Recently in San Francisco Category

It's a tough time right now for the economy, and I have some sad news. Due to budgetary constraints in the new year, Samadhi & the City is being discontinued.

I have so loved writing this column every week for the last year and a half. And I've also loved hearing your thoughts about my posts and your practices, whether you commented here on the site or sent me personal emails. Together, we've looked at just about every aspect of the local yoga scene, from new yoga studios, movies, and books to exciting events, kirtans, cooking classes, and even the presidential election.

While I am sad that I'll no longer be writing Samadhi & The City, I plan to continue blogging on my new site, www.SFYogaheads.com. I'll also be blogging for Yoga Journal on the YJ Conference in San Francisco next weekend.

If you'd like to get on my mailing list for SFYogaheads, sign up below!

And the old Samadhi posts will stay up for a while, so feel free to continue to send comments.

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Perhaps you already have your sparkly dancing shoes picked out for New Year's Eve, or you're planning to spend the first hours of 2009 in another city (or country) altogether. But if you're still pondering your options for welcoming in the new year locally, you might want to consider doing something mellow and mindful. The winter season is a good time of the year to be quiet and go inside, and the new year is the perfect time to be contemplative about the past, future, and, most importantly, the present.

Here are some local yoga and meditation events to look into on December 31. If you know of any others, please let us know!

Where: Laughing Lotus
When: 10pm-midnight
What: New Year's Eve Midnight Yoga with Kate (celebrating yoga, music, and community)
How Much: $25

Where: Integral Yoga
When: 8:30pm
What: New Year's Eve Interfaith Service and Peace Chanting
How Much: See website for details.

Where: Being Yoga
When: 10pm-midnight
What: New Year's Eve Yoga in Burlingame
How Much: See website for details.

Where: Yoga Tree Castro
When: 6:30pm-8:30pm
What: Yoga For the New Year with Janet Stone (and kora master Daniel Berkman)
How Much: $35

Where: Yoga Tree Castro
When: 10:30pm-12:30am
What: New Year's Eve Kirtan and Revival with Rusty Wells (an evening of candlelit with special musical guests)
How Much: $25

Where: Spirit Rock
When: 8:00 pm - 1:00 am
What: Another Year? We Just Had One: A New Year's Eve costume-friendly meditation and celebration hosted by Wes Nisker and Nina Wise with drumming led by master percussionist Barbara Borden and dance music by 5Rhythms DJ diva Davida Taurek.
How Much: $50 - $80, sliding scale, plus a donation to the teacher

It's a funny thing to be darting around looking for holiday presents, and simultaneously holding tight to your last paycheck (that is, if you are lucky enough to still be getting one). But if there is anything a slow economy teaches us, it is to buy locally and mindfully.

If you are still looking for some last minute holiday prezzies, check out these inexpensive yoga-themed gifts that can all be bought online (meaning: no gas needed). And feel free to write in and suggest some ideas of your own!

+ The beautiful Yoga Studio on Divisadero is now officially a YogaWorks studio. Give a friend a gift certificate for classes there to see what it's like under new ownership.

+ Books are personally one of my favorite gifts to give and receive. Check out local yoga teacher Sarah Power's new book Insight Yoga, or any of the yoga books at local bookstore Green Apple (type in "yoga" in the search box).

+ If your friends like to watch more than read, hook them up with any of the great yoga DVDs put out by San Francisco company Pranamaya.

+ A gift certificate for a massage at International Orange is a great gift at any time of the year, but it's best during the winter months when we all feel cold and sluggish. A massage at IO includes free use of the steam room, too. Ahhhh.

+ Everyone is always up for some new yoga gear. Of course, it's hard to tell if your new girlfriend or boyfriend's booty is a size small or medium. Buy them a gift card at lululemon and let them go crazy.

+ Giggle Fish puts out the cutest eye pillows, which are made locally and smell yummy. Small, inexpensive, and perfectly portable.

+ Grab a new mat bag for that special friend whose old mat looks like a pack of hungry puppies went at it. Oonasera is a Bay Area company that makes yoga mat bags in original designs.

I met my ex-boyfriend at the yoga studio. When we first started dating, he was doing a lot of yoga. I thought, "Cool, I am dating a yogi!" Then, surf season started.

His practice dwindled down to the few stretches that he would do on my living room floor to release the muscles in his back, tight from all of the paddling. I tried, fruitlessly, to get him back to yoga class. He kept telling me that, during surf season, surfing was his yoga. I was perplexed at the time. Now I get it.

A couple of weeks ago, my friend and fellow Yoga Journal contributor Jaimal Yogis sent me an advance copy of his new book Saltwater Buddha: A Surfer's Quest to Find Zen Out at Sea. It's the perfect read for those who love the ocean as much as their yoga mats, or for anyone who wants to gain a deeper understanding of the spiritual practice that is surfing.

In his funny and poignant coming of age memoir, Jaimal (at left) tells tales of his teenage journey to live and surf in Hawaii, his later short-lived stint as a monk in Berkeley, and his eventual decision to pursue a degree in Journalism at Columbia. Through it all, he keeps returning to the ocean, and drawing comparisons between Zen meditation and surfing, the waves of the mind and the waves of the ocean.

There are many beautiful passages, but here is one of my favorites:

" . . . it seemed to me that what the mind brought forth while surfing a wave was as close as I'd come to Zen. The great ancestor Sengcan described the Zen mind by saying that the subject disappears without objects, objects vanish without a subject . . . Riding a wave, this happened naturally. The wave demanded such hyperfocus, there wasn't room for judging. On a steep, hollow wave, there wasn't even time to differentiate between one's body and the wave. There was only this and this. Just power and presence."

Saltwater Buddha is out in May 2009 (but is available for discounted pre-order now at Amazon).

There's a widespread perception in our culture that yoga is for those who are physically fit. I often have friends or family members say to me. "I don't do yoga because I am not flexible" or "maybe I'll try it when I lose weight/heal from my injury/stop feeling depressed." And those are all able-bodied people. People with physical disabilities or serious chronic health conditions often think that doing yoga is about as likely for them as snagging a spot on the US Olympic gymnastics team.

We all know that yoga can be modified for "stiff" people or newbies, but JoAnn Lyons has proven that it can be modified for anyone. JoAnn teaches these two classes weekly at Piedmont Yoga Studio:

+ Yoga for People with Disabilities (Thursdays, 3-4:30 pm)
+ Yoga for People with Special Needs (Saturday, 3-4:30 pm)

The first class is for people with all kinds of physical disabilities, from quadriplegia to cerebral palsy. The second class is for people who have lesser disabilities, like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, arthritis, MS, or scleroderma. You can also come to the Special Needs class if you are nursing a bad injury, and don't want to give up your practice. Both classes are sliding scale, funded in part by the California Yoga Teachers Association's Yoga Dana Foundation.

Recently, I went to assist in one of JoAnn's class and I saw people doing the most incredible things! With a team of staff and volunteer assistants—and a range of props that include a headstander (see student Ramona up top), a yoga sling, cushion wedges, beanbags, and bolsters—JoAnn swiftly directs students into a wide variety of postures, modifying each one for each student's separate needs.

Know someone who thinks they'll never do yoga because of a physical limitation? Suffering from an injury yourself? I highly encourage you to check out the classes. And if you are interested in being an assistant in one of these classes, contact JoAnn to find out about her special teacher training workshop in May.

It wasn't long ago that a mention of Tantra would evoke gasps and giggles from everyone in a room, including the yogis. My own introduction to Tantra, or what was labeled then as "Tantra", was at a yoga school in Southern Thailand where all of the asana instructors read from a script, and all of the dharma talks were about sex. But today, the study of Tantra—as a yogic path, not a means to getting it on—has become widespread and well-respected. And this renaissance is a direct result of the teachings of people like Tantra scholar Paul Muller-Ortega.

Last weekend, I attended a workshop with Paul at Yoga Tree Hayes. He has spent a good deal of his life immersed in spiritual studies, and has focused in more recent years on Hindu Tantra. In class, we chanted the Tantric version of the Gayatri, meditated, and listed to Paul talk about various Tantric principles, like staying open to the mutability of your identity, and spending time in meditation to learn what's really going on inside, and beyond, yourself.

Paul also talked about how we are experiencing a new age of consciousness education right now, and I believe that to be true: I think there is a reason that mind-expanding practices like yoga (and, specifically, Tantra) have become so popular lately. People in the West are starting to more fully investigate themselves, their bodies, and human consciousness. And because Tantra incorporates, rather than restrains the use of, everything that is human—from the intellect to the body and the senses—people in the West seem particularly drawn to it.

Want to know more about the local Tantra scene? Check out the blogs I've written in the past year that have a Tantra bent:

John Friend Talks in San Francisco

The Samavesha Experience

Stacey Rosenberg Teachers Anusara on the Beach

Chris Tompkins' Tantra Studies Class at Rudramandir

Shiva Rea Raises Money for Book on Tantra

Also, Yoga Kula is an Anusara-only yoga school, which has roots in Tantra.

And here's a recent post by LA blogger Stacie Stukin on her White Tantra experience.

Have you been touched by the Tantra bug? Tell us about your experience.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and always has been. That's not because of the food or the season or even the two days off from work. I love Thanksgiving for two simple reasons: it's nondenominational and it's about being grateful.

I think of Thanksgiving as a simultaneously fun and contemplative affair, just like yoga, so I thought I would poke around to see what like-minded folks will be doing for the holiday this year. If you don't yet have plans, explore these yogic options:

+ Do the Thanksgiving Renewal Retreat with Chrisandra Fox and chef Meredith Klein at Tara Bella Villa in Sonoma this weekend.
+ Take part in the San Francisco Bay Area Vegetarians Thanksgiving potluck dinner.
+ Attend Joe Naudzunas' 18th annual Thanksgiving Day class at Iyengar Institute, which emphasizes digestion.
+ Join the Integral Yogis for a Thanksgiving celebration and potluck.

Are you eating a turkey or Tofurky this year? Do you do a metta practice on Thanksgiving? Do you do a cleanse afterward? Write in and let us know how the holiday and your yoga practice do or don't intersect.

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P.S. For more thoughts about gratitude or yogic cooking ideas for Thanksgiving, check out YJ's new Community feature. Use the search to find a specific topic (like "gratitude") or go to one of the specific groups (like Yoga and Food). If you join, make sure to "friend" me; my username is karenyoga.

This weekend marks the 7th annual San Francisco Green Festival, and yoga is playing a special part. Not only will there be a yoga and movement room onsite at the festival, but on Friday, November 14 at 6pm, Yoga Journal is hosting a demo and discussion panel in the East Hall. Stephanie Snyder (left) will be performing a yoga asana demonstration to encourage non-yogi greenies to start practicing, and Baxter Bell will lead a discussion on yoga as sustainable health care.

So, what's yoga got to do with greenness? Everything. As Stephanie said, when we spoke on the phone about her demo, yoga is about being mindful and aware—and so is protecting the environment. "When people start doing yoga, they just naturally start making more conscious choices," she said. "You start to take care of your body and then, naturally, to take care of the world we live in."

Want to know what your yoga studio is doing for the planet? Ask. Most studios are taking baby steps, and even bigger steps, towards being environmentally conscious. Here are a few local ones that have the planet on their minds.

* Yoga Tree studios recycle and composts everything, even those little paper drinking cups. They also uses green products in the bathroom and changing areas.

* Laughing Lotus refrains from selling bottles of water to discourage the waste of plastic.

* Yoga Garden of San Francisco runs entirely on passive solar panels, is heated with super efficient solar-to-electric fans, and was actually built with recycled materials.

* Greenpath Yoga is participating in the Green Yoga Association's Green Studio Pilot Program. Through this one-year program, the studio is making changes to incorporate more sustainable and recyclable materials into its business operation, and is also helping to author the first Green Yoga Studio Handbook.

Check out this article on greening your yoga practice, and let us know how yoga and environmental consciousness intersect in your life!

Sure, you've got that Trikonasana down, and you're no longer tumbling out of headstand like an 8-year-old in gymnastics class, but do you really know what yoga is all about? Even though most yoga classes just focus on asana, due to time constraints, yogic philosophical discourse is a big part of the yogic tradition. From the yamas and niyamas to the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita, there's a lot to learn.

Now, starting this winter, CIIS is offering a 150-hour certificate program in Yoga Philosophy. The program, which was just recently finalized, runs from February to May 2009 and involves teachers like Gary Kraftsow, Ian Whicher, Sally Kempton, Richard Rosen, and Patricia Sullivan. If you're a serious yoga student, understanding the depth of the yogic tradition can only enhance your practice; if you're a teacher of yoga, this course—a first of its kind—is practically a must.

Tonight (November 5) is the first open house; if you miss that, there are two more on December 8 and January 21. All open houses are from 7-9pm at the CIIS
Main Campus. Applications for the program are due by December 15, and the total for the course is $2000.

Anyone think they'll sign up?

Last weekend, Yoga Tree Castro hosted a two-night benefit for an exciting new literary project in the yoga world: a book that, if completed, will reveal incredible never-before-read information about yoga.

The proposed 600-page project is called the Tantric Studies Reader, and it's being put together by renown Sanskrit and Yogic scholars. These scholars estimate that only 4% of the hundreds of key texts on yoga and Tantra have yet been translated. There are thousands more, unknown to the Western world, written on palm leaves (like the one pictured here) in libraries in India and Nepal. This project is all about getting a hold of these manuscripts, translating them, and making them available to the yoga community at large.

This is awesome news for the yoga community because it means we will get to understand a lot more about practices like mantra, darshana, asana, pranayama, and meditation. But the academics working on the project, specifically the main editor, Columbia University professor Somadeva Vasudeva, need more funding to see the book to completion.

Local interest is building, especially because the Bay Area's own Sanskrit and Tantric scholars Christopher Tompkins and Harish Wallis are also involved. And now, teachers like Janet Stone and Shiva Rea (right) have jumped on board to help. They both held benefit events this past weekend at Yoga Tree Castro.

I went to Shiva Rea's event—in which Chris Tompkins was also teaching; it was a huge gathering on Saturday night around a colorful yantra in the middle of the studio. Chris did a lecture on Tantric art and Shiva Rea led the group in a spontaneous flow movement massive trance dance. Janet held an event the night before and, between the two events, more than $2000 was raised for this groundbreaking yogic text.

The teachers and scholars are putting out a plea for help with their work. If this work excites you, there are lots of ways to get involved.

+ Read more about the project, and donate if you can.

+ purchase any of the spiritual art
or any of the DVDs on the Foundation for Yoga site; through November, all proceeds will go to the project.

+ Read more about the importance of Tantra in the history of yoga.

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Photo of Shiva Rea by Lisa Johnston