GatherInsight Messenger:
Melissa Forbes

For the last 23 years, Melissa Forbes has been a student and teacher of Hatha Yoga. Her interest in yoga became more singularly focused after finding inspiration in the tradition of scholar and yogi Shri T. Krishnamacharya (1888-1989). Beginning in 1990, she had the opportunity to study directly with both his student K. Pattabhi Jois (1915-2009) and his son T. K. V. Desikachar in Mysore and Madras, India, respectively. Both Desikachar and Jois are credited with fueling the resurgence of Hatha Yoga in the Western hemisphere in recent decades. Jois, in particular, was instrumental in popularizing Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga, from which the Power Yoga and Vinyasa Flow styles are derived.

As an instructor, Melissa Forbes began her career teaching Desikachar style yoga in 1997. She later became a co-founder and certified yoga instructor of the internationally renowned Heart of Yoga. She also has taught yoga in numerous schools throughout the United States, including the Omega Institute in upstate New York and the Olive Leaf Wholeness Center in New York City, where she worked closely with Dr. Rudolph Ballentine, a student of Swami Rama, founder of the Himalayan Institute. From 2002 to 2007, Melissa Forbes had the privilege to travel with the Indian sage UG Krishnamurti (1918-2007) throughout the last five years of his life.

Painting and design, along with dance and movement, have always been her passion and preferred expression. She completed formal studies in textile design at the Moore College of Art, enjoyed a full scholarship in printmaking at the National Academy of Design, and pursued an independent study of Vedic yantras. She has received many awards including the Pollock-Krasner Grant. She maintained a studio for many years in New York City while traveling and painting in special locations around the world, including India, New Zealand, Italy, and Switzerland. Her art has been exhibited at galleries in New York City, Philadelphia, and at the United Nations. Most recently Forbes’ vibrational yantra art was featured in the book Karttikeyan Yogic Method, published by GatherInsight.com. She currently lives in the southern Adirondack mountains and teaches as an Adjunct Professor at the University of New Haven, Connecticut.

Melissa Forbes continues her development in the disciplines and practices of yoga and art, as an avid student, teacher, and painter. Learn more about her work and her books here at GatherInsight.com or at MelissaForbes.net.