Teachers & Lineage

We honor our teachers in these fields both direct:

Sage Hayes, Nkem Ndefo, Meenadchi, DeeDe, Dawn, Shilpa Jain, Devika Shankar, Elaine Zook Barge, Dave Berger, Diane Poole-Heller, Joshua Sylvae, Mahshid Hager

and indirect: Prentis Hemphill, Staci Haines, Peter Levine, Grace Lee Boggs, Resmaa Menakem, Parker Palmer, adrienne maree brown, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, and many more.

We honor the beloveds who are in close practice with us:

Our land & food home with Coming Home Seeds

Our political home with Sweet Freedom Farm

Our practice space with Yaad Wellness

Our network of colleagues and collaborating practitioners

and every client we've worked with: your healing practice teaches me every day.

Char Kasza

About Char Kasza

Our multidisciplinary practice includes:

Advanced training in Somatic Experiencing Trauma Resolution (SEP)

Certification as a Resilience Toolkit practitioner

Certification as a STAR (Strategies for Trauma Awareness & Resilience) practitioner

Training in Emergent Strategy's Holding Change facilitation and mediation models

Training as a Conflict and Grief Circle facilitator

Training in Sage Haye's Embodied Liberation approach to SE

Training in Dave Berger's BASE approach to Concussions & PTSD

Training in Diane Poole-Heller's approach to Neurobiology & Attachment

Training in Resmaa Menakem's Somatic Abolitionism

Training in Meenadchi's DNVC (Decolonizing Non-Violent Communication) approach

Thousands of hours training & practice in Mysore style Yoga rooms

Ongoing learning with mentors, colleagues, and community in workshops, trainings, life together.

Char (she/we/love/sister/mama) practices from the commitment to end cycles of harm and violence, strengthening communities for the possibility of more justice and more care. Our work is multidisciplinary, often barefoot, and preferably around a nourishing meal.

I came to Somatics and Conflict Transformation out of desperation for change in my own life, and the journey has been through roles as harm-er as well as harmed. We are committed to mentored learning and unlearning around how to hold biography, trauma and illness, various forms of power and privilege, and the stories that led me to this work. I value companioning those of us working to call in and befriend the inner monsters.

I am grateful for the deep influence of the language, values, culture, landscape and people of Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where I lived the first half of my life. We now live among the nettles, mugwort, lindens, roses and the sweet waters that flow from the Catskill mountains. & we are in a multi-generational love affair with the Atlantic ocean, currently from a distance...

We live with a fiery, mystic, chronically ill/disabled body, and our calendar is guided by the movement of the moon. 1:1 client work is by referral only.

Char is also a commitment to nourishment, and feeds the folks in our area in collaboration with Zien-Celeste at Beloved Kitchen.