My heritage was a big part of my experience growing up in a tiny town: knowing I didn’t quite belong and wasn’t quite safe led to my desire to create inclusive accessible spaces where everyone is valued, all have a voice, and our values are centred.

It feels important to honour and acknowledge those who came before me. Their strength has shaped my being and life choices and given me wings to fly high and live out big dreams.

Acknowledgements & Honouring the Lineages

Land Acknowledgement

This website was created primarily in Lisbon, Portugal, and in Leed, UK: two countries with profound colonial histories. Portugal enslaved approximately 3 million people, and the UK enslaved approximately 3.4 million people. These nations built their wealth on the backs of enslaved Africans and the theft of land and resources from colonised peoples worldwide.

I acknowledge this history because it directly relates to this work. Many of the sacred practices I share: the chakra system, the Orishas, movement forms from the African diaspora, come from the very cultures these empires sought to destroy. The fact that I can access, learn from, and teach these practices is itself a complicated inheritance of colonialism.

I also wrote parts of this website in Mauritius and Brazil, where I studied Afro-Brazilian dance forms over many years. Brazil has the largest population of African descendants outside of Africa, a direct result of the transatlantic slave trade. The sacred practices that survived there did so because enslaved people fought to preserve them, often hidden within Catholic imagery to avoid persecution.

I recognise that I live and work in nations that have built their wealth on colonisation and the theft of land and resources from other peoples, and that the relative ease with which I move through the world is connected to these histories of violence and extraction.

Honouring the Lineages

The practices in my work draw from sacred traditions that have been developed, preserved, and passed down over thousands of years.

The Chakra System originates from ancient Hindu and Tantric traditions, particularly from yogic practices developed in India. Some scholars also trace chakra and energy body concepts to ancient Egypt (Kemet) and Yorubaland, suggesting these practices may have even older African roots. Regardless of their precise origins, these are sacred teachings that come from cultures that have experienced colonisation and the theft of their knowledge.

I came to yoga and the chakra system first through a book aged 16, then through teacher training in the UK, taught primarily by white teachers. I acknowledge that the yoga I learned had already been filtered through Western interpretation, often stripped of its spiritual and cultural context. I have continued since then to study with teachers closer to the source, reading translated texts, and attempting to understand these practices beyond their Western commodification.

The Orishas referenced in this book come from the Yoruba tradition of West Africa, specifically from what is now Nigeria and Benin. The Yoruba people developed a sophisticated spiritual system honouring Orishas—divine energies that govern different aspects of existence. When enslaved Africans were forcibly brought to the Americas, they kept these practices alive, adapting them to survive within Catholic-dominated societies. In Brazil, this became Candomblé; in Cuba, Santería; in Haiti, Vodou.

I came to the Orishas initially through my training in Afro-Brazilian dance at age 22 in Salvador da Bahia, where I met a Yoruba priest via a circus project at Circo Picolino. My mother is Nigerian (Yoruban) and British; my father is white British, and so my connection to Yoruba tradition has come through syncronicity, study as well as ancestral lineage. I am conscious that my lighter skin and British citizenship grant me privileges that many others in the Yoruba diaspora may not have.

The Movement Practices referenced in some of my work, particularly those related to the sacral chakra and pelvic bowl work draw from Afro-Brazilian dance forms, including those connected to Candomblé. I also reference contemporary dance, Graham technique, Dunham technique, and various somatic practices. Katherine Dunham, a Black American dancer and anthropologist, studied Haitian Vodou and brought Afro-Caribbean movement into concert dance whilst fighting against racism in the dance world. I acknowledge her pioneering work and the often-erased contributions of Black dancers and choreographers to the movement practices I’ve learned.

My Positionality

I am Ella, also known as Maya Gandaia. My mother is Nigerian (Yoruban) and British; my father is white British. I identify as bisexual and use she/her or they/them pronouns. My recent marriage to a man doesn’t erase my bisexuality: I remain attracted to people of multiple genders, and this identity shapes how I move through the world and understand desire, pleasure, and authenticity.

I am conscious of my many privileges: British citizenship, lighter skin that grants me access in predominantly white spaces, class privilege through education, and the freedom to travel and study globally. I also carry the experience of being mixed race in the UK, navigating racism and othering, and the particular complexity of being connected to Nigerian culture through my mother whilst also being raised primarily in British culture.

I share my positionality not to claim authority, but because I believe transparency matters when teaching practices from cultures not entirely my own. I am both insider and outsider to various traditions. I have been gifted teachings by generous teachers who saw something in me worth nurturing. I carry responsibility to honour what I’ve been taught without claiming ownership of traditions that don’t belong to me.

These offerings are my interpretation and application of these teachings. They are not in any way authoritative texts on Hinduism, Tantra, Yoruba tradition, or any specific lineage, but what I have learned, lived, and alchemised through my own practice and teaching.

Thank you to all my teachers, mentors and peers who have inspired this journey ↓