Archive for August, 2010
Wanderlust is Wonder-filled!
As my dedication to Yoga grew, the perfect event was bubbling in my mind. How cool would it be to have a festival that combines all of my passions – Yoga, music, nature, and yoga clothes? I am forever grateful to the Wanderlust Festival founders for making this dream in my mind’s eye a reality two years ago! The Wanderlust Festival has combined everything I love so well.
Yoga and music are entwined. They are equally inspirational practices. They share the common goal of elevating one’s spirits. They offer liberation and can elicit strong emotion from the heart. Both can help one dive deeper within themselves. Powerfully, they can create a platform for community involvement and spread a message to a large audience in a profound way. In cooperation, they can bring one closer to themselves and to others. Music and Yoga will take you on a journey.
Wanderlust is a German word for the irresistibly strong desire to travel or wander. All of us festival-goers, Yogis, musicians and artists are all travelers. Seekers. Searching for a way to connect to others and to Self and to the Divine. We have been built creatively to ask the questions and when we find the answers, to share our journeys.
Last year, for me, Wanderlust was an opportunity to explore the myriad of Yoga practices and teachers offering their various Yoga styles on a physical plane. This year, I left with a totally different experience, way beyond the Asana and so much more about the Spirit. The messages all around me were bottled with love, devotion, sharing, community, consciousness, action, grace, dedication and leadership.
I was imbued with a sense of the Universal, the Divine and really understood the word dedication and how it is embodied. The “Yoga Superstars” as I like to call them, are major Spiritual leaders. They offer us gifts that are so precious and incite in each of us a call action to help others. The masses are truly moved by their energy and enthusiasm. I wished that I had a voice recorder for every class I attended. Each one contained a plethora of beautiful, eloquent messages.
The Wanderlust Festival is an opportunity for like-minded conscious people to gather and remind each other of who we are. The natural beauty of Tahoe is a recharging environment. In it’s magnificent we are shown that we are not our fears, our challenges and our bodies. The message was clear that we are all conduits of the Divine and that we all share the responsibility to raise the consciousness of our planet and to help each other transform. Through helping each other, we’ll find our own Divinity.
It was a great gift to be able to bask in the glory of the mountains, soak in the crystal clear skies and gaze out to one of the most gorgeous lakes in the US. In the distance you could feel the Eternal energy of over 5000 people sharing in the collective OM. This was a majestic experience.
There were so many highlights. I can’t recount them all, but I’ve listed a few of the wonderful moments that I am grateful for this past weekend (aside from the fact that I love all the friends that I got to connect with old and new!!!):
THURSDAY
Rusty Well’s Bhakti Flow Class
Message: Everything is Yoga. Life is Yoga. Love. Devotion. Humor. Joy.
Shiva Rea’s River Rafting Trip
Message: Friendship is all around you. Live music is so fun while rafting. Thank you to the Manipuris and Steve Gold for breaking out Proud Mary and all the other river songs and for Shiva being the eternal Prana.
DJ Dragonfly
Message: Great music is always a great way to end an evening, especially while hula hooping!
FRIDAY
Baron Baptiste
Messages: Transformation. Community. Sharing. Empowerment. The importance of spreading love and giving. Thank you to the Africa Yoga Project for spreading your love of Yoga to Africa and being an inspiration.
Sianna Sherman
Message: Grace. Beauty. Inspiration. Love. Light. Eloquence. Prana. Sharing. Circularity of energy and its relevance to the lovely hoping class that followed. Divine play. Humor.
Sean Corn, Shiva Rea and Baron Baptiste
Off the Mat and Into the World and YogaAid Challenge class! We raised money and got to practice in the front row!
Message: Serving is sharing. Empowerment. It’s not about pity, but empathy and compassion. Send your love into the Universe. To give is so much bigger than us individually. Thank you to David Stringer and Suzanne Sterling for amazing music!
Pretty Lights and Moby
Great energy. Awesome music. I hadn’t either live before and they seriously rocked out! Dancing is so epic when you are full of juicy energy.
SATURDAY
Seane Corn
Messages: Speak the truth. Empowerment. What are you are going to do with your inspiration? How can you take this off the mat and into the World? Purpose. Value. Dignity. Grace. Light.
Shiva Rea
Message: Be playful. Get loose. Let the Prana move you. Be fluid. Feel the flow and rhythm and the pulse. Tribal connection. Ecstatic dance. Thank you to Rara Avis and Shamans’ Dream for incredible music.
Moby Acoustic Set
Family. It was a moving experience listening to his partner sing so beautifully and then watching her sing to her son.
Yard Dog Road Show & Bassnectar
I love the Yard Dogs and their creativity and sense of humor. Inventive and crazy. Bassnectar is just electric. What more can I say? He’s one of my favorite DJs. Passionate. ;)
SUNDAY
Les Leventhal
One of my greatest teachers and personal friend!
Message: Come to Yoga as a beginner often. Teaching is joyful. Breathing is really joyful. Your mat is your sanctuary.
Notable Quotables:
“You got to root down to get down” ~ Baron Baptiste
“If you give a little more bhakti, you get a little more shakti”– Sianna Sherman
“What are you going to do with your inspiration?” – Seane Corn
“The ocean of devotion” – Shiva Rea
“Swimming in the Cosmic Soup” – Shiva Rea
“Movement is the excavation and you are the site” – Shiva Rae
“I don’t have to do anything it’s already doing you” (talking of Nature as Yoga) – Seane Corn
