Wanderlust Squaw Valley 2012 Recap

I'll try to keep this short : This was my 2nd non-consecutive year at Wanderlust Festival in Squaw Valley and I loved it. Learned all sorts of new things and tried all sorts of new teachers. Naturally, I also attended concerts and took classes from long-time-favorite teachers. In addition to all the sunshine there was lots of yoga, dancing, hoop dance, slacklining, music, art, shopping, and of course - hugging. Sometimes you just need to get away and play.

Incense and white sage

I loved slackline yoga so much that I bought a slackline so I can work on it anytime.

Adam was good at the knee balancing thing. I was not.

Self massage class - and an altar decoration made of records. There were lots of altars.

Slacklining over a pond - this was fun to watch.

KK Ledford's Honey Hearts class was awesome... me on the left.

Catching Up

I was out of town last week on a mini-vacation to the Oregon coast, and there were some posts that were supposed to publish but didn't. So I didn't ditch the place - blogger's just been broken.

Sign says: No coins necessary to operate stream

So to get caught up - here are a few things that occurred while I was away:

• Received Tara Stiles' book "Yoga Cures" for an upcoming review.
• Visited the Portland Art Museum where I saw a real Claude Monet Waterlily painting.
• Attended my 2nd Cirque du Soleil show - Ovo.
• Saw plenty of great street art.

• Visited the Sea Lion Caves where I saw hundreds of sea lions in the wild. Awesome!
• Bought a painting done by a sea lion named Lea from the Oregon Coast Aquarium. (100% of the proceeds go directly into animal care.)
• Went deep sea fishing and we brought back a ton of fish and saw more sea lions and a whale.

Sea Lions

Update For Now

It's been a while since I mentioned the move - and even a while since my last post. Today is a great day for an update.

Everything I said in my last post about moving - has changed. Everything except the fact that we're moving. We're still moving, but since my moving post on June 6th - a lot has happened so I'll give a super short summary. Adam got an offer from Bodybuilding.com, for a lot more money, so we decided to go with that one - and now we're moving to Boise, ID. He actually starts his new job today, so send lots of good thoughts and positivity his way.

That's right - he starts his new job today and we haven't moved yet. We're still looking for a place to live in the Meridian/Boise, ID area. In the meantime I'm still living in Oregon and Adam is staying in Idaho during the weeks. We have a place kind of lined up on July 15th (assuming it works out), but we're hoping to get into something else before then so we don't have to live apart for a full month. Not only is that sucky, but it's also really expensive.

For now I can totally devote the majority of my days to yoga and writing posts... so the posts will get back on track for a while.

Packing Up

Good News! Adam got a job! in Austin, TX. So we're moving... and pretty quickly. It's a rush job and we're going halfway across the country (just shy of 1,800 miles) so I'm going to be pretty busy in the next couple weeks. Trying to fit in some yoga will be challenging... it might be just my simple morning practice + meditation for a while. I'll try to keep the blog updating on schedule, but don't be surprised if I miss a couple days between now and July 1st.

Photo Source: Dunno. A quick Tineye search yielded 0 results.

Noah Maze Workshop Challenge

I spent all weekend in Boise, ID attending a 3-day workshop with Noah Maze. He's a super amazing Anusara yoga instructor if you didn't know that. You can find his classes on Yogaglo (at the top of the page) if you wanna check it out.

We worked hard and I learned that 3 minutes is kind of a long time for me to be in Downward Dog. I practice long holds on my asanas, but Noah literally made me whimper once (in utkatasana). Just once... I'm tough. I was truly challenged in every session and I actually DID finally do a drop back in the middle of the room by myself. It wasn't 100% successful, but I did finally punch fear in the face and make it happen... and even though it wasn't perfect, the world didn't end. Yay!

I learned some new poses and just generally had a great time. I just hope Noah didn't mind my incessant note-taking. It was awesome and I am happy. I'll shut up and leave it at that. You may recall that when I went to a workshop in Portland a couple months ago - that I did not have a good experience with the locals. They were really awful. The Boise Kula, however, was soooo welcoming and nice. They were really lovely people and I didn't meet a single asshole. Much thanks and gratitude to the Boise Kula and to Noah Maze for this grand weekend of reflection and hard work.

Rocking Bhakti Weekend

This weekend I attended a five piece workshop with Sianna Sherman on her Rock the Bhakti Tour. She is known for being a great storyteller and I have to agree that I'm always kind of blown away by her stories and the skill with which she translates that into a practice. We have friends in Portland, OR (where the workshop was held) so we stayed with them. I did just shy of 6 hours of yoga a day and partied into the wee hours of the night. It was a lot of fun. I'm still recovering from it, hence the late post today.

The overall experience was great - as I generally expect from world-class yoga and friends. I can definitely say, though, that I'm not going to be moving to Portland if I can help it. The yogis there were not as nice or welcoming as the people I've met anywhere else. The whole atmosphere was snippy and disrespectful to say the least. They didn't seem to value Sianna's presence or authority very much. People were rude towards me, towards my husband... eventually I was trying to spend as little time around them as possible. Not the yoga community feel I'm used to.

The classes were definitely sweat-inducing and challenging. With all the sweating - the practice room was like a sauna. The air was humid and filled with sweat. The floors and walls were wet - people were leaking transformation everywhere. On my final day I got a photo with Sianna after class. Between the windows above and the moisture hanging thick in the air - none of them came out very well. After a few tries we decided it was just meant to have an aura to it. We hugged and she thanked me for coming... and I got the hell outta there before someone else could ruin my good day.

Optimism Breeds Serendipity

Earlier this week I finally applied to teach in a space that someone (that works there) had been encouraging me to rent for a while. For over six months this had been discussed and planned while I was constantly assured it would be no problem. So I filled out the application... to end up being rejected. It was a space in a non-profit that they rent out to the community... except apparently to me. They gave me a handful of reasons for denying my request, but all of those reasons turned out to be either wrong or lies. I'm not going to speculate or dwell on which is the case. This is not the first time this particular company has rejected my teaching, but it is certainly the last. I'm not really a glutton for punishment. I promise.

Rejection sucks! But that doesn't mean we should allow someone else's lack of confidence in us to become our own. We can choose to remain stuck in an eternal pity party or we can shake the sad out of our hair and make this an opportunity to focus on being our best selves.

Upon learning that I had been DENIED - I gave myself some time to pout and some time to be angry and fantasize about throwing bricks through people's windows. But then... I reminded myself that sitting there, feeling rejected, disapproved of, and stuck... maybe even lost... wasn't going to help me. Apparently, this company is not part of my path. I looked around... vaguely looking for more of what makes me happy... more of what serves my life purpose... something to further my journey down my true path. Right away I stumbled across Sianna Sherman's Rock the Bhakti Tour workshop in Portland... two weeks from now. Since I won't be teaching, I'll be free to skip over to Portland for three days to workshop it up, play, and study Anusara Yoga. Yay! Bonus: It's doubling as a 29th Birthday Gift. Serendipitous? Kind of. A Sign? Maybe - Either way, I'm psyched!

Screw the path I thought I wanted to take... this one shines much brighter. I mean, it's just paved with awesome and opportunity.