“In fourteen years Yoga Soup never closed its doors, not once,” owner Eddie Ellner wrote in an email and note late on Monday, noting that the studio has stayed open “through fires, storms, slides, illness, locusts, bad hair days, insurrection.” The impetus was to take the line by poet Robert Frost to heart: “Home is […]
Salt, which bills itself as the largest underground crystal salt cave in North America, is not ready to close its cave nor its doors, as the boutique features pink Himalayan salt in crystal cave rooms, massage and facial treatments, and unique products made in Santa Barbara for the home, body, and cooking. “We’re still open […]
“Sheng Zhen means unconditional love in Chinese, and its purpose is to produce that within ourselves,” said Bryce Lupoli. “What that means practically is that Sheng Zhen helps us live with a quiet mind, a relaxed and healthy body, and an open heart.” Lupoli is one of only a few local teachers of the practice […]
Santa Barbara Bodhi Path Center resident teacher Dawa Tarchin Phillips will be leading a two-part class over successive Thursdays this month, as “Awakening Bodhicitta – How to Open Your Heart and Develop Love and Compassion” takes place 7-9 pm on March 12 and 19. The course addresses how we may be familiar with the benefits […]
Santa Barbara-based author and healer Elizabeth Morse wrote the alternative health book that’s also part self-help and part spiritual guide called Your Best Health by Friday: How to Overcome Anxiety, Depression, Stress, Trauma, PTSD, and Chronic Illness. The book explains the commonalities of all illnesses and provides action steps for people to heal, based on […]
Montecito-raised musician Joss Jaffe, who basically created his own sub-genre of dub-mantra by combining the rhythms of reggae with chanting and world jazz, is back in town for a final show with frequent partner Johanna Beekman. Jaffe, a Top-Ten New Age Billboard chanting artist whose four albums have been critically acclaimed, teams with Beekman, whose […]
Workshops at Yoga Soup this week include a Breath & Musical Journey with Luna & Gabe from 7-9 pm on Friday, March 13. Breathwork facilitator Blake Spencer will guide participants in tuning into their breath while simultaneously listening to local artist Gabriel Kelly sing his original songs and play guitar with Luna Kelly accompanying on […]
There are a lot of opportunities for locals to compose, create, perform, and or just partake in storytelling, as evidenced by the ongoing Personal Stories series – the showcases that feature local actors and writers developing first-person true stories that fit a theme to share at Center Stage Theater in the periodic events that outlived […]
Amazing Grace, the locally-made documentary about Grace Fisher, a 17-year-old dancer, cellist, pianist, and guitarist who contracted a rare polio-like disease that left her a quadriplegic, gets an encore screening at the Marjorie Luke this weekend. Encouraged by her mentors including Justin Hurwitz (the Montecito-raised Academy Award winning composer of the La La Land soundtrack) […]
Santa Barbara physician, musician, and author James Kahn will read from Matamoros, his Civil War romance that has received strong reviews, at Chaucer’s Bookstore at 7 pm on Wednesday, March 18. The book takes place in 1862, when the Union Army had blockaded all Confederate ports. Just across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas, Matamoros […]
Two years after the #MeToo movement called attention to sexual harassment and power dynamics – and just a month after the landmark conviction of former Hollywood powerbroker Harvey Weinstein – it would seem almost counterintuitive to produce a traditional ballet version of the classic Sleeping Beauty story. In other words, a perfect stranger kissing an […]
The current cast members of the long-running TV improv show Whose Line Is It Anyway? are bringing the touring version, dubbed “Whose Live Anyway?”, back to town for a single show at the Lobero Theatre. Cast members Ryan Stiles, Greg Proops, Jeff B. Davis, and Joel Murray will put together a 90-minute set of comedy […]
The Beach Boys make what seems like an annual local appearance – and why not, since Bruce Johnston and Christian Love live in town? – at the Chumash Casino Resort’s Samala Showroom on Friday, March 6. One night later on March 7, scions of the classic rock band Cream – Kofi Bake (son of drummer […]
Every year, approximately 375 films vie for just 80 slots in The Banff Mountain Film Festival, the most prestigious international presentation of short films and documentaries about mountain culture, sports, and environment that takes place every October in Banff, Canada. During the festival, a jury chooses the best films in such categories as Mountain Sports, […]
With SBIFF barely six weeks gone, the time seems ripe for more film fests to find local favor, as three different offerings arrive in town this week. The fifth annual Santa Barbara Jewish Film Festival since the event was resurrected by the Jewish Federation of Greater Santa Barbara takes place March 11-15 at the New […]
Opera Santa Barbara presents Il Postino (The Postman), created by Mexican-American composer Daniel Catán, who is known for his sweeping, impressionistic music and bringing Spanish-language opera into the international repertory. Based on the Oscar-winning film of the same name, the story follows a poor and uneducated mail carrier who meets Chilean exile and poet, Pablo […]
The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra was founded by renowned conductor-pianist Daniel Barenboim and the late Palestinian scholar/author Edward Said 20 years ago to bring together outstanding young Palestinian and Israeli musicians in a collaboration superseding national and cultural boundaries. The group, Barenboim has said, was conceived as a project against ignorance and aims to promote understanding […]
The Montecito Vedanta Temple was not asked or notified about a planned event scheduled for last weekend by the Santa Barbara-Buddhist-Meditation Meetup, which was canceled before taking place. We were asked to run a clarifying statement about the temple’s policies to avoid any future issues. The Vedanta Temple welcomes people from all religions and denominations […]
Santa Barbara Spirituality Cafe’s second gathering, slated for 2:30-5 pm on Saturday, March 7, at 108 Northridge Road, will be the first meeting to move beyond administrative issues into the intention to share knowledge and interests, and inspire one another to be active in the community. The hope is to apply spirituality to some program […]
Amardeep Kaur leads a Kundalini Yoga & Gong Experience – featuring sound healing, mantra chanting, and movement to assist in centering, grounding, and “awakening to the indescribable ecstasy of life” – from 7-8:30 pm on Friday, March 6, at the Santa Barbara Yoga Center ($20)… Also this week at SBYC: Sequences for Well-Being in a […]
Sierra Nolan‘s free Yoga 101 Workshop: Foundations of Yoga is designed for first-timers, beginners or those who want to dig deeper into the yoga tradition and fine-tune their primary yoga asanas (poses). The two-hour session, slated for 1-3 pm on Saturday, March 7, at Divinitree Santa Barbara downtown, provides a non-intimidating environment to ask any […]
Visiting Nurse & Hospice Care of Santa Barbara’s 7th Annual PHorum features the return of Dr. Chris Kerr, neurobiologist and CEO & Chief Medical Officer for the Center for Hospice and Palliative Care in Buffalo, New York, whose new book, Death is But a Dream, celebrates our power to reclaim dying as a deeply meaningful […]
Santa Barbara meditation leader Radhule Weininger sent out a missive to her mailing list over last weekend, and also asked if I could find some space in my column for her thoughts on anxiety over the growing cases of the Coronavirus as well as the coming election. Here’s an edited version: “I am listening to […]
Santa Barbara Buddhist Meditation, which holds regular meditation and other gatherings at the American Buddhist Temple in Goleta as well as various Montecito locations and elsewhere, has a special offering for this Saturday night. Its Once-in-a-Leap-Year Forest Retreat is a three-hour excursion at La Cumbre Peak designed to briefly isolate participants from the “busyness,” noise […]
Shining Lion (aka Shane Rilling) and the Ojai-based World Peace Tribe guide a sacred ceremony to cultivate more love within this weekend at a private estate in Montecito. The event – in which the sacraments include Sacred Honey Bee, Mycelium, Cacao, Hape, Essential Oils, and more – is intended to cultivate community and create an […]
Sherman, who has facilitated twenty-three yoga-meditation retreats in Montecito before La Casa de Maria fell victim to the 2018 mudslide, will also lead a “MAPs I for Daily Living,” her first offering of the introductory course from acclaimed, scientifically-based UCLA program here in town since last summer. The MAPs I course provides insight into the […]
Barbara Rose Sherman is a Yoga Alliance Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher 500 who is also a Trained Mindfulness Facilitator through the UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior and a UCLA Mindful Awareness Practices Affiliated Teacher. Now she’s bringing her experience in drawing from the two spiritual practices to a teacher training weekend available […]
Santa Barbara singer-songwriter Noell Grace’s evenings of original chants and simple songs have returned to her hearth and home for monthly gatherings. The events were originally private satsangs that morphed into Spirit Sings held at her home before expanding into fully public events at Yoga Soup a few years back. The gatherings came to a […]
After 10 years at other area locations, the Ojai Mardi Gras celebration marks its 30th anniversary back at the Ojai Valley Woman’s Club fittingly on Leap Day, February 29, as the venue hosted the first public event on Leap Day in 1992. This year’s Masquerade Ball carries the theme “Naughty Gras… Leap into your Fantasy,” […]
Dozen of local, national, and international dance artists are set to come together under one roof in Nebula Dance Lab’s sixth annual HH11 Dance Festival at Center Stage Theater this weekend (February 27-March 2). Artists both emerging and established present more than 30 different pieces over the course of the three performances, which include appearance, […]
Buddy Holly died more than 60 years ago in a famous plane crash that also killed Richie Valens and The Big Bopper. But it seems the early rock star just won’t stop touring. And the ongoing Holly performances aren’t even in the guise of tribute bands. Unlike Elvis and the Beatles, say, Holly hasn’t attracted […]
Katie Laris wasn’t moved much when she took in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time on Broadway back in 2014. Despite having enjoyed the original 2003 novel by Mark Haddon that is narrated in the first-person perspective by Christopher, a 15-year-old boy afflicted by unnamed Asperger syndrome, the veteran SBCC Theater professor […]
Elliot Wuu doesn’t have a direct memory of the first time he slept next to the bench while his older sister Rebecca practiced on the family’s piano, something his parents told him he started doing as a baby barely one year old. But he does recall frequently taking naps as a toddler while Rebecca, who […]
The midtown independent bookstore has four book signing events on tap this week, including psychotherapist, mediator and author Dr. Jennifer Freed – the force behind Santa Barbara esteemed AHA! Program – whose new book Use Your Planets Wisely addresses the nexus between therapy and astrology in such questions as “Who am I, really? What did […]
Fifteen-year veteran singer-songwriter Joshua Radin, who counts more than 1,500 placements of his music on TV shows, movies, commercials and other soundtracks dating back to his first song, comes to the Lobero Theatre on February 22 for a special acoustic show with friends Ben Kweller and William Fitzsimmons. We checked in over the phone earlier […]
Montecito’s Dawson Fuss, who too made it to the final round of four at Teen Star 2019, is also returning for another try at the crown this Saturday. The 10th-grader at Carpinteria’s Cate School has his own reasons for competing at the Arlington again. “It’s the biggest platform for young artists and singers in town, […]
Lauren Cantin, the Montecito-raised teenager who was famously pulled from underneath a four-foot pile of mud and debris after being buried alive for six hours in the early morning hours of January 9, 2018, has appeared on all sorts of big stages in the two years since her rescue. That includes performing a duet with […]
Yoga Soup’s weekend workshops begin with Relational Attunement, the theme for the next installment of the bi-monthly Authentic Relating Games. Leader Damian Gallagher will offer a series of “games” that offer experiences in “How Me transitions into We,” diving into the differences when we are attuned to each of us in the space as a […]
Mindful Meetup Santa Barbara, which has hosted a series of “Mindful Greets and Eats” where people gather at local restaurants to chat and engage in mindful eating among a group of other open-minded people, is taking a deeper dive this weekend: a Tantra Cuddle, aka Tuddle. The event, part of founder Steve in SB’s Sacred […]
Unity of Santa Barbara six-month engagement with Rev. Phil Smedstad – who was ordained as a Unity minister in 1976 and has founded churches in Hawaii and Texas and led others in Florida, New Mexico, and North Carolina, and now serves as a consultant – ended late last year. But his monthly weekend workshops proved […]