Who We Are and What We Do

Sanctuary Embodied develops Left movement leaders and formations to build collective power and compelling cultures that can sustain for the long haul.

We offer transformative practices and embodied skill sets to navigate conflict, cultivate resilient protagonism, compel people towards a collective vision, and take coordinated action towards building new worlds.

  • Co-Steward & Lead Teacher

    Eliana Rubin is a queer feminist, anti-imperialist organizer, and practitioner of politicized somatics who grew up in a deeply rooted, culturally Jewish community in the Bay Area on Ohlone land. Connecting with their own legacies of resistance fortified Eliana in their commitment to fight all forms of oppression, including both Zionism and antisemitism. For over 12 years, she has worked to support culture change in movement spaces through the use of embodied practice and facilitation. In 2015, Eliana began training in the lineages of generative somatics as a practitioner and teacher.

    They received their Graduate Degree in Embodiment Studies from Goddard College in 2020, writing a thesis based on their research in the intersections of somatic methodologies, polyvagal theory, Jewish inter-generational trauma, and internationalist anti-imperialist politics.

    Eliana is now rooted in Durham, North Carolina on Occoneechi, Saponi, & Eno land where she helped to found Makom, a queer and trans led Jewish anti-Zionist congregation.

    In 2024, Eliana published their first book with PM Press, Taking the State Out of the Body: A Guide to Embodied Resistance to Zionism.

  • Co-Steward & Lead Teacher

    Yashna Maya Padamsee is a first generation south asian immigrant queer femme raised in and by the US South. Yashna has spent 20+ years supporting social movements through creating innovative infrastructure and sharing liberatory healing practices. Yashna is a Project Management, Event Planning and Organizational + Leadership Development Consultant for nonprofit and movement building organizations and creative teams, an occasional yoga teacher and artist, and a full time dog-mama. 

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  • Lead Teacher

    Adaku is a grassroots strategist, abolitionist healer, somatics practitioner, and ritual artist. They have worked with organizations like the Building Movement Project, National Network of Abortion Funds, Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity, Soul Fire Farm, the Audre Lorde Project, and more—across borders, movements, and timelines.

We work with organizers, cultural workers, and other leaders around the U.S. with a focus on resourcing our communities here in the South. Below are some of the organizations our training participants have come from…

Sanctuary Embodied also collaborates with other facilitators, practitioners, and teachers. Learn about their work and check out upcoming courses to see who is on the team!

MawuLisa Thomas Adeyemo is a Queer Southern born, Black & Indigenous somatic awakener, healing midwife, bodyworker, ritualist, & song weaver. Her healing practice is inspired by the healing technologies of generative somatics, Strozzi Institute,  Ayurveda, and Earth-based Wisdom Traditions.

Marika Heinrichs is a writer, researcher, and practitioner of somatics, who deeply believes that reconnecting with our bodies is vital to ending systems of domination and supremacy. She is passionate about supporting people to find connection, belonging, and liberation through the wisdom of their bodies.

Jules Pashall works at the intersections of creative expression and embodiment practice. Fat, queer, trans and disabled activists raised them and shapes their work.

adrienne maree brown is growing a garden of healing ideas. Informed by decades of movement facilitation, somatics, science fiction scholarship and doula work, adrienne has nurtured Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, Radical Imagination and Loving Correction as ideas and practices for transformation. 

Alexis Pauline Gumbs is a Queer Black Troublemaker and Black Feminist Love Evangelist and an aspirational cousin to all sentient beings. Her work in this lifetime is to facilitate infinite, unstoppable ancestral love in practice. Her poetic work in response to the needs of her cherished communities has held space for multitudes in mourning and movement. She is an artist, poet, author, activist, and community-accountable scholar.

Fayza Bundalli is a queer, South Asian and Muslim femme. She teaches generative somatics as a methodology to QT/BIPOC practitioners, and also works 1:1 as a somatic therapist and bodyworker. These are her drop-in-the-ocean offerings toward collective healing, aliveness, and power.

Becka Tilsen is an educator and trainer who has designed and facilitated workshops for a wide range of constituencies. Becka has more than two decades of experience with program development for social justice organizations.

Nazbah Tom supports BIPOC communities within social and climate justice movements. Nazbah offers somatic healing groups and skill building workshops to movement leaders, organizations, and alliances.

“Transformation means moving toward more fully inhabiting our bodies as agents of change and healing and thus is absolutely essential to our movements for justice."

—Eliana Rubin, Taking the State Out of the Body