UPDATED! Owen Salon Stage Master Class Descriptions

Owen Salon Stage Master Class Descriptions & Teachers
($45 - Basic + and $70 - Premium ticket holders)

Participants attending Aware Lancaster and holding Basic + and Premium tickets choose from 13 master classes offered in five different time slots from 8:00 am - 7:00 pm.  Below, please see the four classes offered on the Owen Salon Stage.  Descriptions and teachers for all three stages listed in separate blog posts!  And don't forget: The 1st 50 Premium ticket holders (who purchase before January 1st,) get VIP status!  Click here to buy your tickets today!

Time: 8:00 - 9:30 am
Integrative Wellness – Mindfulness Techniques Made Accessible
with Middle Way Wellness, Mary Ellen Francescani & Cynthia Kilbourn
All Levels
Over the course of 90 minutes, this workshop will provide you with the experiential knowledge to initiate your own personal meditation practice. We will practice a variety of meditation techniques including sitting tranquility meditation, walking meditation, chanting, and loving kindness meditation (Metta). We will discuss the specifics of sitting posture and how to facilitate maintaining your chosen form of meditation. Finally, there will be a conversation on the effects of meditation/mindfulness in daily life. We hope you can join us for this physically and mentally stabilizing experience.

Cynthia Kilbourn is a practicing family physician for almost thirty years and a yoga teacher for six, who personally and professionally utilizes practices honoring the power of the mind-body connection. She finds great benefit in daily meditation and hopes to help others by recommending yoga, guided visualization, and other mindfulness practices for physical and emotional healing. Cynthia and Mary Ellen created MiddleWay Wellness and have been co-leading wellness intensives since 2011. Meditation/mindfulness is one of the pillars of this program, which provides participants with the opportunity to evaluate the roots of their personal health practices. Cynthia graduated from the University of Arizona’s Integrative Medicine Fellowship, and most recently, completed an 8 week Foundation Program in Mindfulness through the University of Pennsylvania.

Mary Ellen Francescani has spent 20 years in the field of nursing/healing - the last five working as a Nurse Practitioner in primary care. She has been fascinated and enriched by mindfulness and meditation practices since first first being introduced to them during a transformative year of spiritual exploration all over South East Asia. Mary Ellen lived and worked in Nepal for five years, where she experienced firsthand the immense richness of a culture whose spirituality is not just alive and well, but is also woven into every aspect of life. Last year, Mary Ellen completed a two-year fellowship in Andrew Weil’s Integrative Medicine program through the University of Arizona.

Time: 10:00 - 12 pm
Yoga & Lifestyle: Nutrition
with Lucine Sihelnik, MA
All Levels 
Mindful eating is an art of living yoga every day. The Eight Limb path of Yoga teaches us that the Yamas can guide us to create balance and be present in maintaining your lifestyle diet. Join Lucine as she shares her joy of cooking & yoga philosophy to nourish the body, mind and spirit! Lecture & Demonstration.

Lucine E. Sihelnik, M.A. RYT, is the founder of Gayatri Wellness, a Sustainable Community Organization Fostering Healthy Living Initiatives. Starting out as an organic produce farm in northern Berks County, Gayatri Wellness now offers cooking classes at the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts, an online Berks County Co-op, and Community Yoga Classes. Lucine brings her expertise of local food systems as the Food Systems Director for ReDesign Reading Community Development Corporation, where she provides leadership of the downtown Penn Street Market in Reading, the Regional Reading Food Policy and Action Council (RRFPAC), and fostering strategic relationships with organizations, institutions, and individuals to cultivate a wellness life style to the Greater Reading Community. Lucine is the chair of Food Procurement for the RRFPAC in Reading, member of the Berks Agricultural Resource Network, Secretary for Friends of Reading Hospital Board, and was recently nominated to join the Greater Berks Food Bank as a Board member.

Time: 1:00 – 2:30
The Yoga Darshan: A vision of self study (svadyaya), discipline (tapas), faith (shraddha), and compassion (daya)
with Sudha & Ed Allitt, and David Dragonfly
All Levels

Sudha, Ed and David lead you in kirtan and satsang. Experience the inner world of Yoga, complete with call and response chanting, and a discussion of the exploration, awareness and realization that Yoga offers to practitioners.

Time: 2:45 – 4:15
Yoga Lila: An experience in self study, discipline, faith, and compassion
with Sudha Allitt 
All Levels

In this class Sudha will lead students to explore the meaning of physical, mental and spiritual alignmentusing postures and techniques, stories and songs, intentions and affirmations. Students are certain toappreciate gentle humor, the balance of work and relaxation, and many moments of clarity about theirapproach to Yoga. Appropriate for all levels of practice and beginner friendly.

David Dragonfly is a trained yoga teacher, deeply influenced by the Kundalini Yoga tradition, a connection to Mother Earth and nature, and the metaphysical nature of being. He leads kirtan and had trained with Krishna Das. His sessions fill you with a sense of peaceful and loving connection with Self, and a rootedness to the earth.

Sudha Allitt is an E-RYT500 and a Professional Yoga therapist. She is also a spiritual counselor, a reverend and a writer. In 2008 she co-founded, with her life partner and spouse Ed, the Kula Kamala Foundation, a non profit organization thatprovides certification and education in Yoga Therapy. Sudha holds a PhD focusing on diet and disease and is currently completing a Doctorate in Ministry. She is eternally grateful for the grace and guidance of her Guru, H.H. Sri Swami Adhyatmananda~ji of the Sivananda Lineage (Ahmedabad, India). Sudha’s sessions are intelligent, aligned, light- hearted and have something to offer everyone. She feels service to others is the only way to heal your own heart.

Ed Allitt is an RYT500, E-RYT200, an engineer, a Yogi, and a Yoga Therapist. In 2008 they and his life partner Sudha co- founded a non-profit organization, Kula Kamala Foundation, which provides certification and education in Yoga Therapy. Ed’s sessions are warm and energizing with a good dose of humor. 

Click on schedule below for better viewing.