The Wanderlust Festival returned to California’s Squaw Valley with much for eco-conscious yoginis to love. Between local organic eats and myriad classes and lectures, I was excited to see (and use) Zero Hero’s zerowaste bins with simple instructions for composting and recycling. And after heading to one of teacher Seane Corn’s classes (in local threads from Dude Girl), I was excited to hear the instructor extraordinaire and founder of Off the Mat and Into the World talk about women’s roles in protecting Mother Earth. Her suggestions for the hundreds of practitioners? Know where what you eat comes from, choose sustainable materials when building or refurbishing homes, and kick that plastic water bottle habit. Photo by Wanderlust.
If you’re a San Franciscan in a rut (because of, say, weather, expense, or dating), the new Outgoing.me could be just what you need. A community built around meeting fun folks locally, it posts casual social events of different varieties (though they won’t give you advice on what to wear). Think “bottomless brunch” at Ironside, thai food with other cyclists, and–my favorite–Yoga Lovers Dinner and Sustainable Vegan Fare at Gracias Madre this Tuesday. And you’re waiting for what to reserve your seat?
Paige Elenson was on a Kenyan safari with her family five years ago when first she encountered acrobats practicing outside a Masai village. Not one to let life pass her by, she jumped out of a safari vehicle to practice alongside them in an act that would later inspire the Africa Yoga Project. An international non-profit, it trains young adults living in East African slums and rural villages to teach yoga and earn their livings leading classes in their communities.
Elenson, a New York-born, Nairobi-dwelling yoga instructor extraordinaire, just wrapped up the organization’s first Seva Safari. The two-week trip brought 17 volunteers from around the world to Kenya to offer their hands and $5K each in funds to create a safe space for residents of Kibera, Nairobi’s largest slum. We spoke as participants packed up and Elenson considered the power of yoga as an employment and non-violence mechanism.
How do you stay inspired?
PE: By going and visiting outreach classes that Africa Yoga teachers lead in their communities. It’s really easy for me to stay behind a computer all day and get work done, but visiting outreach and seeing how other people are contributing keeps me energized. The creative fundraising that our supporters undertake around the world also reinspires me. more
Featured on ecofabulous With its focus on generosity and community, acclaimed organic restaurant and yoga studio Ubuntu lives up to its name (which has been said to mean “the essence of being human” and an homage to our interconnectedness). The historic 19th century building in Napa houses social and practice spaces made from recycled materials and an open kitchen for preparing vegetable-inspired menu items.
Biodynamic growth schedules make for a bounty of vegetables that, when combined with Chef Aaron London’s skillful touches, leaves a low carbon footprint-seeker glad they came. Delicate flowers decorate turnips, well-marinated beets, and arbuckle grits, and all are best enjoyed after a 90-minute Jivamukti yoga class upstairs. The sustainably farmed wine that follows might never taste better.
Now that 17 project participants have arrived in Nairobi (with yoga teachers, practitioners, and fundraisers among them), the 2011 Africa Yoga Project Seva Safari has officially begun. Twelve days of service, sweating to AYP teachers’ yoga classes, and Kenyan exploration have begun with Dreamfish House Nairobi as home base.
The first day included a breakfast of tea and mango; a vigorous practice; vegetarian lunch; and get-to-know-you games with AYP instructors. Kenyan teacher Moses led a 90-minute class at the top of Sarakasi Dome in Nairobi’s historic Indian neighborhood with the theme of freedom—meaning lots of backbending, reaching and lifting one of our 50 fellow students’ legs for increased extension. I’m quite convinced that breaking bread (or chipati) with yogis from all over is the best welcome and one that inspires my gratitude for the friends who made this experience possible.
Thursday night promises a great near-water practice at the edge of Golden Gate Park led by SF instructor Mark Morford. The benefit Vinyasa class will raise proceeds for the Art of Yoga Project, a cause that’s especially front of mind for me for its important work serving at-risk teen girls in the local juvenile justice program. A $20 contribution will get you into the outdoor class, and happy hour drinks will follow at 7. It’s all in the name of a great time for you to help young gals.
I’m fortunate to be writing from Miami (and won’t even let pals in SF onto the sun here) at the Wanderlust Festival’s first East Coast conference. The yoga, music and mindfulness conference has expanded beyond Squaw Valley (whose wonder you can read about here) to a hotel that rivals any Ace in white linens, reproduction Wayfarers, and exquisitely designed toothpaste packaging. The Standard–not be confused with the New York hotel of the same name as it’s printed upside down–has a giant pool that at the moment is filled with rosé-hazed yogis.
It’s lovey, and ridiculous. I was thankful that at the start of an asana class instructor Elena Brower–she of YogaGlo online videos that a friend got me hooked on for practicing at home–acknowledged the group’s good fortune given natural catastrophes and current political unrest. We had the over-the-top luck of worrying about frying in the sun at the same moment we could be concerned for our survival, and I’m so glad she was open to discussing it. It feels like celebration in the face of tragic global news, and if you follow Brower’s line of thinking, there is actually something you can do about it.
First, by acknowledging the disconnect and disparity. Then by finding healing space within ourselves and having real-time awareness of our behavior. And finally be sharing our empathy, “broadcasting” openness, and helping heal.
I like this concept, and I don’t know what it looks like for me yet. But given how much her ideas have struck me this week–including the concept that there’s enough work for everyone, especially sometimes competitive groups of urban yoga teachers–I’ll be checking in with it, and would love your own thoughts around gratitude and grief.
I’m miles away from Costa Rica (read: mountains of Utah), and SF yogini MeiMei Fox’s upcoming retreat to Puerto Viejo is looking especially good. The author and instructor will lead a service-surf-yoga trip in March to benefit the Surf for Life Foundation, a non-profit that connects travelers with community volunteering in coastal areas. Spots are limited.
During Yoga Journal’s local conference over the next week, you’ll find combinations worth heading to the Embarcadero for (“yoga + chocolate”) and all-day practice intensives (including Ana Forrests’s “Unraveling the Mysteries of the Hips, Neck, and Shoulders”). Beyond the usual gathering setup of racks of Hatha pants–and I’m one of the guilty ones who trounces around the host hotel ponytailed and basically barefoot–is an evening lecture by author Geneen Roth that I’m sorry to miss:
“The way you eat is inseparable from your core beliefs about being alive. No matter how sophisticated or wise or enlightened you believe you are, how you eat tells all. The world is on your plate. When you begin to understand what prompts you to use food as a way to numb or distract yourself, the process takes you deeper into realms of spirit and to the bright center of your own life. Rather than getting rid of or instantly changing your conflicted relationship with food, Women Food and God is about welcoming what is already here, and contacting the part of yourself that is already whole-divinity itself.”
After practicing at its beautiful space in the Mission, I wanted to share the first part of a video series introducing Rusty Wells’ Urban Flow Yoga studio. In this short clip about one of the city’s first donation-based yoga communities, Rusty describes the studio’s intention to serve all by removing cost prohibitions that deter people from practicing yoga. I find the work that local production company document document put together most powerful, and not just because they captured this: “If you really believe in what you’re doing and then notice that something may be missing, then there’s your duty right there–to provide whatever it is that’s lacking.”
Should you want to get in on the action in person, musician MC Yogi and Urban Flow instructor Andrea Maltzer are hosting the elephant-power themed workshop “Ganesh is Fresh” on August 21. Think art, music, mantra, and flow.
