In loving celebration of Shaina Traisman
The world lost such a bright human this year. Shaina Traisman, founder of Yoga Behind Bars, left her body this June. She is survived by her two children, her mother, sisters, and a web of beloved family and friends, students and colleagues.
When I close my eyes, I see her brilliant smile and hear her laugh and my heart breaks. Her children deserved so many more years of her love, holding and being held. May her love for them - eternal and present - find many hands and hearts through which to work.
Shaina founded Yoga Behind Bars in the early 2000s while teaching at Samadhi Yoga on Capitol Hill and volunteering at the downtown jail. We held meetings at her tiny apartment on 12th Avenue, bikes piled in the street, and spent five years birthing a community organization that reimagined justice, love, and freedom. She was never afraid of saying what needed to be said or doing what needed to be done.
Birth is the word I most associate with Shaina. She was a doula, an artist, a healer, a mother. She gave birth to so much in her too-short life: organizations, ideas, two adorable humans, and deep, transformative relationships with so many people.
Birth requires bridging two worlds - the spiritual and physical - taking the unmanifest and bringing it into the physical world. When I think of her death as a different kind of birth, taking all her physical experiences and bringing them to the spirit realm for integration, I smile. I can picture her saying to all the masters of Light and Wisdom: “What the hell was THAT about? Things need to seriously change on planet earth. Let's get to work!”
Natalie Cielle, Yoga Behind Bars co-founder
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Hi, My name is Dwayne and while I never met Shaina she has had a huge impact on my life. In 2000 when Shaina and the rest of you were conceptualizing YBB I was serving time at the state penitentiary in Walla Walla. Little did I know then how great an impact on my life she was going to have. I hope I will get the chance to repay the gift she gave me. YBB has been a vehicle of harmony, one which has given many men here a chance to take a step in actualizing their own lives. My practice and the practice of all who I've taught a class to owe her a debt of gratitude.
Dwayne, Yoga Behind Bars teacher
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We love you, Shaina.