The desert setting of Bhaktifest was stunning. Joshua Tree skies were clear clean vast – flattening the spectacular landscape into two dimensions – too beautiful to be believed. Set against a nearly full moon rising, the subtle muted tones of natures rust, mauve, olive, slate greens and greys heightened the contrast of bright magentas, reds, yellows, greens, silvers, blues of festival goers, vendors and artists in their festival trappings. Soothing mantras emanated from the haunting voices of Deva Premal and Miten, leavened with bluesy racous rhythms and back beats. The audience became a congregation under the magic spell of sacred syllables uttered with true devotion – ancient Sanskrit sutras set to contemporary music inspired the swaying sweaty devotees to chant along in ecstatic unison. Hatha yoga, lectures on the Radiant Sutras with Dr. Lorin Roche and Camille Maurine, potions and massages were among the offerings. A lovely weekend for blissful dancing, hot bodies and hot winds. The Red Tent with Gina Sala and other Goddess leaders was a favorite gathering of all the resident Goddesses to share feminine secrets. Laying on the desert floor inside my tent I had a long Shavasana reaching perfect equilibrium sinking into the sands until I reached a sense of total union with the elements. I finished my visit with a yoga session overlooking the expanse of the desert plain dotted with tents, Joshua Trees, rocks, lizards with crows and hawks screeching overhead. I came away feeling renewed, memorizing the sense of balance and harmony visual, somatically and sensually. These images will give you a sense of the striking, austere beauty of the quiet landscape, a mirror of my inner experience.
Special thanks to my tribe for transporting me to this magical space time continuum – Laurie Kamiel & Debbie Sutz.
The mythic Topanga Canyon blue sky and warm red earth was the site of this year’s third annual 3-day yoga love celebration MokshaFest. The word Moksha मोक्ष (MOKE-shah) is an ancient Sanskrit sutra that means freedom, liberation, or release. And what a dive into blissful release it was! Dreamy sounds of kirtan floated from the main tribal gathering area, backed by drums and chanting from the tent temples strewn across the Topanga Community House Commons. The weather was a perfect blend of cool dewy mornings, smooth breezes, hot sweaty sunny afternoons blending to twilight balm with a finish of nippy desert night.
The classes were an exotic mixture of traditional Hatha yoga, Sufi movement, meditation, Pranayama, Anusara, meditation, Kundalini, Sattva, NAAM, breathing, Vinyasa, Flow, breathing, Kundalini, singing, Kundalini, chanting, meditation and more Kundalini – in case you missed your Shakti awakening – morning noon or evening. Teachers from India joined local stella lunas to bring humor and lightness of being into the clamor of yoginis and yogas waiting breathlessly to dive into the pools of blissful breathing. The heat and humor were a good mix of levity with many local yoga teachers of every discipline including a strong presence of Khalsa led sessions.
Dancing child
Little sleeping yogi
Moksha Fest was a quintessential scene of the new world order ala Cirque du Soleil. A colorful rainbow of Fellini-esk personalities, traditions, ethnicities, ages, gods and goddesses swaying in FULLY LIBERATED MOKSHA fed by raw foods, nectarian $9.00 smoothies, Moon Juice and their sweet sweaty Selves. Reminiscent of a Moroccan market, the market place was filled with sellers of crystals, silky slippery floating clothing, divine jewels, healing oils, balms, fragrant pure scent powders – a multitude of experiences akin to the Kumbh Mela that could be inhaled, imbibed visually, auditorily or taken with blessings by the biodegradable cupful.
The LOVE was palpable. Musicians sang mantras of every hue – Om Namah Shivaya was heard in every molecule of space surrounding the centre of the Los Angeles creative canyon – in every octave, nuance and trill. “Guru Dave” was a popular superhero of every performer. It was great fun to hear how all these ancient mantras from far flung traditions are now the ROCKING beat of this tribe. Endless waves of Om Mani Padme Hum, Om Tare tu Tare, Shee Bhagavate Namah, Parabramah, Hare Om Tat Sat, issued forth from heaving bosoms, sweaty chests, sweet throats and bejeweled time travels weaving a spell under the sliver of moon, accompanied by a brief show of the Love planet Venus and the star, Regulus. Drums of every kind accompanied the various musicians, along with exotic murdungas, flutes, bass, guitar, and the ever present harmonium.
A crown jewel was Jai Uttal on Saturday night who raised the vibration and the audience to their feet for hours of floating rythyms that levitated us into the next Loka. Stories of Hanuman the all serving and strong monkey god appealed to the children and the childlike. The finishing touch was Sweetness Incarnate Snatam Kaur on Sunday who healed all the levels of creation, from the starlight swirls of the farthest reaches of the Universe to the thumb-sized being in the sesame-seed blue pearl in the cave of the heart.
My sketches from the green
In my own little Universe, I experienced a levitating Holy Spirit Presence under the healing hands of one of the master massage therapists, Jannell. Laying there after 2 hours of Pranayama and Kundalini yoga sessions, I was literally flown away by a Divine Blissful Presence that lifted me out of my body into the Spirit Realm, with a healing balm of non verbal etherial Spaciousness. Trust. Faith. Know the Next Step is guided by forces greater than those we in our feeble imaginations can only barely fathom.
In rapt attention as Snatam Kaur weaves her mystical magic
Sweetness Incarnate Snatam Kaur mezmerizing the faithful
Daniel Paul and Gina Sala’ showing how to stretch as vocal warmup
Dancing child
Topanga clouds
Topanga clouds
Sign of ABUNDANCE
Topanga clouds
Topanga clouds
What’s next? This full moon weekend will unfold with many celebrations – some free or by donation, Here’s just a sampling of some of my favorites among myriad activities in the LA area.
7/19 – Friday, 8:30 p.m. Daniel Stewart and Friends Post Mokshafest Kirtans at Rising Lotus, 13557 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks, CA – (Donation $10-20)
7/20 -Saturday & 7/21 Sunday – Frank Lloyd Wright Organic Resource Center – Mary Wright Art on the Land Workshop and Art Show. Saturday 1-5 pm Watercolour Workshop $25 – Register at www.elwright.net/wrightway. Sunday 1-5 pm Free Art Show
7/20 -Saturday 7:30 p.m. Gurupurnima celebrations at Gurumayi Chidvilananda’s Siddha Yoga LA Meditation Center, 1845 So. Bundy Dr., LA 90025 (Free). (Also 7/22 Monday 7:30 chant )
7/21 Sunday 5:00 p.m.Diana Lang’s LifeWorks Yoga Free FULL MOON MEDITATION TELECONFERENCE.
Email lifeworks@aol.com for confirmation and location information and/or telephone call-in details will be emailed to you.
Cousins Drake and Patrick sharing an electronic game device. Taken at Thanksgiving in Newark, Calif.
Here I go … embarking on a new adventure to learn the theory, tools and strategies of the latest communication frontier – Social Media. And its high time. As a writer, professional communicator, strategist, visual and performing artist and consummate storyteller, it behooves me to gain expertise in how to traverse the ever changing landscape of this brave new digital, mobile, cyber space/time continuum.
So in my search for new and rewarding enterprise to pay my way in the climes of Greater Los Angeles (where the temperature is a smooth 52 degrees and sunny on this January day in 2013) I am embarking on an intensive training in Social Media with maven, Deltina Hay, in a graduate course offered online at Drury University. This series of blog posts are part of that endeavor — to fulfill the assignments to receive an official “Social Media Certification.” So even taking the course is an experience in new education that is virtual, online, over cyberspace – a first for me, a veteran of communication.
In my adventure, I’m striving to place myself and my kin into context. I’m now a student, or in Jungian Tarot, a Page in service of the greater good of human kind. I came across this description that seems to fit — coined in thought leader Marc Prensky’s 2001 article Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants article, “Our students today are all “native speakers” of the digital language of computers, video games and the Internet. So what does that make the rest of us? … Digital Immigrants.”
These Digital Natives teethed on personal computers and electronic games growing nimble fingers and facile minds. Their reality now challenges all of us to embark upon a hero’s journey and imbibe their new world – to learn their customs, tools and linguistic anomalies – track pads, magic mice, laptops, Androids, iPads and more – as we Digital Immigrants roll out our wagons across the plains and build foundational tracks to learn how to inhabit this sometimes rugged and ever changing terrain.
We go to the ‘genius bar’ now, rather than the local pub to hear the latest. At that cyber gathering place in this brave new world, we meet masters of body graffiti sporting hot pink Mohawks, nose rings, tattoos, piercings of the lips, cheeks, tongue and eyebrow who are also the originators of streaming music technology bringing the fringes into the mainstream with mystical names of Pandora and Rhapsody, along with new ways to communicate with Blogs, Tweets, Widgets, Hash Tags, Posts, Key Terms, TwitBacks, iThis, iThat, Me This, Me That.
Not that it’s only the young who have come up with these advancements – but it is the young at heart who’ve created the unimaginable. This ingenious inventiveness has turned and twisted a communication community into a funhouse of new and up to the minute, real time expressions of “Where are you right now, this very instant? What are you thinking about, and why should I care? Where have you eaten, what have you seen? Bought? Tasted? Touched? And should I follow you on your journey?”
We have the means to text, get others choices on Yelp to help find the best arugala, yoga class, facial, organic food, mechanic, hiking trail – you name it. We have tools to get messages out there, and turn the marketing world up side down with real time authentic opinions of what people actually care about, not what advertisers push us to buy, or eat or consume. We can tell each other what we think, in droves, and influence how we are marketed to. We can leave the beaten path, and take our friends, families and followers right along with us, to the out of the way cafe, the obscure documentary, and the off beat music discoveries we find buried in the treasure troves of cyber space.
“The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of “hits” (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.”
My future lies in finding ways to harness this momentum in the service of industry and communication. More to come in this series, as I learn to add widgets, videos and various and sundry bells and whistles to my repertoire. See you in the next post from Louisianadreamer!
"Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.."- Antoine de Saint Exupéry
Louisiana Dreamer ~ Embodiment of Courageous Wild Creative Freedom 