Buddhist philosophy with several teachers since 1999 and was
very fortunate while in India to recieve teachings and to meet with
His Holiness
the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa.
Phoenix regards
teaching as a source of deep creative inspiration and service to her
community. When she is not teaching or practicing Yoga, she enjoys writing
and poetry-- “the art of bearing witness to Nature”, honing
her musical talents of piano, Middle Eastern drumming and dancing, and
singing, and maintaining the large garden where she grows many medicinal
and edible plants and vegetables. She has traveled to Turkey, Greece,
China, Tibet and India, and facilitates Yoga retreats and tours annually
in Greece and in India.
