Canada geese late fall gathering, Hazlet Regional Park, SK | Photo © Staci Schaitel
Counseling, Community & Courses
About Kalyana Mitta
Hello and welcome. My name is Staci Schaitel. Kalyana Mitta is the expression of more than twenty-five years of personal and professional exploration into awareness, embodiment, meaning, belonging, the nature of suffering, the cultivation of connection and well-being.
The words Kalyana Mitta—meaning noble or spiritual friend—are central to the Buddhist tradition. They speak to the value of relationships grounded in deep listening, presence, compassion, and mutual support for ethical living and self-inquiry.
Through experiential courses, counseling, and an online meditation community, you’re invited to explore embodied and creative pathways of awareness, presence, and relationship. Kalyana Mitta is envisioned as a playful, grounded gathering place for those drawn to engage in noble friendship—to explore what deeply matters in community.
Whether your path has been relatively steady, or—like mine—has included seasons of anxiety, depression, trauma, or addiction, this space is meant to offer practices that provide nourishment, steadiness, and a expanded sense of self. It’s a co-created place to meet self and other with authenticity, curiousity, and compassion.
The offerings at Kalyana Mitta weave together influences from Buddhism and Daoism, eco- and depth psychology, integral education, and the creative therapeutic arts—toward a deepened connection with self, other, the more-than-human world and the mystery that holds it all.
Read about my background below.
Auroville, India | Integral Education research project, 2023 | Staci Schaitel (l), Stephanie Travale (r)
Staci Schaitel, MA
Integral Psychologist (non-clinical)
Spiritual Counselor
Mindfulness Instructor
Hakomi Practitioner in-training
Rooted in the prairies of Saskatchewan, my work at Kalyana Mitta brings together over two decades of Buddhist study and practice, mindfulness teaching, and creative education. I hold a Master’s degree in East–West Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies, with a concentration in Asian Contemplative & Trans-cultural Studies and a certificate in Spiritual Counseling.
My background includes training in Shiatsu bodymind therapy, Hakomi mindfulness-based psychotherapy, and a two-year Mindfulness Teacher Training with the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. Earlier studies at Emily Carr University of Art + Design and years living and working abroad, including five years in Seoul, South Korea have shaped my trans-cultural, creative, and contemplative perspective.
Residing in remote rural southern Saskatchewan, I am seeking to live more in alignment with natural rhythms and to attune more deeply to the more-than-human world and the mystery that holds it all. My days are spent reading, writing, taking photos, guiding, facilitating, and co-creating ideas for courses, meditations and creative exercises, sweeping up dust, watching the shifts in prairie light, talking with cows and my cat, walking and re-learning quietude. Solitude and isolation I’ve found, are simultaneously deeply rewarding and intensely challenging. I spend an inordinate amount of time on my computer.
I owe a debt of gratitude to my teachers, a few of whom I’ll name here: Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh, Luang Pho Viriyang Sirintharo, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, Sharda Rogell, Tara Brach, Jack Kornfield, Joanna Macy, Mark Coleman, Jun Wang, Sara Granovetter, Debashish Banerji, Sophia Reinders and my foundation of family, friends, ancestors & more-than-human kin.