NicolePresents: Wellness

Last Sunday, I came across an incredibly purposeful, inspiring and eco-conscious organization at the Capsule Street Fair.  I was so inspired by this business that I asked the owner to write a blurb about what she is doing so that I could help her spread the word.  In just three simple steps you can make a difference in the world!

Puppets with a Purpose is a new organization that empowers children and adults to make a positive impact on the world using the magic of their imagination along with easily found free materials.

Here are the three steps to inspired purpose!

1)  Step one is simple. Come together and make puppets using recycled, repurposed and reusable materials!

2) Step two. Sell the puppets (a healthy joyful alternative to a bake sale) or stage a puppet performance and bring joy and laughter into your community. You can even create a large-scale sock puppet flash mob if you choose, the possibilities are endless.

3) Step three is the purpose.  Donate any proceeds to the non-profit organization of your choice, whether it is disaster relief, nutritional programs or books and supplies for children in need.

What started out as a simple idea by Brielle to raise funds for the rising homeless population in San Francisco, has recently transformed into an empowering and joy filled new way for communities to raise capital any where they are inspired to give.

Brielle remembers thinking back to Hurricane Katrina and wondering why no one worked together to throw preventative fundraisers, questioning why was it we as a society wait until disaster strikes before coming together to make a change?

Brielle created this program so children and the communities that surround them can feel the valuable benefits of social out reach and giving. She states, “I am choosing to empower individuals by showing them how simple and fun it can be to make a difference in the world.”

Aside from the amazing message, wait until you see how creative these children and parents become with socks!  She was selling some of them at the Fair and they are just absolutely darling!

For more information on how to donate or become involved with Puppets for Purpose, please contact me at brealityrox@gmail.com or join the FaceBook Fan Page Puppets with Purpose or the Facebook Group Puppets with Purpose.

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The Wanderlust Festival

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

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“The word Karma is derived from the Sanskrit Kri, meaning ‘to do’. In its most basic sense karma simply means action, and yoga translates to union. Thus Karma yoga literally translates to the path of union through action. However, in Vedantic philosophy the word ‘Karma’ means both action and the effects of such action. Karma Yoga is described as a way of acting, thinking and willing by which one orients oneself toward realization by acting in accordance with one’s duty (dharma) without consideration of personal self-centered desires, likes or dislikes. Acting without being attached to the fruits of one’s deeds.”{Wikipedia}

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

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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

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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!

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