Take a deep breath and ground down – Melaina Gasbarrino of Salt to Tree is bringing her passion for healing and her ideology of living with the Earth to the Niagara-on-the-Lake Community Centre, where she will offer Wednesday morning yoga classes for five weeks starting Jan. 15.

Soft-spoken Gasbarrino is a certified 200-hour yoga teacher. After training in Costa Rica and teaching yoga and reiki, or energy healing, around the world, she said she wanted to offer lessons closer to home.

“This area is lovely because we’re surrounded by nature all the time,” she said.

Her aim is to bring that connection with nature into her classes, creating a more grounding practice.

“Whenever I teach a class it’s focusing on grounding yourself.”

She said she wants to provide variety while maintaining a healing, relaxing tone.

“One class might be a little more of a flow and one might a little more grounding and restorative. I just want to give that variety to people. I find that there are some days when I just want to do a crazy intense yoga class and some days, I just want to lay in savasana for an hour.”

Savasana, or “corpse pose,” is a restorative posture that involves lying flat on your back. It’s often used for relaxation at the end of a yoga practice.

During her new classes at the community centre, Gasbarrino said she wants to offer a slow, steady experience to ease people into it.

“It’ll start off a little more slow pace, but then rising to do different postures that will give you that stretch. I do like to hold the postures for a little bit longer to provide that little extra stretch,” she said.

“So, it’s a varied scope for people that attend classes.”

As well as the 9 a.m. community centre classes, she is available for a private sound bath with reiki and yoga classes, and she will also hold reiki sessions at the Virgil Chiropractic and Wellness Centre on Tuesdays from 3 to 7 p.m. starting Feb. 4.

Visit her website at SaltoTree.com for class details.