Member Stories

Omya

Aloha. I was born with the name “Heaven” and grew up on the coast of Southern California. I moved from Los Angeles to GaiaYoga gardens in May 2018 while  lava was erupting from fissures less than two miles away. For three years prior I had been on an expansive awakening journey of becoming fully embodied as my divine, human, animal, self. During this time I dove deep into the depths of my soul through lucid dreaming, astral projection, yoga teacher training, connecting with the spirit of plants and the earth, and spiritual teachings on healing childhood trauma. Even so I kept coming back to the question which could only be answered deep in my bones: what is the most optimal way for a human being to live? I knew I wanted to create that and a big inspiration for me was manifesting this way of life to consciously birth a child into one day. So I dreamed of the tropics, frolicking naked and exploring philosophical musings with other like-minded humans who wanted to share in the primal delight of devouring fresh fruit from the land and cooperatively raising our children together as a tribe. 

In the meantime I devoted my energy to raw food diet, foraging, herbalism, teaching yoga, becoming a home birth doula, women’s circles, gardening, and staying present and connected to the divine essence of all that is. I did everything I could to live in alignment with my truth despite the unsupportive container I was operating in while I explored how I could coalesce my vision. After the intense ending of a four-year relationship with my high school sweetheart I took a few months to myself to reintegrate, untangle, and fall in love with myself and the earth all over again.  Then one day I heard the call in my heart, a gentle whisper beckoning me to Hawaii and I knew it was time for my heart’s intention to be actualized. 

Within 6 weeks I was on a one-way trip to GaiaYoga Gardens. My rebirth into the fullest expression of my being was just about to begin. Ten days after I arrived we had an emergency evacuation late at night on the full moon in Scorpio and a powerful connection between Ano and I sparked that same evening. The circumstances led me to integrate emotionally with the community very quickly which brought up some intense challenges and healing as I navigated integrating intimate relationship with Ano, Melekai, and their children. 

I spent three months evacuated with the core members of GYG and participated in moving back in and recovering post lava flow.  My devotion to GaiaYoga consciousness transcended the seemingly short time I lived here thus far. The unexplainable experience of my embodied resonance with True Human Freedom gave me an expansive sensation of arriving home. I’ve come to realize that i am a powerful and integral part of the evolution of this community. Coming together with Ano and GYG was a destined part of my path to living my purpose of creating domain 9. This is the vision I was preparing to be apart of my whole life!  

In January 2019 I went through a deep light on shadow process where I moved some intense stored emotionally energy from my childhood and unleashed a powerful part of myself that had been dormant for a long time. Afterwards, exhausted, I laid down and fell into a meditative dream state. I saw a vision of me teaching a class in Shiva Shakti Chalet here at GYG and I was leading the students in a chant. Immediately the lights went dim and I heard dozens of voices in different tones all singing the word “Omya.” We had a beautiful community ritual of re-enacting this dream to initiate me into my new name.

My life at GaiaYoga Gardens is rich, full, intimate, holistic, and deeply fulfilling. I spend my days climbing coconut trees, doing shadow work, grafting fruit trees, co-managing the nursery and farmers market booth with Ano, dancing at the beach, caring for the children, creating a sphere of clan-based group intimacy, practicing ecstatic vulnerability, and supporting myself and others in healing from the unconscious social paradigms we were raised in. I’m growing in my leadership here everyday, especially on the frontier of evolving relationship dynamics. Night and day my whole being is inspired by actively participating in the co-creation of the full manifestation of GaiaYoga Culture. Our tribe is just beginning to truly thrive and I have only scratched the surface of what I want to create here. I am committed to tending to our homelands and the human hearts who inhabit it while I wait for the rest of our family to arrive and live out this ecstatic life together.

Rick Sherman AKA “SunDog”

Since 2012 I have been traveling to and learning about existing communities in Oregon and Northern California. Recently I heard about the Puna District of the big island of Hawaii and its many and diverse communities. I flew here in January to help a friend that had just begun a project. We visited Ano at Gaia Yoga Gardens to see how he had designed and built his simple but efficient breeze houses. We toured the village and I resolved that I would come here to help in the construction of one of these structures as an educational experience.  Ano suggested that I come for the immersion program to learn how they live and work together.

The immersion from the web site was about communication on several levels.  I have been more focused on infrastructure and permaculture in my search but Im aware that its human interaction that brings down many community projects.  I was excited to explore non violent communication, holistic intimacy, holistic spirituality and social permaculture.  What I didn’t expect was to have my mind blown, my heart blown wide open and my life transformed to a place of love and bliss by the emotional and spiritual healing methods employed by the members and teachers of GaiaYoga.  This is the first time I have experienced a community that operates from a place of deep heart connection and its changed my perception of how we can live together and transform this culture from one of me to one of we.

 Since the immersion I have stayed on to participate in the landance. I have taken on the role of builder here. We use permaculture principles in our structures by avoiding materials that are harvested off island. We build primarily from what is offered by the land using Ohea and bamboo and salvaged and repurposed lumber. This is the collective effort to build and maintain a community that aspires to self sufficiency.  This has deepened my respect for the people and the vision by working with other members to build structures both physical and social. It has given me the opportunity to see the communication in action in making decisions and to deal with minor tensions between individuals.

I was here through the lava flow of 2018.

We faced the fifteen foot high wall of lava as it came on to the land and asked Pele to spare this place so we could continue the work. The flow stopped where we stood. I knew at that point I had found a home.           

If you are in a place of personal transformation or interested in joining or starting community I highly recommend this experience.       

KANA COVINGTON

Aloha! I’m Uncle Kana, an elder (or Kapuna) in the Gaia Yoga Community. I am a Hawaiian Cultural Practitioner and have been a haumana (student) of several Kumu (Hawaiian teachers). I’ve also been body worker for many years now practicing Lomi Lomi, the Hawaiian Healing way. I retired as Cultural Tour Guide. I am active in the local communities outside Gaia Yoga Gardens: The Center for Spiritual Living and The Hilo Palace. Living ALOHA and willing to share 

I have been involved in community building most of my life. Hawaii Island my home and living Aloha for more than 20 years.  I intend on spending the rest of my life building and growing, and yes dancing, at Gaia Yoga Gardens.

Throughout my long life l have been a seeker of the “Spirit,” what is true and authentic to my core being.  Starting with the deepest meanings in Rock ‘n Roll old Jazz in the ’60s, I was a part of the ” hippies movement,” working in community radio.  I got into “new thought” in the ‘70’s; sitting and channeling in circles and workshops about what is beyond, just my mind, into universal Mind. The ’80s began with the “EST” Training, Ending World Hunger, looking at what makes organizations work (or not work). I also entered a committed relationship that would last for 15 years. And I started an adventure to Hawaii, being called to the islands. The ’90s were about deepening my spiritual understanding and compassion, to allow me to move to Hawaii to truly “walk the walk and talk the talk” of my honest and true being. Now with after 20 years of living in Pono (The Right Path) and the Aloha Spirit (the presents of that breath of life) the mindfulness and oneness, I am a man of Joy, spiritually present; excited to build and grow GaiaYoga Gardens together.

Melekai

I am a healer on a healing journey. I first came to GaiaYoga Gardens in 2008 not knowing what to expect or how it would impact me. Towards the end of my first few weeks here, during a plant spirit medicine journey, I experienced the deeper loving energy of the island of Hawaii and also Ano’s vision. After that trip I became dedicated to the vision of GaiaYoga. At the time, I had just graduated from UCSF’s nurse-midwife Master’s program, and was set on a course to become a Nurse-Midwife. During the time between visiting GYG in 2008 and moving here in 2009, I was living in California. I had secured a job as a Nurse-Midwife in Northern California and had started a new life there with my partner at the time. Also during this time, I was having many dreams, visions and sightings of things having to do with my stay here on the Big Island and things pertaining to Hawaii in general. I was struck by how much the energy of Hawaii was staying with me. I felt a deep longing to be living the life I imagined I could have in Hawaii. I struggled during these months to set the right course while entering the professional medical world of hospital-based midwifery and being haunted by visions of Hawaii. I had difficulty adjusting to a hospital career. Then one day, I had a waking vision of Ano with what appeared to be my two children. I called Ano and fairly quickly, we decided I’d move to GYG.

I had explored life in quite a few forms up to this point. I studied herbalism, organic gardening, community living, health food and was a yoga teacher after living at Mount Madonna Center for a number of years. I’ve explored meditation, shamanistic techniques, vision quests, non-violent communication, twelve-step programs, nursing and finally midwifery. I have always had a desire to live in the country, build my own houses, grow my own food, birth children naturally, live in community and live an organic lifestyle. When I came to GYG, it seemed to be a complete fit. I felt this was a place for me to live the way I wanted to live and to embrace all the modalities of healing I had studied. I could share them while deepening into my own healing. Little did I know that Pele would give me all these gifts. The cost would be to utterly surrender to my healing process, and to fully engage community and parenting at the deepest level of my heart and soul.

Hence, I am a healer on a healing journey. Currently, I am co-running GYG with Ano, my beloved partner since 2009 [with whom I have two children Elohi (4/22/11) and Iolanthe (6/8/12)]. I teach in our Immersions, I am starting a career as a Conscious Sensuality Practitioner. I’m beginning as a Faculty apprentice at Lolia Place (where the Hawaii Tantra Festival is held). I’m using my midwifery skills to support women in and around birth. And, I am expanding into areas of my being that have been long hidden, revealing a beautiful me that I am so honored to explore and reveal on a daily basis. I want to co-create in this realm with like-minded souls who find beauty in the depths of human experience and have the vulnerability to share with others.

Aloha <3

Ano Hanamana

Hi. I co-founded GaiaYoga Gardens in 2003 with my ex-partner.  I’m the only person who’s been involved with GYG since its inception.  I have been the default leader of the community, though happily this role is waning as more people are dedicating themselves to GYG.  Like any leader, I have my strengths and weaknesses.  My weaknesses have set the limits of the community. Of course my strengths help create what’s wonderful and precious here.  

My life’s purpose can be expressed in this way: I co-create and participate in the mystery of life through pioneering GaiaYoga Culture and Consciousness, landancing, sharing my songs, and relating as deeply and as vulnerably as is pono in all my relations.

I’m grateful that I’m fully engaged in my life purpose and that I’m creating a space at GYG where others can do the same. 

I was born on Earth Day, 1969. In 1992 I moved to this area of Hawaii, and co-founded Pangaia, a now “deceased” raw-foods, permaculture, pseudo-community.  Since 1996, I’ve been devoted to teaching sustainable homesteading, raw foods lifestyle and the value of living in clan-based community.

In 2000, I got turned onto Nonviolent Communication (NVC) and have been teaching NVC since 2002. I manage our permaculture nursery, which specializes in bamboo, fruit trees, bananas, and coconuts. I run our farmer’s market booth; free-climb 5 to 10 coconut trees per week; co-run our immersion program; and manage, organize and work on projects at GYG. I’ve been active in The ManKind Project (MKP) since 2010.

I’m the father of two children (Elohi, born 4-22-11, and Iolanthe, 6-8-12) 

In my spare time, I support people in healing, learning, and growing.  I am also the rhythm guitarist, singer and composer for the progressive, shamanic, folk-rock band, Nagdeo.  

I even sleep sometimes!

I’ve also written four books:

1) Instinctive Eating: The Lost Knowledge of Optimum Nutrition (authored under the name “Zephyr”)

2)  (The booklet) An Introduction To GaiaYoga: A Holistic Vision for Living Sustainably as Spirit, Self, Community, and Earth

3) The Dharma In Song: The Complete Lyrics of Nagdeo (1987-2017) (a collection of the lyrics to all the songs I’ve written)

4) True Human Freedom: The Inspiration and Argument for GaiaYoga Culture.

I’ve grown tremendously from my journeys in the realms of sustainable living, holistic spirituality, intentional community, NVC, Tantric relationship, Light on Shadow (shadow work), 12-step recovery work, participating in MKP, fatherhood, and raw foods instinctive eating.

I’m excited to be part of the seed energy that is creating GYG.

The 22-year-old hippie who arrived here wide-eyed, with a backpack and guitar would be amazed to see the person he’s become.

That’s enough about me for now:-)

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