Meet Vanessa
I take what I do seriously. I just don’t take myself too seriously.
I love creating beautiful experiences, gathering people together, going somewhere I’ve never been before, making music, moving my body, and laughing—a lot.
I’m adventurous. I’m curious. I’m silly. I’ve lived all over the world and traveled much of it on my own. I’m always up for trying something new.
Life is meant to be lived. Let’s go.
Becoming
I know something about beginning again.
I built a life in Mexico. I had four children, a home, a community, friends—a whole world I thought I understood. And then that world became unrecognizable.
I lost my children. I lost my home. I lost people I believed were my friends. Eventually, I left Mexico and returned to Europe carrying very little of the life I had known before.
But here’s what I learned: you can grow out of the most catastrophic kind of loss, and you can find joy again.
I had to build a new community. I started traveling again. Dancing. Making music. Creating. Gathering people. Filling my world with flowers and candles and beautiful meals and new ideas.
I began living from a place of passion, creativity, desire and a lust for life.
That is where Sacred Becoming comes from.
The story of Persephone has always understood something about transformation: she doesn’t become the goddess she is by avoiding the underworld. She descends into it. And when she returns, she carries something with her that the girl who descended did not yet possess.
I don’t believe we need tragedy in order to transform. But I do believe we all encounter thresholds.
Sacred Becoming is what we do with them.
Movement
I began as a professional ballet dancer in New York City, and I’m a certified yoga teacher and fitness trainer. I’ve spent decades studying and teaching movement—dance, yoga, strength training, HIIT, all of it.
I love what happens when we get out of our heads and into our bodies. Sweat. Stretch. Get stronger. Put on the music. Move.
Music
I’m a singer, pianist and composer. I’ve written classical music, electronic music, ridiculous songs about tiny trains chugging up mountains—and pretty much everything in between.
Music is everywhere in my life, so of course it finds its way into our gatherings. We listen. We dance. We make sound.
And sometimes we crank up the tunes in the car and rock out.
Ideas
I’m also a political scientist and scholar. I studied Political Science and International Relations at UCSB and worked at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City. I’m endlessly curious about people, power, culture, history and why we build the worlds we build.
I love ideas. I love conversations that go somewhere. And I especially love when a conversation that started over dinner somehow ends three hours later with tarot cards all over the table.
Adventure
I’ve lived around the world and traveled much of it on my own. I’ve solo traveled through Morocco. I’ve jumped out of airplanes. I talk to random people everywhere I go.
I love the surprise of discovering what’s around the corner.
Structured Improv
I like structured improv.
There’s a plan. I know where we’re going and what we’re doing. But the experience matters more to me than following a schedule just because it’s on the schedule.
If everybody stayed up late dancing and nobody wants yoga at nine in the morning, we’ll move it. And if everyone wants to sleep in except one woman who’s ready to move, she and I will roll out our mats. If it rains, we’ll light some candles and do something beautiful inside.
I’ve managed a massive, high-volume luxury gym where solving problems and keeping people happy was literally my job. I adapt. I’m flexible. I don’t stress. I solve the problem, and we keep having fun.
And sometimes the unexpected thing turns out to be what we’re still talking about years later.
After Hours
When the day winds down, you’ll probably find me sneaking off for a glass of wine, prosciutto and cheese, striking up a conversation with some random local, or sitting around the table pulling tarot cards and getting really deep about stuff.
Or you might find me alone in the chapel singing Palestrina—or starting a drum circle and dancing around the fire.
I like to joke. I like to be silly and ridiculous. I laugh at myself all the time.
I’m probably the bad influence most of the time. If someone says, “Should we go dancing?” I’m already putting my shoes on.
Holding the Circle
I create the space, but every woman who comes into it brings something of her own.
I don’t believe there’s one way to support somebody. It depends on the woman and what she needs in that moment.
Sometimes that means a big hug, looking her in the eyes and asking, “What’s going on? Do you want to talk?”
Sometimes we go deep. Sometimes we laugh. Sometimes we dance. Sometimes we just sit together. And sometimes she just wants to be alone.
It’s about reading the room. After years of teaching, mentoring and managing people, that’s something I’ve learned to trust.
My job is to hold the circle. What happens inside it belongs to all of us.