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Jyoti Chrystal, ERYT has 35 years of international teaching experience in yoga, meditation, and the healing arts. Her early yoga career has included study with B.K.S. Iyengar in India in the 80's and Ashtanga with Alan Bates and other notables of that era. She continues to study with senior Iyengar teachers such as Aadil Paklavalaha, Gabriela Giubilaro, Lois Steinberg, Kofi Busia and others. Originally, for 13 years she was a disciple of Jain master, Gurudev Shree Chitrabhanu to whom she credits her initial awakening in the 70’s. She has studied Vini Yoga and Cardiac Yoga with IYI. She is currently a student of Mukunda, Tom Styles in his Structural Therapy Program and has completed Kofi Busia’s 110hr Advanced Teacher Training, July ’06. She founded and is mentoring two successful yoga therapy classes here at Starseed: Back Care Basics and Restorative/Therapeutic Yoga. She currently is focusing on Yoga Therapy for Arthritis and immune dysfunction. While living in Brazil during the 70s and early 80s she apprenticed in various forms of shamanism and founded a yoga center there. Upon her return to North America she became a student of Angeles Arrian's Four Fold Way for 7 years and also worked with Alberto Villodo and other shamans in the US. In 1988 Jyoti was initiated into the Peruvian shamanic lineage of the Andes by Don Edwardo Calderon and has received second-degree initiation into Amazonian shamanism by Don Austin Rivas Vasquez with whom she has been working with since 1987. Jyoti today continues her medicine work with S. American shamans both locally and in their native countries. Jyoti uses the shamanic tools of journeywork, sopla (Amazonian tobacco and sacred herbs), sacred power songs, Gestalt therapy and the very practical use of the universal teachings of ahimsa in her unique Shamanic Empowerment Coaching to assist her private clients. She believes in living a "life worth dying for." Her unique gift of being able to assist clients in identifying negative or dysfunctional root beliefs is immediately apparent in her transformative work. Jyoti’s Tibetan Buddhist teachers of the Dzogchen tradition include Ontil Rimpoche, Lama Kunga and Lama Rangbar all of whom are frequent visitor teachers at Starseed/Montclair. She and her partner, Dr. Jason Martin, co-facilitated Full Moon Fire ceremonies for over 16 years. Their shamanic journeywork and specialty workshops have included their Starseed signature event, The Dreambody (now in it's 13th year), they would often lead groups to Mexico, Peru and currently hold retreats at the Country Place in Pa. As of June 2007 Jyoti will continue some of this work with her shamanic team. Currently, she is working closely with Starseed's parenting and pre/post natal yoga program by facilitating family journeywork which helps to strengthen family bonds. Jyoti works closely with Alfredo Villela, a gifted drummer and healer in the Aztec tradition. Together, they anchor the popular shamanic Healing Circles at Starseed. Alfredo also co-facilitates the Starseed Shamanic Journeys and Full Moon Fire Ceremonies with Jyoti. Jyoti directs the Starseed yoga program at all three centers and the Starseed Yoga Teacher Training Program (500 hr, 9-month apprenticeship, and the 200 hr), and is the inspiration behind the Feminine Wisdom program, now in its 18th year, Jyoti oftentimes mentors apprentices in her unique shamanic style. Jyoti, along with Barbara Coloe, is co-author of the forthcoming book, "Shamanic Yoga, Remembering the Journey." Jyoti also founded the Starseed Educational Company, the non profit branch of Starseed, dedicated to bringing yoga, meditation and healing into sectors of the community afflicted by drug, alcohol addiction and abuse issues for battered women. Other sponsorship activities include establishment of scholarships for Buddhist Monks in Rewalsar, India, several clothing drives for the Lakota tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and a twice yearly clothing drive for the people of Tamshyaku, a village in the Amazonian Rainforest in Peru. Additionally the SEC has a program to support their indigenous arts and crafts as a way of living in 21 Century Peru. Jyoti is a licensed minister performing weddings, christening and naming ceremonies, rites of passages and coming of age ceremonies and facilitates funerals and memorial services. Using her unique Shamanic Empowerment Coaching she counsels individuals and families in various stages of working through grief, bringing her shamanic prowess and spiritual insight to this most important facet of our lives. ~Jyoti is currently working with White Wind Weaver and is training in the Art of Life coaching method using the model of Sphirical Reality If you would like to make an appointment for a Shamanic Empowerment Coaching session
in person or on the phone or if you would like to make an appointment for Yoga Therapy,
Jyoti can be reached at Starseed (973)783-1036, ext. 4
or you can contact Jyoti by e-mail at Click here to read Albert Stern's blog about his sevenyear apprenticeship with Jyoti and Jason. NY Times article |