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Meet Your Host
Lisa Witter & Maria Rippo
Tantra for Turbulent Times is hosted by Lisa Witter, a psycho-spiritual counselor, non-dual Tantric meditation teacher, and founder of the Tantric Arts Collective. She has spent more than three decades on the yogic path and many years steeped in classical non-dual Åaiva Tantra, offering guidance inĀ Living Tantraāhow these teachings can be embodied and integrated into daily life, even amid turbulence and change.
Lisa is joined by co-host Maria Rippo, a psychotherapist and fellow practitioner who brings a grounded, relational presence to the summit container. Together, they hold this gathering as an offering for practitioners who want teachings that can meet the intensity of these times without bypassing or collapse.
Meet Your Speakers
Nishanth Selvalingam
Why We Offer Flowers to God: The MahÄrtha MaƱjarÄ« & Recognizing Reality Everywhere
Nishanth Selvalingam grew up in his grandfather's ashram in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. His grandfather was an accomplished practitioner of Shaiva SiddhÄnta & ÅrÄ« VidyÄ at whose feet Nishanth learned everything. Since moving to the United States in 2016 for a B.A in Philosophy from the University of California Los Angeles, Nishanth took initiation into the Ramakrishna lineage by the grace of his guru, Swami Sarvadevananda Puri. He currently lives in Los Angeles where he worships KÄlÄ« at his home temple, hosts satsanghs and retreats and publishes material online on all things Hinduism, Tantra and Aghora.
Freedom Cole
Tantrik Practice and the Karma of Countries and their Leaders
Freedom Cole is a practitioner of Jyotiį¹£a (Jyotiį¹£a Paį¹įøita), Äyurveda (NAMA-AP) and Yoga therapy (C-IAYT). He is a teacher of the UtkalÄ«ya Vaiį¹£į¹ava Tantra of ÅrÄ« AcyutÄnanda DÄsa and initiated into a traditional Jyotiį¹£a lineage which traces back to the royal astrologers of Odisha, India. Freedom is the author of two books and numerous articles. Drawing upon his training in Sanskrit, Vedic philosophy, and modern psychology, as well as more than two decades of clinical practice, he translates ancient wisdom into practical applications for contemporary life and clinical settings. Freedom serves on the faculty at Southern California University of Health Sciences and is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences. He is the founder of Science of Light, an international Jyotiį¹£a school dedicated to training and empowering the next generation of highly qualified Jyotiį¹£a practitioners.
Halo Seronko
Karma & Dharma: The Science of Transformation
Halo Seronko is a teacher of feminine embodied awakening who brings a deep wisdom and love of lineage and tradition onto the dynamic stage of the modern world. Halo has been teaching Classical Tantra, Temple Dance and the Taoist Feminine Arts for over a decade, and in 2015 she founded the online and international school Shakti Temple Arts. Halo has been passionate about the place where embodiment and spirit meet for as long as she can remember. This passion has led her on a profound path of study, practice, pilgrimage and teaching living between India and the USA. In her journeys she has sat at the feet of many masters and received initiation into both the Kaishmir Shaivist and Sri Vidya lineages of Tantra through Agama Yoga in 2011 and Devipuram in 2014. She continues to study and practice in the Kaula and Sri Vidya systems of Tantra under the guidance of her teacher Nita Rubio. All of these threads weave into her unique flavor of teaching, building a bridge from the mundane to the mystical for all who attend her courses.
After over a decade as a practitioner and student of yoga, Halo officially received a Yoga Alliance certification as an E-RYT 200 Tantra Yoga teacher in 2018 from Satya Loka School of Traditional Tantra and Yoga. She is now offering continuing education as a registered YACEP for yoga teachers interested in a more traditional and authentic approach through her programs.
Deirdre Fay
Deirdre Fay, MSW describes healing as a āModern Day Bodhisattva (Compassion) Trainingā from 40 years exploring wisdom traditions, attachment theory and contemporary psychotherapy treatment approaches. Grounded in non-dual practices healing is no longer an accident when we deliberately choose to cultivate compassion, transforming suffering into nourishment. Itās the sure result of consistent and persistent practice developing a Solid, Steady, and Secure Self, with an UnShakeable Heart --despite the many twists and turns of life circumstances. Her approach has been hailed as āa radically positive approach to lifeā.
Ā Cynthia Abulafia
Tantra Awakens Curiosity: Embodying the Goddess
Cynthia Abulafia is an author, academic, and devotee of the Goddess. She is committed to giving language to the divine feminine and restoring the experience of embodiment as the heart of spiritual practice. A longtime student and teacher of non-duality, she guides people through kundalini awakenings and spiritual emergence with grounded tools rooted in embodiment, breath, and the context of sacred texts and traditions. Her debut book Embodying the Goddessāreleased in January 2026āchallenges the ātranscendence biasā of patriarchal spirituality and offers a path of radical integration.
Kara-Leah
Stop Fighting Reality ā The Radical Tantrik Practice of Surrender
Kara-Leah is the founder of Joy Rebel Tantra, and she supports people on the journey of awakening and liberation to make sense of their experience, integrate and embody it.
She is a teacher, coach, and author devoted to liberation, embodied awareness through the teachings and practices of Classical Tantra.
Her path began with yoga in the 1990s, intensified through a Kundalini awakening in the early 2000s, and found lasting ground in Tantra in 2010. Kara-Leah has been teaching yoga since 2006, and is a certified Prana Flow Yoga teacher and a Yoga Trance Dance teacher. She is a well-loved presenter on the New Zealand festival circuit and is expanding onto the North American festival circuit.
Grace Bryant
Karma Yoga: Self-Remembering, Deconditioning and Dharma
Grace (they/them) loves inviting people into the joyful challenge of genuine spiritual living, with all of its discomfort, shadows and paradigm shifts. They do this through silence, embodiment, sexuality & intimacy, community building, anti-oppression, and dismantling inherited and created conditions, all on the way to personal transformation.
Grace has been a whole life educator for two decades, integrating drama, music, movement, meditation and yoga, mindful living, creative play, teamwork, conscious collaboration, anti-racism, community building and leadership. They have been teaching yoga and meditation since 2007. Grace offers spiritual mentorship, relationship and intimacy coaching, as well as holistic life coaching and integration, using touch & bodywork, energy work, emotional awareness and mindfulness. They are exceptionally grateful for all the communities, colleagues and badass people in their life who inspire creativity in the chaos and have taught them so many tools of radical acceptance, and personal and societal dismantling.Ā
John Vosler
The Calm In The Chaos
John Vosler guides individuals back to their true selves: the unchanging, unshakable presence beneath thoughts, emotions, and life experiences. For over 25 years, he has supported thousands through energetic bodywork, meditation, Yoga Nidra, Conscious Coaching, movement, self-inquiry, and deep relaxation. His work blends ancient wisdom with modern science to help people understand the connection between the body, mind, emotions, nervous system, and awareness. Based in Los Angeles and teaching internationally, John leads retreats, workshops, and Yoga Nidra certifications that help participants rest deeply, release old conditioning, restore balance, and remember their innate wholeness, peace, clarity, and love.
Jeremy Wolf
Yoga Nidra: Sleeping on the Cloud of Yoga
Jeremy's exploration of the mind-body connection began at an early age through martial arts. Both a student and teacher of Taekwondo, earning a second-degree black belt, he later became a student and teacher of Capoeira. Meditation served as his doorway into yoga in 1993, leading to formal studies that began in 1998. In 2006, Jeremy received his 200-hour teaching certification in Classical Yoga in Nashik, India, and in 2013, he earned his 500-hour certification through Rod Stryker's ParaYoga program. His extensive training includes certifications and formal study in Bihar, Himalayan, iRest, Amrit Method, ParaYoga NidrÄ, Total Yoga NidrÄ, and Yoga SÄdhana approaches to yoga nidrÄ.
Uma Dinsmore Tuli
Uma Dinsmore-Tuli, PhD, is an advocate for intuition, rematriation, rest, and cyclical wisdom. Practicing yoga since childhood and teaching since 1994, she is Co-Founder of the Yoga Nidra Network and author of six books, including Nidra Shakti and Yoni Shakti. Her work centers yoga nidrÄ, womenās health, dream decoding, Motherpeace Tarot, and the recovery of embodied wisdom. She trains teachers in Total Yoga Nidra and Yoni Shakti Yoga Therapy for menstrual and menopausal health, pregnancy, birth, and postnatal recovery. Umaās lifeās work supports rested humanity, reconnected to intuition, land, and life cycles as spiritual initiations.
Grant Sheperd
Recognizing and Living from the Heart: A Meditation on Sutra 17 from the Pratyabhijnahrdayam.Ā
Meditation Mentor Grant Shepherd, also known as Somanath, helps people experience meaningful and beneficial transformation in their lives through the power of meditation. He is aligned with the tantric tradition of Kashmir Shaivism, a time-honored spiritual path that advocates active engagement in the world while experiencing transformation through the realization process. Grant founded Conscious Pathway to bring the experience of Kashmir Shaivite meditation to diverse people, both singles and couples, worldwide. He calls the natural and spontaneous pathway of meditation he teaches "Living with Heart". Grant's teachings are practical, highly accessible, and very suited to busy modern life; he says meditation need not be complex or difficult, it is your own state of Consciousness, your own Being, and all that is needed is to recognize this. Grant created Conscious Pathways to help people recognize their own natural state of meditation.
Mary Reily Nichols
Tantra: Weaving the Fabric of Non-dual Consciousness
A yoga and meditation teacher for over 40 years, Mary Reilly Nichols offers instruction emphasizing breath practices and postural optimization, drawing insights from neuroscience, evolutionary biology as well as from the philosophy of the Upanishads, Advaita Vedanta, and the Tantric methods of Kashmiri Shaivism.
She teaches at Tibet House in New York City, for the online platform Embodied Philosophy, the New York Open Center and other venues, and speaks at international symposia sponsored by the Harvard Divinity Schoolās Center for the Study of World Religions.
Mary holds a BA in anthropology from Harvard University, and completed five years of residency in the meditation ashrams of Swami Muktananda both in India and in the US.
Sarah Taub
Meet Experience with Steadiness: Practical Guidance from the VijƱÄna-Bhairava-TantraĀ Ā
Sarah Taub, Ph.D. (she/her) teaches relationship and community skills and helps groups deepen their intimacy. She facilitates group processes including consensus decision-making, business meetings and retreats, conflict resolution sessions, and ZEGG Forum (www.zegg-forum.org/en), and has co-created consent policies and led consent support teams for retreats and festivals of 50 to 1500 people. Sarah has been organizing with Center for a New Culture (www.cfnc.us) since 2004, putting on multi-day camps and other events that create a culture based on awareness, compassion, and freedom rather than on fear and judgment.
Sarah has studied classical nondual Åaiva-ÅÄkta Tantra and Sanskrit intensively for 6 years with Dr. Christopher Wallis, and has led four retreats combining nondual Tantra with New Culture community-building processes. She has been immersing in the VijƱÄna-bhairava-tantra for four years and is working on her own translation of the text.
Neesha Zollinger
Embodying the Shaktis
Neesha Zollinger finds unparalleled joy in movement, presence, and the simple act of attention. Neesha is RYT-500 and E-RYT-500 Certified Anusara YogaĀ® Instructor, a Certified Continuing Education Provider and a Franklin Method Fascia Trainer. She has been a student of yoga for over 30 years and teaching since 1999.
Tantric concepts began to mingle with her modern postural yoga in 2000 with her immersion into Anusara, leading her to various texts and deeper study with Paul Muller-Ortega, Sally Kempton, Christopher Wallis, Lisa Engles-Witter and more. As her experiences have deepened, she continues to incorporate these teachings aimed at supporting people's direct experience of their true nature into her offerings.
Neeshaās guidance focuses on feeling the teachings in the body. She is lit up by empowering others to experience the insights and revelation that she has found through various modalities of movement and meditation. Through detailed knowledge of the body and the steady work of paying attention, the physical practices are also deeply therapeutic for many bodies.
Phil Goldberg
Panel
Philip Goldberg is an author and public speaker whose books include American Veda and Karmic Relief. He hosts the Spirit Matters podcast, writes the āPractical Spiritualityā Substack, and is on the board of the Association for Spiritual Integrity.
Ā Jac O' Keeffe
Panel
Jac O'Keeffe is co-founder and Executive Director of the Association for Spiritual Integrity (ASI), an international nonprofit working to transform the paradigm of spiritual leadership through accountability, transparency, and shared ethical standards. She previously spent 15 years as an independent spiritual teacher ā known for a direct style that names what is usually left unspoken and opens conversations around questions fundamental to our human experience ā before concluding her international teaching work in 2023 to focus fully on ASI.Ā
Jac holds professional certifications in the Right Use of Power at Instructor Level, with additional training in adult education, financial coaching, and leadership. She is the author of three books ā Born to Be Free, How to Be a Spiritual Rebel, and the forthcoming Well Done ā and has contributed to several spiritual anthologies.
Ā Rick Archer
Panel
Rick Archer is creator and host of Buddha at the Gas Pump. Since 2009, he has interviewed 750+ spiritually awakening people. A former TM teacher trained by Maharishi, he holds BA & MA degrees in Vedic Studies from Maharishi International University.
Sarah McDonnell
Interview
In turbulent times, true resilience is found not by escaping the world, but by rooting deeply into the template of the body. Sarah is an embodiment guide, self-leadership coach, and devotee of the non-dual Shiva-Shakta Tantra tradition who helps women navigate modern chaos through the sanctuary of somatic presence.
With over 20 years of experience supporting children and families, Sarah has pivoted her career focus from direct therapeutic support with children, to guiding women and mothers on the path of self re-discovery. She specializes in helping women "rehome" themselves in their bodies, dissolve conditioning, and safely re-engage their inherent life force.Ā
Her approach is profoundly grounded, blending the non-dual somatic maps of Realization ProcessĀ® (certified Embodiment and Healing Ground teacher, 3-year certification complete in 2027) with the depths of her own self study of Jungian psychology and active dream analysis.
Sarah understands the fierce, beautiful devotion required to sustain love and life amidst complexity. She brings the wisdom of a 20-year marriage and the fierce, tender heart of a mother raising three growing children. An avid outdoors-woman, she draws inspiration from the raw intelligence of nature, finds the sacred within the mundane, and relishes the medicine of good food, travel, and a deep belly laugh.
