Presenter Bios

Jane Lanza began to devotedly study yoga and Buddhism in 2003 following a trip to Northern India. She was asked to teach yoga and meditation by one of her teachers in 2005. She was certified by Kripalu Center in 2006. Jane served as a TA at Kripalu Center for various YTT programs. In 2011, Jane was initiated into the Babaji’s Kriya Yoga lineage. She pays special thanks to the greatest teacher, pure awareness, and to the many teachers in her life, who’ve shown up in various ways and forms. Jane runs Family Tree Hemp Company with her husband, Ben. Jane co-founded Burlington Yoga Conference (BYC), Liberate Festival, Liberate School of Yoga and Laughing River Yoga (LRY) studio in Vermont. Jane serves as Marketing Director at LRY.

Jane leads a balanced yoga practice that awakens and empowers the mind body. She interweaves yogic breath techniques, postures, movement meditation, and inspiring bits of yogic philosophy into flow. Jane facilitates well-organized, intimate, and transformative yoga experiences.
Two of Jane’s beloved teachers gave her yoga names. Yogiraj Prem Prakash gave her the Sanskrit name Moksha Devi, which translates as Goddess of Liberation. Lama Migmar Tseten, gave her the Tibetan name Khanga Lhamo, which translates to Goddess Beloved by All. Jane is a celebrant for ceremonies including weddings, baby blessings and services at the time of people passing. She speaks from the heart, intuitively knows how to read and respond to a person, crowd, and situation.

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Jessilyn Dolan, RN, CLD, CMT, CIMI, HBCE, CBBE, SANE, ADS, has been working with birthing families for twenty years. She is a registered nurse specializing in substance use disorders and mental health comorbidities in maternal child health populations.  She works at UVM in research, and regularly lectures at the College of Medicine, as well as trains labor doulas for UVMMC’s new volunteer labor doula program. She is a sexual assault nurse examiner, childbirth educator, infant massage instructor, bodyworker and herbalist.  Jessilyn and her family are organic H.E.M.P. farmers, and started HomeGrown Consulting and NurseGrown Organics, to support and educate medicinal use and cultivation of cannabis.  Jessilyn is a member of the American Cannabis Nurses Association and started the Vermont Cannabis Nurses Association in 2018.

Sandy Morningstar, MA, offers body-centered therapy in private practice at her home in Duxbury, VT, as well as phone consultations. Her therapeutic approach is appropriate for all ages, from babies in the womb to the elderly. Sandy’s emphasis on birth experiences aids clients in resolving core body issues, as well as the accompanying emotional, relational, and spiritual dilemmas. She served as secretary on the board of directors of the Association for Pre- and Perinatal Psychology and Health. She is the author of “Who Is Born? Exploring Birth Patterns that Shape Our Lives”.

Maris Rose is a parent, step-parent, grandparent, and teacher, who brings nearly forty years’ experience working with children and families to her parent coaching practice and programs for young children. She is the creator of Maris’ Tree House – a nature and arts enrichment program for young children in a lovely, natural setting at All Souls Interfaith Gathering on Meach Cove Farms in Shelburne. Her classes combine a gentle rhythm and delightful activities with kindness, care, and a touch of magic.

As a Parent Coach, Maris works with parents of young children through classes, workshops, support groups, in school and community settings. She also teaches classes and workshops for preschool teachers and childcare providers to support compassionate, effective classroom management. She combines skill and experience with warmth and understanding to offer helpful coaching for parents, support for early childhood educators and delightful programs for young children.

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Julia C. Alter, LICSW is a poet, birth worker, and clinician from Philadelphia. She completed her undergraduate degree in Literary Arts with Honors in Poetry from Brown University and received her Masters in Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania. She is currently pursuing her MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her poetry has been featured in numerous literary publications including The Boiler, Memoir Mixtapes, and Calyx. After spending years in the mental health field working with a diverse array of clients, she found she was most fulfilled working with women’s issues and the LGBTQIA+ community. Her diverse poetry reflects her passions, including the immense joys and challenges of motherhood.

With a move to Vermont came a move towards working as a birth and postpartum doula while maintaining a private therapy practice based in Burlington. Julia trained as a birth doula with Birth Arts International. She is committed to inclusivity and respect for individuals and their choices, both in birth and in life! In 2015 she became a certified Dancing Freedom facilitator and holds a regular class in Burlington, and is excited about the prospect of using a conscious dance practice to work with pregnant women and families. Julia resides in Vermont with her partner and son.

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Alyssa Blask Campbell has an M.Ed. in Early Childhood, is a leading expert in emotional development speaking to people around the world, podcast host for Voices of Your Village in over 60 countries with over 30,000 downloads, and Founder and CEO of Seed & Sew LLC. Alyssa was featured as an emotional development expert in publications such as The Washington Post, Kids VT, and Family Education.

After co-creating the Collaborative Emotion Processing (CEP) method, she researched it across the U.S., and co-authored a book on it. Alyssa is deeply passionate about building emotional intelligence as young as infancy, stating, “It’s never too early or too late to start.” Alyssa’s show up as you are approach welcomes people into her village to get support at all ages and stages, shame free.

Her company, Seed & Sew serves people across the globe through speaking, consulting, and podcasting, with tools to live without anxiety, build their emotion processing toolbox, and raise emotionally intelligent humans. The team and village at Seed & Sew believe that everyone can benefit from and experience more joy when they commit to building emotional intelligence.

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Mieko is the co-founder of Vermont Womenpreneurs, a digital content and event production company that connects women business owners in Vermont, and the owner of Radiance Studios, a boutique digital marketing and web development agency. As a mompreneur, she channels her energies in supporting women business owners and raising her 4-year old precocious daughter with her husband Josh.

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