A center for personal healing and collective well-being.
You are in the right place!
Do you know us as Yoga Sanctuary? We invite you to read about our recent journey to becoming Sanctuary in this blog series:
We were also recently featured on the WHMP Western Mass Business Show with Tara Brewster. You can listen to the podcast here.
Our (short) Story
Sanctuary holds space for all of us as individuals working together to reduce harm and heal towards a more just and liberatory future. We channel 100% of profits to our Scholarship Fund as an act of reparations and financial accessibility for all.
Our studio space on the third level of the historic Thornes Marketplace in downtown Northampton, MA, provides a peaceful sanctuary for healing therapies and bodywork, yoga and restorative classes, educational workshops, and celebratory community events.
Classes and private healing arts sessions at Sanctuary are the offerings of a collective of widely-experienced practitioners of different modalities who are dedicated to meeting the community’s vast and evolving need for connection and healing.
Overview of Services
Yoga, Movement, & Restorative Classes
We offer a range of yoga, movement, and restorative classes for all ages, abilities, and life stages. The yoga teachers at Sanctuary are grounded in their lineages of yoga practice, and honor the roots of the many yogic traditions that come from India, as passed to them through their teachers.
Healing Arts
Access a range of healing treatments and holistic services, including Alexander Technique, Rolfing, massage, yoga therapy, cranial sacral, and more, provided by Sanctuary’s collective of providers.
Community Engagement
The need for justice and equity within our community demands constant attention, and we are grateful for the countless organizations, committees, and activist groups working toward their causes. Sanctuary is a community partner to these organizations and groups, with the intent to raise awareness and encourage action. We are ready to lend our platform and resources to foster change.
Our Collective of Care
Sanctuary’s collective of instructors and practitioners works together to offer transformative and healing support for our community, and to support one another collaboratively.
Space Rentals
Sanctuary provides spaces and amenities for community events and other heart-centered gatherings. Our central and accessible location and thoughtfully-equipped rooms provide a supportive place for a range of activities and intentions.
Events & Series
This series is designed for those who have recently given birth and are looking to reconnect with their bodies and their breath in shared space with other new parents and babies. We'll practice gentle and rejuvenating poses, work on regaining core and pelvic integration, and learn techniques for breathing and moving with our little ones. This is a welcoming space for queer and trans postpartum students; everyone is welcome.
Writing, like yoga, can help reveal who we are. The emotions and wisdom that live in our bodies can unfold on the page as questions, insights, memory, and truth.
Join us for 6 weeks of:
Yoga-asana practice infused with stories (mythic stories from India, the motherland of yoga, and quotes from modern day writers)
Writing practice with guided prompts
Time to share writing or thoughts (entirely optional), to listen, to integrate
Sebastian has been teaching yoga with skill and care since 2018. Currently pregnant himself, he is passionate about creating supportive spaces for all pregnant people. His teaching is gender-affirming, body-positive, and trauma informed. He is a Certified Accessible Yoga Teacher as well as a Certified Prenatal Yoga Teacher.
Each month we will dig deep into a certain aspect of the moon (mythology, lunar cycles, moon magic, history of the moon, etc). The full moon is a time to release what is holding us back, and we will do that through ritual and energy clearing techniques in a circle: clearing what we are ready to release.
Immerse yourself in this blissful workshop of movement and sound meditation. This 90-minute workshop combines a revitalizing yoga practice with the deeply relaxing and restorative benefits of sound meditation. You’ll leave feeling grounded yet uplifted–your body rejuvenated and your mind at peace.
One of the best ways to learn how to take care of yourself is to move in new and unusual ways. And there is nothing more uplifting to your spirit and to your sense of self-care than to move in inspired ways to inspiring and uplifting music in the company of others.
Dance out the limitations of the mind and the tensions of the body. Leave feeling more whole and more like yourself–the self you most long to be.
This series is designed for those who have recently given birth and are looking to reconnect with their bodies and their breath in shared space with other new parents and babies. We'll practice gentle and rejuvenating poses, work on regaining core and pelvic integration, and learn techniques for breathing and moving with our little ones. This is a welcoming space for queer and trans postpartum students; everyone is welcome.
Softly start the new year with a gentle Kripalu yoga class and live music savasana to soothe your spirit.
For an auspicious start to the year, this practice is centered around Ganesha, the deity from the Hindu pantheon associated with new beginnings, transitions, and removing obstacles.
As the mind becomes increasingly more dominant we often connect less and less to the innate wisdom of our bodies. Supported by music, this modality of breathwork guides us to be deeply in touch with our energetic body, helping to clear stuck, stagnant energy, accumulated stress and anxiety–allowing us to release old patterns and arrive fully in the present moment, welcoming new ways of being.
Grief is a journey that none of us can avoid. Over lifetimes, we inevitably face the loss of ones we love. The holes that are created in the fabric of our lives knit slowly back together over time, and careful attendance to the grief process, especially in the company of others who understand the journey, can facilitate the process.
During this session, Carol McMurrich and Lauren Singer of Empty Arms Bereavement Support will open a safe circle to gently hold the grief you carry. Then, using several different prompts and writing invitations, Lauren will invite participants to write and share with one another in a partner, small group, and large group format as they feel comfortable. During the two hours we will be together, participants can expect 1-2 short writing exercises along with one more extended invitation.
This "retreat" will be a chance to step out of the every day and into a zone of deep relaxation. The retreat will begin with gentle movement that will transition participants into a specific type of guided meditation called yoga nidra. Often translated as "yogic sleep", yoga nidra is a state of relaxation, where the body "sleeps", the mind remains conscious, and deep restoration and rejuvenation can take place.
In these monthly gatherings, Jorie will work with a combination of crystal bowls, temple bells, and chimes. These instruments work with the principles of resonance, entrainment, and cellular healing in promoting general relaxation, resetting the nervous system, restoring mental clarity, and aiding in cellular restoration. All sessions will be touch-free and mindful of potential reactivity to dissonance, binaurals, and overplaying.
Props are not just for beginners; they offer benefits for practitioners of every level, adding an element of ease and exploration to your yoga journey. This 90-minute immersive workshop will help you better understand how to use props for deeper support and stability. Props will be incorporated to help release tightness, and offer a more accessible practice for yogis of all levels. The workshop will be set up like an all-levels yoga asana class, with opportunities for Fran to provide pointers on how to use props, and will end with a lengthy savasana.
In this heart-opening two hour Restorative Contact workshop for couples, you will be guided through a mindful touch practice with your special person. We will work slowly, with care and respect for our body as well as our partner's, as we learn to listen through the skin. The effects of touch are far-reaching, including emotional, physical, and cognitive wellbeing and improvement. Studies indicate that touch boosts the “happy hormones” dopamine and serotonin, as well as the “love hormone” oxytocin.
Join us for an afternoon of deep relaxation and massage! This luxurious two-hour class is a wonderful opportunity to slow down, practice self-care, and receive healing touch.
As the mind becomes increasingly more dominant we often connect less and less to the innate wisdom of our bodies. Supported by music, this modality of breathwork guides us to be deeply in touch with our energetic body, helping to clear stuck, stagnant energy, accumulated stress and anxiety–allowing us to release old patterns and arrive fully in the present moment, welcoming new ways of being.
Immerse yourself in this blissful workshop of movement and sound meditation. This 90-minute workshop combines a revitalizing yoga practice with the deeply relaxing and restorative benefits of sound meditation. You’ll leave feeling grounded yet uplifted–your body rejuvenated and your mind at peace.
Immerse yourself in this blissful workshop of movement and sound meditation. This 90-minute workshop combines a revitalizing yoga practice with the deeply relaxing and restorative benefits of sound meditation. You’ll leave feeling grounded yet uplifted–your body rejuvenated and your mind at peace.
Meet our January 2025 Community Spotlight organization. Empty Arms Bereavement Support serves individuals and families in Massachusetts and nationwide whose babies have died through miscarriage, stillbirth, early infant death, or termination for medical reasons.
I am deeply committed to helping our world and all its beings heal from trauma. There are so many systems that actively harm and traumatize on a regular basis. I’m engaged in visualizing and creating communities and systems that value balance, belonging, and healing. I am a queer, non-binary trauma survivor, and finding places where I can be my full self and feel comfortable can be difficult. I believe that creating safe spaces and moments of peace can make a huge impact. The more I work to heal from traumatic experiences that happened to me, the more I notice how much healing is needed by others. And I feel deeply honored that I can help facilitate wellness through sound healing work.
Since we have taken over the studio, we have been trying to balance the high value of what we offer, the everyday costs of running a studio, and financial accessibility for anyone who wishes to practice. We have noticed that in our culture caretaking professions are financially undervalued, and this includes yoga teachers, bodyworkers, and healers. Our hope is not to dissuade anyone from practicing, but to name the true price of our yoga class offerings, outside of a sliding scale model.
Meet our December 2024 Community Spotlight organization, Resilient Community Arts. Their mission is to sustain efforts for social progress and equity through affordable arts programming.
I started breathwork as a way to ease anxiety and eliminate panic attacks. After 20 years of self practice in breathwork and meditation I became a Somatic Breathwork Guide and joined the faculty at Kripalu Center. This came about as I saw the world shifting dramatically around 2020 and I wanted to share what I had learned and experienced in my practice over the years to help heal and bring people together.
My work is an expression of my dreaming toward collective liberation. People deserve access to choice, and to be in their bodies in ways that work for them (including not being in their bodies). Simultaneously, complex trauma is an expression of larger systems of power and harm, like white supremacy, ableism, capitalism, colonialism, and their powerful sibling and offspring systems; I practice believing that processes intended to heal that trauma are/should be inextricably bound up in the parallel process of dismantling those traumatizing systems. Additionally, as individual bodies surviving and taking action against systems of harm, I also believe that our efforts are more sustainable if we can be on the same team as our bodies–speaking a shared language, making informed choices, and connecting with other bodies in aligned ways.
Meet our November 2024 Community Spotlight organization! Since 1979, The Northampton Survival Center is dedicated to improving the quality of life for low-income individuals and families throughout Hampshire County by providing nutritious food and other resources in an atmosphere of dignity and respect. They provide local folks with weekly groceries from our pantries in Northampton and Goshen.
Meet our October 2024 Community Spotlight organization, It Takes a Village. Their mission is to provide free postpartum and early parenting support to families with babies and young children living in Western Massachusetts, and to inspire the community to welcome the newest members of their Village.
My hope is that my clients experience a reclaimed sense of agency around their food choices and eating habits. My intention is to give clients the space to talk about their food based concerns and invite them into the driver's seat when deciding which direction we go. I strongly believe that my clients are the experts of their own body and that my role is to help folks get curious and explore options that align with their values.
Meet our September 2024 Community Spotlight organization, Smith College Food Rescue Network. Their goal is to redistribute excess prepared food from Smith College to community members experiencing food insecurity. They collect data for every pan of food they donate and share this information with Smith Dining Services, allowing Dining Services to make decisions about more sustainable ordering practices.
In finding my voice and the light that guides me as a student, teacher and teacher trainer, I have found ways to support others in finding their voice and unique paths as students and teachers. I have learned to practice, learn, share, and teach yoga from love - for love - out of love - with love - for the sake of love. To step away from dogmatic rules and truly honor yoga from the inside, out.
Meet our August 2024 Community Spotlight organization, Translate Gender. Translate Gender is a collective-based, consensus-run (501c3) non-profit organization that works to generate community accountability for individuals to self-determine their own genders and gender expressions.
Being on the dance floor gives me a place to express all of my emotions in a way that allows them to move through me faster and with greater integrity. But what I cherish most is that through the dance, I feel the most directly connected to my own aliveness and to All That Is.
“The work I do is not separate from how I live or what it is that I contribute to the world. I believe that our greatest contribution to the world, ever, will always be who we are and how we live. I believe the highest form of activism is to know yourself and to understand how your choices impact those around you, as well as the planet.”
Yoga asks the essential questions of humanity: Who am I? Why am I alive? What is going on here? Who are these other beings around me? It is a longing and a seeking and a progressive discovery. What it longs for and seeks and discovers is the underlying, fundamental truth of oneness.
Through the practice of Somatic Breathwork we can utilize our own breath to clear the pathways of these stuck energetic imprints–releasing stress and anxiety, and setting us free to arrive fully in the present moment–creating space to embody our highest vibration, fullest self-expression and deepest authenticity in connecting to the richness of our lives.
Meet our June 2024 Community Spotlight organization! The Parlor Room Collective’s mission is “to enhance the health and vitality of our community through music. We believe in the ability of music to transcend boundaries, bridge gaps, and uplift spirits. Our vision is to create a space where diverse audiences can come together to experience the magic of live music, fostering a sense of belonging and shared cultural appreciation.”
Like all things, we live within the context of cycles, there is a time for generation and a time for restoration, a time for activity and a time for rest. We can’t always be up, out, light, creative, productive and doing. And yet, we live in a society that values one part of the cycle so much more than the other. When we are experiencing the sometimes disowned, shadowed part of the cycle, the low, the quiet, the inward, the tired, we are bombarded with messages letting us know we can buy something to fix it.
A lot of us have distant - or even antagonistic - relationships with our bodies, and I struggle with this myself. In addition to relieving pain, I want to provide a space where those with that kind self-estrangement can begin to reconcile, and find peace and joy as more unified humans.
Meet Corinne, a yoga teacher, yoga teacher trainer, and life coach! Corinne and her partner Matthew Andrews will be leading a Yoga Immersion and Teacher Training at Sanctuary, beginning October 2024.
Meet Matthew! Matthew is a yoga teacher, singer, songwriter, entrepreneur, nonprofit executive, bhakta, and the co-director of Shraddhā Yoga. He leads monthly kirtans at Sanctuary, and will be leading a Yoga Immersion and Teacher Training with his partner Corinne Matthews at Sanctuary, beginning October 2024.
Meet our May 2024 Community Spotlight organization! Friends of Northampton Trails fosters better public health and quality of life for Northampton’s residents and visitors by enhancing the bike trail network and conducting activities that sustain and grow the community of trail users.
“The more I practiced, the more I realized that no one teaching looked like me. I wanted to create space for folks that didn’t fit into the mold of what we in the West have decided is a “yoga body.” When you dive deeper into the ancient teachings of yoga, we learn that EVERY body is a yoga body and that yoga asana (the physical postures) is only one of the many aspects of the practice of yoga.”
“I experienced an immediate benefit in my first tapping session. I felt calmer and more grounded in my body. The anxious thoughts that were on repeat in my mind no longer consumed me. During the certification process, my mind, body, and heart opened up to deeper levels of healing that I never experienced before (especially in talk therapy.)”
Meet Em! They are a pelvic floor physical therapist, and owner of Pioneer Valley Pelvic Health.
“I wanted to become a pelvic floor therapist because of my passion for sexual health and sexuality education, coupled with a deep desire to improve people's quality of life. Throughout my journey, I've observed that many individuals grapple with feelings of shame, stigma, or fear when it comes to pelvic floor function, whether it involves sexual, bowel, bladder, or pain issues. These emotions can profoundly impact one's well-being and hinder their ability to seek help.”
Meet our April 2024 Community Spotlight organization! Grow Food Northampton’s mission is to create a just and resilient local food and farming system that nourishes our community and protects and enriches the earth. Founded in 2010 to protect 121 acres of farmland in Florence from development and grow our local food system, Grow Food Northampton (GFN) has since grown to include extensive programming on the land and throughout the community in Northampton.
I love working with people to help them create shifts to help them be more centered, balanced and whole in the world. Being an energy healer is fulfilling an urge that I can’t really ignore. I feel like I have gifts and knowledge that can really help people so it almost feels like an obligation to share them. And adding in the power of essential oils and their magic just intensifies the possibilities for healing.
Meet our March 2024 Community Spotlight Organization. CISA (Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture) strengthens farms and engages the community to build the local food economy. CISA has been working for over 30 years to build a stronger, more resilient, and more just local food system. They envision a local food system where farms are viable, working conditions are fair and just for owners and workers, the environment is respected, and locally grown food is available for all.
“Gentle Yoga is about being gentle with our bodies, and gentle with ourselves- essentially, having self compassion. Yin Yoga is a wonderful way to be gentle with our bodies, and to invite deep listening to the body.”
“I love that [this class is] slow and quiet, with lots and lots of stillness. And I love that I get to hold the space for folks to slow down, let go, relax, and come back to the quiet, still space within themselves.”
Recent Blog Posts
Meet The Collective
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Andrea Kwapien
Yoga Instructor
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Beth Donnelly
Yoga Instructor, Prenatal Yoga
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Beth Tascione
Yoga Instructor
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Chandra Cantor
Yoga Instructor
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Corinne Andrews
Yoga Instructor, Yoga Teacher Trainer, Life Coach
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Ellen Morbyrne
Yoga Instructor
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Em Ike
Pelvic Floor Therapist
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Erin Haenlin
Yoga Instructor
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Fran Astino
Yoga Teacher, Sound Meditation Facilitator
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Gabrielle Revlock
Restorative Contact Facilitator, Contact Improvisation Instructor
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Ishmael Dengate
Bodyworker, Movement Therapist
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Jen Walts
HypnoBirthing Educator, Doula
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Jen Wenz
Certified Rolfing©, Ritual, Somatic Coaching
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Jesse Muzzy
Fertility Awareness & Sexual Health Educator, Doula
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Jessica Montagna
Yoga Instructor
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Jon Orsini
Certified Somatic Breathwork Guide
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Jorie Morgan
Certified Sound Healer
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Julie Rozenfeld
Massage Therapist
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Kat Now
Yoga, Mindfulness, & Conscious Dance Instructor
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Kate Martel
Alexander Technique
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Katherine Harris
Energy Healer, Clinical Aromatherapy Practitioner
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Katie Fortier Acerbi
Yoga Instructor
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Lexi Major
Yoga Instructor, Yoga Therapy
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Lorrie Murenzi
Yoga Instructor, Kids Yoga
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Mary Gabis
Massage Therapist
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Matthew Andres
Kirtan, Yoga Philosophy
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Michael Sheely
Empathy Trainer, Life/Business Coach
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Safara Fisher
Trauma-Informed Yoga Instructor
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Sara Rose Page
Yoga Instructor
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Sebastian Merrill
Yoga Instructor, Artistic Director
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Susan McNamara
Journeydance Teacher, Shamanic Practitioner
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Tracy Einstein
Alexander Technique
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Woozy Wootters
Massage Therapist
A sanctuary for the body.
A sanctuary for the mind.
A sanctuary for spirit.
A sanctuary for a beloved community.
A sanctuary for joy.
A sacred sanctuary for our multitudes.
A sanctuary for the body. A sanctuary for the mind. A sanctuary for spirit. A sanctuary for a beloved community. A sanctuary for joy. A sacred sanctuary for our multitudes.