HARA Earth Women Volume 1. Eva Kandra

Introducing Earth Women — an ongoing series celebrating those who inspire us through the way they live, create, and connect with the Earth, honoring the deep relationship between nature, creativity, and self-expression.

"My body is my compass, one where I have the choice to choose to love or choose to reject. Some days I reject, some days I love. It’s part of being human. It’s part of being a woman."

Eva Kandra is a Somatic Educator dedicated to guiding people back home to their bodies through connection with land, movement, breath, and inquiry into the soul. Born in Vancouver and raised in Bali, she has spent her life navigating the worlds of the West and East, embracing her role as a bridge between them. With a Canadian mother and an Indigenous Balinese father, her work is deeply informed by both lineages, approaching with a lens of trauma informed care and deep honor and respect to the unseen.

Photography by Ben Rayner

In recent years, Eva has deepened her commitment to regeneration, advocating for Indigenous culture, and preserving ancestral teachings in Bali and beyond. She empowers people to reconnect - with their roots, their inner home, and the earth as the deepest form of activism and reclaiming our birthright as whole and embodied beings.

The Prayer

When Ben and I work together, we often drop into prayer and meditation before we start shooting. No matter where we are, we take a moment to be in communion with our environment. Noticing and taking active participation in observing the space we are in and introducing ourselves to the Land. Depending on what we feel called to, we close our eyes and speak out loud our acknowledgments and what feels true in the moment.

Paying respect to the seen and unseen, and asking permission to co-create together alongside our environment, honoring the essence of the brand we are working with and in celebration of the beauty and the gift it is for us to call this work. Through this practice, we hope to give back; to weave our care into the land and, in return, offer art as an expression of collaboration between us all.

This is a very special coming together as 8 years ago Eva became the first HARA model, believing in our vision when we were still just planting the seeds. Eight years later Eva reflects on her own personal journey with herself, her body and the transition from girl to woman.

How was your initiation/journey from girl to woman?

My journey into womanhood wasn’t marked by a single event but rather by cycles of unlearning and remembering. There was a lot of shedding - of external validation, of old wounds, of the idea that I had to be "good" to be loved. My father’s passing in 2021 was a huge threshold moment. It deepened my relationship with the cycles of Birth, Life and Death and invited a whole new emergence of myself to emerge. Grief shaped me into someone who could hold herself more fully, more rawly, and more human, allowing my capacity to meet others and myself with more depth and intimacy.

What is your relationship with Mother Earth?

My relationship with Mother Earth is deeply woven into my life and work. Growing up in Bali, I was immersed in a culture that honors the sacred harmony between spirit, nature, and people; a balance essential to the pathway of joy, Tri Hita Karana. This understanding shaped the way I move through the world. My connection is visceral, through a deeply felt experience of life and how it moves through me.

My feet on the grass, observing the trees and how the leaves sway, tending to plants, feeling the sun on my skin, the embrace of the ocean, and probably my favorite: how I feel when the wind gently kisses me as I feel warmth of something beyond from the unseen world. It also expresses through my facilitation work, holding spaces where people can slow down and listen to the body as an extension of the earth and be guided by such an ancient knowing originating from within.

How has your relationship with your body changed over the years?

It’s been a reclamation. Modeling (from such a young age) made me hyper-aware of how my body was seen, rather than how it felt. That took years to undo, and one where I am still learning to choose love for self within my fluctuations. I would be lying if I said I feel completely at peace with how I ebb and flow. However, my body is my compass, one where I have the choice to choose to love or choose to reject. Some days I reject, some days I love. It’s part of being human. It’s part of being a woman, that transverses many realms throughout her menstrual cycle.

Each phase, influences what I write, how I show up, what I feel. Each day is a new Eva, more wise than the cycle before. Yet that doesn’t take away the reality of living in a society that scrutinizes the female body. This journey is about learning to accept where I am and recognizing that this body, however it looks, is a blessing..the vessel through which I get to experience life. And on the days I struggle to love what I see, I remind myself of what my body does. How it moves, how it breathes for me; without asking for anything in return.

Looking back at your 2017 self, what advice would you give her?

“My sweet love, trust the slow unfolding… Trust in your gifts, in your kind heart and deep care. That your sensitivity is finding its way into an avenue to support you. It doesn’t make sense; life is wild, it is painful and incredibly beautiful. Be gentle with your process, find loving arms to hold yourself with care as you explore all the inner and outer realms. People are going to hurt you, you’re going to hurt others.

We are learning, it’s part of being human, but know you will rise again and again after every letting go, after every heartbreak, after every death, new life comes.. and you begin anew. I love you. Find the play, find the lightheartedness in the depths you enter. Know that love is always waiting for you to choose, no matter how hard or how far away it seems at times, trust in its presence and remind yourself.. to breath, to let life in and to let it go.”

Eva's Earth Woman Playlist

I. Amaphupho – Trinix Remix, Onset Music Group
II. Holy Ghost – Omah Lay
III. Maphupho Fezeka – French Fuse, Zandimaz, Onset Music Group
IV. Feel It – Cupidon, Milaa
V. Kiss of Life – Sade
VI. Reflections (MCXI Hz) – Malte Marten
VII. Grow - A COLORS ENCORE – FACESOUL
VIII. Take It All Back – Xiuhtezcatl
IX. Careful – Xiuhtezcatl
X. Reincarnated – Kendrick Lamar
XI. Dodger Blue (feat. Wallie the Sensei, Siete VIIX, Roddy Ricch) – Kendrick Lamar, Wallie the Sensei, Siete7x, Roddy Ricch
XII. Kafi Lied – Kalabrese, Palinstar
XIII. Freaking Out the Neighborhood – Mac DeMarco
XIV. Cupa Cupa – Parra for Cuva

Listen on Spotify.