~ winter jendayi ~
Born and raised in Northern California, Winter Jendayi is a ceremonialist, musician, mentor and guide who holds sacred spaces to support others in healing, transformation and awakening. Winter’s path is firmly rooted in the Red Road teachings of the Seven Directions and the wisdom ways of her ancestral lineages. She carries African and Cherokee blood from her father’s side and Celtic and Italian ancestry from her maternal line.
Winter is a Moon Dancer, Sahumadora and Pipe Carrier of the Metztliyoliliztli Danza in Costa Rica where she has been dancing since 2014 and continues to deepen in her prayers and studies with her teacher and Abuela, Nanatzin Itzpapalotl. In 2019, as Winter completed the first cycle of this work, she received the Nahuatl name, ‘Koskatlan,’ to symbolize her initiation. This name, meaning, ‘the woman who weaves her life,’ guides Winter’s work as she weaves the wisdom of different traditions together, in the same way her ancestry is woven from different parts of the world.
Music is the heartbeat of Winter’s life and sacred song is woven into many of her offerings as she allows the sounds and vibrations to inspire and facilitate healing. She released her debut album, Hilos Sagrados, on September 22nd, 2022. This album is a weaving of 11 original songs which capture the many stories of her journey through healing, awakening and prayer. Hilos Sagrados is an ancestral offering, born from remembrance and reclamation.
Winter is also a certified yoga instructor (E-RYT) with 700 hours of training. She first studied yoga in Southern India in 2015 where she became certified, and soon after, continued her yogic studies in California, followed by an advanced program in Guatemaya. Winter has an intuitive approach to her yoga practice and instruction and finds that her practice provides an important balance to the ceremonial work she is often immersed in.
Since she can remember, Winter has always felt a strong connection to Birthwork and knew that this would be a part of her path. In 2020 she took a Doula Training course with Master Doula Haize Hawke, and paired with her own studies and experiences of womanhood, she began to offer support as a spiritual doula with a focus on traditional and decolonized practices.
International travel has been an influential part of Winter’s life throughout the past nine years as she has spent time in countries and communities around the globe, studying with indigenous teachers and experiencing many traditional forms of healing. Winter feels strongly that in order to maintain integrity with the work she offers, it requires cultural immersion, direct experience and continuous study within the spaces of her elders and teachers.
In 2021 Winter began to work more closely with indigenous leaders, supporting them as an organizer and weaving the worlds of her community with these leaders and their healing traditions. Winter is currently a co-creator of Nawabu Culture, a newly founded non-profit organization, where she offers her work and supports in the organizing of tours, healing spaces, cultural shares and fundraisers for different indigenous leaders. Nawabu Culture is most presently working with leaders of the Huni Kuin and it is within this tradition that Winter has been focusing her studies.
Winter is committed to serving the realms of Spirit and the Earth through offering her work to support others in opening new pathways in which they can come into more harmony and alignment in their life. Her focus is on holding space for others as they reclaim the many initiations and rites of passages of life and connect with the rhythms and cycles of nature so they may heal and transform, remembering who they are and finding empowerment in their being from which they may manifest a life of greater fulfillment - a life which embodies sacred reciprocity with the natural world.
Winter shares her work through a variety of classes, private sessions, circles, workshops and retreats; virtually, locally and internationally. Presently, she shares her in-person offerings throughout the Nisenan, Miwok and Ohlone territories of California, where she currently resides.
