SKY pilot

The SKY Meditation program was just getting a toe-hold in Santa Barbara earlier this year when an unexpected personal situation caused a step back just as the technique, popular around the country, was getting ready to begin a series of regular trainings. After an eight-month hiatus, SKY returned with two free intro evenings earlier this month, and now is offering its first full training since March this weekend, Friday-Sunday, December 14-16.

SKY Meditation works a little differently from other programs in that it utilizes the innate ability of the breath to trigger an automatic quieting of the mind, leading to a deep experience of meditation, both for experienced meditators and rank beginners. SKY is easy to practice and is said to be effective even when the mind is restless or caught up in emotions. The core technique brings the rhythms of the body, mind, and emotions into harmony with the innermost self and helps you live from that state throughout the day.

SKY can offer many wide-ranging physiological, mental, and emotional benefits, many of which can be seen immediately. (I attended an intro session last winter and can attest to a measurable if subtle shift afterward.) Numerous peer-reviewed, published research studies have verified that SKY may reduce depression, anxiety, PTSD, stress, and addictive behaviors while increasing feelings of well-being and optimism and improving mental focus and immune system function.

The weekend training teaches the SKY Meditation technique and there are specific light physical stretches, interactive processes and other elements to help participants experience and integrate the benefits of meditation into every aspect of life. The training takes place over three 3 half-hour sessions on Friday night, and Saturday and Sunday mornings at a private residence near the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. Enrollment is $395, or $295 for students and seniors. SKY Meditation will also be taught January 25-27 at Goleta Valley Community Center.

For questions, more information, or to register, call (214) 908-3191, email manas@iahv.org, or visit https://tinyurl.com/skydec. Other websites include www.eventbrite.com 

inCourage Chorus Concert

Santa Barbara’s non-audition, non-denominational community choir created last winter is led by song carriers Benjamin Gould and Britta Gudmunson is wrapping up its first full-quarter (13 week) session following a series of shorter courses. Now, the ensemble that gathers at Yoga Soup will be presenting Awake: Songs of Light & Shadow, its first off-site show, featuring a collection of songs spanning cultures around the world, taught and learned in the oral tradition, in honor of the winter solstice, with expressions of melody and harmony, joy and grief, dawn and dusk, and laughter and contemplation via the medicine of music. 

Members of the Ubuntu Choir Network, Gould and Gudmunson are graduates of the immersive Community Choir Leadership Training in Victoria, BC, who have been singing together for over four years and have a deep connection to the ways song can mend the heart, mind, and creative spirit. Proceeds from the concert – which takes place at 2 pm Sunday, December 16, at Unity of Santa Barbara and costs $20 (kids 12 & under $5) – will benefit the Caldwell family in Paradise, whose home and possessions were entirely consumed by the recent Camp Fire. 

Holiday Bazaar + Music Celebration

Gudmunson and Gould, along with frequent collaborator Glen Phillips – Montecito singer-songwriter and the founding lead singer of Toad the Wet Sprocket who just wrapped up his own five-week series of song circles conducted in Carpinteria – will also be at Yoga Soup the day before, as part of the musical celebration starting at 7 pm on Saturday, December 15, capping off a special day at the studio. Yoga classes in the morning will be followed by a daylong oatmeal bar and shopping bazaar for unique gifts including handcrafted creations from some favorite local vendors. At 4 pm, there will be a free hour lesson in the Art of Capoeira led by Brasil Arts Cafe, followed by a scrumptious potluck dinner at 5 pm. Post performance, in-house DJ Eddie Ellner, also the founding owner of Yoga Soup, spins the tunes for a later hours dance party.

Bon Appetit at Bodhi Path 

More holiday cheer and fellowship takes place Bodhi Path Buddhist Center’s annual Holiday Potluck, where Sangha members are invited to bring your favorite vegetarian dish to celebrate the holiday season. Resident teacher Dawa Tarchin Phillips, who the night before (Thursday, December 13) completes a three-week course on Overcoming Fear, will lead a short teaching at 7 pm before the festivities begin. Details online at www.bodhipath.org/sb.

Mahayana Meditations

Meditations on Love: The Great Vehicle, Mahakankala Buddhist Center’s series of classes in December, continues on Wednesday evenings in examining the beauty of the Mahayana Path of Buddhism in the mind which motivates it: a wish to perfect oneself in order to effortlessly benefit others. The world is a reflection of the mind perceiving it; therefore, when we purify our own mind we perceive a pure world. The series serves to define and explore the small steps we can take in our mind to improve how we feel about others — and translate that into loving others in daily life.

Each class begins with a guided breathing meditation and culminates with a second meditation based upon the evening’s topic. There is no requirement to attend the whole series. Open to everyone, the drop-in donation for the 6:30-7:30 pm sessions is $10.

Sounds of the Season 

Shane Thunder, who led a mini-marathon of sound baths all by himself with three events in different yoga studios in town last weekend, kicks off another weekend of sound immersion, this time from three different guides. Shane employs his alchemical gemstone and Tibetan singing bowls, chimes, drums, aromatherapy, and guided meditation to take people into a deeply meditative and rebalanced state at Yoga Soup at 7:30 pm Friday, December 14 ($20 in advance / $25 day-of; www.yogasoup.com).

Next up is Certified Sound Healer Kate Coppola, who uses a wide variety of ancient sound healing percussion instruments that she has collected from all over the world – including a Symphonic Paiste Gong, Tibetan Singing Bowls, Crystal Quartz Singing Bowls, Archangel Koshi Bells, and other unplugged instruments as a “nourishment for your neurons / acupuncture by way of sound.” Coppola, who is also a Certified Reiki Master Level 2 as well as a Certified Integrative Nutritional Health Coach, launches the Super Soul Sound Bath journey at 3 pm Saturday, December 15, at Villa Luna, her Santa Barbara estate ($45; https://www.eventbrite.com/e/super-soul-sound-bath-saturday-tickets-53214949346).

Finally, Izumi Asura leads the last Meditation with Sound session of the year, blending the sound and vibration of the Tibetan/Crystal singing bowls and Gongs to help participants let stress go and create more space for joy and happiness. The 6 pm session on Sunday, December 16, costs $20 (www.musicoftheshperessb.com).