Sparks in Shadows is an international initiative to connect people of any age, race, religion, gender or sexual preference who embrace their curiosity.
Our Offering
We offer our experience and contemplations, host workshops, discussions and community projects in person and online.
Our Focus
We focus on yoga and art therapies in our workshops to accept our shadows and cultivate our sparks.
Let us make
it ours!
Our website is an online magazine, where we post interviews with people who inspire us, essays on light and heavy stuff, news about events, open discussions and more. The magazine is our borderless village. We want to encourage all our community members to engage and share their stories. Let us make it ours!
*check out our latest event
Why Sparks in Shadows Came to Life?
Sparks in Shadows is my life-long project. I didn’t have a name for it until recently, but I have been working on it since I was seven years old (maybe even earlier), when I put together a theatrical play to perform with my friends from my hometown neighborhood in Turkey during summer break.
I also aimed to share the joy of belonging and creating when I opened Bistrouge, a restaurant and bar in Manhattan. It fostered a community of people who loved connecting through the comfort food served at the tiny wooden tables, the captivating artworks that hung on the brick walls and the compelling live music performed on the makeshift stage.
I shared the stories of tangible and intangible connections and their
impact on so many different people’s lives when I wrote my book Jumping on the Drips. As a yogi, I asked people to pause and embrace what we hold inside through breathing, mediation, drawing and writing. I also brought people and projects together at my corporate jobs for over two decades.
Now I have a name for it: Sparks in Shadows, resonating with my name which means a charm (Eda) in a long shadow (Uzuncakara). I have sparks of charm, positivity, creativity and compassion… but I have shadows of wounds, blues and baggage… I have found my sparks after facing my shadows. I am all of them. Some of them stronger than others but all dynamic.