Aarti’s Bios/Photos
Regular Bio
Aarti Tejuja (she/they) is spiritual life coach, ritualist and sacred space facilitator. They also serve as a community organizer, interfaith leader, youth mentor and advocate for those impacted by the justice system.
Aarti is a trained embodied facilitator of the Art of Hosting, Interplay and Restorative Justice Peace Circles. They are certified in Reiki, Mindfulness and Ancestral Medicine. Aarti’s current main practices are meditation, ancestral healing, yoga nidra, ritual and shadow work.
Aarti's ancestors are from Sindh, Pakistan, pre-partition when Sindh was India. Aarti grew up Hindu and became Buddhist in their 20s, becoming part of the Shambhala organization in 2007. They worked for Shambhala Chicago from 2009-2014, and Shambhala Int. from 2014-2018, as the Director of Social Engagement.
Aarti is currently co-developing a Womnx BIPOC centered network, Antara Network, for contemplative facilitators who want to deepen their skills and be in community and collaboration with other facilitators. They are also co-dreaming a contemplative community, Moya, on Cherokee Lands, in Appalachia (Boone, NC) where they live with their partner, Matt Lentz and three cats, Buttercup, Fiona and Owsley.
Aarti can be reached at:
IG: Aarti_Tejuja
FB: JustAarti
Shortened Bio
Aarti Tejuja (she/they) is spiritual life coach, ritualist, sacred space facilitator, youth mentor, and social justice advocate . Aarti is trained in the Art of Hosting, Interplay, Restorative Justice, Reiki, Mindfulness, Ritual and Ancestral Medicine. Aarti's ancestors are from Sindh, Pakistan from pre-partition India. They grew up Hindu and became Buddhist in their 20s, working for Shambhala from 2009-2018.
Aarti is currently co-developing the Antara Network for contemplative facilitators and Moya, a contemplative community on Cherokee Lands in Appalachia (Boone, NC), where they live with their partner, Matt Lentz and three cats, Buttercup, Fiona and Owsley.
Aarti can be reached at
IG: Aarti_Tejuja
FB: JustAarti
Shadow Play Branding
Shadow Play is an embodied, experiential deep dive in which you will explore the 5 energies of the 5 Buddha Families, a Mahayana Buddhist teaching of the 5 basic elements: Earth, Water, Fire, Air and Space. Each of the 5 elements corresponds with an emotional energy that can manifest as “wisdom” or positive emotional patterns, or as “confusion” or negative emotional patterns.
Through Shadow Play, a combination of art, ritual, embodiment, play and mindfulness, you will learn how to transform your “confusion” or “shadow” energy into wisdom.
What is keeping you from accessing our own inner wisdom?
Due to social conditioning and ancestral trauma, we each have habits that influence our way of seeing and being in the world. We have blind spots and unresolved emotions that can lead us to cause harm to ourselves and others without even realizing we are doing it. In Buddhism, we call this “confusion”. This confusion keeps us from seeing our wisdom.
How do we transform confusion into wisdom for the purpose of personal & collective liberation?
According to the 5 Buddha Families teachings, the 5 different types of emotional energy can manifest in each of us individually and in our communities. The energy can manifest in expansive or contracted ways. When we explore both aspects of the energies, we gain awareness and are able to transmute the energy to foster healing in ourselves and in our world.
What will we be doing?
We’ll learn different meditations, explore movement, use play, dialogue, story and ritual to explore confusion or “the shadow”—the repressed emotions and pain that tend to drive our behavior when we are not aware of them. Only by bringing these into the light of awareness can we release habits and patterns that no longer serve us. Remarkably, we find insights and energy right there in the messiness of our lives, just as the lotus grows out of the mud—revealing the buddha within. Together we will work with each element to help reveal the contracted aspects of ourselves and learn how to release them into wisdom. We will engage deeply into our own ancestral lineages to mine for the riches and reveal the recurring themes. Each of us will contribute our own insights to the collective and help to build a mindful and caring space.
