A center for personal healing and collective well-being.

I often say that Contact Improv checks all the boxes. It meets my need for physical activity. It’s rigorous and there is a lot of lifting (taking other people’s weight) which builds strength. It’s social, playful, and fun. I have so many friends who I’ve met through the form. Above all else, it meets me where I am. If I’m feeling tired I can have a slow dance low to the ground. If I’m feeling energized, I might have a dance that goes in and out of the ground, falling through space, and engaging a wider dynamic range. It’s a pleasurable way of building a smarter body.

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.”