Road Trip Tunes… A Summer Yoga Playlist!

I spent last weekend at Wanderlust Yoga and Music Festival on the beautiful Stratton Mountain in Vermont.  This year marked our second annual trip to this particular festival and we’ve already started planning next year’s excursion.  In two days, I took five diverse and uniquely enjoyable yoga (asana) classes and 2 exhilarating rounds of Taryn Toomey’s the class.  I put my body through the ringer and then some!  Although I’m still recovering from the soreness, I’ve replenished my spirit and rejuvenated my love for this path and this beautiful,  adaptable and totally-open-to-interpretation practice.

I look lopsided in this picture because the ground was very uneven! Although a beautiful landscape for a picture, this spot is not an ideal place for practice!

My biggest takeaway from Wanderlust 2015 is that love is the ultimate end-game or goal; or, as the wise and utterly entertaining MC Yogi puts it, “only love is real.”  Regardless of the the specific techniques or details of the process—practicing to the Eurythmics in a room lit only by blacklights, football sprinting while screaming or channeling into the subtle rhythms and connection in the body through a perfectly-refined alignment-based practice—the end result that we seek as yogis is the ability to quiet the mind and live in love.

In order to experience love in the world beyond our mats, whatever we choose to practice (on our mats) on a day to day basis should bring us joy.  Our commitment to our practice hinges on whether or not we feel joy!  If practice becomes a chore or just another thing we do every god forsaken day, then check it.  Our practice should ultimately enhance our lives by allowing us to see the extraordinary within everything and our relationships flourish.  Judging other people’s paths or practices is a telltale sign that something ain’t working on your mat.  Explore your habits, your routines and tendencies to identify and work through the kinks. The ancient practice of yoga has evolved and taken many shapes over the years, adapt the practice to serve your personal needs; avoid rigidity and let your experience of yoga evolve.  It’s never to late in the game to bring joy back into your practice and your life.

Am I still yapping…?!

While driving in the car to and from Vermont, I put together this playlist.  I’ve practiced to it a few times this week and I’m really digging it!  I hope it brings you lots of joy along your journey and aids you in your quest for love!

 

Don’t be afraid

While creating my Wanderlust itinerary, I skimmed through the line-up registering exclusively for Kula Flow classes taught namely by Schuyler Grant.   Kula is my Shangri-la – my utopian, bliss guaranteed, home away from home – and I’d be amiss to ditch an opportunity to soak up some inspiration and bliss from, what I consider to be, the source.   I relish in their meticulous, bordering-on-anal-retentive, and perfectly seamless sequencing that in the juiciest of manners kicks your ass until you melt away into your super sweet savasana.   Wouldn’t you?

Why look anywhere else and to anyone when asana-perfection is a guarantee?

Wanderlust: A few of my favorite things

I spent the last few days at Wanderlust in Stratton, Vermont.  I took 7 yoga classes in 3 days, camped, ate delicious food, listened to amazing tunes and spent some serious quality time with my husband.  I needed a pause from my hectic life to clear my head and inspire my practice.  I feel so incredibly full right now of appreciation and gratitude not only for the experience of Wanderlust but for just about everything in my life.   I promise a solid few posts in the next week about the actual festival and the currently ineffable yoga classes, but for now I’m here to chat about the amazing purchases I made at the festival and my new favorite things!

1)  My Robbie Simon mala inspired necklace is without any doubt my favorite purchase.  After 3 hours of mind-blowing practice-  first a euphoric class co-taught by Elena Brower and Schuyler Grant  followed by a boogy-down class by MC Yogi and the musical accompinemt of the fabulous DJ Drez – I decided to kill time before my next class by checking out the vendors to buy a gift for my mom.  I stumbled upon a simple bracelet and stopped to check out the other pieces and before I knew it I was engaged in an amazing conversation with the founder and designer of the Brooklyn-based brand.  Only at a place like Wanderlust can you accidently find yourself in an amazing conversation about travel, food, yoga and life with an amazing soul and kindred spirit.    In sum, I purchased this amazing necklace whose signature piece is an antique Tibetan bell.  I highly recommend checking out her beautiful and truly unique pieces on her website.