Michele Vinbury - love beyond fear
Michele is most at home when surrounded by rocks, moss and tree friends. In the woods, as on the yoga mat, it just feels easier to breathe. If you’ve taken classes with her, you’ve probably received homework to talk to trees, sing to the stars, lie belly down on the earth, meditate with the sky.
Michele is the founder of EMBER Healing and of Untamed Wisdom, a living space of practice and discovery devoted to reconnecting people with the outdoors and their inherent aliveness. After a decade as the owner of Yoga on High in Columbus, Ohio, where she co-created a vibrant, engaged yoga community, she felt called to step into a more personal vision of awakening, one that embraces freedom, nature, and play.
In 2019, she dreamed Untamed Wisdom into being as both sanctuary and catalyst: a place to explore how we might shed the conditioning of a society that is often violent, patriarchal, colonial, racist, homophobic, and isolating, and cultivate practices to remember our wholeness. Her teachings center on the elemental energies: Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Ether; and the bodily senses as portals to joy, freedom, and connection.
Through experiential practices, energetic road maps, and untamed tools, she invites others to “come home” not to a physical place, but to the deep truth within that is alive, creative, and free. She believes that we are all meant to be sensual beings, and that the journey of stripping back what binds us can be both profound and surprisingly playful.
Her work continues to ask, and live into, the essential questions: How can I set myself free? How can these practices serve to liberate all Beings? How do I walk in authentic connectivity with the world?
Formally, Michele is ERYT-500, a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP), an Ayurvedic Health Educator, certified yoga therapist through IAYT and a certified iRest Meditation teacher. She has created curriculum for, and taught, in eighteen 200hr YTTs both locally and abroad, offered ongoing 300hr TTs, many meditation TTs as well as creating and leading trauma sensitive TTs (more on her trauma sensitive work HERE). She teaches yoga asana, meditation and pranayama and explorations on the Divine Feminine. Michele has taught yoga in a number of settings including prison, drug treatment centers, eating disorder recovery programs, schools, hospital trauma centers and programs for prostituted women to name a few...Though she hasn’t been affiliated with it since summer 2021, she also owned Yoga on High, one of the largest yoga institutes in the Midwest, from 2012-2021. She began teaching aerial yoga in 2016, the first in Ohio, she started yoga hikes in 2014, which were the first in Columbus, and has since led numerous retreats across the U.S. and abroad, including immersive outdoor camping retreats (which were the first outdoor camping silent retreats in Ohio too!).
Michele’s Unique Lineage/Influences
When you learn from someone, you are learning from all of their teachers too.
These are teachers that Michele has done live, in-person trainings (unless otherwise noted) and/or retreats with:
Meditation
Buddhist Philosophy (undergraduate study): Dr. Deepak Sarma
Silent Retreats (3-10 days) with: Adyashanti, Joan Ruvinsky, Richard Miller, John Prendergast, Christiane Prendergast, solo silent retreat at Tara Mandala.
iRest Certification with Richard Miller, Anne Douglas, Stephanie Lopez and Molly Birkholm.
Seven Homecomings Certification with Lama Rod Owens (live online).
Feeding Your Demons Level 1: Lama Tsultrim Allione (online)
The Power of Awareness (online) with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach.
5-week course with Spring Washam (live online)
Goddess Traditions and Early Tantra with Laura Amazzone
Opening the Heart Sutra with Lama Tsultrim Allione (online)
Somatic Experiencing: Somatic Experiencing International, completed all levels of 3 year program.
SE Teachers: Maureen Galagher (Level 1), Linda Stelte (Level 2), Joshua Syvae and Mashed Hagar (Advanced Level), Mary Ware (consultations), Abby Blakeslee (consultations).
Wild Jaguar Journey with Kimberly Johnson (live online).
Restorative Practices re Polyvagal Theory with Gabriel Kram (online).
Energy
Reiki Attunements: Linda Oshins, Marcia Miller, Bernie McKnight. Shamanic Reiki: Stephanie Estice
Oregon Liminal Retreat: Pixie Lighthorse & Jen Gray.
Spiritual Retreat to India: Dandipani
Year Long Study of Celtic Ogham: Roz Simmons (this was live online from UK)
2 Years of Ceremony with variety of Shamanic teachers. (online)
The Tarot Apothocary with Alexis Cunningfolk (online)
Aluna Live Lunar Study (Afro-Brazilian Yoruba tradition) with Juliana Luna (live online)
Decolonizing Reiki with Marika Clymer (online, pre-recorded)
Past Lives Regression Diploma with Dr. Karen Wells (online)
Pranayama: Linda Oshins
Yoga Asana
Teacher Trainings - 200hr lead teacher Martha Marcom, focus Ashtanga primary series. 300hr - various.
Yoga Asana Workshops/Trainings (3-7days) - Tim Miller, Maty Ezrati, Doug Keller, Richard Freeman, Rodney Yee, David Keil, Jason Crandell, Kino MacGregor, Cyndi Lee (OM Vinyasa Yoga TT), Ray Long, David Swenson, Faith Hunter, Marcia Miller (Adjustments & Restorative), Jenn Gebhart (Prenatal), Aircat Aerial (aerial yoga training).
Trauma Sensitive Yoga: Amy Weintraub, Janice George, Molly Birkholm, Robin Carnes. Assisted Marcia Miller in a homeless vets class too. Biology of Trauma with Dr. Aimie Apigian (online)
Ayurveda:
California College of Ayurveda - 600hr, Level 1, Ayurvedic Health Educator.
Life Coach Training:
Wild Abundant Life.
Other:
Embodied Activism with Naked Ndefo, Rae Johnson and Farzana Khan (live online)
Awakening Change with Dr. Gail Parker, Kesha Files, Justin Michael Williams and Camille Barton (online)
Aromatherapy: Tracy Griffiths
“Michele Vinbury is a wise, curious, and lively guide for this trip of life. She brings a depth of practice and vast resource to her teaching, as well as lightness and a sense of humor. Take the opportunity to learn with her!”
-Stephanie E.
“When my cup gets so empty that it is difficult to remember what it felt like to be full, when I get so busy being there for everyone else that I forget to show up for myself, when I know that something is missing but I just don't know what it is, I know it's time to sign up for one of Michele Vinbury's magical adventures. I just show up. No agenda, no expectations. Michele meets me just where I am with her heart wide open sharing her creativity, compassion, & decadent way of nurturing. I don't come away from her adventures with a sense of being fixed. I leave with a feeling of being whole. I leave with a feeling of rediscovering what was there all along.”
— Shelley B.
“I attended Michele’s 6-week Chakra series. All of the classes were comfortable, full of positive exploration of our individual and group energy. I was deeply touched by Michele’s loving presence, willingness to address individual questions, needs and experiences. During the exploration of the heart chakra we did a combination of a few shamanic practices designed to remove energy blocks or things that no longer served us. This practice was very subtle but extremely powerful and healing for me! As we approached Michele to cleanse our stones in salt water (we moved what didn’t serve us into a stone) you could feel her compassion for each one of us. I would highly recommend any class Michele offers!”
— Bootsie L.
“This Thoreau quote best describes Michele: ”You must walk sometimes perfectly free - not prying nor inquisitive - not bent upon seeing things - Throw away a whole day for a single expansion.”
— Amy
“Michele’s teaching always arises from her own aliveness. With her, the practice is never static it’s always evolving—because you know, life is never static and always evolving. By inviting all of this energy—both the light and the dark, the silly and the sublime—into the space, she opens up opportunity for her students to sit with the whole range of our humanity. I am deeply grateful for her transparency as well as for her knowledge of a large range of yogic practices.”
— Christa O.
“Each unique workshop with Michele creates protected time to tap into aspects of myself and my deep inner being that I often don’t spend enough time to explore. As a facilitator of self exploration, Michele’s teachings often remind me that while the journey to self discovery takes work, it need not feel heavy. She creates a safe space to ease into personal exploration and weaves in a sense of joy and play. I always look forward to these workshops as a personal conduit to better know myself and the ever-changing world around me.”
— Joanna A.
