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

In the spirit of giving and Karma Yoga,  myself and a few friends have signed up to do Yoga in the name of charity raise money for  Off the Mat and Into the World through YogaAid at the Wanderlust Festival.

The Yoga Aid Challenge is to complete a 2 hour extreme Yoga practice whilst also supporting great causes!

Please support me and my team “Shakti Shakers” by making a donation to this great cause and help me to make a difference with this Challenge! Here is the link to our site:

http://yogaaid.com/nicoledoherty

GET YOUR DANCE ON!!! Come join YogaWorks and Wanderlust for some dancing fun on Saturday June 5th with DJ Dundhee 8pm – 11pm. Complimentary Raw Chocolate, Kambucha and Organic Wine. Santa Monica Yoga Works!

After the party Saturday night, Yoga on the Promenade by YogaWorks and Wanderlust! Santa Monica Blvd & 3rd with Kia Miller, Joan Hyman, David Kim & Tommy Rosen. Free class bring your own mat! 9- 10:30a, Sunday June 6th

Wanderlust Festival
July 29 – August 1st
Squaw Valley, Tahoe

Wanderlust is a one-of-a-kind festival bringing together the world’s best yoga teachers and best performers in rock & roll, all in a setting of breathtaking natural beauty.  It is a place to relax, unwind, bend, dance, revel, and contemplate. It’s a community of like-minded people who share a common set of interests and values.  It’s a chance to escape the mundane and dwell in the extraordinary. It’s healthy hedonism and spiritual exploration. Most of all, it’s a long weekend of satisfying, stick-to-your-ribs fun.  Join us.

Wanderlust 2010 will offer a number of high-traffic opportunities for exhibitors at our Pulse main stage and in the Kula Village.  Instructions and information are available in our Exhibitor Application, which you can download in PDF format.

Simply type your information in the fill-in fields in the application. When you are done, click Submit Form and follow the simple on-screen instructions to complete your submission.

Applications will be considered on a first-come, first-served basis.  Please email any questions to: exhibitor@wanderlustfestival.com

DOWNLOAD EXHIBITOR APPLICATION HERE: http://www.wanderlustfestival.com/vendors

APPLICATION DEADLINE IS JUNE 1, 2010

GENERAL INFORMATION BELOW

Squaw Valley
Squaw Valley provides the perfect natural setting to meditate, contemplate, or just get away from the concrete and crowding of our large cities.  Take the cable car to the top of the mountain and you can wander for hours across ridges and meadows where there aren’t even any trails.  Or go for a five minute hike out of the Village and you’ll find yourself on an immense network of paths interspersed with streams, rock climbs and wildlife.  Come get away.

Yoga Classes
Wanderlust will offer yoga classes at nine separate venues Thursday, July 29 through Sunday, August 1, 2010.  Most classes are located in the Village, but there are a number of classes at High Camp as well.  You’ll need one of our yoga + music tickets to practice.  You can schedule your classes in advance through our website beginning March 29, 2010.

Meditation & Lectures
For those interested in exploring the mind, Wanderlust will offer meditation workshops, lectures, and demonstrations covering topics of importance to our yoga + music ticketholders. You can schedule these events using our scheduling app beginning March 29, 2010.

Stay tuned because we will have a ticket giveaway in a future newsletter!  Sign up for our newsletter!

Our newsletters, depending on which one you sign up for may include witty banter, event listings, recommendations, guest list spots, free giveaways and more! We only send it out 2x’s per month. Sign up below!

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Wanderlust Festival at Squaw Valley

Last year, we fell in love! We are very excited to be working with the Wanderlust Festival again this year! If you haven’t gotten your tickets, get on it. Nothing beats a four-day outdoor festival among the mountains of Squaw Valley, Tahoe with killer music and a world class yoga program. The Yoga Class Schedule is up, so plan ahead.

Wanderlust Festival
July 29 – August 1st
Squaw Valley, Tahoe

GET YOUR TICKETS NOW! http://wanderlustfestival.com

Stay tuned because we will have a ticket giveaway in a future newsletter!

Wanderlust at The Fillmore

Why not extend the festival to another super cool venue in San Francisco! Yoga & Music passes or just music. Your choice. More information located on the Wanderlust Festival website!

Wanderlust at The Fillmore
May 2, 2010
4pm – 12am (music only 7pm start)
The Fillmore, SF

• Three yoga classes per day led by your choice of our gifted instructors, including Seane Corn, Baron Baptiste, Shiva Rea and more!
• Unlimited access to all music at Wanderlust, with shows by Moby (DJ Set), Brazilian Girls and Pretty Lights, to name just a few!
• Access to the Cable Car and High Camp Resort & Spa (with restaurants, a hot tub and swimming lagoon).

If you already got your pass, good for you! Spread the word to everyone at your studio. If you haven’t secured your spot yet, purchase a pass today before advance pricing runs out!

WANDERLUST AT THE FILLMORE
Imagine hundreds of people practicing yoga in the venue that launched artists like Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead. To give Bay Area folks an early taste, Wanderlust will stage a festival teaser on Sunday, May 2, 2010 at the historic Fillmore in San Francisco. Wanderlust at the Fillmore will recreate the spirit of the summer festival on an intimate scale. The all-day & night event will be filled with yoga, music, hooping, juggling, poi, flow arts, community and fun. Yoga teachers include Shiva Rea, Yoga Tree’s Janet Stone and Kula Yoga’s Schuyler Grant. The music line-up will be led by Rupa & the April Fishes , DJ Dragonfly and MC Yogi. Tickets are $25 (music only) and $55 (yoga + music) and go on sale March 14, 2010 here.

BECOME A FAN AND WIN!
We want to make sure everyone knows about Wanderlust, so we’re asking everyone to help by doing two simple things: (i) becoming a fan of Wanderlust on Facebook and (ii) suggest that your friends to become a fan of Wanderlust. When you’re done, just write anything at all on Wanderlust’s Facebook Wall and you’ll automatically be entered in a contest to win a free pair of Sage tickets. The contest will close at the end of March, with the drawing to take place in early April. Instructions are below — thanks for your help!

1. Log into your Facebook profile.
2. Type “www.facebook.com/wanderlust” into your address bar.
3. Click the “Become A Fan” button (top of the page in the middle).
4. Share the experience by clicking the “Suggest To Friends” link (on the left directly under the Wanderlust Festival profile picture).
5. Select all your friends by profile picture and click “Send Invitations.”
6. Write a comment on the Wanderlust Wall to enter the contest!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Repost Wanderlust

Life moves at a frenetic pace living in a big city and often we forget to check in beyond the task list to the deeper level of ourselves. Even if we take care of our health and well-being, sometimes these too become another check on the massively growing list.  One thing that I have learned is that we will never get it all done. So in knowing that we are joyously incomplete, it’s important to get out of our habitual routine and shake it up a bit. So we need to ask ourselves, “Who is beneath the mound of paperwork and what do we want?”. We need to remember that it’s healthy to shed things that aren’t working and create space for change, movement and growth.

Last month in attending the Yoga Journal conference, I was blessed to have created an opening in my life through an amazing meditation course I attended.  I was really flying high on my connection with Source and my needs and desires were resonating at a high frequency.  My main thoughts were, “How am I going to get what I want?” and “What does this next phase look like?”.   So it’s no coincidence that I met the amazing Dr. Gino Dante Borges at the bottom of the staircase ready to guide me through these deep bubbling questions I had set in motion.

Our eyes met in that lovely way that people’s do when you know your energies are supposed to match up for some creation. We exchanged a few words and he told me that he takes “Seekers” on outdoor quests to discover their “Wild-Self” by reconnecting to nature.  It didn’t take me more than 1 second to hand him my card, ask for his information, check out his website and set up an appointment to go on my own “Wild-Self” Quest.

I love Nature. I love the outdoors. I had forgotten at some level that taking walks and hikes and strolls outside were what I used to do to clear my head and connect and bond with myself, nature and spirit.  Although I am a practicing Yogi and teacher, I still at some level was beginning to make my practice a routine, a job and a daily task list.  Forgetting sometimes why I began this practice in the first place.

The answer to the primal question “What is our purpose?” lies within us, but we need to be open to see and hear it. Being in nature allows you to see the expansiveness of life and the collective Consciousness.  You realize that each of us is a very small element in a huge pulsing energetic life force, but that every living being from worm to human plays a very integral role.

Dr. Gino is brilliant at providing a platform by which we can connect to Nature rather quickly through the use of our senses of touch, smell and sound to become fully present in the Now.  No talking allowed! It’s about clearing the mind and moving in meditation and connecting with your heart center.  After you become present, you connect with Dr. Gino through insightful  questioning, symbolic expression and language reprogramming.

Dr. Gino enabled me to identify societal pressures, my fears and what was real and unreal.  He allowed me the space to hear my intuition more clearly and connect with my Wild-Self. I became aware of what really mattered to me Now and what was holding me back.  As depicted above, when asked to symbolically translate what transition looked like for me, I grabbed a bunch of jagged leaves. It’s no wonder why I hadn’t transitioned when it looked like barbed-wire to me.

I was able to identify my next steps and take a huge lunge beyond my comfort zone to make some really big decisions in my life that had been circling my head for over 2 years.  That was just it!  They were circling in my head.

I think for me, it was important to realize that there are guides placed on this planet like Dr. Gino all around us to help us through transition.  We just need to be open to the possibility and to realize that sometimes we need help in unearthing what lies within.

I realized also that it was healthy for me to go outside of my friend and family circle for help. We all know that those closest to us always want the best for us, but they may have their own biased opinions and those opinions may keep you where you are because they are afraid of losing you or fear change as well.

I found that my Ego has been in the driver’s seat and my desires have become buried beneath task lists, fears, finances and societal pressures.  I realized that true Freedom is about listening to other realms inform us about who we are, why were are here and what we are supposed to do in this life. It’s about creating your life, moving with its ebbs and flows, maintaining ease, and being present for what comes up so we can live powerfully in the Now.

I am forever grateful to have had the experience of the Wild-Self quests with Dr. Gino and hope to spread the love of his work to many more people on this planet.

Dr. Gino Dante’s blog about my Wild Self Quest

The Wild Self Website

The Wild Self Fan Page

February is Love Month!

*****Special Discounts for Couples Through February 28th!****

Grab a friend or your significant other….it doesn’t matter, it’s all about sharing love, music, fun and positive energy! Share your love and spirit.

Breath, movement, and touch is a powerful way to connect with another being, especially in a beautiful space with great music!

Dance and yoga master instructors Val Cunningham and Nicole Doherty are joining forces to offer a unique opportunity to work with your partner one-on-one.

At the Dance Loft, begin with Nicole’s 45 min energizing Partner Yoga class to warm up the muscles, free the mind and align your body in preparation for Val’s 45 min fun and exhilarating dance class in partner movement.

“It is through our intimate relationships with others that we come to know and love ourselves.”

Email Us:
nic@nicolepresents.com
http://wellness.nicolepresents.com

Val@valcunningham.com
http://valcunningham.com

Get on down to the conference, even if you haven’t registered for the paid classes, there is lots to do.  There are free community classes, meditations and talks. Great businesses like Yoga Tree San Francisco have tents that are offering free stuff all weekend. The marketplace is also open to the public too!  So just go down to feel the Yogi vibe!