A Day Visit for the Creative Spirit
Mandala Art & Creative Yoga Flow
Spend a day at Mount Madonna exploring your creativity through art and yoga. Alongside shared meals and time on the mountain, a guided mandala workshop and a creative yoga practice invite you to slow down, find inspiration, and enjoy the company of others.
Arrive at 10:00 a.m. for brunch, followed by a guided campus tour to Sunset Ridge. In the afternoon, explore color, pattern, and design as you create a personal mandala (a geometric representation of creation and the sacred path to peace) with local artist Renana. Then join Pushpa Danielle Barr for Creative Flow: An Exploration in Yoga, bringing curiosity and inner listening into movement, breath, and meditation. Complete your day with dinner and evening arati (ritual of light).
A GUIDED CAMPUS TOUR TO SUNSET RIDGE
Step away from the pace of daily life and walk the land with us. This guided tour winds through the campus and out to Sunset Ridge, where the views open across the Monterey Bay. Move slowly, breathe deeply, and get to know the 380 acres that hold this community.
SACRED GEOMETRY: A MANDALA WORKSHOP
Explore the art of mandala creation with local artist Renana in this two-hour workshop, open to anyone interested in creating — no previous experience required. Guided step by step, you will be invited to use acrylic pens to design and paint a personal mandala while experimenting with color, shapes, and creative expression.
The workshop offers a calm and inspiring atmosphere that encourages relaxation, focus, and mindfulness through art. At the end of the session, you will leave with a completed mandala artwork to bring home and display.
CREATIVE FLOW: AN EXPLORATION IN YOGA
Join Pushpa Danielle Barr for a yoga practice of movement, breath, curiosity, listening, and allowing ourselves to be surprised by what emerges. Rather than approaching creativity as something we need to produce, we will explore what can emerge when we become quiet enough to listen, curious enough to move beyond our habitual patterns, and spacious enough to allow something new to arise.
The class will begin with a centering meditation and pranayama, inviting students into presence and receptivity. From there, we will move into a playful, creative yoga flow that combines familiar postures in less familiar pathways, exploring circular movement, transitions, choice, and moments of intuitive movement within the structure of the practice. We will then gradually soften toward grounding postures, savasana (corpse pose), and a closing meditation invoking creativity and inner listening.
Additional offerings on the mountain include:
- Personal time to relax in community spaces, including Anjaneya’s World Cafe and Oceanview Books & Gifts, and explore the 380 acres of hiking trails, walking paths, and indoor amenities
- Option to visit the Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple
- Option to book a wellness treatment at Kaya Kalpa Wellness Center (additional fees apply, advance reservations recommended)
To participate in these special offerings, please register for a Mountain Experience day visit or join us overnight for a full Weekend in Community, Friday, November 20 through Sunday, November 22.
Schedule for Weekend in Community
| Saturday, November 21 | |
| 10:00 a.m. | Mountain Experience arrival & check-in |
| 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. | Brunch |
| 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. | Guided campus tour (weather permitting) |
| 12:30 - 1:00 p.m. | Personal time |
| 1:00 - 3:00 p.m. | Sacred Geometry: A Mandala Workshop |
| 3:00 - 3:30 p.m. | Personal time |
| 3:30 - 5:00 p.m. | Creative Flow: An Exploration in Yoga |
| 5:15 - 6:15 p.m. | Dinner |
| 6:00 - 7:00 p.m. | Arati |
| 7:00 p.m. | Mountain Experience program concludes |
Schedule subject to change. Registrants will be notified.
Presenters
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Pushpa Danielle BarrE-RYT 500, RPYTWith over 30 years of dedicated practice and continuous evolution, Pushpa is a seasoned E-RYT 500 and RPYT (prenatal) yoga and meditation teacher who blends ancient wisdom with joyful spontaneity. Her classes are grounded in breath and presence, offering a sanctuary where students reconnect with their bodies and hearts. Pushpa’s approach is playful yet purposeful, guided by the power of observation, meeting each student where they are and guiding practitioners to slow down and embrace the present moment. Her classes are all-level and she welcomes all who are curious about the effects of yoga.
Beyond the mat, Pushpa is an AMI-certified Montessori educator who taught for 11 years with children ages 3 to 15. She has offered many children’s yoga, family yoga, prenatal yoga, and Mama & Me classes, along with adult, partner, and chair yoga classes that nurture connection, nervous system regulation, and joyful embodiment. Her work with pregnant people is especially heart-centered, supporting students through the profound physical and spiritual threshold of pregnancy with steadiness, breath, and community.
Pushpa is also a devoted mother and an herbalist deeply attuned to nature’s rhythms. She leads transformative workshops, retreats, kirtans, and women’s circles designed to awaken the soul’s purpose and cultivate a life of gratitude and presence.
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RenanaRenana is a mandala artist, graphic designer, and installation artist creating immersive visual experiences that blend art, nature, and inner exploration. She studied animation at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, where she developed a strong foundation in painting, design, and animation techniques while building a visual language of her own.
Her work includes large-scale painted mandalas, intricate sand mandalas, and psychedelic UV-reactive installations made with natural materials. She is drawn to pattern, symbolism, and creating art that transforms spaces while inspiring wonder, reflection, and connection.
Teaching mandala painting workshops has become one of her greatest passions. She loves showing people that anyone can learn the technique and create beautiful mandalas, regardless of experience. For Renana, mandala creation is a meditative practice that helps quiet the mind, connect with the subconscious, deepen self-awareness, and create a sense of peace through art.
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Sarojani RohanPoet, musician, and artist Sarojani Rohan delights in creatively engaging with the muse.
An active member of the Mount Madonna community, she has led interfaith, multiculturally focused choirs and writing groups. Currently, she works in Mount Madonna’s Oceanview Books & Gifts store, facilitates writing groups, and contributes art and poetry for publication both within and outside the community.
Her work has been published in the Porter Gulch Review, Monterey Bay Poetry Review, phren-Z literary magazine, Workers Write literary magazines, and the poetry anthologies Landscape of Soul and Story, Sisters Singing, Sacred Stone, Sacred Water, and Second Wind: Poems of Resilience and Hope, published in 2020.
A vegan and student of Surat Shabd Yoga, Sarojani lives with her husband among the redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
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Shantam GalutenShantam has been teaching yoga for more than 25 years, offering instruction in asana (postures), pranayama (breathing techniques), and meditation. A lifelong member of the Mount Madonna community, he received the name “Shantam” from Babaji at age seven. His father first met Babaji at the Homestead retreat in 1974, and Shantam grew up visiting Mount Madonna many times—camping, playing, and even spending an extended period here with his family while his father taught music to the children.
Today, Shantam serves as a pujari (officiant) at the Sankat Mochan Hanuman Temple. A multi-instrumentalist, he supports and leads kirtan (devotional singing) and occasionally performs piano in jazz ensembles around the world. Having completed Yoga Teacher Training at Mount Madonna and elsewhere, he now teaches in Mount Madonna’s YTT programs, continuing the tradition that shaped his own practice from an early age.
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SunRay BatesWith over a decade of dedicated yoga practice, SunRay offers a grounded and heart-centered approach that weaves together breath, meditation, mindful movement, and devotion. She is honored to teach at Mount Madonna after completing her 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training here in June 2025.
Drawing on a background in dance and psychology, SunRay creates classes that honor both the intelligence of the body and the inner landscape of the mind. Her greatest inspiration comes from the devotional traditions of yoga, like kirtan, and she strives to cultivate a space where students can reconnect with themselves through presence, breath, and sincere practice.
