Female

52

well, this is pretty factual, but it will let you know what I am into....
Amara was a licensed masseuse in Oregon, having studied Swedish, Esalen and deep bodywork, Polarity and pressure point techniques at the Berkeley Holistic Health Institute and Heartwood Institute. Her Hatha Yoga studies began at this time also and have continued to the present.
She studied Chinese healing, herbology, and Macrobiotics for a year and a half with Michael Tierra at the Heartwood Wholistic Health Institute.
She was trained in psychic reading, healing and meditation for two years at the Berkeley Psychic Institute, and has taught numerous classes in the same since then.
She created, edited and published Heartsong Review, a resource guide and review magazine for New Age spiritual music, for nine years.

She taught Re-evaluation Co-counseling, a method of peer counseling, for over five years, and has been studying and practicing it since 1983. She has led many 12 week classes, support groups and one day workshops using this style.
In 1994 she began developing her own approach to peer counseling, called Wholistic Peer Support, integrating many ideas from RC with spiritual meditation practices, psychic healing and body centered techniques.
She has studied Body Centered Counseling, Breathwork and Conscious Relationships with the Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks, who wrote "The Conscious Heart" and "At The Speed of Life".

She began studying Tantra and Sacred Spot massage work, a method of sexual healing, on Maui with Joan and Tomas Heartfield, around 2003. She has been teaching Sacred Spot work for men and women, and leading one night Tantra Pujas, on the Big Island and Maui. She has been a presenter at Winter Camp of the Movement for New Culture in 2006 and 2007.

She is a minister, Sheikha (teacher) and initiator on the Sufi path (specifically the Sufi Islamia Ruhaniat Society), and has been studying that path, which encourages honoring of all religions, since 1983. She served as Secretary, and then Chairperson, on the Core of the International Council for the Dances of Universal Peace
. She also is organizing her area in Hawaii into a new subregion of the NA Network, and is the Regional Networker for that area. She has traveled to many Dance training events and studied with the founding members of the Dance Network. She has been on teaching staff many years at NW Sufi camp focusing the Dance concentration. She has created and staffed many weekend Dance workshops.
She also has led and participated in many Goddess song circles, camps and Neo-pagan rituals since 1980, being attracted to the honoring of Nature, women and the natural cycles. She helped to start two ritual groups in the Eugene area.

She has been an graphic artist and scrimshander since 1980, and has illustrated several books and magazines. She currently is producing reproductions of her art as banners and prayer flags. see www.karunaarts.com