Wanderlust Day 2 – Rocking the Yoga Festival!

By: Christine Russell
co-Founder 889 Yoga + Wellness Spa
@889christine

This festival has blown me away. All day I kept feeling that right now, in 2012, is an amazing time to be alive.

I have been completely uplifted and inspired by the creativity, connectedness and free-spirited feeling surrounding Wanderlust. It’s a wild collection of yogis and businesses who are sharing their love for grounding, growing, connecting and sharing. Without sounding like a total hippie (which I sort of feel like as I haven’t showered since Wednesday), the collective spirit here is all about loving, growing and peacefulness.

We rose yesterday with the sun for an early moring Mantra and Meditation with Shiva Rea. It was by far one of the best experiences I have ever had with Shiva. She carried a Prana Mudra mantra through opening meditation, surya namaskars to wake up the body, both in preparation for a long meditation. Here was our mantra which she hand wrote for us after class:

And here we are in resting meditation, after prepping our bodies with a fast, mantra-based flowing Surya Namaskar (and I mean fast!):

She was all about connecting to the rhythm of the sun and being the sunlight in our lives. Feeling jazzed for 889’s Living Yoga Program to be aligned with Shiva and her Prana Flow Sadhana School. It’s an honour and amazing opportunity for our students.

Seane’s class Everyday Miracles was as all Seane classes are: amazing. We practiced in this huge open-air tent under the blue skies surrounded by mountains on every side. I had this overwhelming feeling of joy overcome me when she spoke her first words and it stuck with me all day. It was a silly, playful, happy joy! Yoga in the mountains and under the sun all day?!

I couldn’t feel anything else. Her message is always clear and powerful and you can feel it deep in your body and your soul. She is a rad leader championing change, and a woman I continue to have deep, profound respect for.

I stayed in the tent for another class led by three yogis: Schuyler Grant from Brooklyn, Ashley Turner from LA and Janet Stone from San Francisco (thanks Amber for the Janet. recco. You were right. Not to be missed.). They rocked it out with a live DJ working on arm balances and a powerful flow. By this time my triceps were feeling the chatarungas and my hamstrings were completely cooked (slow cooked) but the class led by these three powerful, creative and committed yoginis was too good to miss.

One of the most amazing parts of Wanderlust is just cruising around and absorbing all of the creative, free-flowing energy. There we’re live tunes at every step and yogis doing all sorts of crazy acrobats, hooping, slack lining, singing, dancing, shopping, braiding hair (amazing!), eating, drinking local wine (Winederlust!), sharing their art, and offering themselves to each other. It was a beautiful thing. It was a true celebration of expression and of connectedness. I was invited to a Lululemon party where they generously hosted a bunch of lemons, ambassadors and Lululemon friends to get together and celebrate The power of community away from home always creates a higher impact because you are in a place that is not your own. Feeling part of something – I think that’s what Wanderlust is all about.

Davian, a former 889’er invited us to join her at a yoga rally / class put together by Off the Mat and into the World, Seane’s creation. Talk about powerful yoga jam (and she saved us front row so that was fun)! Seane had invited Congressman Tim Ryan to join her along with many of the other Wanderlust teachers: Baron Baptist, Shiva, Rod Stryker, Janet Stone, Hala Khouri, Schuyler Grant, Suzanne Sterling and others. It was all in the effort to get yogis voting in this upcoming November election. It was a bi-partisan collective effort to get the 20-million yogis in the US out to vote. No party speak, just to vote and exercise their voice. The congressman has written a book called Mindful Nation and he has set forth to bring mindfulness into schools, prisons, community centers to improve American’s ability to mindfully connect to themselves in order to best act and make decisions. Seane believes that yoga and politics do intersect because politics form policies that govern things like health care and well being. Unlike many, she does not believe them to be mutually exclusive, nor does she believe politics are “bad.” She is fearless to go where others have not yet gone and her intelligence is so compelling and from such an authentic place; she is a force to be reckoned with. Her statement that shook my core the most was “Peace isn’t just possible: it’s inevitable.”

Rep Tim Ryan, who had flown in just for this conversation, said that “We don’t need to go further to the left. We don’t need to go further to the right. We need to go deeper.” Who could disagree with that?! He shared that as a politician, mindfulness has made him a better listener. Linked to my post yesterday on listening (it’s arising everywhere for me), Ryan said that for him the feeling of being “right” has evolved into “I’m going to listen to what this person is saying, go back to my breath and breathe and chill out.” A politician talking about his breath…c’mon now.

You can check out more on this @yogavotes @reptimryan @offthematyoga

This session which also included an asana practice led by all aforementioned teachers – each for a few minutes – ended in crazy yoga chanting and dancing (and egg shaking – had to be there). Check it out. Shiva went wild!

By this time my body was flying high. We were so into it we missed our dinner reservations (no campfire last night!), had a late dinner, and caught a little bit of Ziggy Marley playing on the main stage for thousands of people. 15 hours Wanderlusting by that time, and over six hours of yoga I was finito! Talk about overwhelmed by so many incredible things happening all at once (hence the loooong blog posts).

Got back in the VW bus and fell asleep before I could even say goodnight. Only to realize my hubbie was already zonked.

I fell asleep thinking that I loved the celebration I felt all day and that I am going to celebrate things even more when I get home.

We have so much to celebrate. It is an amazing time to be alive.

Until tomorrow…

@889christine (twitter and instagram)

Here I am at the top of Squaw Valley. Lake Tahoe is in the background!