Finding Refuge Sadhana
A Sadhana is a dedicated practice. Many are structured as 40-day sadhana because 40 days is said to be long enough for us to break samskaras—patterns, and create new practices and behaviors. A sadhana can be a consistent practice of meditation, mantra, movement, self-study or pranayama, or a mixture of these practices. The Finding Refuge Sadhana provides a combination of mantra, pranayama, movement, meditation and self-study through journaling prompts and reflection.
The Finding Refuge Sadhana is designed to guide you through becoming present and exploring heartbreak, grief, resilience, connection with ancestors, and the medicine you can bring forth at this time. This Sadhana is a tool meant to support you in healing and deepening your spiritual practice and it is a resource that beckons you to present with the heart-brokenheartedness and open heartedness.
Skill in Action On-Demand Course
A self-paced course rooted in the teachings of Skill in Action.
A seven-hour self-paced course as a companion to guide yoga teachers, healers, and space holders to embody justice and compassion in practice.
Oracular Readings
Note: All of the Winter Oracle openings have been booked. If you book now, I will read for you on or around the Spring Equinox.
Since ancient times, people from various cultures and lineages have engaged the oracles to receive divine communication and guidance. At the seasonal turn (next readings around the Spring Equinox), I will serve as a medium to the oracles to access answers to questions you might have about relationships, career, life path, lineage, family, and whatever it is you seek to know.
In-Person Yoga and Meditation
I offer in-person meditation and movement classes in Winston Salem. Join me for one of these offerings.
You Are Protected: Charis Books
Hybrid, in-person and virtual.
Charis Books, in Atlanta, Georgia, welcomes Michelle Cassandra Johnson in conversation with Octavia F. Raheem in celebration of You Are Protected: Invoking Spiritual Support to Sustain Your Energy, a powerful collection of spiritual practices and tools to support readers in standing strong amidst whatever the world throws at them.
The evening will include a reading, conversation, and magic with Octavia Raheem, and a short ritual, followed by a book signing.
You Are Protected: A Year of Rituals
Celebrate Michelle's latest book, You Are Protected, and join her for a year of rituals.
There is so much moving through and around us now. We all need some form of nourishment and protection to tend our inner sanctuary and to create sanctuary in community with others. A Year of Rituals is an opportunity to do just that.
From September 2026 through August 2027, Michelle will guide a monthly ritual from You Are Protected to support you in conjuring the exact protection and spiritual support you seek. The rituals featured in this offering come from various lineages, mythologies, and cosmologies.
You Are Protected: Firestorm Books
Michelle Cassandra Johnson returns to Firestorm for a dynamic conversation with Rev. Marshall K Hammer on the occasion of her newly published book, You Are Protected.
Join us for a book discussion, ritual, and Q&A.
YOU ARE PROTECTED-Quail Ridge Books
Join the celebration and launch of my latest book, You Are Protected at Quail Ridge Books! I’ll be in conversation with a friend and magic man, Brent Winter. Join us!
Skill in Action Mentorship & Community of Practice
An 8-week mentorship for yoga practitioners, teachers, and spiritual activists cultivating equity, justice, and collective transformation.
Rest and Restore
Join Michelle C. Johnson on October 29th from 4:00-5:15 pm to rest and restore your mind, body, heart, and spirit. Michelle will guide you through a few gentle yoga practices, followed by yoga nidra and a sound-healing journey. This practice will take place near Old Salem, NC.
Once you register, Michelle will send the address and instructions for accessing the space.
You Are Protected: Rituals for Protection and Sustenance During the Holiday Season
18 Springs Community Healing Center
The holiday season can be a time of celebration, connection, and joy, but it can also increase demands on our time, energy, and capacity. Family dynamics, gatherings, expectations, grief, travel, and the pressure to do more can leave us feeling depleted and disconnected from ourselves.
In this workshop, Michelle will draw from her book, You Are Protected: Invoking Spiritual Support to Sustain Your Energy, to offer rituals and practices for tending your energy and creating a sense of protection during the holiday season.
Together, we will explore ways to call our energy back to ourselves, tend our boundaries, connect with protective allies, and create sanctuary within and around us.
Rest and Restore
Join Michelle C. Johnson on December 4th from 4:00-5:15 pm to rest and restore your mind, body, heart, and spirit. Michelle will guide you through a few gentle yoga practices, followed by yoga nidra and a sound-healing journey. This practice will take place near Old Salem, NC.
Once you register, Michelle will send the address and instructions for accessing the space.
Where the Wild Things Teach: Wonder, Play, Rest, & Aliveness A week-long retreat in the Bahamas to Swim with Wild Dolphins
So much is moving through this time and space. We are living through waves of uncertainty, grief, beauty, possibility, and profound change. A retreat to the ocean is not a departure from what is unfolding around us, nor is it an escape from the realities we face. Rather, it is an invitation to return—to our deepest, vibrant essence, to the vastness of the earth, to the rhythms of the sea, to the wisdom of our bodies, and to one another.
During our week together, we will go out on a sailing catamaran Monday through Friday to swim with wild dolphins in warm, crystal-clear waters and snorkel over vibrant reefs with sea turtles, stingrays, octopus, and more. At our waterfront retreat center, we’ll gather each morning for yoga and storytelling, share nourishing meals, and create spaciousness for both reflection and delight. There will be time to laugh, to be quiet, to move, to float, and to simply listen, reconnecting with essential aspects of our true, free essence.
Restore + Return: Rediscovering Our Interconnectedness Retreat in Cambutal, Panama
Restore and Return is for anyone longing to come back to their center, cultivate peace within, and carry that peace into their daily life. Together, we will explore ways to replenish our energy and respond to the challenges of our time—both individually and collectively—from a grounded, steady, and resilient place.
Rituals of Protection
Join Tracee Stanley and Michelle Johnson for rituals, practices, and spiritual remembering rooted in Tracee Stanley's latest book, Living Ritual, and Michelle's forthcoming book, You Are Protected: Invoking Spiritual Support to Sustain Your Energy.
FREE!
Rest and Restore
Join Michelle C. Johnson on July 16th from 4:00-5:15 pm to rest and restore your mind, body, heart, and spirit. Michelle will guide you through a few gentle yoga practices, followed by yoga nidra and a sound-healing journey. This practice will take place near Old Salem, NC.
Once you register, Michelle will send the address and instructions for accessing the space.
Unwell Together Free Webinar
This will be a live, organic conversation with the facilitators—a space to tell the truth about what we are carrying, how it shows up in groups, and what becomes possible when we stop pretending we can hold it alone.
Rest and Restore
Join Michelle C. Johnson on July 16th from 4:00-5:15 pm to rest and restore your mind, body, heart, and spirit. Michelle will guide you through a few gentle yoga practices, followed by yoga nidra and a sound-healing journey. This practice will take place near Old Salem, NC.
Once you register, Michelle will send the address and instructions for accessing the space.
Rest and Restore
Join Michelle C. Johnson on June 12th from 4:00-5:15 pm to rest and restore your mind, body, heart, and spirit. Michelle will guide you through a few gentle yoga practices, followed by yoga nidra and a sound-healing journey. This practice will take place near Old Salem, NC.
Once you register, Michelle will send the address and instructions for accessing the space.
Movement, Music, and Mantra
Join Surrendeva: Michelle Johnson, Colin Allured, and Zach Lail for movement and music! This offering begins with meditation, pranayama, and asana, followed by kirtan and call-and-response chanting. Open your heart, move your body, sing ancient mantras, and bathe in sound and story infused with deities, Gods, and Goddesses.
Donation-based.
Movement and Meditation 3:00-3:45
Kirtan from 4:00-5:00 pm.
Akashic Records Immersion
Join Michelle C. Johnson, Akashic Reader, Intuitive Healer, Spiritual Director, and Shamanic Practitioner for an eight-week series focused on the Akasha. You will learn to connect with the Akasha to answer your own questions and learn techniques to read the Akasha for others. You will deepen your spiritual skills and quicken the process of receiving transmissions and downloads from the spiritual realm.
We Heal Together: Weaving Interconnection with Yogic Practices for Personal and Collective Healing at Asheville Yoga Center
At this time on our planet, when so much disconnection pervades, we must remember our interconnectedness and our capacity to heal. Yoga is an ancient technology whose intent is to support us in remembering our inherent wholeness and remind us of what we can practice when we feel fractured or fragmented. It is a practice designed to help us meet the moment skillfully, with intention and care. During this weekend immersion with Michelle C. Johnson, author of Skill in Action and various other books, spiritual teacher, and healer, you will delve deeply into the teachings of yoga to reconnect with the infinite web of connection we are a part of. This transformative experience will focus on both personal and collective healing, infusing yoga philosophy and practices to support you and your community. The immersion will strike a balance between practice and application, so you will leave with the tools you need to integrate the lessons from the immersion into your yoga teaching and space holding at large.
Skill in Action Mentorship & Community of Practice
A 6-week mentorship for yoga practitioners, teachers, and spiritual activists cultivating equity, justice, and collective transformation.
Winter Solstice | Befriending the Darkness
Join Michelle C. Johnson for a special Winter Solstice Practice. The Winter Solstice is an auspicious time of year. It is a time when we experience the darkest, longest night. This time of darkness is intertwined with the returning light. During this practice, Michelle will guide you in exploring your relationship with the darkness and the polarity of the dark and light. She will guide you through movement, meditation, pranayama, and self-reflection. This is an all-levels class. Bring a journal with you and anything else that would feel supportive.
The Wisdom of the Hive: A Celebration of Seasons
Join Michelle C. Johnson and Amy Burtaine for bee magic to celebrate the turning of seasons.
Amy and Michelle, authors of The Wisdom of the Hive, are bee lovers and tenders, activists, and people who are deeply committed to healing work that supports bringing individuals, the collective, and our entire ecosystem back into balance. As each season gives way to another, they want to share wisdom from the honeybees with you.
Rest and Restore: Gentle Yoga, Yoga Nidra, and Sound Healing
Join Michelle C. Johnson to rest and restore your mind, body, heart, and spirit. Michelle will guide you through gentle yoga practices, followed by a yoga nidra, and a sound healing journey.
Dreamscape: Dream Altars, Allies, and Practices
Engaging dreams to divine our future is an old and wise practice. As we prepare for the changing season and the onset of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, I invite us to dream and bring our dreams into waking reality—to dream the dream of release and birth, the dream of creation.
Join me for a four-part series about dreaming. Together, we will embark on a journey of dreaming, self-discovery, and transformation. We will explore four primary points, including the importance and practice of dreaming, the use of dream altars, identifying our dream allies and guides, and allowing the dream of creation to emerge and move through us and out into the world.
Skillfully Meeting the Moment with Our Practice
Yoga is an ancient practice designed to support us in skillfully meeting whatever might arise, moment to moment. In this weekend immersion, we will engage in spiritual practice to meet the uncertainty life presents and the challenging times we are experiencing because of the social and political context, social unrest, climate chaos, collective loss, and the unsettling times we find ourselves now. This offering explores how yoga assists us in clarifying our dharma (purpose or duty), being in our shared humanity and right relationship with the more-than-human world, reducing individual and collective suffering, and inviting more ease into our and others’ lives.
A Space For Us: An Online Mini-Retreat for People of the Global Majority/BIPOC Folks
The times we are living through in our Brown and Black bodies are challenging and, for many of us, overwhelming. Many of us are responsible for so much, and the weight of what we carry can feel untenable. We need a space to lay it down. To lie down. To breathe. To be. A Space for Us to do whatever it is we need to do in the company of other People of the Global Majority who seek community and solace, just as we do.
Join Michelle C. Johnson and Stephanie Ghoston Paul for an opportunity to come together, regulate our nervous systems, breathe, share, sit, grieve, rest, and dream.
This mini-retreat will include somatic practices such as movement, meditation, and restful practices, as well as reflection, discussion, and ritual.
Surrendeva-Halloween Kirtan
Join Surrendeva, a devotional musical collaboration focused on opening the heart and uplifting the spirit, on Samhain and Halloween. We will breathe, sing, and open our hearts together.
This event is free; please pre-register, as parking spaces are limited.
The Wisdom of the Hive: Facing Fear and the Future Together
In this three-part Reimagine series, Michelle Cassandra Johnson and special guests explore themes from her newest book The Wisdom of the Hive. By seeing honeybees as our teachers, we can learn about our relationship with ourselves, each other, and the world at large. In times marked by grief, chaos and uncertainty, bees offer a powerful example of turning toward pain and fear, committing to better conditions for all beings to survive, and building a sweeter future where all can thrive.
We Heal Together: Rituals, Practices, and Spells to Respond to a World of Unrest
The times we are living through are riddled with uncertainty and unrest. Divisive principalities are working overtime to sever us from the truth of who we are and further disconnect us from community and healing the suffering that is present in the world. Our ancestors faced times like these, and their healing wisdom, rituals, and practices are within us. They stream through us.
The We Heal Together workshop is designed for us to access wisdom streams that can transmute uncertainty and unrest to restore balance. In this three-part workshop, you will access your inner alchemy to aid in healing collective wounds. We will explore various rituals, practices, and spells in service of the collective good and aligned with the law of nature based on everything being in balance, reciprocity, truth, and interconnectedness. We are all weavers of magic; through ritual, practice, and spellcasting, this magic can come to fruition here and now.
The Holding: How to Hold Ourselves, Each Other, and Change Now and Into the Future
As facilitators, activists, educators, and heart-centered humans, we are aware of both how much is unraveling and what each of us is holding right now. At this time in our history, when dysregulation is pervasive, it is essential for us to come together as a community and contemplate how we will hold ourselves and one another as the world around us becomes increasingly unrecognizable and falls apart. We must sit in the disintegration of it all and remember our bond and responsibility to one another. With this in mind and heart, we offer The Holding, an opportunity to be in community and consider how you hold yourself, the change work in which you engage, and how we hold one another.
Illuminating Our True Nature Weekend Immersion at Sangha Studio in Burlington, VT
Yoga is an ancient practice designed to support us in meeting whatever might arise, moment to moment. In this weekend immersion, we will explore how we can engage in spiritual practice to meet the personal and collective suffering we experience. We will explore the five root causes of suffering, as presented in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras:
avidya - a lack of clear sight
asmita - an overidentification with the ego
raga - an attachment to pleasure
dvesha - aversion or avoidance
abhinivesha - a fear of death or letting go
We will move through various practices, including asana, pranayama, meditation, mudra, and mantra, to meet ourselves and our suffering and, ultimately, to mitigate suffering and create conditions for liberation for ourselves and all beings.
Illuminating Our True Nature | Book Reading, Signing, and Discussion at Sangha Studio in Burlington, VT
Join Michelle C. Johnson, author of Illuminating Our True Nature, for a yoga practice, book reading, talk, and signing. In this session, Michelle will draw from yoga philosophy, specifically, the kleshas or reasons why we suffer individually and collectively. Michelle will guide and share practices from her latest book, which is informed by the eight-limbed path of yoga, to support you in identifying how the kleshas show up in your life and how to respond to them. No yoga experience is necessary.
The Wisdom of the Hive: What Honeybees Can Teach Us About Collective Wellbeing
Join Michelle Cassandra Johnson, a bee lover and tender activist, and author of many books, including her latest, The Wisdom of the Hive, for a garden talk! During the talk, learn about how honeybees illustrate communal interdependence, attunement to nature, coexistence with darkness, and so much more—lessons worthy of emulating within our own human world. You will leave feeling more connected with yourself and all beings, human and more-than-human.
The Wisdom of the Hive: A Celebration of Seasons
Join Michelle C. Johnson and Amy Burtaine for bee magic to celebrate the turning of seasons.
Amy and Michelle, authors of The Wisdom of the Hive, are bee lovers and tenders, activists, and people who are deeply committed to healing work that supports bringing individuals, the collective, and our entire ecosystem back into balance. As each season gives way to another, they want to share wisdom from the honeybees with you.
Skillfully Meeting the Moment with Our Practice at Gather Alaska
Yoga is an ancient practice designed to support us in skillfully meeting whatever might arise, moment to moment. In this weekend immersion, we will engage in spiritual practice to meet the uncertainty life presents and the challenging times we are experiencing because of the social and political context, social unrest, climate chaos, collective loss, and the unsettling times we find ourselves now. This offering explores how yoga assists us in clarifying our dharma (purpose or duty), being in our shared humanity and right relationship with the more-than-human world, reducing individual and collective suffering, and inviting more ease into our and others’ lives.
Interspiritual Luminaries with Michelle C. Johnson
Join Michelle C. Johnson, spiritual guidance student, beekeeper, intuitive and shamanic healer, activist, and lover of mythology and mysticism for an informative conversation about her latest book and body of work, The Wisdom of the Hive: What Honeybees Can Teach Us about Collective Wellbeing.
During the conversation, Michelle will share the ins and outs of the laboratory of a honeybee hive, lead a practice inspired by the honeybees, and share what they teach us about collective care, balance, the more-than-human world, love, spirituality, and working with polarities such as the darkness and light. Join us for this unique and timely offering.
Rest and Restore: Gentle Yoga, Yoga Nidra, and Sound Healing at Lotus Yoga
Join Michelle C. Johnson to rest and restore your mind, body, heart, and spirit. Michelle will guide you through gentle yoga practices, followed by a yoga nidra, and a sound healing journey.
The Wisdom of the Hive with Michelle C. Johnson on the Good Grief Network
What can honeybees teach us about life? About humanity? That's the question Michelle Cassandra Johnson has been exploring lately. In her newest book (with Amy Burtaine), Michelle highlights lessons we all could learn from honeybees: attunement with nature, coexistence with darkness, and so much more.
For this virtual author event, join Michelle Cassandra Johnson in conversation with Good Grief Network's founders, LaUra Schmidt & Aimee Lewis Reau as we dig deep and open our hearts to the wisdom of the hive.
The Wisdom of the Hive Book Club with Michelle C. Johnson and Amy Burtaine
The Wisdom of the Hive: What Honeybees Can Teach Us about Collective Wellbeing is a profound, potent, and insightful exploration of how we can look to honeybees and the more-than-human world as teachers. When we do this, we begin to examine our relationships with ourselves, with each other, and with the world at large. Honeybees illustrate communal interdependence, attunement to nature, coexistence with darkness, and so much more—lessons worthy of emulating within our own human world.
Learn more about these themes and engage in a community of practice in The Wisdom of the Hive six-week book club.
Yogis4Pal
For the 11th annual International Day of Yoga (IDY), Yogis for Palestine and Tejal Yoga have invited yoga teachers across the globe to embody yoga in the service of Palestinian liberation.
Over the weekend of June 21st - 22nd, teachers from all over the globe will gather in person and online to host donation-based yoga/meditation classes themed around taking collective action to end the Zionist entity’s 77-year occupation of Palestine and ongoing genocide and siege against Palestinians in Gaza.
Join me on Sunday, June 22nd at 12:00 pm ET for an online donation-based yoga and meditation practice to embody the intent of yoga, which is to liberate us, but not in isolation, and instead, in community.
• All funds donated to Camp Al-Jawad
The Wisdom of the Hive: A Celebration of Seasons
Join Michelle C. Johnson and Amy Burtaine for bee magic to celebrate the turning of seasons.
Amy and Michelle, authors of The Wisdom of the Hive, are bee lovers and tenders, activists, and people who are deeply committed to healing work that supports bringing individuals, the collective, and our entire ecosystem back into balance. As each season gives way to another, they want to share wisdom from the honeybees with you.
BIPOC & LGBTQIA+ Scholarship Fund
This fund is for BIPOC, Queer, and Trans folks who want to participate in my retreats, immersions, long-form trainings, and workshops. Your donations will allow me to continue to hold spaces and not turn folks away. Your donations and support will allow more BIPOC, Queer, and Trans folks to access my offerings.