Rachel May

Rachel May began practicing yoga as a child with her mother, a transcendental meditation practitioner. She learned mantra & vipassana first, to help her school anxiety; then her mother introduced her to some of the prevalent texts, including the Bhagavad Gita & The Ramayana. As a pre-teen she began to study asana, primarily to support her acrobatic endeavors & to give some embodiment to all of the other practices she had learned (she also needed a gym requirement for school, and the only options she was willing to consider were badminton or yoga…) Rachel began teaching in the fall of 2000 at the local library where she worked; starting with kids & the elderly folks who regularly visited, and eventually teaching the public. Shortly thereafter Rachel met her teacher, Parvathi Nanda Nath Saraswati, and her whole life changed. As Rachel puts it, “It felt as though there were parts of a song playing throughout my life; melodies and choruses and notes that I could not put together. Hearing Parvathi speak about Sri Vidya was like hearing the entire sympathy of it all at once, finally attuned & in order.” Rachel then began her Sri Vidya studies. She also started her Ayurvedic studies around the same time, first through The Vedic Institute; focusing her certification on those with mental illness & addiction. Alongside her teaching & practice of yoga, Sri Vidya & Ayurveda, Rachel has an English degree; is a pool shark; and advocates heavily for social justice, as we all only liberate together. She lives in Doylestown with her renaissance husband Dillon & her brilliant daughter Ella: who has already started memorizing mantras & doing pujas.