DisclosureFest and Mass Meditation Initiative: A mindful yoga, music, healing arts and vegan festival

So-Cal yogis: Save the Date and get your Early Bird tickets by Friday, May 17! Disclosure Festival and Mass Meditation Initiative takes place 45 minutes north of LA, at Castaic Lake on Summer Solstice Weekend – Friday, June 21 – Sunday, June 23, 2024. This year, LA Yoga camps on site and will report back to you our favorite experiences. We are beyond excited to check out the cacao ceremonies, drum circles, interactive tea house and three packed music stages as well as incredible yoga classes including acro yoga, kundalini, hatha and Naam.

Celebrate Summer Solstice 2024 with a community dedicated towards heart expansion, conscious movement, yoga, uplifting music, inspiring speakers and mind/body/spirit workshops.

MOST exciting and endearing to our hearts, however, is the Mass Meditation Initiative which takes place at 2:22 PM Friday, June 21 and Saturday June 22. This year invites us to focus our attention during the Mass Meditation on the healing power of water as a collective vessel to shift and raise our individual vibration and the vibration of the planet. Previous large group gatherings that focus on mass meditation enacted lasting scientific and measurable changes on both the micro level — such as reducing crime rates in a city, and on the macro-level — such as reducing war deaths across the world. The synergistic effect of gathering with conscious intent in a community that believes that peace and healing is possible is beyond exciting and we can’t wait to be a part of this incredibly special community.

Musicians and Workshops

Musicians this year include Rising Appalachia, Deya Dova, Porangui, Mike Love, Shaman’s Dream, and Sonic Devas. Marques Wyatt, DJ Dan, Doc Martin, and more. Read more about the music lineup and individual musicians.

Eight workshop tents offer transformative sessions with speakers including Bashar, Billy Carson, 19Keys, Jimmy Church, Julia Cannon, Brad Olsen, Zat Baraka, Laura Eisenhower, Michael Tellinger, and more. Read more about workshops and workshop leaders.

Family Friendly Yoga Festival on the Solstice Weekend

Mass Meditation Initiative is a family-friendly event and offers a dedicated children’s space with yoga, meditation, tribal body painting, singing with movement, sacred geometry drawing, vegan plant-based superfoods, and more.

Join US and let’s meet up at Disclosure Fest! See you there!
Early bird tickets available through May 17th!

Aria Morgan

Aria Morgan is a yoga teacher, doula and music lover who finds inspiration in nature: ariamorgan.com.

www.ariamorgan.com

The post DisclosureFest and Mass Meditation Initiative appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Deep Dive Offers Meditations for the Flow of Life with Shiva Rea and Rara Avis

Created by Shiva Rea, world-renowned yoga/movement facilitator and creator of Prana Vinyasa Flow and Rara Avis, CEO/Co-Founder of YogiTunes, Deep Dive is a multi-faceted experiential movement mediation offered in the spirit of Sahaja, the natural, spontaneous flow of life force that exists within us all. Rather than asking us to create, to perform or to “do” something with our breath, Deep Dive invites us to take a step back and for the breath, itself, to breathe us. In doing so, we are invited into a Sahajic state of bliss, one which arrives from within, through a re-awakening of the spontaneous rhythm and flow of breath.

Deep Dive offers two formats of experience. One incudes five separate shorter journeys, each with its distinct elemental pattern, as well as a holistic, unified experience of 30 minutes of breath-centered, gentle movement instrumental meditation, akin to the typical length of a Yoga Nidra session.

LA Yoga Magazine caught up with Shiva Rea while she was on an airplane, heading to Diwali for the Festival of Lights. We laughed and shared a lovely interview while Shiva was strapped into her airline seat. In many ways, the context of the interview itself parallels Shiva’s ability and willingness to dive into the flow of each moment. No moment is “perfect” if viewed through an external lens, and yet, every moment is perfect when we exist within the present, one breath at a time.

Deep Dive – the Collaboration

Rara Avis and Shiva Rea have collaborated for nearly twenty years, offering yoga-movement-meditation experiences. Their partnership began back in the early 2000s, when Shiva taught at Sacred Movement in Venice Beach.

Shiva was one of the first yoga teachers to offer a fusion of yoga and dance movement meditation. Her classes were often filled with live accompaniment – drums, sitar, vocals and DJs. The music served as a gentle pulse during the yoga portion of class, and expanded into more encompassing rhythms during the free-flowing, tribal dance portion of class. The experiences were brand new for us at the time, a fusion of the Sahajic state that yoga brings along with the ecstatic state of dance, resulting in a blissful movement meditation. Rara was a frequent collaborator in these organic rhythmic offerings.

By the time it came to collaborating on Deep Dive, “We had a very natural foundation,” remarks Shiva. “Rara had just taken our teacher training in Costa Rica, and though we’d prefer to be in the same space, he’s in Canada, and when I did the voice over, I was in the English countryside while in quarantine last summer, surrounded by sheep.”

“Rara’s music is a testament to the power and the epic experience of the breath as a journey. Rara’s rhythms give people an opportunity to move with the breath, wherever they are, which is a powerful Sadahana.”

Deep Dive as an offering reminds us that “ breath is the the first mantra. Our heartbeat,” explains Shiva. Our pathway to feel what we are living lies in each breath.

Rara Avis adds to the conversation, “A conscious, connected breath practice is perhaps one of the most understated, powerful tools we have at our disposal. It links our autonomic nervous system to our conscious waking minds and helps us tap into the limitless potential we have as human beings to build resilience, strength, compassion and awareness.”

Deep Dive – the Experience

begins with an invitation to enter that sacred space of Self. Shiva’s voice prompts us to root into the earth, to feel that wave of the breath in us, to allow our pelvis to rock back and forth. She prompts us to look into the field of our body and release tension by exhaling from the crown of our head, descending out of our body like a sacred waterfall.

Deep Dive offers a primal experience of movement meditation. It is incredibly basic in its beauty and simplicity, inviting us to experience nature as within us all, a realization often glossed over in our quick-paced, hyper-focused life. The act of unwinding oneself in this first meditative offering aligns us with a fluid, watery presence within. Shiva’s voice is soft and nurturing. Rara’s accompaniment is in perfect sync and harmony. The collaboration itself is one of unity and deeply-held connectedness.

In the introduction, Shiva’s voice prompts us to use our arms, if we so desire, and sweep them overhead, gathering energy in a natural way, to open our inner ear and listen, and to connect with our heart in gratitude and refuge.

The first guided breath cycle is a Solar cycle, one in which we inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth with the solar mantra of the sun: “HA.” This cycle is good for cleansing and releasing.

The second guided breath cycle is a Lunar breath, a softer inhaling, drawing in golden light and pausing on the exhale, diving it into three parts. This cycle dramatically calms and eases the nervous system, inviting a spaciousness within.

The third guided cycle is akin to the practice of Nadhi Shodhana, an invitation into a unified Solar-Lunar breath. Shiva invites us to breathe into the right side of our body (with or without the use of physical, hands-on breath retention) and complete one half of this breath cycle by exhaling out of the left side of our body: in doing so, we offer the sun to the moon. The breath pattern balances itself as we breathe into the left side of our body and exhale out the right side of our body, offering the moon back to the sun.

Shiva’s voice completes the experience by reminding us that we have 21,600 breaths a day every day. Can we experience a sense of awareness in just 100 of those breaths, perhaps? Can we remember our sense of purpose in just a fraction of our daily breath cycle? We are invited to remain in this space of ease for as long as we wish.

Shiva Rea Shares Meditations on Deep Dive

Deep Dive as an Energetic Offering of Sahaja

When asked to comment on the energetic tone of the piece, Shiva explains, “Every breath we take travels through our bloodstream into every cell of our body. It touches all of us, like a droplet of water in an immersive sea.”

Most breathwork is integrated into asana, remarks Shiva, “and doesn’t give people permission to feel that sea of breath.” Whereas most yogic breath forms are rooted in classic rules, which may appear to feel rigid and constrictive to some, the state of Sahaja is the opposite: a space of flow, diving into the natural movements of life, a rising and pulsing of energy. Sahaja is anything but rigid or controlled.

Whether Deep Dive is experienced as separate practices or as one complete offering, it accomplishes this invitation to awaken into Sahaja, and in our post-pandemic world, this invitation is truly one of sacred medicine. Deep Dive offers invites us to reunite with our inner Truth through a journey into the depths of the unknown, the sublime and the sacred within us all.

When asked about how Deep Dive is a healing practice, one to soften the edges of the rigidness and deeply held fear state that many were forced into during the last few years, Shiva acknowledges that Fear is useful in a primal sense. But too much of it leads to contraction. It restricts our movement. “Sometimes, we feel ashamed when we begin a pranayama practice. It’s so hard to breathe! we might think. That’s the exit of cortisol, or fear in our nervous system. We are overstimulated,”

Shiva continues,”If we lovingly ask the breath to help us and to take refuge in it, even just for a short while, we experience each breath as life. And if we just love our breath, invite the breath to meet us, to love us, to move us, and to inspire us, we can transform the mental and emotional stress we are in.”

This invitation to experience each breath as innate intelligence, unfolding slowly and without judgment, draws us deeper into ourselves. Breath by breath, wave by wave: through this process, we release the rigidity of fear embodied within.

Rara Avis shares meditation music on Deep Dive

Bhavana and Sahaja

As with many artistic offerings rooted in the spirit of Divine Expansion, words don’t do Deep Dive justice because Bhavana– the meditative experience itself– is necessary to cultivate the feeling of Sahaja, expansion or bliss.

Deep Dive draws us in with its rawness, an indescribable truth and honesty, deeply felt on a visceral level, and within the very essence of our being. On one hand, Deep Dive is an invitation to trust the Breath as the source of intelligence, to allow the breath to breathe us as opposed to feeling that we have to control and create a specific breath pattern to achieve a prescribed result. On the other hand, Deep Dive is an invitation to expand into the unknown, a space of creation and possibility that unites us all in Love.

Listen to Deep Dive

Deep Dive is released on Six Degrees Records and currently available on streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music.

Aria Morgan

Aria Morgan is a yoga teacher, doula and music lover who finds inspiration in nature: ariamorgan.com.

www.ariamorgan.com

The post Deep Dive: A Meditation Album with Shiva Rea and Rara Avis appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Family-Friendly Zen Fest West

Zen Fest West debuted in April 2021 on several hundred acres of private land located at Harrison Serenity Ranch on Palomar Mountain in the Cleveland National Forest of San Diego. Zen Awakening Festival is a small intimate festival experience which began in Florida in 2014, expanded to California in 2021, and will soon be debuting in Japan.

In stark contrast from many music festivals, Zen Fest is rooted in a no-alcohol, no-drugs policy. This is a wonderful respite for this single mama attending with her almost-teen daughter. Zen Fest was our fourth festival experience. In previous years we’ve attended Lightning In A Bottle (LIB), and although LIB created as safe a space as possible for families, there were always areas from whom I had to steer my daughter away from, or folks whose behavior I had to “explain.” At Zen Fest, nothing of this sort happened.

We were delightfully surprised by the community and made a bunch of new friends. In our downtime, we explored the surrounding area. Doing so, we learned a bit of the history of the sacred Pauma land and of Nate Harrison, a former African-American slave born into slavery in the 1830s who began homesteading on Palomar Mountain in 1893 and lived until almost 100 years old!

Origins of Zen Fest West

The origins of Zen Fest arise from a vision Everett Chin received in meditation after returning home from traveling the world.

Everett is a former high-end corporate event planner. His resume includes more than 25 years in the entertainment industry as well as becoming a member of the Rosicrucian Order. Everett describes Zen Fest as an experience of positive triggers that awakens our inner intuition and guidance. “This positive trigger process helps guide people through their personal Zen Awakening, and onto their true path in this incarnation. When the vision came, says Everett, “I was ready to play my part in helping this planet shift to a higher state of consciousness.” Everett describes his life mission as to “help the species evolve into something that we’re meant to be: spiritual, awakened beings that are here to make a beautiful world, instead of destroying it.”

Zen Fest distinguishes itself in that it’s rooted in facilitating a spiritual awakening through the visceral experience of a transformational festival. As a long-time festival-goer, Everett had a clear sense of which elements he wanted to craft and which to eschew. The path was not easy. “I’ve definitely had a lot of ups and downs in the last eight years. It’s been a challenge, and sometimes I question why I’m doing it. If I weren’t guided to it, I wouldn’t be doing this.”

And yet, so often, we hear people say, ‘Oh, I just had a sudden awakening. I just had my awakening! You hear that a lot,” he smiles. “And that makes it all worth it.”

Zen Fest Arrival & Centering

After a short drive of about 3,500 feet up Palomar Mountain to Harrison Serenity Ranch, my daughter and I were greeted by the cheerful Zen Fest Welcome Team. We immediately felt the energy of this quiet, serene, camping-like environment Zen Fest provided, vastly different from experiences I’ve had with dense lighting, massive installations, and constant booming bass.

In contrast, Zen Fest at night is relatively dark. In fact, there was very little lighting at all. The spaces felt like an intimate camping experience with several hundred people spaced out in beautifully crafted areas of interaction. The effect is deliberate, explains Everett, “At night, we don’t do a lot of lighting because we want people to look up at the stars. And the music shuts off at 12 or 12:30am, to give people time to integrate, to just be, to have a connection with nature and themselves.”

Exploring Camp

Our first night at Zen Fest felt like entering a mystical magical foggy paradise. Almost everything was covered in a haze of moisture. We explored Central Camp, which offered places to sit and eat, art, craft, as well as clothing vendors and food. The main food vendor that weekend was the amazing Larry Molina, of Totality Kitchen, whose creative, heartfelt, nourishing vegetarian cuisine warmed our bodies and souls.

Zen Fest featured a single music stage, set in a natural amphitheater which allowed for plenty of space to move freely and not feel constricted. The pathway to the Amphiteatre wandered through several mindfully cultivated spaces. One of our favorites was the recently constructed Labyrinth!

As my daughter and I walked back to our camp that first night, a car slowly inched into camp. It was just after midnight, and no one was manning the entrance. I walked up and offered to text message the driver my festival map, so she could find her camp. We started talking and I learned that her name was Stara Being, and she had driven all the way from Oregon to attend the festival.

A gorgeous costume hung on the passenger seat beside her. It was her Empress Stara character. A “being from a different dimension that travels the world doing dance prayers to assist in the consciousness shift happening in humanity.” Empress Stara debuted in David Starfire’s musical set on Saturday night with a sweet, mystical dance whose beauty reflected the energy that Stara spoke of, a brightness of spirit that saturated our weekend.

Ashtanga Yoga at Zen Fest

By next morning, the fog had lifted and gorgeous views of the valley greeted us. I decided to greet the morning with Ashtanga Yoga, which was taking place on a beautiful outdoor deck tucked in a grove of Oak trees just past the Pyramid and the Aerial dome.

Jason Barniske, a lifetime Ashtangi who studied exclusively under Tim Miller, led the morning class. Jason carries a warm, confident and encouraging energy. He describes yoga as a life-saving practice, “Something that continues to save me from myself, helps me evaluate all the decisions I make and be a better person, every single day.”

“Teaching in the clouds was a glorious experience,” continued Jason. “You could understand why the Paumu people were called the Cloud People, because all you could see just were these islands, which were mountain peaks, surrounded by clouds.”
In addition to Ashtanga, Jason is a Hape´ practitioner and offered several different Hape’ ceremonies that weekend to approximately 200 folks. Jason describes Hape’ as a powdered tobacco mixture with Palo Santo and some other herbs. It’s a medicine that “helps you clear out and open your energy, activate your pineal gland, and really tune into yourself and release. It also helps emotional release.” Hape’ is often combined with a breathing practice “which helps activate the medicine more and release what’s already inside of us.”

Conscious Kids Camp

Natural Tie-Dye

Our next adventure led us to the Conscious Kids Camp, for a tie-dye workshop led by Chandra Mukhi Devi Dasi, a lovely 10-year-old-girl and her parents. Chandra’s mom, Vrsabhanu Nandini Devi Dasi, or Bhanu, for short, helped co-lead the workshop, which featured natural tie-dying by using the water of a boiled red cabbage, lemon juice, and baking soda.

My daughter had an amazing time tie-dying, and right away, made a friend for the weekend. I was so impressed with the beautiful creations the kids came up with, I asked Bhanu to share her the recipe:

Recipe – Cabbage Water Tie Dye

One head of red cabbage, chopped and boiled until water is deep purple and cabbage turns mostly pale, about an hour.
Split into three containers.
While cabbage is boiling, prime clothing with half water and half white vinegar in advance by placing in a bowl for about an hour.
Wring out the clothing and lay flat.

Now you’re ready to tie-dye!
Add lemon juice to change the color to pink (acidic).
Add baking soda to turn the color to blue (basic.)

Sacred Henna Workshop: Crowns of Courage

My daughter later joined another workshop, a Sacred Henna Tattoo experience led by Amanda Joy Gilbert, the founder of Henna Crowns of Courage, a non-profit which offers Henna as Art Therapy for people undergoing cancer. The Zen Fest version of this workshop incorporated connecting one-on-one, sharing life dreams and visions, and henna tattooing as a form of visually and energetically manifesting those visions into reality. As Amanda led the workshop, I could see the light and joy in each participant’s eyes. I asked her to share a bit more about her path and journey.

“I used to deal with a lot of panic attacks and anxiety. When I started doing this art form, I became aware. I started connecting to my subconscious thoughts and realized how rude I was being to myself. I realized that I needed to tap in. So I breathed again. I started to love myself and decided, do I want to keep going down that route? Or do I want to shift my mindset from fear to love?”

The path of self-awareness is one that many disregard as unsustainable and filled with fear of an uncertain future. Amanda described her fear of leaving her regular 9-5 job (one that she didn’t like), and of making money as a henna tattoo artist. All that fear was simply fear, she smiled, “I’m making more money than I ever made at my job. I’m able to travel the world and share what I love with people. And I’m happy!”

Manifesting Miso…and Friendship

Saturday late afternoon, and the sun shone magically upon us. All of a sudden, I knew I needed a little cat-nap and decided to lay down in the grass. As rays of warmth bathed my body, I mused, “Ya know what, honey? I’d really love some miso soup right now.”??“But mom, there’s no miso soup. Larry has curry today, not miso.”??“I know,” I answered with a dreamy smile, “but I bet we can manifest some miso.”
My daughter practically rolled her eyes.

“Come on, honey,” I said, and urged her to lie down next to me.

“This works all the time at Burning Man. Why not, here, as well? Let’s think about what miso soup tastes like… mmmm… salty… warm… little bits of tofu and seaweed…can you taste it?” I asked her.

She nodded.

“Let’s close our eyes and really taste it.” We did, and after a few moments, sat back up.

Not even 15 minutes later, a friendly face pops up behind us and sits down. She commented on how “sweet’ we looked together, mother and daughter. My daughter started telling her a bit about us, and mentioned how I really wanted some miso soup. This woman’s eyes LIT up. “I have miso soup! Back at my camp! In fact, I brought some and didn’t really know why I brought some. I’m not a huge fan of miso, but I figured, why not?”
She laughed. “I must have brought it for you!”
Kaia turned to me and relayed the whole conversation. “Mom! We manifested some miso!!!”

Our new friend headed back to her camp and returned shortly thereafter with a packet of, no joke, organic miso soup powder. In return, I offered her a few squares of our favorite Vegan Paleo chocolate bar. Her eyes lit up in return as she told my daughter, “Oh my gosh, this is my favorite chocolate in the world! It’s the only one I eat.”
Viola! Manifestation complete!

Our weekend included so many of these magical moments…almost too many to count. We kept running into the same beautiful souls, like Joshua Lozada, who graced Center Camp with his singing talent and fire spinning. And Tree…yup, that’s right – Tree, who says that he gave himself that nickname “because I’m 7’3” and because I try to stay very grounded and in the moment.” Tree has attended every single Zen Awakening Fest in Florida, and flew all the way to San Diego to attend the CA Zen Fest debut. I later asked Tree to pose in the grove of trees. Notice the sunbeams, bathing his body in light!

But the most amazing soul I met, without a doubt, was Chief Blackfox of the Lakota Tribe: Wisdom Keeper, speaker and spiritual leader at Zen Fest, and great great grandson of Chief Crazy Horse, the famous war leader who took up arms against the United States Federal Government to fight against encroachment by the white American settlers.

The first time I interacted with Chief Blackfox happened while laying down for a little nap in the sunshine in the amphitheater, just before my daughter and I manifested our magical miso soup!

My daughter was making rainbow loom bracelets to trade/offer by donation, and I needed a few minutes of rest. I had just laid down next to her on the grass when a kind soul offered up his blanket for me to lay down. I graciously accepted. Part of me wondered if this was Chief Blackfox, but since we were both in the moment of relaxing in nature, I let the moment just be.

I had the honor and pleasure to sit with Chief Blackfox in a drum circle the following afternoon. In between drumming, gazing at nature and sharing, he spoke of Life, the World and Consciousness. The warmth and wisdom in his eyes couples with a strength of spirit that I don’t see in many humans.

Chief Blackfox

I asked Chief Blackfox, “How did you become a part of Zen Fest?”

“Everett asked me to speak at one of his events. He’d heard about me and how I turn people’s lives around and help them. I’ve been with him ever since.”

“Ever since then I’ve been talking about the water, the earth, the air, how to protect Mother Earth, how to live with Mother Earth, how to be connected with the animals, how to learn to speak to them again. The animals were our teachers, and when our identity got taken away by the government, we lost our ability to connect to the earth again.”??“Some of us, like myself, didn’t go to school. I only have an eighth grade education, but I have more education than most people because I have the encyclopedia of the Universe, which is the heaven, the earth and the connection between it all. I am able to connect to the rocks, the trees and the animals because we all have the same DNA. I teach people how to be connected to and how to live in harmony, because right now, we need it.”

What would you say to someone who wishes to start on this path?

“It’s better to listen than to ask questions, because if you listen, those questions that you’ve been asking for might come with listening. If you just sit there, you will understand, you will hear the answer.”??He paused for a long time…

“But a lot of people don’t want to listen. They just want to ask questions.”

“The Lakota people believe that we come from the Lightning and Thunder people,” continued Chief Blackfox. ??“God first made the Heaven, and then he created all the animals and all the creatures. Then he made the man and woman.”

“He began by starting a tree on fire. It was alongside this hill, like this mountain here. And then the mud starts rolling down, and that tree rolled with it. And then the ashes and the wood came together. So God used this lightning to put that energy into a body, which made the man and woman.”

“A lot of people are confused about the Creator and Mother Earth because they confuse between the male and the female aspects. But your whole body – half of it (he points to the Right side) is the male. And this side (he points to the Left side) is the female. You’re gifted with both of that.”

“Early men and women only made groaning noises, and ate nothing but fruit. Pretty soon they started eating vegetables. After that, they began to eat meat. Soon after, the animals connected to the humans, and showed them how to be human beings by giving them the language, and that’s where we came from.

So in your beliefs, the animals gave humans language?

“Yeah, that’s how we used to talk to them. We used to understand them. But the government took away that identity from us. And we’re just learning how to speak to them again.”

Chief Blackfox’s words hung deep in my heart…

It was true: only by learning how to speak to the animals, how to listen to the wind, the trees, and the clouds, how to communicate with all of this Creation, could we rebuild our true place as caretakers and co-inhabitants of this beautiful Earth, and as sovereign beings, independent of the influences of materialism and greed.
The path to sovereignty begins with knowing oneself, knowing one’s connection to Nature, Source and Consciousness and recognizing one’s identity and history so that we are able to know ourselves and feel confident in our inner voice and intuition.

Sovereignty is a power that arises from within, and yet is often activated via contact with others, or from without.

We exist on this planet not as digital blow dryers, spouting ideas into the void, but as sentient beings who require connection, contact, joy and experience in order to grow, and to be stimulated into the fullest expression of ourselves. The last 14 months have been extraordinarily challenging for most folks: distanced, hidden, and alone.

This is not our true nature. We need each other.

The power of the human spirit is fed in community, in contact with others, and as life begins to open back up again, in small, incremental amounts, we are gifted with the opportunity to seek out this communion, based on a core understanding that this life involves interacting with others as much as it involves living in one’s own mind.

Yogis and mystics enjoy diving deep into philosophical questions, like, “Why did my soul come here? What is my Divine Life purpose or mission?”

Yet we so often ignore the simple answers that nature and human connection gift us. The ancient texts remind us that our state of attachment is strong because we are in denial of our basic selves, our wholeness, our connection to the All. We live in suffering because we live in Maya, or illusion, and only when we realize that we are all from the same source, everything else, all of our worries, anxieties and even fears, simply fall apart.

As Chief Blackfox speaks of listening, of connecting, of being one with Nature again, I realize that this is his people’s gift to us, the Wisdom Traditions of long ago that must be honored and remembered once again.

Returning Home

Driving off the mountain that Sunday provided a continued space for reflection, laughter and joy. Even amidst the flow of freeway traffic, people and cellphones, both my daughter and I felt energized, warm and at peace.

Being around others of like mind is so healing to the spirit. I encourage us all to remember and to seek out community, joy and conscious gatherings, especially ones in nature and that honor the essence of Life within us All.

Thank you, Zen Awakening Festival.

WC:3211

Aria Morgan

Aria Morgan is a yoga teacher, doula and music lover who finds inspiration in nature: ariamorgan.com.

www.ariamorgan.com

The post Awakening In the Forest: Zen Fest West 2021 appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

After Years of Mantra, Jai Uttal Releases Instrumental Album

Jai Uttal‘s powerful album, Gauri’s Lullaby: Music for Healing and Other Joys is born from the heart and infused with love and devotion. This is an amazing gift to the world: Jai Uttal releases instrumental album.

The collection heralds the mystical rhythm of uncertainty in a series of instrumental guitar solos nearly an hour and a half long. Inspired by Jai’s many years of study with Ustad Ali Akbar Khan, these four meditative tracks were initially not meant for public consumption. Jai Uttal created them as a gift to Nubia, his wife and the love of his life. Nubia used them for her own personal relaxation as well as during her yoga classes. Students often asked, “What is that music?” And “Where can we get it?” Nubia would smile and say that the songs were just for her.

The World Needs these Healing Sounds

Much to the delight of her students and those of us who are readers of LAYOGA, Nubia recently decided, “It’s time to share Gauri’s Lullaby. The world needs these healing sounds.”

Gauri’s Lullaby is gift to the spirit, especially during these tense, awkward, and socially distant times. Each instrumental vibrates calmness and purity of spirit. Each flows seamlessly into the next. The first instrumental in the series, “Golden Gauri,” embraces the metaphysical space of all possibility, teaming in the winds of chance. “Gauri’s Longing” occupies a slightly melancholic tone, meandering into the realm of what might be, what could be. “Gauri’s Dream” is lighter, speckled with inspiration and hope. “Shyama Gauri” completes our journey with a grounding, ethereal composition that defies description.

Pure joy. This album is an absolute delight. Calming, beautiful and meditative. Warning: If you’re tired, don’t listen to this while driving or operating heavy machinery. I’m not kidding. It’s so relaxing and it might calm your nervous system so much that you find yourself needing to take a nap.

Listen to Jai Uttal’s Instrumental Release Gauri’s Lullaby

Gauri’s Lullaby is available on all music platforms.

Aria Morgan

Aria Morgan is a yoga teacher, doula and music lover who finds inspiration in nature: ariamorgan.com.

www.ariamorgan.com

The post Jai Uttal Releases Instrumental Album Gauri’s Lullaby appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Mountain of Memory is An Exquisite Complement to Your Next Flow

Mountain of Memory is by Douglas Appling, aka Emancipator. Emancipator is an American DJ and Producer based in Portland, Oregon, known for his downtempo, ambient, dub and trip-hop influenced sets.

Emancipator’s first album was released in 2006, while he was still in college. He has released an album every three to four years since then. Often described as the Zen DJ, Emancipator is beloved in the yoga scene as someone whose meditative music transcends boundaries and evokes inner contemplation. Emancipator describes music as “a way to transcend your earthly moments, and kind of elevate your mind to a higher place through music. And whatever spiritual energy I do feel, music is an outlet for that for me.” (VIBE interview, 2013.)

Emancipator’s Mountain of Memory, offers soft lilting melodies, juicy beats, and symphonic conversations that range from deep soothing vibes to funky, syncopated world rhythms. Simultaneously uplifting, mellow, ethereal, and funky, this album offers a perfect complement to your next yoga practice or studio flow class.

On the whole, Mountain of Memory veers towards eclectic downtempo, with a delicious inclusion of acoustic and electronic elements such as softened breaks and bass, Flamenco rhythms, Caribbean percussion, boom bap beats that harken back to late 80s/early 90s East Coast hip hop, and unique musical elements such as the Persian dilruba as well as dubbed opera singers. Throughout, there emerges a steady bubbly, afterhours, café-near-the-sea vibe.

My favorite flow tracks are “Blue Dream” and Himalayan,” reminiscent of an otherworldly magical land of fairies and nymph-like goddesses. Both tracks use wavy, dreamy melodies that float through surreal expansions and contractions of energy which invite our spirits to expand beyond the elements of this concrete world.

“Forged” employs near-rebellious whiffs of violins speckled with elements of funk and soul alongside surreal cascades of avantgarde classical music arrangements and great for asanas in which we need to focus, such as balance postures, which mimic the challenge of maintaining calm in our inner, wandering monkey mind.

Overall, Emancipator’s Mountain of Memory elicits a sense of joy rising to the surface. Of Tapas burned through to reveal the purity within us all, our inner Ananda, or Bliss. The album resembles a journey into our innermost self, of wandering through deep canyons and into peaks of inspiration, a lovely parallel to the pilgrimage of life.

Album Release & Tour with Emancipator

Mountain of Memory was released April 3, 2020 on Loci records. Emancipator will be touring the West Coast in mid-July, stopping in Santa Barbara on July 22, San Diego on July 23 and in Los Angeles on July 25.

Aria Morgan

Aria Morgan is a yoga teacher, doula and music lover who finds inspiration in nature: ariamorgan.com.

www.ariamorgan.com

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The Mystical Prayers: An Interpretation of Psalms 23 by Jai Uttal

Jai Uttal’s newest release is a brilliant, beautiful and mystical interpretation of Psalms 23, aptly titled “Psalm”. Jai Uttal invites us into the heart of the Divine as manifested through the lens of devotion and sacred mantra. “Psalm” is everything you might expect from Jai, a reverent and soulful prayer sung with adoration. Instead of singing in Sanskrit, the traditional language of kirtan, Jai sings in English. In doing so, Jai shifts the traditional yogic paradigm of sacredness and invites us to redefine our assumptions of language, form, and tradition.

For those who grew up in a Judeo-Christian household, Psalms 23 is standard Bible-school memorization. It begins with, “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul…”

Jai’s version pays homage to the original, echoing familiar phrases nuanced with tenderness.

“As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I have no fear. Because I know you’re with me… As I walk through the ruins and the wreckage of life, I have no fear, because I know you’re with me…

The Lord is my Shepherd, my sweet Shepherd. He takes me by the still waters. He restores my soul. Goodness and Mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, because I know I dwell in the house of the Lord now and forever.

The Lord is my Shepherd, my sweet Shepherd. His rod and his staff they comfort me as I cross the ocean of tears.”

Above all, “Psalm” offers mystical prayers devoted to the sacred Spirit that permeates all things. Jai’s rendition of this well-known Judeo-Christian mantra is peaceful and joyful. Perhaps the most powerful gift of “Psalm” is a lens into a life committed to Faith and Trust. Once we immerse ourselves in the Divine, we will thrive even in the presence of doubt and hardship. We have no fear as we walk through the valley of shadow and death. We are safe, comforted, and protected from the ocean of tears.

About Jai Uttal

Jai Uttal is a Grammy-nominated performer who has been sharing sacred mantras for over thirty years.

Join Jai for a Bhakti Weekend in DTLA March 7 & 8 with LaLaLa Jivamukti Yoga Los Angeles.

Jai offers a summer kirtan camp, now in its 18th year. The camp is for anyone who “aspires to lead kirtan, enhance their yoga teaching with chanting, or who simply wishes to immerse themselves in the vast ocean of Bhakti.” The kirtan camp course material is broad, encompassing kirtan, bhakti yoga, mantras, gods and goddesses, Ramayana, saints, vocal training, rhythm, and learning harmonium. Early bird prices are good through April 21st, 2020. For more info, please visit: 18th Annual Summer Kirtan Camp with Jai Uttal 2020.

Aria Morgan

Aria Morgan is a yoga teacher, doula and music lover who finds inspiration in nature: ariamorgan.com.

www.ariamorgan.com

The post Jai Uttal Sings the Mystical Prayers found in Psalms appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Conservationist, Activist, and Filmmaker Rob Stewart on the Need for The Revolution

The late Film Director and Conservationist Rob Stewart was well-spoken, armed with facts and driven with an intoxicating optimism that powerfully draws people in. Naming the conservation movement, “The largest movement that has ever existed.” Stewart emphasizes collaboration and unity of all environmentally-minded organizations.

He was convinced that children are humanity’s biggest hope because they will fight the hardest for their rights.

Education through The Revolution

The mission for education includes distributing the 2014 documentary film Revolution for free. Rob Stewart and his team have created an educator’s online platform at TheRevolutionMovie.com.

This interview was completed after a Los Angeles screening of the film Revolution.

LA YOGA: Tell us more about how children are humanity’s biggest hope.

Stewart:  Creating a revolution is the task of the young generation. We need to change the educational system entirely so kids are taught what’s going on in the world and they can tackle this with everything they’ve got. The more they understand, the more they know, the more rewarding it’s going to be because they are going to get better at changing the world.

The situation’s getting more dire, but the conservation movement is a great filter for amazing people coming into your life by working for good. I’m sure you know that karma. If you start working for good, the Universe aligns behind you. Young people get this right away. They don’t have to deal with the baggage that adults have to deal with, like ‘Really? This is working out so beautifully for me?’

LA YOGA: What do you say to people who feel, “I can’t possibly make a difference. Look at all that pollution in China. Look at all that trash in the sea. What is one more plastic lid or plastic water bottle going to do?

Stewart:  It’s always been individuals who are going to change the world. Seven billion individual actions is a lot of plastic bottles. You’re going to incur karmic debt by doing destructive s*** and knowing it morally, so start pushing your world and your actions in the right direction.

LA YOGA: You emphasize creating a unified eco-activism that approaches conservation differently. How do we unite all the different groups out there?

Stewart: I started an organization called United Conservationists. I figured, it’s the biggest movement that’s ever existed. All we have to do is bring everyone together and we will crush the oil and consumptive industries, but it’s so hard to get these organizations to work together. They’re like children in sand boxes, protecting their own little castles.

I think that the reason the environmental movement has failed is because our ambitions are so small. Tell your kid that by the middle of the century there will be no fish, no rainforests and that people will be fighting over what remains. And yet the government and the adults will celebrate a 10% reduction in emissions.

Any child is going to realize that that this small victory will buy you half a percent more time in a hugely degraded world. It’s like Einstein said, “You can’t solve a problem by using the same thinking that created it.”

By fighting against our problems, we are just stooping to the level that the oil industry and the consumptive industry. We need to be immediately radical. You can’t be the biggest conservation group in the world and go up against a $20 billion company and not be radical. They’re funding our governments. They’re entrenched in everything. Fighting against our problems is the main reason why we’re failing.

What if humanity came together and imagined what the world could look like. What if we designed it to be beautiful for us and all species? That might be exciting enough for kids to go, “Wow, what could happen if we could have bears on our roofs and grow food locally and all the rivers and lakes were teeming with fish and that’s where we got food from.”

What if pollution were illegal and we weren’t negotiating over what quantity of toxic contaminants corporations could put into our food water air and bodies? Doing it right, I think, would be inspiring enough to people to fight for it. Moving towards that goal would immediately make pollution illegal. And we’d unleash the genius of corporation to do what it needed to do to make its product without destroying the world we depend on for survival. We wouldn’t have to get down in the trenches with Exxon or whatever. We would just chart our pathway where we wanted to go.

LA YOGA: Your website says, “Revolution won’t stop until a sustainable human population is reached.”  What does that mean to you? Does that mean we should be having fewer kids? How do we monitor consumption?

Stewart: We need to decide as a species what our population should be, based on what level of living we want to live at. Knowing the technology that we have now and the technology that we’re using, we’re moving towards having too many people on this planet.

If we did things right, we could probably burn fossil fuels and still capture carbon and soil in the atmosphere. I think that we should have fewer kids. Because more than eating meat or driving a car, putting a whole new human in this world consumes a lot. You might be able to say that my kid is going to be a revolutionary and change the world and save everything. That would be amazing, but right now, we’re in a massive predicament. In putting out another person, we take away from someone else’s ability to survive in an

Aria Morgan

Aria Morgan is a yoga teacher, doula and music lover who finds inspiration in nature: ariamorgan.com.

www.ariamorgan.com

The post Rob Stewart on The Revolution Movie appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Some voices ring true with passion, others with the certainty of truth. White Sun is blessed to have both in singer and principal songwriter Gurujas Khalsa. Her angelic voice cascades through softness, devotion, and joy as she serenades us through 23 Kundalini mantras on White Sun III. These mantras resonate over the musical accompaniment of founder/percussionist Harijiwan Khalsa’s pattering, rhythmical drumbeats, and instrumentalist/producer Adam Berry’s heavenly melodies and inspired arrangements.

White Sun III

White Sun’s third album, White Sun III, evokes timelessness and grace in a shifting, chaotic world. Instead of being propelled into that chaos, we are plucked from it and shown that a different lens can exist. A lens which evokes within our spirit a innermost JOY far greater than the physical world which we inhabit. The rough edges are softened. A brightness and calmness emerges. Our awareness shifts from the toggled edges of the constant non-stop energy of our busy-busy world to the infinite possibilities all around us and this present moment.

The Divine Journey of White Sun

White Sun is on a divine roll. Their self-titled debut in 2015 reached #1 on the iTunes World Music chart and landed #10 on Billboard’s New Age chart. White Sun’s second album, White Sun II, won the 2017 Grammy for Best New Age album. Both White Sun II and White Sun III reached #1 on Billboard’s New Age Chart. Their music videos and EP “moved

Aria Morgan

Aria Morgan is a yoga teacher, doula and music lover who finds inspiration in nature: ariamorgan.com.

www.ariamorgan.com

The post Divine Mantras on White Sun III appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Lightning In A Bottle (LIB) unites the worlds of yoga, dance music, self-improvement and social awareness. This fusion of worlds and ideas in one, easy-to-attend location creates a profound experience.

2018 was my third LIB. Each one I’ve attended, I’ve had my daughter with me, starting at age five, then seven, and now nine. Being a single parent at a festival is limiting in many way. For example, I don’t get to see the late night acts, nor do I cram myself up into crowds, especially once night falls. My daughter and I stay on the periphery as we explore.

But in so many ways, LIB provides an infinite canvas of possibility, learning opportunities, inner growth, and absolute fun, even when I’m attending solo with my youngster. It’s truly incredible to walk through a space and never once feel out of place, to feel that my child is safe and welcome wherever we go, and to simultaneously enrich my life through immersion in ritual, learning, and via alternate lenses of life experience.

Lightning in a Bottle–an Overview of the Experience

LIB combines music, yoga, meditation, consciousness, social justice, ritual and learning. Multiple massive stages featuring artists like Sofi Tukker exist alongside Burning Man-esque DJ zones where art and self expression collide. Ample areas for rest, play, food, and fun are found all along the yoga grounds. The space includes not one, but two yoga stages. They are equally beautiful and spread apart from one another. The two stages offer hours of back-to-back yoga practices, from early morning until late night.

The Family Love Village allows kids an absolutely separate place to explore, make art at ArtClave, listen to stories with Dr. Solar and Friends, and even enjoy family yoga.

All along the festival’s walkways are food vendors and a festival-themed artisan marketplace. The festival itself borders a lake bed which was empty for years. In 2017, rains filled it in and for the past two years, revelers are out on the lakebed, floating, swimming and enjoying nature’s beauty. The camping areas skirt the edges of the festival, circling the lake. In addition, RV camping areas as well as boutique glamping options are on offer.

Family Camping

In our three LIB visits, my daughter and I have stayed in Family Camp. I don’t think that regular camping is appropriate for a child. Why not? Well, people party and stay up late in the regular camping areas. For the most part, everyone is very considerate. But ya never know. Festival partying can be a bit much for young ones.

At least in Family Camp, everyone settles down at a reasonable hour. However, and this is an important however, this is not to say that it’s quiet in Family Camp. The bass travels on, folks. So, bring your earplugs or simply exhaust yourself so much that the thud-thud-boom-boom up until 4am doesn’t keep you from sleeping. We generally don’t sleep so well the first night, even with the earplugs. By the second night, nothing keeps us up. It’s a good thing we slept, since there were a number of don’t miss moments every day–including our exploration of awareness and activism with engaging speakers.

The Compass as a Center of Citizen Activism

In the center of LIB is the Compass, a multi-space area whose intent is to bridge the gap between festival culture, ancient arts, mysticism and activist culture and in doing so, foster citizen activists, inspired by causes that ignite their souls.

The Compass is specific to LIB and a concept partnership of Living Village Culture, which believes in galvanizing the activist potential within transformative festivals by partnering with social, environmental and political movements. Living Village Culture was born out of the latent desire of festival-goers to participate in some form of village life, and the need to do something with the energy and potential created through the social communion they experience while at a festival.

With an eye to balancing the five elements, LIB’s The Compass speaks to our contemporary desire to experience village life, and that longing deep within our DNA that calls upon us to unite with others of like mind. The Compass consists of tented areas intermixed with outdoor ritual spaces and indigenous-minded cultural offerings.

Workshops at the Compass

Each area invites festival-goers into an array of experience and workshops. These areas include Memory Palace, with the Grandmother Tree in the center, which offer opportunities to sit with elders and learn. Crossroads offer interactive cultural workshops. Last Supper Club, aka the Nightcap, offers storytelling, performance and fine dining by evening, morphing into fine drinking through early dawn. Healing Arts, Cultural Hub, Earth Arts & Crafts, and The Learning Kitchen offer an array of interpersonal/cultural workshops, self-betterment through nutrition and social-environmental awareness.

The Cauldron became my favorite exploratory space. Energetically held in the middle by a water fountain altar combination, The Cauldron featured several distinct areas with workshops on topics ranging as far wide as psychic protection from the dark forces, indigenous art, an apothecary and a witches’ hut, along with opportunities to witness fire tenders who light sacred fires and keep them burning, as well as water ceremonies which incorporate the central water altar.

Women Protectors of Mother Earth Across the Americas

The Beacon was the largest of the Compass spaces. Tented, it contained an array of astounding speakers and workshops focused on social, political and environmental change. I was so excited about this workshop and to attend it in peace with my nine-year-old. We made a bargain. As much time as I spent at this workshop, I would give her back, having water gun fun at the Woogie Stage. During the workshop, I let her use my camera to take pictures and she had a notebook to draw on. Half the time, she ended up playing with a ladybug that landed on her arm.

I had the honor of listening to Amy Goodman moderate a panel: Women Protectors of Mother Earth Across the Americas. The panel consisted entirely of indigenous women who have risen up to create social change and who are all a part of the Indigenous Environmental Network.

This Network is a collaboration of many groups focused on one similar goal, “To Protect the Sacredness of Earth Mother from contamination and exploitation by Respecting and Adhering to Indigenous Knowledge and Natural Law.” The panel included Leila Salazar Lopez (AmazonWatch), Pennie Opal Plant (GatheringTribes), Erial DeRanger (IndigenousClimateAction), and Violet Cavanaugh of the Northern Chumash Tribal Council and a representative of Indigenous Women Rising.

Be Steadfast when Saving our Planet

The women encouraged us to remain steadfast and focused on saving our planet. “We’re here to defend Mother Earth against the extraction of oil. This is her blood,” said Leila Salazar Lopez. In fact, not only must we get involved, said Violet Cavanaugh, but, “This is a time of prophecy being fulfilled, wherein the feminine rises and it is the women across the world who will save our planet.”

“Transition is what’s going to save our planet, not just driving a Prius or installing solar panels. We don’t have the same definition of wealth. We’re wealthy in knowledge and spirituality,” Eriel DeRanger continued. “We need to challenge white supremacy, capitalism, and colonialism. We’re talking about reharmonization of everything and everyone on this planet.”

And to those who are polluting our planet? Pennie Opal Plant responded, “They need our prayer

[as much as they need our action.] We pray that they are alert…..Our enemies are not people. They are thoughtforms…The Prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor coming back together is happening right now.”

Powerful, potent, beautiful feminine energy is rising everywhere. It’s nurturing our planet in exactly the way that she needs right now. This message struck deep inside my heart, bringing me to tears at the beauty and simplicity of it all. These educational and soul-igniting opportunities are part of the ethos that sets LIB apart.

Comparing LIB and Burning Man

When you compare LIB to the massive, non-structured, and radical Burning Man, which seen by many as the grandmother of transformational festivals, LIB is relatively easy to experience.

LIB is family-friendly and attracts a different festival goer than at Burning Man. Still be conscientious; even though nudity is not permitted at LIB, there is still a lot of skin on display. If you’re easily offended by the sight of partial breast or tushie, this festival may not be for you. Or you may opt to stay strictly within the Family Love Village area.

When it comes to logistics and supplies, water on site at the festival is abundant and free. (Bring your own bottles for easy refill and portability.) In theory, you don’t have to bring anything other than your clothes. You could, if you wanted to, eat out every meal, and sleep in a luxury tent or an RV. LIB’s marketplace vendors may sell handmade crystals next to Doc Martin boots and flashy fairy wings, just in case you forgot your festival outfit at home.

For the Burning Man purists, this is absolute commercialism since Burning Man promotes radical expression and radical self-reliance. It is a part of Burning Man’s culture. Everyone is a participant. There are no spectators. Everyone brings all their of water, food and every possible thing they might need for the week. The only items on sale at Burning Man are coffee and ice. When I first went, in 1999, you couldn’t even buy those.

Aria Morgan and her daughter at LIB

Family-Friendly Considerations

For families looking for the immersive experience who simply cannot commit to the intensity that is Burning Man, LIB is heaven. In addition, LIB offers a profound space for social-political change that is much more accessible than Burning Man. Don’t get me wrong, Burners: Burning Man offers far greater radical, artistic self-expression than anything else on this planet. But LIB is not trying to be Burning Man.

Behind the Scenes Fulfillment at LIB

Everyone I spoke to at LIB, from the volunteers at the Woogie stage to world-renowned yoga teachers and DJs, all agreed that their work at LIB feeds and nurtures them. It’s far more than simply a job, a gig, or a campout party. Everyone alluded to the same thing. In fulfilling whatever within them that needs to be expressed, they fill themselves with the expansiveness of being in alignment with their inner self. It’s this expansiveness and inner light that gives them the energy to keep going and keep offering more and more of themselves to others.

When I asked people about their experience. I received different versions of same response. “It’s part of who I am,” said yoga teacher Cristi Christensen. “I can’t not do what I do. I resisted teaching for years. And then it go to the point where it was selfish not to share my life because yoga was changing me in so many ways. I want to wake people up and shake people up to the power that’s inside of them so they can celebrate this gift of life they’ve been given.”

DJ Joshua Heath, aka ‘Lonely Boy’ said, “It allows me to be the best version of myself. When I’m performing, the energy exchange is really what does it for me. Afterwards, hearing people’s stories of how something I did affected them in this really positive way — that is the fuel.”

This energy of sharing who we are is like a massive ball of positive self-expression that transmits itself to everyone.

What’s the Why

Dede Flemming, CFO of the DoLab and co-creator of LIB, says that it’s the smile on people’s faces that still does it for him. “I’m fed by what I do because of the stories that we hear from people–whether they’re an attendee or they’re working–about how their lives have changed. They are different people because of this festival. A local vineyard manager in his 70s wrote to me that he had a life-changing experience in a few hours because of the people and the energy of this event. And that is what keeps me going.”

Nasty Neil, who is the Woogie stage assistant manager and provider of Woogie Water Gun fun, said that it is the A-ha moment in people’s eyes that nurtures him. “When it’s all said and done, whenever anyone comes up to you and says, ‘Thank you for that magical experience,’ that’s why I personally attend these things and am a part of it.”

Marques Wyatt, creator of DEEP and co-creator of Deep Exhale with Cristi Christensen, remarked that LIB was his “absolute favorite festival. I remember them as being one of the first to incorporate health and wellness as part of the festival while all the other stuff was going on. I can’t tell you how many people hear me at LIB and find me at DEEP after that.”

People are exposed to somethings that they may normally not ever have noticed. Says Marques, “People that go to LIB to dance, they might know me from the clubs and they think, ‘Hey, I wonder what Marques is doing with this yoga thing,’ and they show up. I can see it in their faces. They’re blown away. They’ve had an experience. LIB makes it easy for people to try it out. To take their first yoga class, to hear their first talk. And vice versa – for a yogi to go – hey, lemme check out some of this dancing.”

Shiva Rea taught at Lightning in a Bottle with her son Jai serving as DJ

Shiva Rea at LIB

Shiva Rea is so committed to LIB that she came in the day before surgery back in LA. She spoke to me 10 days after her surgery, “Festivals, particularly LIB, are a way of giving back to the spirit of collective gathering; and for me, the diversity at a festival is very different than when I’m going to teach in a specific community.

We have a choice to see the challenges of the day as a challenge or as a creative potentiality. As you know, I came to LIB and the next day I went into surgery. Not many people do that. My son and I were looking forward to it. I was nurtured by that. It wasn’t draining for me. I went in with joy and circulation in my body.

This feeling allows me to taste the best moments of life and that nurtures me. I’m a Rasika. I’m one who goes with the Optimal Flow of Life.”

What’s My Why

And what about me? What’s my WHY? WHY do I spend hours packing up my car to drive for hours to wait in line for hours to unpack for hours to festival with my nine-year-old, when, clearly, booking an Airbnb somewhere out in nature would be far more relaxing? What is it about festivals and crowds and music and yoga that draws me in? Why do I interview people and write about them?

I’m completely intrigued by those who share themselves freely, without tempering their spirit. In fact, the sharing of who we are serves to brighten our inner light even more. As someone who struggled for years trying to fit into a mold that wasn’t me, I understand the powerful nature of being present with people who are completely themselves. It’s inspiring to us all.

Shining Our Lights

There’s that famous quote about shining one’s light allowing others to shine theirs. My light is my life. This includes: teaching, writing, dancing, writing, teaching, coaching, parenting. I share by experiencing and relating my experience to others. That is what nurtures my soul and brings me joy. If I can touch your life through this article and inspire you to attend a transformational festival like LIB, and if that festival shifts even one iota, one inkling of a thought that later on cascades into a complete shift of self expression, then I, too, have become a part of this infinite space of being and existing and bettering not only ourselves but the world around us.

LIB 2019

You can buy tickets for LIB 2019 up on their website very very soon. Super early bird. LightningInABottle.org

You can find me @yogawitharia

And the beat goes on…

Aria Morgan

Aria Morgan is a yoga teacher, doula and music lover who finds inspiration in nature: ariamorgan.com.

www.ariamorgan.com

The post Lightning In a Bottle 2018 – What’s your WHY? appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Jai Uttal at the Parmarth Niketan Ashram

The Dream

A few weeks after his experience climbing a Stupa (read more here!), Jai traveled to the northern Indian city of Allahabad, where the Khumba Melas are held. The Maharaj-ji was rumored to be visiting there, soon.

Jai told me the story, “By that time, I was broke. My girlfriend had broken up with me. I’d had dysentery. I was alone and depressed. Every day, I would go to the place where Maharaj-ji was supposed to be, but he never came. I had one of those, ‘Why the heck did I come to India’ moments.’ Here I am, crashing on the floor of this little apartment with a bunch of people I don’t know.”

“Then one night, I have this dream. I’m at the Allahabad train station, all by myself, waiting for a train. There’s no one else on the platform. A train arrives and the only person on the train, steps off. It’s the Maharaj-ji, with a blanket wrapped around him, like he always wore. He wraps his arms tightly around me as I’m weeping and weeping. ‘Finally, you’ve come back to me,’ he says. ‘Finally, you’ve come back to me’.”

“It was such a profound dream that I woke up. It was 1:20am.”

“The next morning, I realize that the Maharaj-ji has been my protector and my savior, lifetime after lifetime, but I’m still not exactly sure what this means. I go to the same house I’ve been going to for weeks, and everyone is dead silent. I asked, ‘What happened?’ ”

“The Maharaj-ji came early this morning. He arrived at 1:20 am by himself on the Allahabad Express and called us from the station to pick him up..”

Jai pauses, looking me in the eye across the Skype screen. “That was the exact time of my dream.”

Aria Morgan

Aria Morgan is a yoga teacher, doula and music lover who finds inspiration in nature: ariamorgan.com.

www.ariamorgan.com

The post The Dream — Jai Uttal and his Guru meet at the Train Station appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Photo of Jai Uttal by Jeffrey Newberry

Attending a Jai Uttal kirtan, or call-and-response devotional music event, feels like being led by the hand of your beloved into a communal celebration of the Divine. He gives unrestricted access to his heart. We feel a deep, exposed inner truth, rather than a mere performance. At one point, he encourages us to sing with him in this communal devotion. The result is phenomenal: we feel included as we are, without walls, barriers, or masks. Every mantra, every note echoes in our innermost of hearts and melts away any resistance.

I first saw Jai perform about 15 years ago during a kirtan evening at Sacred Movement in Venice. The second time I saw him live was in 2017 at Wanderlust Hollywood, where he shared songs from his new album, Roots, Rock, Rama! to a packed crowd. The energy completely blew me away. People young and old swayed, danced, smiled, laughed, sang along and hugged each other. The evening was saturated with devotion and bathed in tenderness.

When Jai and I connected via Skype, he smiled from across the screen as he sipped his latest concoction, bulletproof chai. “I was a little drowsy and didn’t have time for a walk, so I decided on chai instead. This is actually an experiment,” he laughs, “ginger, cardamom, goat’s milk, MCT oil and a little maple syrup.”

Laughter and lightness pepper our interview, which dives into Jai’s past, his journey into kirtan, how marriage and love brought sobriety into his life, and the uncertain future of being an independent artist in today’s digital world.

A Grammy-nominated performer, Jai has released 19 albums throughout his career as a kirtan artist. He describes the double CD Roots, Rock, Rama! as a culmination of “Fifty years of kirtan singing, not all of it public.” CD1, or Rama Sun, sounds like fun and energetic Jai, kirtan infused with Jamaican beats. CD2 is Rama Moon; an introspective compilation drawing on the mellower sounds of Brazil.

Kirtan for Jai is, as he says, “The doorway to the Divine connection. It’s the way my spirit, my soul, my mind, [and] my heart, most easily and immediately connect with my Guru, with God, and with infinite Spirit. I know and trust that my Guru is always with me and God is always with me and in me, but in my consciousness I don’t feel that most of the time. Kirtan allows me to feel it a little more strongly. It allows me to get into a space where the walls are not so tightly shut. I started singing kirtan when I was about 16 or 17, not to say that I was leading kirtan, but I was part of a group and enjoying it a lot.”

Jai was introduced to kirtan at the age of 15. “I just happened to be in Central Park when I heard the Hare Krishnas singing kirtan. It was a great first look into kirtan and it really affected me.” Four years later, Jai traveled to India and kirtan became the background to his adventure. “The chanting of kirtans, prayers and Sanskrit mantras was everywhere. Indian music finally made sense to me.”

The time span between hearing the Hare Krishnas at Central Park, participating in devotional kirtan in India, and the creation of the 2017 release Roots, Rock, Rama! is a lifetime saturated with experience. The true spirit of this album lies not in the technical how-to’s, collaborations, or production, but in travel, adventure and soul searching.

Jai’s musical journey began long before India—or even that meaningful day in Central Park— in his childhood. He grew up in New York City with a dad who worked in the music business. “Every week, my dad, my sister, and I would sit down and with a stack of the top 20 top singles and analyze them.”

More than analyzing music, Jai began playing. First, the piano. A few years later, he discovered what he called “old-timey Appalachian music” and he took up the banjo, which he played as part of his admissions process to The High School of Music and Art in NYC. The banjo continues to make an appearance in nearly every CD Jai has released, including in “Madhava Mystic” on Roots, Rock, Rama! He says, “Then, during my psychedelic phase, I was heavily into Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles. I got into electric guitar, not acoustic, which is what I play now. I wanted to make the craziest sounds.”

Jai’s childhood did not offer a spiritual practice. “I was born into an alcoholic, artistic family. We were Jewish, but not devout. The gifts my parents gave me were equal to the difficulties and challenges.”

One of Jai’s deepest challenges—and most profound journeys – was his path to sobriety. “Sixteen years ago, I met Nubia and after a long distance relationship, we finally got married. Aside from everything else that she brought into my life, sobriety was one of the most important. At the time, I was in my late forties. I was embracing the Bhakti (devotional) path and sharing that music. There was no hypocrisy in my heart about singing devotional songs and using substances to get through the performances. I was drinking and taking a lot of substances just to make it to the stage. The levels of my being were completely out of sync. Nubia brought healing of that inner space. I don’t know if that healing came from her, or if suddenly I wanted to be sober because the love that we were experiencing was unlike anything else I felt in my life.”

It is a love that was delivered through devotion, through travels, through challenges as well as triumphs. Earlier in his life, Jai experienced a spiritual disillusionment that actually served as the catalyst for him to meet his lifelong Guru, the Indian Saint, Neem Karoli Baba, known as Maharaj-ji. Jai traveled to India at the age of 19 to meet another Guru he had been following, but the meeting never happened, and he became disillusioned with the idea of a Guru. “I was over the Guru thing. Been there, done that.”

Jai opened himself up to adventure instead. “I heard that Ram Dass was also in India and found him in the village of Vrindavan, where Ram Dass was meeting with his Guru, Neem Karoli Baba. At the time, I was open to experience, but wasn’t seeking a Guru anymore. I didn’t feel anything like, ‘Oh, this is my Guru and I made it.’”

“But I did feel very strongly that I had gotten to this place and there was nowhere else I wanted to go. I was so completely magnetized, intrigued, confused and just drawn to him and his energy.” Then one day, Maharaj-ji left, without word and without any notice of when he’d return.

“It was only then that I realized how incredibly attached I’d become to Maharaj-ji. I walked over to the Hanuman temple and just started singing. I recall this incredible outpouring of longing that I know was inside of me, probably since I was really little. It’s that longing that drew me to India.” He pauses, “In retrospect, Maharaj-ji drew me to India.”

After Maharaj-ji’s unexplained and sudden departure, Jai decided to stay in India until his funds ran out. He was living in a little village outside Benares (also known as Varanasi), when a friend from high school dropped by and offered to bring them bhang, an edible form of marijuana. The next morning at 4am they ate the bhang and walked over to the Buddhist pilgrimage site of Sarnath (outside of Varanasi proper) to climb up to the top of the Stupa.

Laughing, Jai explains, “People walk around stupas. They don’t climb to the top of Stupas. We climb to the top of the Stupa and start meditating, because we were very yogic stoners. The bhang became very strong, almost like an LSD trip, and I’m meditating and sweating, and meditating and sweating, when I suddenly hear this sonic BOOM! inside of my head, and I hear Maharaj-ji’s voice, whispering, “Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram…”

“With each repetition of that word, I felt like all of the spiritualness of my rigid yoga practice just drained out of me. At the time, I was committed to doing this very complex meditation sadhana (personal practice), and I was filled with ego because the sadhana was like a mountain you had to climb. But all of the willfulness just drained out of me, and in its place was the word, RAM.  Maharaj-ji used to chant RAM all the time. He would fill books, just writing RAM. He used to say, ‘When you say RAM, the impossible becomes possible’.”

Roots, Rock, Rama! is dedicated to Rama (RAM) and created in a collaborative field that spanned several continents and musical styles.

Perhaps the most unusual aspect of this album is Jai’s collaboration with a cellist and music producer in India, who recorded a chamber orchestra in India in two formats: direct to digital, clean and pristine—as well as onto a tape. The tape was left out in the sun for three days to age. In the end, Jai received two versions of all the string parts, “One clean, digital recording, and one crazy, degraded one…it sounded like a very warped reel to reel from the 1920s. A few weeks later Ben Leinbach (the album’s co-producer as well as drums/percussion performer) and I are in the studio and we listen to the degraded tracks. I love the way they sound, except they make you a little seasick, because they are so warped, so extreme. So we made a blend of the two and I think it sounds awesome.”

Jai’s life adventure from artistic teen to devotional singer and father has taken many twists and turns. The overriding impetus for Jai has been to share and invite us into a ritual of devotion and journey to the Divine through music.

Roots, Rock, Rama! is available on all formats and platform. For every album sold, the nonprofit organization One Tree Planted will plant a tree. Become a patron of Jai in his mission and learn more about his album and to join his August kirtan camp, visit: jaiuttal.com/events

Read more about Jai and his prophetic dream about the Maharaj-ji here.

Jai Uttal in Santa Monica March, 2018

Jai Uttal will be leading a kirtan and a workshop at Mandala Center in Santa Monica March 17-18. For more information, visit the events page at MandalaCenter.us

Aria Morgan

Aria Morgan is a yoga teacher, doula and music lover who finds inspiration in nature: ariamorgan.com.

www.ariamorgan.com

The post Jai Uttal: The Journey from Disillusionment to Devotion appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Gurujas from White Sun photographed by Julia Yang IG: @julia_photographs

Mantra Music Wins a Grammy

Music so powerful that it wins a Grammy and the attention of UCLA researchers doesn’t just happen by chance. This is music created with intention and purpose. Yoga supergroup White Sun’s second album broke through the Grammy mantra barrier. After hitting #1 on Billboard’s New Age Chart and#2 on Billboard’s World Chart, White Sun II won the 2017 Grammy for Best New Age Album.

Dynamic and timeless, White Sun II is the first mantra/chant album to win a Grammy. LA YOGA magazine sat down with lead vocalist and harmonium player Gurujas at Plant Food and Wine in Venice to learn more about White Sun II and its mantras, which are believed to nourish the spirit with love.

White Sun Accepting the 2017 New Age Album Grammy Award. Photo by Jeff Kravitz

White Sun is comprised of Kundalini yoga teacher trainers Harijiwan and Gurujas, and Adam Berry, a two-time Emmy-winning composer. An array of talented collaborators include platinum award-winning Gospel singers who’ve sold more than 1,000,000 albums, and Mamado Diabete on Kora, Abhiman Kaushal on Tabla, and Gabe Witcher of Punch Brothers on Fiddle.

Grammy Winning White Sun II Album Release Party. Photo by Santosh Khalsa

Mantras Have Consciousness

White Sun’s Gurujas believes that “mantras have their own consciousness and their own awareness. They want to serve and uplift and help the people.”

The Making of White Sun II

Gurujas describes the experience of producing the album White Sun II:

“It was very nice and cozy. Sometimes we’d have people in the studio, but really it was the three of us in this almost homey studio environment for hours and hours. What was really nice about the creation of that album is that for 95% of the time, all three of us were there. That was wonderful to have the group aura on the recording itself. I couldn’t have asked for a better work process or environment in any way.”

“Harijiwan originally founded the band. He has this incredible energy field that is able to pull out of the music what works and what doesn’t. He can just sift through everything energetically so that the projection is really clean and really pure. And Adam is beyond gifted. He’s been playing music his entire life. Adam has an encyclopedic knowledge of music and plays about a million instruments.”

LA YOGA: Please describe the creation process for this album.

GURUJAS: I’ll sit down at the harmonium and compose. A melody comes first, a chord structure, a rhythm….I’ll play it and then the mantra that’s supposed to fit into the sound comes later. The musical structure is first. And then the mantra asks to be sung through that structure.

The Brain Responds to Mantra

The brain responds to the mantras in a way that it doesn’t respond to other types of music. This has been proven at UCLA and at USC, as well. We’re now on the core syllabus of the Health and Wellness Curriculum. The mantra goes into the neuron wiring in the brain and helps the neurons fire more efficiently by firing in pathways that are more strengthening to the body.

An example of a weak neuron pathway is, for example, is – let’s say I have a negative self-thought. Negative self talk such as, “I’m unworthy.” So the person is telling themselves, “I’m not worthy.” And then they get creative and use different language to say the same thing over and over. Like attracts like. So you have these same frequencies that attract: I’m not worthy. Neurons get used to firing in this pathway.

Every Thought Carries a Vibration

LA YOGA: With repeated use, it’s as if the neuron forms a groove and then it falls into that groove more easily. That groove becomes a default, and we go there without even being aware of the direction we’re headed.

Gurujas: You said it perfectly. Every thought carries a vibration. Every time the neuron fires, it fires at a vibratory frequency. The mantras are the highest vibratory field on Planet Earth that we are aware of. We don’t’ know of anything that has a higher vibration than these mantras. They are over 5,000 years old.

Beyond Belief

LA YOGA: Hold on. Let’s say I’m a complete skeptic and I only believe in science. Let’s say that I don’t believe any of this spiritual stuff. Can you prove that the mantras have a higher vibration than anything else?

Gurujas from White Sun photographed by Julia Yang IG: @julia_photographs.

Gurujas: I’m a complete skeptic and I only believe in science. I don’t have a belief structure. And I only practice yogic science. I don’t believe in anything. Yet I have had experiences that have taught me certain things. I’ve learned something through the science of it and then I’ve had the experience of it and seen it myself.

The belief is completely irrelevant in what we do. We don’t want to teach anybody anything. In other words, we don’t care what you believe. You can believe any number of things. We’re not guiding you in that way. This is an experiential system. It’s completely experiential.

For instance, I don’t have to believe in water to get wet. I don’t have to believe in soap to take a shower. If I jump into the ocean, I’m going to change from a dry condition into a wet condition. I don’t even have to believe that the ocean exists, but that’s what’s going to happen to me.

Everybody will know that I’ve gone from dry to wet, even if I’m in denial about the ocean existing. With the mantra, I don’t have to believe in mantras. I don’t have to believe in the sound current. I don’t have to believe in anything. All I have to do is press play.

Studies in Sound

LA YOGA: You said there have been studies at UCLA.

Gurujas: There’s a professor named Helen Lavretsky. She’s been a researcher at UCLA for many years, now. She studied the “Sa Ta Na Ma” sound current…

LA YOGA spoke with Dr. Lavretsky, a Professor-in-Residence in the Department of Psychiatry at UCLA. She who has studied the effects of chanting mantra on the human system. Her research shows that chanting the Kirtan Kriya mantra meditation (otherwise known as Sa-Ta- Na-Ma meditation) enhances connectivity of the brain that is associated with improvement in mood, resilience, and cognition. The results of chanting mantra (which differs from simply listening to relaxing music) include, “Improved mental and cognitive functioning, lower levels of depressive symptoms…accompanied by an increase in telomerase activity suggesting improvement in stress-induced cellular aging.” (NIH)

Translation: just listening to these mantras can drastically alter the stress levels in your life and help slow down the aging process of cells.

“In my clinical practice,” Dr. Lavretsky says, “I start people who are not used to chanting with just listening to the mantras. They start chanting when they become comfortable with it. The White Sun II is my favorite CD to ‘prescribe’ for patients with anxiety or depression, or recommend to my colleagues due to its deeply spiritual sound that promotes relaxation and rejuvenation of the soul.”

Gurujas: This physical mass is an illusion based on myriad perceptions and dimensional existence. We are all energy and everything is energy, moving and vibrating. Each of our own vibrations has a unique vibratory signature. In Kundalini Yoga, we occupy the space of embracing that signature and manifesting our highest destiny through it.

Gurujas Shares Examples of the Power of Sound

LA YOGA: Tell us more about the results you’ve seen from chanting and listening to these mantras.

Gurujas: The study that comes my mind right now is a personal one—this little boy who had nightmares. He told his mom that he had these terrifying monsters visiting him at night, every night. The young boy couldn’t sleep. He would be sweating and screaming. He was petrified and was being tortured at night.

His mom started playing this mantra off of White Sun’s first album. She started playing Aap Sahaee Howa for him at night.

He didn’t know what a mantra is. He’s a little boy. She puts it under his bed and puts it on repeat all night. All night, very quiet, so that the vibration is in the room but he’s not listening to blaring music while he sleeps. The nightmares went away! The monsters went away and he started sleeping through the night. And she, through this whole process of working with her son, found an incredible sense of relief. Then she remembered. She had a flashback to herself as a child, with these same monsters visiting her at night.

LA YOGA: That’s powerful. It’s almost is if there’s some kind of spiritually genetic attraction to this energy. They say that trauma is carried and passed down in our cellular memory.

Gurujas: That’s what I was thinking. That somehow, it was passed down in the bloodline. But then she broke that trauma by playing a mantra.

Reducing Road Rage through Mantra

Another story comes to mind – simple, but powerful. My mom gave one of her co-workers one of our CDs. She’s an administrator and she knows what yoga is. But she’s never practiced it or had any interest in it whatsoever. My mom gives her this CD and she’s going to listen to it because it’s a gift from a friend. She plays it on the way to work and tells my mom, “You know, I don’t get angry anymore. I used to get really upset and I used to get road rage. Now I don’t have any road rage anymore. I just play the mantra and I’m fine.”

She wasn’t trying to get rid of road rage; she was just listening to the music. Here is an example of someone who didn’t have any idea of what it was going to do or not do for her. She’s just a person with a CD in her hands, and she feels better!

These are the studies that really speak to me personally, not that they are more significant or less significant than others. When I hear people sharing these stories with me, I feel that the result and reason behind what we’re doing is actually so much more important than the product itself.

Gurujas photographed by Julia Yang IG: @julia_photographs.

The Importance of Mantra

LA YOGA: What are the differences in the importance of mantra in Kundalini yoga as compared to the more postural-based practice of Hatha Yoga?

Gurujas: The mantra is the number one most important thing. The mantra comes first, in terms of importance. Second comes the breath. And third comes the posture and the movement.

When you’re practicing Kundalini Yoga, those three things are the only things that you need. When you’re practicing, it’s, “Do I have a mantra going through my head at all times. Do I have a mantra going through my head when I’m drinking this turmeric latte? Do I have a mantra going through my head when I’m washing the dishes, walking to my car, when I’m on the phone with somebody?”

Maybe I have a specific mantra going, because the mantra is going to help the neurons form more productive pathways that give energy instead of take energy away. So it’s giving you power instead of reinforcing your weakness.

Gandhi and His Mantra

Gandhi is my favorite example of this. His mantra was Ram. His entire life he chanted Ram from the time he woke up to the time he want to bed and he was probably the caliber of master that he even chanted Ram in his sleep. So when he was assassinated, after the bullet went in, he was still chanting Ram. Ram was his last word, and he built his entire incarnation on top of his vibration of Ram. And he saved millions of lives because of the word, Ram.

I strongly believe that any one of us that decides to go that deeply into a mantra would make as deep of an impact as Gandhi, maybe in a less public way or maybe in a more public way.

But it has to be a real mantra. You can’t, for example, just say “table” all day long. It has to be a mantra that has meaning and you practice it with intention. Intention is also part of the vibration.

I know for a fact that we can affect the people around us if we affect our own electromagnetic field, which is another measurable scientific phenomenon. If I can affect my own electromagnetic field, then I can affect yours, because our fields are about nine feet long.

Our Electromagnetic Fields, Mantra, and the Sound Current

LA YOGA: Right now, our electromagnetic fields are blending.

Gurujas: Right now, they are. Our auras are also blending. We’re affecting each other with our own thoughts, vibrations, etc.

It’s amazing to see what happens. It’s one thing to study yogic science on paper, but it’s another thing to see what happens when it’s put to use. White Sun has done a pretty good job of reaching people. Our first album was released in 2015. It made the top 10 on Billboard in the New Age chart. It wasn’t until the second album that we went to No 1 on the New Age chart and No 2 on the World Chart and then the Grammy nomination. People are learning about us and our goal is to make it as wide as possible, so we have more people that are sharing stories about how my nightmares went away. My anger went away. We want millions of people to be saying those things.

The Naad, The Universal Sound Current

Present at lunch was also Julie Yannatta owner of Be Why Records, White Sun II’s label. LA YOGA asked her to speak about how she and White Sun came to work together. She mentioned the Naad, the Universal sound current:

Julie: The Naad is the Universal sound current. Each of us has the opportunity to effectively harmonize with that. We’re energy hunters, and we hunt for uplifting energy. Mantra allows us to harmonize with the Naad, and we can do so just by pressing play.

I put this out through my label because my desire is very much aligned with White Sun. Let’s bring mantra into the world. So at every turn, we have an opportunity to vibrate positively with every breath and every thought.

We come in and have negative thought forms, negative self talk. These are all aspects of our psyche and mind that create friction, that are anti-harmonics. Mantras help us reduce our friction with the Naad.

White Sun II and Intention

LA YOGA: Gurujas, what is your intention with White Sun II as an album?

Gurujas: The intention of the album as a whole is that we truly have seen these mantras make people’s lives better. Our goal is to have as many people benefit from these sounds as much as possible.

There are two forces on the planet Earth. There’s the love force and the fear force. All the negative things come from fear. And all the positive things come from love. Our goal is to remove as much of the fear force as possible and amplify as much of the love force as possible.

Mantras on White Sun II

1. Gobinday Mukunday

The first one, engenders compassion and patience. This mantra is said to help the connect the two hemispheres of your brain. Gobinday Mukunday is a fundamentally rhythmic mantra that you don’t even have to know. The translation is: Sustainer. Liberator. Enlightened. Infinite. Creator. Nameless. Desireless.

It’s a part of my practice for compassion and patience. The rhythm of this specific mantra puts the power of the soul into the muscles of the body and it gives the practitioner the ability to see and truly perceive what somebody means behind what they say.

Everyone says certain things, but then there’s always the meaning behind it. This mantra gives you that intuitive power to the meaning behind what others say and it also gives power to your projection. If you want to be more effective in your work, in your relationship, if you want people to hear you better, if you want to communicate more effectively, this mantra will help. It helps you behave more effectively as a human being with a Dharmic mission.

2 Ajay Alai

This mantra gives you supreme self-confidence. Many people would accomplish a lot more if they believed in themselves. People identify with self-confidence, that total lack of doubt in oneself, and they want it. If I see that in somebody, I’m attracted to it. This mantra gives you that self-confidence. People should play it at night if they struggle with anything along those lines.

3. Chattra Chakrak Vartti

This mantra speaks to the overarching mission that we were talking about, about the love and the fear. Specifically, this mantra takes away fear and negativity. It’s very useful for nightmares.

4. Simro Gobind

This mantra increases the radiant body, which is the 10th body. It increases the radiance, that glowing face. Sometimes, you see somebody and they just glow. Certain celebrities have that. There’s people that walk into a room and there’s a spotlight shining on them because they’re so bright.

5. Suniai

I wish Harijiwan could explain this one because he has such a beautiful way to put it. The yogis say that that in the yogic science, all of the knowledge in the universe is contained in your own sound. If I listen to my sound deeply enough, I can receive all the knowledge of the universe. In fact, my sound is more powerful than the anybody else’s sound (to me.) Hearing my own current, to me, is going to be more powerful than hearing someone else’s sound current. Soniai means listening. It’s that deep, deep, deep listening, so that you start to hear the unheard, see the unseen and know the unknown. It’s the third eye.

6. Aap Sahaee Hoar Har Har Har

This mantra is very protective and also removes negativity. It is said to melt your enemies like ice cream under the hot sun. Enemies may indicate a human enemy, an etheric enemy, or maybe even a thought.

7. Dhan Dhan Ram Das Gur

This mantra is for miracles. There’s a lot we don’t believe can happen and were taught can’t happen. There are a lot of perceived limitations we impose on ourselves that aren’t real limitations. This mantra is a way to experience those miracles. And those miracles can be big, like walking on fire type of miracles.

Or they can be small. One lady told me that her miracle was related to her son. On the way to school every day, he would put on really loud rock music. She went with it because she couldn’t deal with the fighting. She played this mantra at home. After a few days of playing that mantra, he stopped playing the rock music, which he’d be doing for a couple years. This was her miracle.

8. Akal (Instrumental) and 9. Akal- Death and Birth.

This mantra means undying. It helps transition souls when they are dying and need to leave the planet, as well as souls who are unborn and need to come to the planet. Sometimes souls arrive and it’s a very difficult arrival. Sometimes it’s a very hard transition that they weren’t prepared to make. Akal makes that transition graceful and peaceful and it helps that soul travel smoothly from the ether space to the earth.

This mantra also helps people when they die, to actually leave. A lot of people have stayed here as ghosts because they don’t know how to leave. Their souls become attached to something and they can’t leave for some reason. This mantra helps them leave and go to where they’re supposed to go. They don’t have to stay down here, trapped. So it’s a really important mantra. It might be supremely important.

10. Hummee Hum

This mantra mimics the human heartbeat. It helps purify the heart chakra and infuse it with the energy that it needs, while taking away what it doesn’t need. It can remove the heaviness of the heart.

11. Ardas Wahe Guru is the last mantra.

Basically, there’s a heart space on planet Earth that the yogis are hoping will rule the planet. We want this heart space to just take over.

In India, you hear people talk about mantras as though they are people. They may say Wahe Guru brought me a child. Or they’ll say Sat Nam gave me a new house, or whatever. They personify them.

The heart space is also personified in this song. You’re asking that heart vibration to take me into your sanctuary, put your arms around me, take me into your sanctuary of love. Just take me in because that’s where I want to dwell.

The Wahe Guru is the expression of absolute ecstasy. So if you want to be a very happy person, just chant Wahe Guru all the time. It’s ultimate self-love.”

Julie adds, “And Guru is anything that brings you from darkness to light, from lack of knowledge to self knowledge, from lack of understanding to self understanding. It’s the experience.”

White Sun II

White Sun II is available on Be Why Records. It will delight your senses as both a musical album and as a mantra album.

Aria Morgan

Aria Morgan is a yoga teacher, doula and music lover who finds inspiration in nature: ariamorgan.com.

www.ariamorgan.com

The post Mantra as Medicine: A Conversation with White Sun’s Gurujas appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Grammy Winning White Sun II Album Release Party. Photo by Santosh Khalsa

Powerful music is timeless: it envelops us, welcomes us into its essence, and stays with us long past the last song on the album. The mantra music created by yoga supergroup White Sun is good music that uses mantra to nourish our spirit with love.

White Sun’s second album White Sun II rose to #1 on Billboard’s New Age Chart, #2 on the on Billboard’s World Chart, and won the 2017 Grammy for Best New Age Album. Band members Harijiwan and Gurujas are Kundalini yoga teacher trainers, and band member Adam Berry is a two-time Emmy-winning composer. An array of White Sun’s talented collaborators include Mamado Diabete on kora, Abhiman Kaushal on tabla, Gabe Witcher of Punch Brothers on fiddle, and award-winning gospel singers whose albums have gone platinum and sold one million copies.

White Sun artist and Kundalini Yoga Teacher Trainer Gurujas photographed by Julia Yang

Vocalist and harmonium player Gurujas believes that, “Mantras have their own consciousness. These mantras want to serve, uplift and help people by reducing fear and increasing the love vibration.”

Dr. Helen Lavretsky, a psychiatry professor at UCLA, has studied the effects of chanting mantra on the human system. Lavretsky’s research shows that chanting the Kirtan Kirya mantra meditation (otherwise known as Sa-Ta-Na-Ma meditation) enhances connectivity of the brain that is associated with improvement in mood, resilience, and cognition. According to their published study, the results of chanting mantra (which differs from simply listening to relaxing music) include, “Improved mental and cognitive functioning, lower levels of depressive symptoms…accompanied by an increase in telomerase activity suggesting improvement in stress-induced cellular aging.”

Translation: just listening to these mantras can drastically alter the stress levels in your life and help slow down the aging process of cells.

“In my clinical practice,” Dr. Lavretsky says, “I start people who are not used to chanting with just listening to the mantras. They start chanting when they become comfortable with it. The White Sun II is my favorite CD to ‘prescribe’ for patients with anxiety or depression, or recommend to my colleagues due to its deeply spiritual sound that promotes relaxation and rejuvenation of the soul.”

Gurujas explains the power of each mantra:

1. Gobinday Mukunday – Bestows intuitive power and allows us to be more effective in our work, relationships and communication.

2. Ajai Ajai – Gives supreme self-confidence.

3. Chattra Chakkra Varti – Helps remove negativity (fear) and replaces it with love. Great for banishing nightmares.

4. Simro Gobind – Increases the radiant body.

5. Suniai – Evokes the ability to hear so deeply that we begin to hear the unheard, see the unseen and know the unknown.

6. Aap Sahaee Hoa Har Har Har – Very protective. Removes negativity. Is believed to “melt your enemies like ice cream under the hot sun.”

7. Dhan Dhan Ram Das Gur – Brings about miracles.

8. Akal Instrumental and  9. Akal– Helps transition souls to and from earth. Appropriate for death and birth.

10. Hummee Hum – Mimics the heartbeat. Purifies the heart chakra.

11. Ik Ardas Wahe Guru – Ik Ardas honors the heart space of planet earth. Wahe Guru is the expression of absolute ecstasy.

Read our full interview with Gurujas about White Sun and their mantra work here.

Aria Morgan

Aria Morgan is a yoga teacher, doula and music lover who finds inspiration in nature: ariamorgan.com.

www.ariamorgan.com

The post White Sun wins a Grammy for White Sun II appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Sukha is comprised of husband and wife team Sukhmani (Nicole) on vocals and Sukhman (Steven) on acoustic guitar. Created in 2011, Sukha shares their unique blend of Kundalini mantra rock.

The name Sukha is derived from the Sanskrit word for happiness, bliss, and ease. The album, Rise, is true to form, with a light-hearted spirit that ignites joy. Inspired by the grounding energy of the root chakra, Sukha transforms traditional mantras “Ong Namo,” “Wah Yantee,” “Rise (Ra Ma),” “Dharti Hai,” “Gobinday Mukhanday,” “Humee Hum,” “Prana Apana,” and “Mul Mantra” into a devotional fusion of past and present.

Together, Sukha emanates powerful energy, asking us to gather around the sacred fire of transcendence.

Sukhmani’s voice is accessible and comforting while Sukhman’s guitar vibes with warbly riffs providing a familiar and accessible backdrop to the devotion. Additional Sukha musicians include Kenneth Oberholtzer on violin, Eliza Shah on harp and background vocals, Tripp Dudley on percussion, Jared May on bass, John Stolzman on piano, Michael Vanier and Matthew Charles Heulitt on electric guitars, Amar Khalas on flute, and Sahib-Amar Khalsa on viola, as well as multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and co-producer Ram Dass Khalsa. Together, Sukha emanates powerful energy, asking us to gather around the sacred fire of transcendence.

Chanting mantras ignites the spiritual transformation of our spirit and practitioners believe that we are drawn to the mantras we most need for purification. The sounds of the mantras themselves are believed to relax and rejuvenate the physical body while altering our consciousness. This is certainly the case when listening to Rise.

Rise

by Sukha

Super Symmetry Records

Buy Rise here.

by Aria Morgan, a writer, yoga teacher and birth coach who enjoys handstands and kombucha. ariamorgan.com

Aria Morgan

Aria Morgan is a yoga teacher, doula and music lover who finds inspiration in nature: ariamorgan.com.

www.ariamorgan.com

The post Sukha Music Review appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

Writer and musician Brian Michael Tracy’s latest release, The Mystical Prism of Being, invites us into a soundscape of emotion, desire, and repentance through a sonic filter that merges Tracy’s mystical poetry as spoken word performance with classic rock ballad covers, sung in the original lyrics, as a medley, flowing in and out of one another. The album consists of three tracks presented as ‘acts’, each an average of 15 minutes. The first act, titled “A Virgin Birth,” is ripe with sexual metaphor and vivid description of the fluids that accompany human birth. It is set to Sting’s “Sister Moon” and Van Morrison’s “Inarticulate Speech of the Heart.”

The second act, titled “Our Last Supper,” explores the emotions that accompany inevitable loss. Tracy interweaves the completion of a romance with the image of death – at the burial grounds – set to Leonard Cohen’s “Alexandra Leaving” and Robbie Robertson’s “Fallen Angel.”

The final act, appropriately titled “Ascension,” invokes the process of a soul making peace with the eternal All-That-Is. Beautiful and mystical, it promises a life renewed, reborn in new skin. Natalie Merchant’s “The Gulf of Araby,” Bob Dylan’s “Every Grain of Sand,” and The Grateful Dead’s “Brokedown Palace” complete the sonic journey.

Tracy’s musical team includes Springsteen’s collaborator Marty Rifkin and South Bay musicians Andy Hill and Renee Safier. Set to release on Good Friday, this album is appropriate for casual listening, an end-of-yoga-class savasana, or a lazy Sunday afternoon.

(Brian Michael Tracy/CD Baby)

Reviewed by Aria Morgan, a writer, yoga teacher, and birth coach who loves handstands and kombucha: ariamorgan.com

Aria Morgan

Aria Morgan is a yoga teacher, doula and music lover who finds inspiration in nature: ariamorgan.com.

www.ariamorgan.com

The post The Mystical Prism of Being music review appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.

The Revolution to Save the Humans

Beautifully shot and edited, Revolution is a remarkable documentary by Director Rob Stewart. The message is the necessary personal and global transformation that must occur if we are to secure our future as a species on this planet.

Revolution details Stewart’s journey into ocean conservationism over a period of four years and through 15 countries. Stewart chronicles five mass extinctions that have occurred in the last 3.7 billion years. He employs the lens of self-interest and self-preservation as an educational tool, warning us that unless we act soon and rapidly, a sixth mass extinction is imminent.

“What must we do in order to keep the human race alive and vibrant for the next generation?”

Aimed at audiences of all ages and primed as an educator’s tool, Revolution’s simple, powerful and poignant message is, “What must we do in order to keep the human race alive and vibrant for the next generation?”

As a cinematic narrative, Revolution opens somewhat timidly through a series of out-takes and highlights from his highly successful first documentary,  Sharkwater, which succeeded in banning the sale of shark fins worldwide.

Revolution’s opening scenes show a young, optimistic Stewart filled with an unstoppable energy. We get to know the young, camera-new Stewart as he fumbles line after line, as he tours to cheering crowds worldwide and speaks at environmental rallies. We fear for his life in a dramatic moment, when he is nearly lost hundreds of miles at sea with just one friend and one camera.

The film’s really hooks us during a Sharkwater Q & A in Hong Kong, when an audience member prods Stewart with a life-shifting question. “What is the point of saving the sharks if the U.N. estimates that the world’s fisheries will collapse by 2048?”

Stewart nearly falters and the more researchers and scientists Stewart meets with, the more urgent his message grows.

“It became really clear to me that it wasn’t really about the sharks. The message is Save The Humans Now. And I thought that the public really didn’t know that, yet. They thought it was rising sea levels in Bangladesh or a hurricane in the Philippines, or a panda in China that we needed to save.”

Revolution the Movie on and off Screen

LA Yoga chatted Rob Stewart before a screening of Revolution on the Santa Monica Pier in 2014. The free outdoor Earth Day Weekend event was organized by local yogi activists, Brock and Krista Cahill. Brock Cahill opened the evening with a family-friendly yoga class. This was followed by an introduction by Rob Stewart, a blessing of Mother Ocean and the post-sunset screening of Revolution.

Rob died in 2017 in a diving accident while in the midst of production of his third film, Sharkwater Extinction.

Rob Stewart’s Revolution includes an educator’s online platform.  For more information visit: TheRevolutionMovie.com.

Aria Morgan

Aria Morgan is a yoga teacher, doula and music lover who finds inspiration in nature: ariamorgan.com.

www.ariamorgan.com

The post Save The Humans Now: Rob Stewart’s Revolution the Movie appeared first on LA Yoga Magazine - Ayurveda & Health.