Kickstarter

"For me, i am in a time of great healing being here with my son. Every time i went into the temples in Kamakhya, Assam, i would kneel down, touch my forehead to the cold marble and say 'Thank you, Mother for giving me my son back.' There were years i doubted myself and my path so much, but still knew I had to come here, to find a new way to be a mother. Just over a year ago, I was sitting on the banks of the Ganges in Varanasi and prayed for the healing of my family. I called my son back in America a few hours later and he asked, "why are you in India helping other people when your *own* son is in pain?" And he hung up and wouldn't answer my calls. I burned like the corpses at the burning ghat after that. My son had dropped out of high school just like me, and now was bumming around homeless and doing the same terrible drugs I had. I know I had done it from my pain, disappointment and anger at my own parents, at what life and God had dished out to me. " - Letters from India, Psalm 

"SHAKTI," or "power of transformation" in Sanskrit, follows the story of Psalm Isadora - an American yoga teacher who travels to India to teach women, including Pinky, a Calcuttan orphan whom she inspires to spread yoga in her own community. Through the process of teaching yoga, Psalm discovers that her drive to help others is a way to heal her own pain.  On a journey home to Northern California she confronts the memories of sexual abuse that hold her hostage leaving her brittle & isolated from her family and beloved son. Psalm begins the search for healing and inner peace beginning with a spiritual teacher in India, resulting in a path of service through teaching yoga to communities of disenfranchised women in Calcutta, Varanasi and their surrounding villages.

In Calcutta Pinky, like Psalm, is determined to carve a better life for herself than that which Fate has allotted to her. Pinky becomes an inspiration for Psalm to infuse the teachings of yoga to empower the women of the Calcutta.  After a year of teaching yoga to her community, Pinky joins Psalm on a spiritual pilgrimage to her guru's ashram.

It is here at the ashram of the Mother Goddess, that Pinky finds love, while Psalm is utterly surprised that Gabe, her 19 year old son, decides to join her on his first ever trip to India. Traveling across India, Psalm and her son Gabe grow in a deep understanding and love for each other, healing old family wounds.  An inspiring journey unfolds in the profound transformations that take place when we awaken to our hearts.

"SHAKTI" is a portrait of personal and community empowerment, set against an exotic Indian landscape woven with mysterious yogic practices, a calling to serve humanity, and the stories of women from Varanasi to Kolkata who take on ancient Indian teaching from a Western yoga teacher.

We believe that individual transformation and empowerment is a force that can transform the world.  It is our hope that SHAKTI inspires change in the hearts of those who seek it!