Staff

Brenda Jacobson (Artimia Arian) Founder & Director

Artimia was born in 1956 in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she resided for the first 28 years of her life. She received her B.A. in Social Anthropology and Psychology, with a post- graduate degree in Education. She acquired a wide variety of teaching experience in South Africa with the different sectors of the population and in numerous diverse teaching areas such as: literacy programs with the native Africans; Special Education with the emotionally disturbed and handicapped children; public school teaching; teaching the gifted; and directing a computer school for children. She emigrated to Los Angeles, USA in 1984, as she was strongly opposed to the South African government's policies.

 

The same year she qualified as a Yoga teacher, taking the Sivananda Teachers Training Course in Canada. She became a full-time Yoga teacher and rehabilitation therapist, opening a center which was an immediate success in Mexico City. Three years later Artimia became pregnant with her second child and was forced to leave the noisy polluted city. In Tepoztlán, an hour from Mexico City, she was introduced to Cosmic Energy in a meditation and she received a gift of healing. She has undergone an intensive Cosmic training since 1994 in Tepoztlán, where she was guided to move and open a Center. She is the founder and director of Tashirat.  She studied Homeopathy through a classical school in England, is currently studying Radionics through a school in Canada and is mostly in Cosmic Medicine training with teachers from above.   Artimia is a Cosmic Medicine doctor and a doctor of Naturopathy.  She lives in the heart of nature on the Tashirat Ashram with her children and the Tashirat staff.

 

Karly Godoy (Kaisha) Sub-Director

Kaisha was born in 1987 in Los Angeles, California.  She moved to Mexico with her mother Artimia when she was only 2 years old.  Since she was little, Kaisha always lead and very free life.  She received her Sivananda Yoga Teacher Certification at age 15, she finished up her home-based high school education one year early at age 17, she joined a theatre group in Cuernavaca, Mexico that same year and by age 18 she found herself briefly in New York City living with her boyfriend and studying at The Art Students League.  Later that same year Kaisha returned to Tashirat as a full-time staff member.   

At 20, Kaisha received her certification in Naturopathy.  That same year she married her longtime boyfriend, Chris Mezera (Arlan).   At 22 her biological son, Arain, was born and she currently lives with him and her Tashirat children.  

Nowadays Kaisha’s life mostly consists of spiritual and emotional body work.  Our lifestyle necessitates continual yoga and nutritional knowledge and therefore studying both yoga and correct individualized nutrition are fundamental tools for our lives and this era.   Under Artimia’s guidance, Kaisha is currently the director of the Parent Training Program .

 

Chris Mezera (Arlan) Sub-Director

Arlan was born in 1976 in Toms River, New Jersey.  He lived his entire life in Southern New Jersey until he moved to New York City in 1995 to attend New York University where he dual majored in Finance and Marketing and minored in Anthropology.  Upon graduation he knew that the “corporate world” was not for him and spent the next 10 years in New York City pursuing a career in music.  He met Kaisha while he was still living in New York, an event that forever changed the direction of his life.  A few years later he moved down to Tashirat to be with her and in December of 2007, Arlan and Kaisha were married. Arlan has seen his life make a complete 180 degree turn from playing music in New York City bars and clubs to becoming a Tashirat staff member.  He is excited to work in an environment that has a consciousness and such a deep level of love and commitment, unlike anything he has ever known in his life.

Arlan has been a part of Tashirat since 2007, a full-time staff member since 2009, and is currently in charge of our agriculture and self-sufficiency projects. He is also in charge of our “boy house” that currently has six boys ages 5 to 14.

 

Esther Bissinger (Kira)

Kira was born in 1978 and grew up in the country outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  She attended a Waldorf School, thus filling her with a deep love of learning and creativity.   As an adolescent Kira had eating disorders and by age 17 was diagnosed with Crohn's disease, a disease that doctors claimed was chronic and incurable.  The next couple of years Kira spent in and out of hospitals.  After experimenting with different allopathic and alternative medicines, diets and doctors that did not work, she was eventually rushed in for an emergency operation at age 19.  By age 21, she returned home to Pennsylvania and found herself drawn to Yoga.   Soon after, she entered the Sivananda Teacher's Training Course in upstate New York where she heard about Tashirat.  Immediately after the course she traveled to Tashirat and after two days she was sure that this was her place. She entered an intensive nutrition study program, trying to heal her body from her Crohn’s disease, which was healed in the first few years of her being in Tashirat. 

Now days Kira is a full time teacher and participates in one of the girl homes of Tashirat.

 

Melissa Rodgers (Natainya)

Natanya was born in 1976, and grew up in the small town of Tiverton, Rhode Island. She traveled to Mexico at the age of 18, eager to explore the country and culture. The Mexican people captured her heart and spirit with their warmth, love and overwhelming hospitality; everywhere she traveled she was accepted as family.  She knew she'd found her home.   After 2 years of traveling, Natainya decided to settle down in Tepoztlán, where she found Tashirat right after exiting a destructive relationship with the father of her 1 year old son.  Since that moment, her life took on a different direction. Tashirat was that home she had been looking for, a spiritual path with a Universal, Cosmic teaching that rang true to her.  Natainya attended Yoga classes and meditations and in no time became one of Tashirat's students, receiving intensive training, and eventually became a Tashirat staff member. Natanya has been a Tashirat staff member now for 11 years.

 

 

Arista

At age 62, Arista is the oldest member of the Tashirat staff.  For a long time before finding Tashirat, Arista had felt her life was essentially empty.  As her three children were growing up, she sought greater meaning through different spiritual groups, but had ended up feeling disillusioned by the leaders who turned out to be frauds and the groups which often turned into a business affair.  She had decided she didn’t want anything more to do with spiritual groups when, Artimia, who was Arista’s neighbor at the time, invited her to yoga classes at the Learning Center.  Arista wasn’t at all interested in yoga, but once she finally went to a class, she began going regularly, and within a year decided to live in the Learning Center as staff.

Arista has been in Tashirat for 12 years now, entering in 1999. From that time onward, Arista’s whole life changed; she recovered from her health problems (high blood pressure, asthma and a weight problem), and gained a sense of peace and balance that she had never had.  She felt that finally she began to live the life she had always yearned for since she was a child; a life of service, spirituality and evolution. 

 

Danari

Danari is our newest staff member, only being here 2 years.  Danari has struggled with depression since childhood and she met Artimia later in life, when a doctor recommended that she try yoga for her depression.  She ended up becoming one of the yoga teachers in Aritima’s Yoga Center in Mexico City and when Artimia came to live in Tepoztlan, she always felt deep down that she would end up being with her.  Although she felt generally unsatisfied with her life, and had the nagging feeling that she should be helping others and not just living her own life, she hated to make decisions and ended up getting caught up in the everyday distractions of life for another 15 years.  During this time Danari married and then suffered the loss of her three month old child, who was born with Down’s Syndrome.  She also lived with reoccurring depressions and excessive tension and tremors.   Danari finally decided to come to live in Tashirat because of her declining health.  She stayed for several months, during which time her excessive tension disappeared, but felt resistance towards the change in lifestyle, yearned for the distractions of city life again, and went back to Mexico City.  But in less than two days, her tension bordering on paralysis was exacerbated and with the encouragement of her husband she returned to Tashirat to be healed and to enter a more healthful, constructive lifestyle.   

She now runs a household of Tashirat children and is a part time teacher to some of our Tashirat kids.