Introducing Core Faculty: Selene Kumin Vega PhD

I am Selene Kumin Vega, PhD, LMFT, living in the Santa Cruz mountains of CA, land of the Awaswas-speaking Sayanta Tribe.

I am an educator, psychotherapist, and mentor in service of the cultivation of consciousness valuing life. My work is an evolving inquiry into how humans can live more connected, embodied, creative, and ecologically attuned lives. I guide individuals and groups through processes that weave together somatic awareness, creative exploration, meaning-making, ecological consciousness, and relational presence.

Anodea Judith and I began our visioning and collaborating back in the late 70s. I had read about the chakras and had not felt drawn to the system, as the traditional presentations focused on transcending the body and the material world, and my focus was on embodiment and connecting to the natural world. I appreciated Anodea’s take on the system and incorporating both transcendence and embodiment. I asked her to write a series of articles for a journal I was co-producing and editing, presenting one chakra each issue. And then I encouraged her to write a book bringing her understanding of the chakra system to others. When Wheels of Life was published, we developed and taught a 9-month exploration of the chakras together for year, which evolved into the Psychology of the Chakras workshop.

Anodea and I talked about how to meet the needs of students who had taken all the main courses offered through Sacred Centers and wanted a way to pull it all together. One of the missing pieces was how to go beyond the content and material offered to consciously create a sacred container for students to have a transformational experience. I created “Guiding the Journey” to meet that need.

These days I am a professor in Saybrook University’s Mind-Body Medicine graduate program, as well as continuing to provide supervision to therapists at all levels of their practice, from trainees just beginning to experienced psychotherapists wanting to deepen their work with mind-body-spirit approaches.

What supports me is reconnecting to myself through the body—through movement and breath (sometimes with the support and inspiration of music). I continually check in with myself, taking time to respond to others and the world around me, rather than getting lost in an unconscious reaction.I have quite a few 15-minute meditations presented as part of the Saybrook University Self-Care YouTube Channel—the ones I guided are linked on my website: Meditations | SpiritMoving.com

If I could share just one message for navigating this human existence on earth, it is this:

Have compassion for where you are right now and where you have been. Develop a working relationship with all the parts of yourself.

To find me online:

Spiritmoving.com; Selene Kumin Vega, PhD | LinkedIn