About advaya

About advaya



advaya is a transformative learning platform exploring the interrelated fields of ecology, culture and consciousness.

Our offerings explore the multiple realities we find ourselves in, nurture purpose and belonging, and help us navigate pathways towards lives of meaning, connection and presence. Unique online and in-person experiences are guided by the leading hearts and minds of our time in order to transform how we relate to each other and to the world around and within us.

As part of our blossoming multimedia ecosystem, you’ll find courses, community membership, events, podcasts and blogs on topics such as spiritual ecology, artificial intelligence, regenerative economics, animism, mycology, intersectionality, mythology and much more.

In a time of increasing polarisation, binary thinking and dogmatism, we are creating space for generative collective inquiry and collective imaginging, asking questions with compassion and curiosity, reawakening wonder, and stirring the realities our hearts know are possible.

advaya was born in 2015 when sisters Ruby Reed & Christabel Reed asked: What if we saw the ecological, social, political, personal and spiritual crises as invitations to change and opportunities to evolve? Ruby and Christabel had been dedicated yoga and meditation practitioners but felt disheartened by the wellbeing world, which focused almost solely on personal development while environmental and social justice, the very foundations of wellbeing, went unacknowledged. Similarly, it seemed that the activist communities they were coming into contact with had little engagement with personal wellbeing or spiritual practice, and they were witnessing high levels of burnout, anger and despair. Rather than outer and inner transformation standing in opposition, Ruby and Christabel understood that these were two sides of the same coin and that both were necessary for the changes our world is calling for. They wanted to know that they were not alone in their dreams and vision for a world where people and planet thrived. In September 2015 they organised their first gathering and invited Satish Kumar, Mick Collins, Nick Jankel and Stewart Gilchrist to come to The Tabernacle in Notting Hill, London, to explore changemaking, purpose and joy. They were joined by 150 others and advaya was born.

Some 400 events later, plus countless retreats, festivals, and online courses, advaya finds itself at an exciting juncture as an emerging leader in the transformative learning space. With a team of multi-skilled women spread out across the globe, advaya delivers radical, timely, and heart-led programmes to an international community seeking to unite across borders and carry the knowledge gained via our offerings out into the world. We are lucky to be joined along the way by a roster of incredible teachers, artists, activists, practitioners, and leaders of all kinds.

Our mission

To transform how people think, relate and act, enabling thriving lives in harmony with the natural living world.

Our values

Community

Community and collaboration are at the centre of what we do and who we are.

Interconnectedness

The world is complex, multi-faceted and non-dualistic. advaya inquires into complex issues through deeper thinking and transformative learning.

Joy

We believe change will happen when enough people are empowered and united. Through transformative learning we believe that the world can be a more joyful and compassionate place.

Imagination

We connect as a community through our shared vision of the future. Through transformative learning advaya shines a light on topics that ignite the imagination and a more meaningful way of being.

Meet the team

Ruby Reed Picture

Ruby is a curator, catalyst and organiser fascinated with how we can recentre our relationship with the natural world into our perception of life as a whole. She is a Trustee of Resurgence Trust, Director and co-founder of the new charity Initiative Earth and part of Be The Earth Foundation’s flow funding network, radicalising top-down funding. Ruby is also the Curator for educational content for Medicine Festival and part of Extinction Rebellion’s Regenerative Culture Team, where she programmed talks and wellbeing spaces during rebellions and created Rebel Retreats with Sara Zaltash and Christabel.

Christabel Reed Picture

Christabel Reed is the co-founder and director of advaya and Earthed. Her work is energised by a fascination in how we heal our relationship with ourselves, each other, our environments and the cosmos. For Christabel, we cannot separate these entwined journeys of inner and outer healing if what we envision is a world that thrives. After years of learning, practice, activism and movement building, Christabel is now focused on building the mechanisms that might enable the radical imagination to become manifested by making accessible transformative wisdom, skills, networks and funds.

Grace Burrows Picture

Grace joined advaya to blend her professional experience with her love for community and learning. From studying Anthropology at LSE to a recent Cambridge diploma in business sustainability, Grace believes that education is a transformative pursuit and should be accessible to all. When not working at advaya she can be found working her other job, looking after her son Dusty.

Tammy Gan Picture

Tammy (she/her) leads on content and storytelling at advaya, and sees her work at advaya as integral to her quest, to create digital and physical community and learning spaces to build towards a more just, regenerative and loving world within our current one. As a builder and storyteller, Tammy seeks to be in service to movements, organisations and collectives that prefigure a better world.

Priya Subberwal Picture

Priya (she/they) is an interdisciplinary artist focused on the intersections between ecological stewardship, collective liberation, and creative expression. She received her BA in Environmental Studies from NYU and is currently completing an MA in environmental writing at the University of Montana. When she’s not pushing pixels, Priya can be found rock climbing, hiking, or talking to trees.

Firozeh Usufzay Picture

Firozeh Usufzay is an award-winning multidisciplinary filmmaker, growth strategist, and educator who works at the intersection of UX, CX, and LXD, assisting educational organizations in identifying "the disconnect" between their customers' needs, business goals, and digital marketing strategy in order to provide valuable experiential transformation to their students.

Sara Zaltash Picture

Beloved Sara Zaltash is queer British-Iranian astrologer and artist dedicated to raising the voice of GodS. With roots in sacred activism, they apply their skills as a performer, diviner, writer, singer and space-holder to weave holy healing across all spheres of life. Beloved Sara writes Advaya’s weekly Horoscopes for Healing in service to personal transformation, systemic evolution and earthly renewal. www.belovedsarazaltash.com.

Cassandra Bradshaw Picture

Cassandra facilitates individual and group journeys at www.riserooted.co and is a photographer at www.embodied.photography. Holding space for individuals to rise with awareness to the presence of their purpose. When an individual remembers their true significance within the collective, they shine a light in and onto their meaning of purposeful presence, and they begin to contribute to the collective in a coherent movement, dancing to the beat of their soul's earth rhythm, weaving their thread into the great tapestry of this life, during their time here on earth

Topics

Topic 1

Topic 1

Description 1