• Skip to main content

The Shakti School

Feminine Form Sacred Technology

  • About
  • Blog
  • Glow-Worthy
  • Ayurveda
  • Subscribe
  • Podcast
  • Book a Call
  • Calendar
  •  
Community

How I Learned To Embrace the Life-Affirming Nature of Ayurveda

By Crystal Hoshaw

Spirit Sessions Portal Thumbnail

I wasn't a typical little girl in pigtails and Mary Janes. I was an unapologetic tomboy. 

I loved all things tough and rough and turned up my nose with disdain at my finger-nail-painting and dress-up-playing contemporaries. 

Tagging along behind the boys like Anybodies following the Jets, I was ostracized in much the same way. 

No matter what sports I excelled at or Mortal Combat nemesis I defeated, I was forever branded by my unsavory gender, to my great chagrin. 

On top of that, I saw myself and my fellow females through the eyes of the boys. 

I avoided the “girly girls” like the plague. I strained to avoid displays of emotionality, frivolity, and vulnerability—traits I had come to understand as patently feminine. 

It wasn't until much later in my life that I understood this rejection of my own gender as a rejection of myself.

Still, this masculine tone carried into my attitude as a teen. I felt I had to single-handedly prove that women could be just as good as men at anything, and had a duty to my gender to not be conventionally, predictably, vapidly feminine. 

I wove in and out of this head trip for much of my life, ranging from a bleach-blonde cheerleader with acrylic nails to an angry feminist who only wore men’s clothes and didn’t shave her legs for several years.

Through it all, I was seeking my authentic self, behind all the conditioning, ideology, and social judgment. 

Attempting to stamp out the non-spiritual

My anti-feminine attitude bled into my spiritual outlook as well. 

When I joined a 10 month yoga teacher training at seventeen, I was the pitta kid in the front of class competing with myself, obsessed with nailing every asana.

That same training introduced me to Ayurveda, but my approach was no different. If I was going to do it, I was going to do it hard. 

That meant vegan, sattvic, salt/garlic/onion-free, and no more than two anjalis—or handfuls of food—on my plate at a time.

I thought of the Buddha's feeble renunciate's body, nourished only by a single handful of rice each day. That’s real spirituality, right? 

This strictness gave me the false belief that I had succeeded at controlling my desires and base impulses. In reality, I was repressing them. 

Screen Shot 2022-08-30 at 12.55.31 PM

Waking down into the body

While reading in the cafe on my college campus one day, I came across a line in The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali by Sri Swami Satchidananda saying that sex—at least, to the detached, enlightened mind—was just as inconsequential as rubbing two sticks together.

That can’t be right, I thought.

Surely the aim and fruit of enlightenment isn’t to reduce our human experience to something so unfeeling. Surely the point is not to desensitize ourselves to the basic, innate, and ultimately innocent pleasure of being embodied.

Shouldn’t our spiritual path lead us to an experience of life that’s more vivid, more multidimensional, more intimate? Even more sensual and pleasurable?

This was an early tell-tale sign that I needed Tantra in my life.

After enough little insights like this, it eventually dawned on me that my previous spiritual orientation held a subtle desire for self-negation. 

Just as I had tried and failed to negate my gender as a young girl, I found myself attempting to negate the qualities that made me human, woman, and allowed me to express my unique and divine personality. 

Through a misunderstanding of what it means to lead a spiritual life, I had confused individuality with ego and strove for spiritual homogeneity instead of authenticity. 

Letting go of control

This applied to my food choices too. 

When I learned the word “orthorexia,” alarm bells went off in my head. First coined by American physician Steve Bratman in 1997, it comes from the Greek word “orthos,” or “right.” 

It wasn’t that I was fighting with my weight or my body in the conventional sense. I was fighting with a constant need to be correct. Of course, I was only setting myself up to fail. 

When I started to give up the need to make the “right” choice all the time and the pressure that goes along with it, I started to experience an inherent pleasure and satisfaction with life that is the true beginning of the road to spiritual bliss. 

Spirit Sessions Portal Thumbnail copy

No better teacher than the body

When I became pregnant with my son, I experienced a resurgence of my body’s inherent intelligence and natural wisdom that completely overrode any conceptualizations I might have had about ahimsa and veganism. 

While pregnant, my regular diet included steak, a hefty pile of dark leafy greens, and over a gallon of whole cow’s milk a day. This rapid shift came at the ardent insistence of my natural urges—urges I didn’t even know I had. 

As a result, I felt nourished, juicy, and—to my midwife’s great relief—no longer tested as anemic. 

I learned firsthand that depriving the body of what it needs is a form of violence. Somehow, this only became clear to me when I had another body growing inside of me to make the point. 

Now I know that my body, on its own, deserves the same gentle compassion and nurturing care. 

After all, even the Buddha gave up his meager renunciate’s diet, to the dismay of many of his austere followers.

Untitled design copy

Ayurveda reimagined

As I sought a way to continue to deepen my relationship with Ayurveda while honoring these newfound insights, I found myself turning away from so much of the messaging I encountered, whether in courses, in books, or on social media.

Like so many fields, many of the voices are men. Like many rich traditions, much of the messaging has been distorted by the legacy of colonialism. 

And like so much of wellness culture, there’s often subtle language implying that our bodies, impulses, and desires are threatening—even dangerous, that they should be controlled, subdued, and even snuffed out completely. 

Then I found The Shakti School. 

Finally, an Ayurvedic community addressing this strange self-negating bent in what is actually a deeply intuitive, life-affirming science. 

“Ayurveda is the science of love, intuition, and intellect,” writes Vasant Lad in The Textbook of Ayurveda.

To me, this triad represents the union of intuitive Shakti with intellectual Shiva. The result? The pure, unadulterated love that is our true nature. 

Just like an excess of tejas can burn off ojas and disturb prana, an excess of intellectualizing and rule-following reduces Ayurveda to a dogma instead of the living embodiment of natural wisdom that it is.

The chaos of Shakti is necessary for life, and the hosting energy of Shiva provides the stage where chaos can dance. From this perspective, the categories of good and bad, profane and sacred become indistinct, even limiting. 

Ayurveda in its most profound expression presents us with the freedom and responsibility of meeting the world each moment without the aid of simplistic dichotomies of right and wrong, requiring an open and hosting attitude toward the polarities of our own experience and of existence itself. 

True Ayurveda is the ultimate compassion. 

Just as much as Ayurveda asks us to get real with ourselves, to practice discipline, and implement healthy boundaries, it also asks us to do so with a softness, acceptance, and reverence for our human experience and everything that comes along with it—including our cravings for ice cream, our emotional breakdowns, and those times we decide to skip the gym to binge Netflix instead.

For Ayurveda, beauty and pleasure and even coffee and depression can be medicine. 

Ayurveda can host all of it, and when we live Ayurveda as a practice, so can we. 

This is the gift that The Shakti School provides: a community to marinate in acceptance of ourselves—foibles and all—as a means to deep, connected, embodied health and wellbeing.

About Crystal

Crystal Hoshaw is a mama, writer, and lifelong lover of the sacred. She's the founder of Simple Wild Free, where she leads online group courses for adults and teens to learn deep self-care based on the wisdom of Ayurveda, the power of intuition, and the insight of sacred creativity. Follow her on Instagram and join the community on Vibely.

Footer Hero Widget

theshaktischool

TheShaktiSchool

Goddess - I can’t wait for you to get your hands Goddess - I can’t wait for you to get your hands on my Summer Ayurveda Recipe Mix Tape - where every slurp, sip and spoonful is a devotional act of beauty, pleasure and full-body honoring. 🍓💦 ⁠
⁠
My personal Ayurveda Summer Recipe Mix Tape is a sun-drenched love letter from my witchy kitchen to the depths of your feminine soul.⁠
⁠
Inside its 30+ drool-worthy pages you’ll find smoothies that melt like silk on your tongue, hydrating herbal coolers that will kindle your inner flirt and goddess-approved, belly-loving meals that whisper: ⁠
⁠
“Slow down, lady. You’re allowed to feel this good.”⁠
⁠
Because that’s what Summer of Love is really about.⁠
⁠
👉🏽 Here’s the download. ⁠
⁠
Right now we’re offering the LOWEST price, PLUS the highest-value free gifts, that we’ll be offering for Shakti Ayurveda School all year. Period. ⁠
⁠
And it only lasts until August 11th.⁠
⁠
Sign up for the 2026 Ayurveda School before 8/11 and you’ll get my Ayurveda Summer Recipe Mix Tape e-book FREE, plus:⁠
⁠
🍒 $100 off tuition⁠
⁠
🌴 A Paavani Pitta Summer Kit full of cooling body magic⁠
⁠
🍓 A full year FREE inside our Spirit Sessions platform (with meditations, movement, my CHAKRAS course + monthly workshops with me and my fave wise-women leaders)⁠
⁠
Ready to claim 2026 as your most transformational, soul-honoring, juicy year yet and join us in Shakti Ayurveda School? ⁠
⁠
🌹Use the code SummerofLove at checkout and let the kitchen seduction begin. 😉
What Vanilla ice has to do with our Ayurveda progr What Vanilla ice has to do with our Ayurveda program. Ice ice baby summer! 🔻🌺🪐😉🌹🙌🏻😝
The Summer of Love Sale is ON, babe. ☀️⁠ ⁠ The Summer of Love Sale is ON, babe. ☀️⁠
⁠
This is your invitation to turn up the pleasure, turn down the heat and say YES to healing, soul purpose + reclaiming your innate feminine wisdom.⁠
⁠
When you join our Ayurvedic Wellness Coach Certification Program now through August 11th, you’ll receive:⁠
⁠
— 💸 $100 off tuition on any payment plan (which is already the lowest earlybird price you’ll see all year)⁠
⁠
— 🌊 A FREE Paavani Pitta Summer Sampler Kit with all the cooling essentials you need to be a true Ayur-Goddess this summer: spritzer, body oil + cooling spice blend⁠
⁠
— 🔥 1-year FREE membership to our Spirit Sessions platform: start studying with me right NOW + access our library of meditations, movement classes, deep-dive workshops + my full Chakras course ($1000 value!)⁠
⁠
— 🍹 A downloadable, 30+ page Ayurveda for Summer Recipe Book chock full of brand new recipes like Creamy Cucumber-Mint Kitchari, Herbed Turkey Patties with Yogurt Mint Sauce and Strawberry-Rose Moon Smoothie (trust me, you’ll be drooling 🤤)⁠
⁠
✨Use the code SummerofLove at checkout to get all the goodies. (Yes, these gifts are YOURS when you join either Level 1 or Level 2 Ayurveda School 2026)⁠
⁠
Make this your year of radiant health, spiritual transformation and embodied feminine power.⁠
⁠
🎁 Gifts only available until August 11th. Grab your spot + your gifts now at the link in bio.
Katie here. The real one.  It is summer in Virgi Katie here. The real one. 

It is summer in Virginia and today it’ll reach 101 degrees. I’m covered in rose oil, drinking coconut water and main-lining some sweet watermelon chunks to power up the morning. 

In other words - it’s HOT.

And I seem to always forget how activating the summertime can be. It comes out of nowhere, right? The intensity. The anger. The insomnia. The hot-flash.

But, there is one thing I come back to time and time again - and that’s The Shakti School Basics. 

Here is what that looks like:

1. Stop. Pause. Lay down or sit down. 
2. Make a commitment to be still for a bit.
3. Feel and open to everything that is arising in this moment.
4. Breathe. Let your awareness drop in and down your body. 
5. Breathe. Let your awareness rise above your body. 
6. Breathe. Let your heart soften and open and receive. 
7. Rest in the opening and stillness and energy that is always there. 
8. Wash, rinse, repeat. 

This is the starting point for everything we do in Level 1 Ayurveda School, which BTW we have just opened for early bird registration! 

And in honor of cooling our collective summer heat - I want to give you SO much cool stuff. Plus, a way to connect and start studying with me RIGHT NOW! 

🌞 Summer of Love is Here, Sister! 

When you sign up for 2026 Ayurveda School during our Summer of Love Sale (now through August 11th only), you’ll get:

💖$100 off tuition 

🌿FREE Paavani Pitta Summer Kit (aka a mini Pitta-reducing spritzer, cooling body oil and soothing spice blend)

🌸A YEAR-LONG FREE MEMBERSHIP to our thriving Spirit Sessions membership platform where you get immediate access to ALL of my Spirit Sessions meditations, classes, workshops and other resources. Plus! Immediate access to my ground-breaking CHAKRAS course (a $1000 value!) and LIVE monthly workshops with yours truly and special guests.

✨A downloadable Ayurveda for Summer recipe book, straight outta’ Katie’s kitchen

Just use the code SummerofLove at registration check out to receive the discount and ALL the gifts (and YES, this applies to 2026 Level 1 & Level 2)!

🍉 Sign up before 8/11 to claim your free gifts.

With sunshine + soul,
Katie + The Shakti School Team
The best food on the planet can’t help you if yo The best food on the planet can’t help you if you don’t have the digestive fire to transform and assimilate what you are putting in your body.⁠
⁠
The ancient texts called this digestive fire AGNI.⁠
⁠
Agni is what transforms and assimilates what we are taking in, whether it’s food, life experiences or thoughts. ⁠
⁠
Ayurveda holds that many of our diseases start with the accumulation of toxins (ama) in the body. This sludge builds up when our metabolic fire is unable to burn what we are putting into the body. ⁠
⁠
When our agni is functioning well, Ayurveda teaches that our body will be healthy, our skin radiant, our mind clear and our energy balanced.⁠
⁠
The good news is this: You can start boosting your agni right now with this little tip. ⁠
⁠
👉🏽 Add Ginger Pickle to your routine! And no - it’s not the kind of pickle you pile high on a sandwich - it’s more of an agni-honoring, pre-meal ritual.⁠
⁠
A small dab (about the size of your thumb tip) is traditionally taken before meals to stimulate the digestive fire and awaken agni.⁠
⁠
🫚Here’s the Ginger Pickle how-to: Slice a few pieces of fresh ginger. Add a pinch of rock salt and a spray of fresh lemon or lime juice. Eat before meals to kick-start your metabolic fire!

Footer

© 2025 Shakti School

  • FAQ
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Advocacy
  • Find a Coach
  • Login
  • Katie's Books
  • Contact and Support

Get the Shakti Letter love, katie