Mandarava

Mandarava is an artist, puppet maker, and storyteller who creates immersive settings for enactments and ritual. She has a background working in professional theatre/opera, as a puppeteer, puppet maker, scene painter, prop maker, and costume dyer. As well as her interest in working creatively, she has trained more recently in the ‘healing arts’ and is now working as a ‘Somatic Experiencing and Focusing Practitioner’. Both are body-oriented approaches that help bring about more aliveness and vitality inherent in our bodies and release what has been blocked or stuck in our lives. She is inspired by a holistic approach to practice that draws on the body, the felt sense, and the imagination in a way that is emergent and creative.

Instagram: mandaravabutlin

Upcoming Programs by Mandarava

The Body as Mandala

Also With Paramananda

December 4 - 11, 2026

In the West, the seat of consciousness has tended to be imagined in the head. More traditionally, it would be associated with either the belly or the heart. On this retreat, we will imagine our own bodies as both vessels containing psyche and as mandalas where the central or constellating archetype is the heart. We will playfully and imaginatively shift our attention from our thoughts to our direct experience, which is constantly manifesting as us through our own bodies and our extended awareness of the world around us. TRIRATNA INTENSIVE RETREAT for regular meditators with 2 years+ experience of retreats, centres or groups.