PAUSE:
A Gathering to Reflect & Reconnect
Pause Gathering
Guest Facilitators
(*Confirmed, more coming soon)
Simona Irwin
Simona Irwin is a mindfulness teacher, neuroplasticity coach, and facilitator of Systemic Constellations. She is the creator of the Befriending Fear series and co-founder of the Mindful Earth Refuge, an eco-dharma community in Toronto. Simona also leads The Gathering Stream, an online space supporting people living with trauma, illness and chronic fear to return to inner aliveness and belonging.
Her work weaves ancestral repair, somatic parts work, deep ecology, and meditation to support nervous system healing and soul-level remembrance. Grounded in lived experience, she brings gentleness, depth, and kinship to what is often exiled. A mother of two, she is devoted to her 5Rhythms practice, land, and to a lifelong relationship with the Mystery.
For more information visit: www.turningtowards.me & www.mindfulearthrefuge.ca
>>> Offering Group Meditations & Ancestral repair work
Maya Nadeem
Maya Nadeem helps people connect to their creative vitality, unraveling the binding threads of trauma and conditioning to live as the fullest expression of themselves. She midwifes the most vibrant version of who they are, supporting access to their creative truth, inner trust, and a more authentic way of being that is rooted in self worth. Her work opens to the full spectrum of emotion, guiding people through thresholds of grief and rupture while building capacity for joy.
As a trauma-informed coach, facilitator, and the creator of The Heart of Flow Method- a pathway of embodied transformation through creative expression, somatics, and energy healing, Maya opens space for new possibilities to emerge. Her own path is devotionally alive with art, poetry, and writing as bridges between the seen and unseen, where the elements, psyche, and body become pathways of creation and healing. She has worked with diverse populations, including people impacted by sexual and gender-based violence, as well as those navigating traumatic loss through suicide or homicide. Grounded in 18 years of experience in individual and collective healing through 1:1 client sessions and group facilitation, her approach is intuitive, collaborative, and deeply attuned, bringing warmth and playfulness to meet depth.
For more information visit www.heartofflow.com & IG @mayanadeem
>>> Offering Creative Expression & Somatic Practices
Care Team
(*Confirmed, more coming soon)
Melisse Watson
Melisse Watson is a queer, non-binary Afro-futurist dedicated to disruption and a commitment to renewed health care strategies within Black and Indigenous communities. As an earthworker and Registered Practical Nurse, restoring relationships and conflict or harm recovery is central to their focus and efforts of self and communal determination.
Melisse is inspired by the mind and relationship work of Adrienne Maree brown, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Octavia Butler, Amber Williams-King and beyond. They find motivation from the regeneration efforts of seeds, mycelium, and the potential for change. As an accomplished creator, facilitator, grower, dreamer and advocate, Melisse is committed through all they pursue to integrity, care work, and the collective recovery.
>>> Offering Nursing Care
Lindy Zucker
Lindy is a lifelong explorer of many relational worlds — Currently a student of Gestalt Psychotherapy (4th year), arriving in that realm via a deliciously winding road through co-active coach training and a theatre degree, she thrives in ritual, play, and deeply embodied listening. Striving to create sacred space for stretching into self-awareness, she is constantly dancing with mischief, the mystical, and how we understand safety.
>>> Offering Therapeutic Support
Community Organizers & Program Facilitators
Rachelle Sauvè
Rachelle is a cook, a caterer and community organizer, an Earthworker, an educator, a writer, a witch and a wilderness wanderer who has dedicated much of their life to food justice, anti poverty and human liberation struggles.
Rooted in anti-colonial, anti imperial, anti fascist and anti-capitalist, anti racist and queer and feminist movements and communities- Rachelle seeks to feed resistance towards the liberation of all beings.
Deeply devoted to land based practices, they grow foods and medicines, forage, ferment and support others in learning how to listen deeply, walk carefully and dance with reverence in relationship to land.
Rachelle has been working with the practices of fasting and silence for over thirty years- holding long fasts twice each year and silence one day every week. Their spirit and resolve is strengthened and nurtured through practices of solitude, sex magic, philosophy, play, dance and delight.
For more information contact Rachlle at feedresistance@gmail.com
Alejandro Zuluaga
Alejandro loves connecting with the natural world—hiking through the woods, swimming in the river, dancing, singing, laughing, or just being delighted in the company of close friends. For over 15 years, he’s worked as a community organizer and social arts facilitator, with a strong foundation in the mental health field and a passion for creating inclusive, meaningful community arts events.
Currently, Alejandro teaches a weekly Yoga class, produces Conscious Dance events, offers wellness recovery counseling, and provides holistic body-
work. Alejandro’s own practices weave together sensations, breath- and body-based meditation (Vipassana), somatic movement (5Rhythms), intuitive music-making, and time spent immersed in nature—all of which inspire the way he lives and relates to others.
For more information visit www.AlejandroCZuluaga.com, or email at alejo.zuluag@gmail.com
