Event Description:
Join Tara Aura for Freedom Flow and Ancestral Sound Meditation, celebrating Juneteenth with depth and joy. Our beginner-friendly, restorative yoga flow will be enhanced by the healing power of music from the Black diaspora, and followed by a multi-instrumental soundbath and guided meditation. All levels and all bodies will be guided with care, using supportive props and detailed, trauma-informed instructions. The Freedom Flow experience is designed to center Black people and celebrate Black culture. Together, we will stretch and open internal space, give thanks and set intentions for a bright Black future. Light refreshments provided.
About Tara Aura:
Inspired at an early age by radical thinkers and my family lineage of accomplished jazz musicians, creatives and community leaders, I’ve always been a spiritually-rooted person. I booked my first professional singing jobs as a teenager, just before heading to the Ivy League, then spent subsequent years grinding in DC, Brooklyn and Los Angeles as a writer and multi-media producer. In 2013, I took my first yoga teacher training and started teaching in New York City, studying under legends like Elena Brower, Leslie Kaminoff, Jyll-Hubbard Salk, and Aimée Meredith Cox. During this time, I was also immersed in the beverage industry, responsible for WTRMLN WTR activations at Sundance, Art Basel, Coachella, Afropunk, Wanderlust and countless yoga destinations, building a brand that attracted investors like Beyoncé and several professional athletes.
Over the years, as you can imagine, I was often one of very few Black leaders in predominantly-white spaces. In order to thrive in these intense environments despite the trauma, violence, and health challenges that are so common for people who look like me, I bolstered myself with over 10,000 hours of mindfulness, collective care and therapeutic wellness experiences. I embraced my neurodivergent creativity, studied scientific and cultural legacies, and began to share my personal rituals in community.
Now I get to share my personal rituals with thousands of people every year! My stage name TARA AURA has embodied my artistic practice and talent as a ritual artist, sound healer, writer, host, meditation guide and yoga teacher since 2014. I’ve presented for the National Gallery of Art, Janelle Monae’s Wondaland camp, Essence Fest, Nike, Soho House, the Smithsonian Institute, and at my own Heartcamp retreats in New York’s Hudson Valley.
At the height of the pandemic, I was recruited to serve as Wellness Director at DC’s award-winning, progressive Eaton Hotel, where I produced bespoke events and experiences for Wu Tang Clan, Black Lives Matter founders, cultural institutions like The Kennedy Center, The National Cannabis Festival, the National Psychedelics Conference, and universities like Georgetown and Howard. My work there earned mentions in Vogue, and I became a published author in 2023. Now in addition to my artistic practice, I have a creative agency called BLIND SEED to produce liberating experiences, mindset trainings, and wellness events for the people who need it most.
