Our Team
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December 16, 1971- August 27, 2023
We honor our Beloved Krishna, Co-founder of ShivaShakti School of Yoga and Healing Arts
Krishna was a teacher, healer and guide and probably still is in a non-human form. As a catalyst for transformational healing and new world consciousness, he was devoted to making the ancient wisdom teachings of Yoga accessible for the spiritual practitioner of the 21st century. He studied, practiced and taught yoga for over twenty years.
One of Krishna’s greatest loves was teaching on the spiritual heart of yoga. He was truly happiest when in the yoga classroom with a group of dedicated spiritual practitioners. Krishna had a beautiful way of bringing the esoteric, philosophical teachings alive in his students’ hearts in a way that inspired much life transformation and awakening.
He was an internationally-trained yoga teacher at the 500-hour level with several thousand hours of teaching experience. His global teaching and studies took him to Asia, Central America, Europe and the Caribbean. His studies in Raja Yoga included Sivananda, Ashtanga, Iyengar and Yin Yoga. Studies in the field of sacred technologies included Yoga, Ayurveda, Sanskrit and Vedic Astrology. His teachings were influenced most notably through the allied spiritual sciences of Vedanta, Samkhya and Tantra.
While he will be deeply missed on this earthly plane, may we trust that he will continue to inspire us with his playful antics and loving teachings through a different form.
Peaceful journey onward, dear Krishna.
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Co-founder ShivaShakti School of Yoga and Healing Arts
E-RYT 500, RPYT, LMT, CAy
Aiyana firmly believes in the saying, “We are not humans beings having a spiritual experience, but rather spiritual beings having a human experience” (Teilhard de Chardin). It is this life-long dedication to the spiritual path that initially drew Aiyana to Yoga years ago. She was called to the yogic path because of its balanced approach to the body, mind, and spirit. She has studied various styles of yoga, including Sivananda, Kundalini, Vinyasa, Iyengar, Yin, and many more all around the world and is an Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher at the 500-Hour level with Yoga Alliance.
Aiyana offers deep gratitude to her inspiring teachers, who include Sabu Chaitanya, Hari Kirin Kaur Khalsa, Prahlada, Dr. Vasant Lad, Dr. Robert Svoboda, Claudia Welch, Scott Blossom, Denise Jasmine, Lama Tsultrim Allione, Reggie Ray, Master Robert Peng and many others. Repeated visits to India have also shaped her teaching, as Aiyana believes the shakti (divine creative power) from the homeland of Yoga has transformed her being, lending a depth and authenticity to her teaching.
Aiyana co-founded the ShivaShakti School of Yoga in 2007 and co-directed their 200 and 500-hr teacher trainings for 12 years. She currently teaches online meditation and yoga trainings, as well as qigong, meditation and yoga retreats. Aiyana truly loves sharing the wisdom traditions of yoga, qigong and meditation for she believes there is no greater gift than to facilitate the deepening of one’s connection to Self, to share universal truths, and to encourage others to do the same. She actively promotes the practice of taking our spiritual practice off the mat/cushion and into all aspects of one’s life, for she believes that these paths are really about serving the world with the deepest compassion possible.
In addition to teaching meditation, yoga and qigong, Aiyana offers healing sessions incorporating Shamanic Healing, Ayurveda, western herbalism and transformational life coaching. Aiyana is a long-time licensed massage therapist, a Certified Ayurvedic Practitioner, an Ayurvedic Yoga Specialist, Shamanic Practitioner and a Life Coach. She is also a Registered Prenatal Yoga Teacher having completed a Yoga Alliance approved Prenatal/Postnatal certification and is a trained Birth Doula (DONA).
Aiyana finds the healing power of touch, the transformational spiritual practices of Qigong, Yoga, meditation, shamanism and the lifestyle wisdom of Ayurveda to be an inspirational union. Aiyana received her massage and Shiatsu education from Downeast School of Massage and has studied Thai massage at ITM in Thailand. She is a graduate of the Kripalu School of Ayurveda and also studied psychology and yogic studies at Goddard College. Currently, she is deepening her studies in Vajrayana Buddhism, Qigong and Shamanic Healing. Aiyana loves to hike, garden, chant to the Divine, explore the globe, and help the Earth through various sustainability projects. She lives with her sweet daughter in the beautiful Blue Ridge mountains of western North Carolina.
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Administrative Director
RYT 500, Usui/Holy Fire ART Reiki Master
Sri Devi has forever been drawn to the union of mind and body in the present moment and the learning that can take place there. Coming from a background in theater and dance, she began sharing this as an important life skill with children of all ages through those mediums.
Finding yoga while in recovery from surgery, Sri realized that everything she loved most about teaching theater, she could share even more deeply through yoga. She completed her 200HR YTT with ShivaShakti School of Yoga in 2016 and her 500HR YTT in 2018. She has done specialty trainings in Yoga Nidra, Pranayama and Meditation and Children’s Yoga with ShivaShakti and Restorative Yoga training with Margo Rosingana. A great lover of Sanskrit and the Bhagavad Gita, she currently studies both with Prem Sadasivananda from whom she received her spiritual name in 2017.
More recently her strong affinity for healing has emerged. Through studies with the International Center for Reiki Training (ICRT) and Melissa Rose Redman she acquired her Usui/Holy Fire ART Reiki Master certification in May 2019. Sri also facilitates the 6@6 Collective Healing Meditation Facebook group to assist in a global effort to pause and send healing energy every evening at 6pm. Sri Devi is deeply honored to serve as Administrative Director for ShivaShakti.
The moment Yoga entered her life, Sri stepped onto a path that has gone sideways, upside down, into the abyss and back out again, quietly led by a voice quoting Rumi.
“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.”
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Social Media Assistant
LMT, RYT 500
Kim is our Social Media Assistant at ShivaShakti School of Yoga. She has been practicing yoga for 10 years, doing massage and energetic bodywork since 2009, and teaching yoga since 2012.
Kim retired from a 29-year career in State Government in 2008 to begin her second career. She received her massage certification from Spa Tech Institute in Westbrook in 2009, completed her 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training with ShivaShakti School of Yoga in 2012, and completed her 300-hour Advanced Teacher Training in 2016.
Kim teaches a variety of weekly yoga classes in the Central Maine area and is the Manager of the River Studio in Hallowell. Her passion for teaching yoga stems from her own personal experience of the healing benefits. She describes yoga as “powerful medicine.” She believes that yoga is for EVERY body and is passionate about sharing gentle movement, meditation, and breathwork. Kim’s current plans include ongoing study with ShivaShakti School of Yoga and continued study in Yin Yoga.
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E-RYT 500, C-IYSI
First, as a student of dance, Antonia (Toni) Small found solace in motion. Later, as a student of mime Marcel Marceau, Toni cultivated a fondness for the meditative quality of silent storytelling. Over time her interest in movement studies led her to explore the healing arts of Alexander Technique, Zen Imagery Exercises (Makka Ho), Yoga and Somatics.
Her more recent commitment to teaching movement came on the heels of a long care-giving episode for her father that took a physical and emotional toll, but also set her on a course to make movement classes available to the older student.
Certified as an Integrative Yoga for Seniors Instructor (C-IYSI) through Kimberly Carson and Carol Krucoff’s Yoga for Seniors Professional Training at Duke Integrative Medicine in Durham, North Carolina,Toni received her 500-hour yoga teacher training with the ShivaShakti School of Yoga and Healing Arts and is also a Zumba® Fitness and Gold instructor.
More recent continuing education led her to become a Hospice Volunteer with the Coastal Family Hospice Volunteers of Midcoast Maine and, she earned the very first Certificate of Completion in Intelligent Motion Training from the Soma Kinese School, an online embodied movement science educational platform for movement educators.
Toni teaches weekly group and private classes in the Midcoast area and makes her home in the village of Port Clyde, Maine with three highly evolved dogs, her mother and her husband John, with whom she has started an ocean farm growing oysters and kelp.
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RN, CYT
Dawn has enjoyed a career in all areas of Women’s Health for over 22 years. For the last 15 years she has worked as a nurse at PBMC in Rockport, ME in the OB unit. She loves teaching women and their partners prenatally at her HypnoBirthing classes, then supporting them later through labor and birth as their nurse. Dawn is also a certified Lactation Counselor, helping new mothers and their babies learn the skills they need for a comfortable breastfeeding experience. As a 200-Hour graduate of the ShivaShakti School of Yoga Teacher Training, Dawn has brought the beautiful benefits of asana to small groups of her fellow nurses and co workers. She is a teacher in the ShivaShakti Prenatal Yoga Teacher Training.