Living Ayurveda Internship

Alicia Lynn Diaz has worked with hundreds of clients to eradicate illness, dissolve emotional blocks and overcome stuckness. She gets to the root of the specific source of what’s causing pain, anxiety, and distress in your life and health.

Alicia Lynn is a Certified Ayurvedic Health Practitioner and Clinical Physiologist. She combines the scientific and spiritual aspects of healing into tangible, practical steps to create physical and emotional changes in the body. She also mentored under two renowned Vedic Masters, one who advised the Dalai Lama and Mother Theresa.

Alyssa is an herbalist, yoga teacher, and forever student. She has had the opportunity to study with various teachers and cultivate community around the world, primarily from New York to New Orleans, and now resides in the beautiful Williams Valley of Southern Oregon.  

She has completed courses in Environmental Studies, Sociology, Permaculture, Western Herbalism, and Yoga among others.

Finding inspiration from the Mountains, Wind, Water, and many people and plants that have crossed her path she teaches subtle yoga focusing on awareness and joy.

Anja is a Clinical Herbalist, Functional Nutritionist, Ayurvedic Practitioner, Women’s Integrative Health Educator and founder of Poppy Herbals—an Herbal Elixir Bar and Apothecary in Ashland, OR.

Anja is passionate about community-based herbalism, women’s health and empowerment through education. Her teachings and private practice weave together traditional western herbalism, holistic nutrition, functional medicine and the wisdom of Ayurveda. Anja’s passion for plant medicine has led her on a path of education and travel, where she shares her knowledge and empowers others to lead healthy, vibrant lives in harmony with nature.

Anja has studied with Jon Carlson, Sajah Popham, Robert Bartlett, DeAnna Batdorff, Matthew Wood, Ed Bauman, Aviva Romm and Todd Caldecott as well as many others. She is eternally grateful for their teachings, wisdom and guidance throughout the years.

Balarama Chandra roots his professional practice in the light of Ayurvedic Psychology  and emphasizes habit reformation through emphasizing positive expression. He utilizes the simple therapeutic means of yoga, breath, and diet. He loves facilitating the conversation of self transformation and dharma via personal counseling, educational trainings, and experiential immersions. Balarama is a true pleasure to study with as he has the dynamic ability to make the seemingly complicated - practical, humorous and exciting. Balarama currently lives in Southern Oregon on a simple farm growing food, and tending to cows while making lots of long phone calls on and off the bicycle.

Beverly graduated from The Ayurvedic Institute in 2016 as an Ayurvedic Practitioner and 500- hour Ayurvedic Yoga Instructor. She is a professional member of the National Ayurvedic Medical Association (NAMA) and worked in the Herb Department at The Ayurvedic Institute compounding Dr. Vasant Lad’s herbal formulas. Beverly offers Ayurvedic consultations and treatments with Siskiyou Ayurveda in downtown Ashland, Oregon to support Southern Oregon’s local community. She also practices Ayurveda through her personal practice, Shine Ayurveda, to the greater community.

Beverly has over 10 years of experience with herbal medicine, including compounding traditional Ayurvedic herbal medicine and jams, managing an Apothecary for a local Naturopathic cancer clinic, and running an organic herb farm in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. She holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from the College of Charleston, SC with a focus on sacred text, including those held in the lineage of Ayurveda. Inspired by her mother’s personal healing experience with Ayurveda, she was led to Albuquerque, NM to study with Dr. Lad.

With a passion for exploring the outdoors, Beverly is inspired by her surrounding environment and incorporates her observations of nature into her work. She can be found caring for her land, studying Ayurveda, or hiking around Southern Oregon. Her time organic farming complements her take on nutrition and diet and supports her in sharing that knowledge with others.

Cassidy Acacia, E-RYT 200, RYT 500, YACEP, has been on the yogic path for 20 years and teaching since 2004. Her dynamic approach to yoga is a synthesis of her in-depth studies of: Iyengar and Prajna Yoga, Ayurveda, Insight Meditation, and Poetry.

Cassidy's classes focus on healthy alignment of the physical body and sensitive attunement to the subtle body. She brings a sense of humor, earthiness, and clarity to her teachings as well as deep reverence for the practice. She weaves mantra, philosophy, and elemental theory into her classes, teacher training, and private yoga sessions.

She served as core faculty at the Hawthorn Institute from 2014–2019. Cassidy is delighted to collaborate with Keshari Das as co-coordinator of the LAI program.

Jeff is the Lead Formulator and lab guru for new product development at Banyan Botanicals. He is a naturalist, botanist, and alchemical seeker. He has worked and been trained under the guidance of Sajah Popham and completed the herbal field studies program at The Hawthorn Institute in 2019.

He has been on the pursuit of botanical and fungal studies for almost the last 2 decades. He has been exploring the myriad of ways to work and interact with the natural world professionally and as a lifestyle. His breadth of wisdom and experience range from a Bachelor’s degree in Botany, entheogenic spiritual studies, western herbalism, yoga, Ayurveda, natural foods and produce, gardening, permaculture, landscaping, developing a food business and most recently pursuing the alchemical arts and medicine crafting.

Jeff is fascinated about the creation, transformation and preservation of plant and fungal medicine and continues to learn about modern extraction technology while remembering sacred traditions.

Kelsi is a community herbalist and medicinal herb farmer.

She integrates her knowledge of Ayurveda and Western herbalism by working with local plants through an Ayurvedic lens. She is passionate about empowering people to take their health into their own hands and hopes to inspire those around her to reconnect with wild spaces and their own inner ecology.

Kelsi has studied at Hawthorn Institute and The dhyana Center and is currently working toward her Ayurvedic Health Counselor certification.

Keshari Das is a Brooklyn-based Ayurvedic Practitioner, offering traditional bodywork and educational workshops. She comes from a family of satyagrahis – nonviolent freedom fighters in India’s independence movement – and her early exposure to Gandhian principles inspired her exploration along paths of mindful practice. She has devoted herself to lifelong study of Ayurveda and is committed to sharing the teachings of this empowering wisdom tradition in an inclusive, antiracist, accessible, and sustainable manner.

Keshari has immersed in studies with Vasant Lad, MASc, and faculty, Dr. Claudia Welch, Dr. Robert Svoboda, Karen Rose, Tyler Wauters, and the inaugural cohort of the Living Ayurveda Internship, amongst many beloved others. Now she is grateful to serve with Cassidy Acacia as LAI Co-Coordinator.

Otherwise, Keshari can often be found wandering the east coast, accompanying her partner in the practice of kirtan. In between, she dabbles in design and illustration, and dotes on her dog.

Kyle Roberts is a graduate of the Ayurvedic Institute in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where under the tutelage of Vasant Lad. He studied the theoretical and clinical aspects of Ayurveda.

Before, during, and after his formal Ayurvedic training, Kyle has studied Jyotish (classical Vedic astrology), Yoga, Sanskrit, and herbology, as well as various practices of meditation and pranayama.

He has studied throughout the United States and in India, working to integrate both eastern and western cultures into digestible forms of practical information. 

Kyle's efforts are spent teaching various subjects within yoga and Ayurveda as well as integrating classical healing practices with modern practicality for individual health concerns.

Tesia Love is a Certified Ayurvedic Practitioner (NAMACB) from Charlotte, NC where she practices as a Clinical Ayurvedic Specialist, Clinical Herbalist, 500-hour Yoga Teacher, and Licensed Massage & Bodywork Therapist. She has studied Ayurveda for nearly 20 years, and spent the past seven years professionally helping her clients transform their health through this ancient science.

Tesia is a graduate of the California College of Ayurveda, Duke Integrative Medicine’s Integrative Health Coach training, and numerous other training and mentorship programs with top teachers of Ayurveda and herbalism. 

Tesia spent two years working as Membership Manager for the National Ayurvedic Medical Association, and served as Chair of the Membership Committee and Continuing Education Sub-committee. She currently serves as Chair of NAMA's Diversity & Inclusion Committee.

Tommy Redding is a dirt worshipper, naturalist, educator, and farmer.

Tommy has been growing food and medicine in the Williams area for the past 10 years, and for the past 7 years has worked closely with new farmers to train the next generation of homesteaders and food producers. He is passionate about strengthening local food systems, building soil, and the connections between the plants of the farm and the wild plants of our surrounding bioregion. Tommy finds daily inspiration in the personal transformation that he has seen take place in the garden and seeks to support others in creating a deeper connection with their bodies and the source of their sustenance.

Tyler is the Plant Education Director at Banyan Botanicals, a place-based herbalist, Ayurvedic practitioner, and founder of Hawthorn Institute.

Tyler has devoted his life to the practice of bioregional Ayurveda and community herbalism. He brings his passion and knowledge of nature into everything he shares. Tyler’s intention is to ignite deeper connections to place, people, and plants.

Tyler has studied with Vasant Lad, MASc, Dr. Claudia Welch, Sonia Masocco, Isla Burgess, 7song, and Frank Cook. He thanks all of his mentors for sharing life’s wisdom.

Venessa is a functional nutritionist, certified health counselor, intuitive nourishment guide, & founder of Wildly Rooted and the Feed Your Wild podcast.

Venessa’s passion is combining the science and spirituality of food and herbs using a modern functional approach, intuitive guidance, and ancestral wisdom from earth-honoring traditions including Ayurveda. Venessa’s mission is to address the roots of our collective dis-ease using plants and food as medicine, nature-based practices, & radical nourishment of body, mind, and spirit.

Venessa has a Masters in Human Nutrition and Functional Medicine and has studied with Andrea Nakayama, Dr. Datis Kharrazian, and Dr. Deanna Minich, among others to whom she is eternally grateful.