Tag archives: meditation

Kiaora Fox came to 5Rhythms in installments. While she had studied body mechanics and the movement of energy since childhood and was raised with a wide array of healing arts and mindfulness tools in the Gurdjieff mystic lineage, Lakota Sioux traditions, and Huna philosophy, among others, she only came across 5Rhythms at age 18 when […]

EntheoMedicine Santa Barbara, which has yet to celebrate its first birthday as a vast local information center and host for experts and prominent speakers in the area of plant medicine and the spiritual benefits of psychedelics, kicks off 2019 in a big way. The organization has not only booked two speakers for a regular event […]

DiviniTree Santa Barbara, which is entering its first New Year since undergoing a change in ownership, is launching right into 2019 with a new meditation sampler series. “A Year of Centering,” which takes place over four consecutive Sundays, January 6-27, is designed to offer a wide-ranging set of essential tools and insights to integrate into […]

There is no dearth of yoga studios in Santa Barbara, although the landscape is frequently changing. On the other hand, the possibilities are only as limited as the great outdoors. Wild Yoga Santa Barbara has been hosting events amid nature all around town over the last year, with locations including an all-levels class on East […]

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 […]

The monthly downtown art-and-culture tour is generally focused on visual art, performances and imbibing glasses of wine, not so much on seeking meaning and higher connection. But the holiday season brings time of reflection, so the December event, which takes place on December 6, has a couple of choices that might be a bit uplifting.  […]

It couldn’t have been a more perfect day when the popular charity, CALM – Child Abuse Listening Mediation – hosted its 7th annual CALM at Heart lunch “Building Community” at the Coral Casino. More than 210 guests helped raise around $100,000 for the nonprofit, founded in 1969, with the ubiquitous Geoff Green emceeing the fun […]

Goat yoga, the phenomenon of practicing poses amid wandering full-grown goats and kids that began barely two years ago in Oregon, has made its way down the coast to our little slice of Eden-By-The-Sea. Goat yoga actually showed up in Isla Vista last December, and apparently the latest trend is here to, pardon me, namaste, […]

Laguna Beach native Baba Bhagavan Das – the master kirtan wallah and orator, bhakti yogi and shakta tantra adept – first traveled to India back in 1963 to find his gur, and became the first American to live in the jungle of the Himalayas as a hermit-sadhu. Bhagavan Das was given the Holy Name of […]

Adam Hall spent more than a quarter-century as a real estate executive, building a business that made him quite wealthy in an area that focuses on private ownership of land and property. But then something shifted and he started exploring the deeper meanings of life, a journey that led him to co-found the Evolutionary Leaders, […]

Joan Halifax is the rare Zen Buddhist visionary whose background and education traverses Western and Eastern practices and study, and it’s an astonishing background that has brought her to where she is today. Among the many early accomplishments of the activist, author, caregiver, teacher, and Zen Buddhist priest, who will be the subject of the […]

Sunburst Sanctuary’s silent retreats are not like typical ones where there is truly no vocalizing of any kind and as little interaction as possible over an extended period of time. While it’s definitely nothing approaching a gab fest, the morning and evening programs of Sunburst’s three-day-and-night weekend retreat are programmed, with yoga or stretching or […]

There are so many modalities that can modify the body, mind, and spirit, and scores if not hundreds of practitioners offering their services in town. How is one to negotiate the maze? Word of mouth works best, of course, but for those who would rather sample on their own without having to make a large […]

The description on Yoga Soup’s website was intriguing: “A movement community experience suitable for everybody… combining guided movement meditations, structured improvisation, simple choreographed exercises, and the exhilarating experience of moving in unison with other bodies.” But then, that begs the question: In a town that has more ecstatic dancing gatherings and contact improv sessions per […]

Last year, Michael Russer and his partner, Jacqueline Lopez, created Entheomedicine Santa Barbara to bring expertise on the health and spiritual benefits of medicine journeys to the community. Now they’re diving into something even more valuable, and much easier on the systerm, than those chemically induced experiences: a process for awareness and connection they call […]

The Tibetan Buddhist monks are coming back to Summerland to work on a Medicine Buddha sand mandala, offer prayers and healing sessions, and much more, beginning this Wednesday, September 5, at The Sacred Space. Tthe Ngari Institute of Buddhist Dialectics Tour is bringing the venerable Geshe Tsewang Dorje and Geshe Thupten Tulku Rinpoche to the […]

DiviniTree, the yoga studio just steps from State Street in the heart of downtown across from De La Guerra Plaza, has new owners – and a new attitude toward events. A Breath Work & Sound Healing Workshop, slated for this Saturday, August 18, offers participants the opportunity to harness the power of their own breath […]

SBCC’s Adult Education program has gone through myriad changes in recent years, but things seem to be finally coming full circle. Where once nearly all of the hundreds of non-credit offerings – which included scores of personal growth, psychology, and spiritual-examining selections – had no admission charge through the 1990s and into the 2000s, changes […]

It is hard to image today’s $27 billion yoga industry without Paramahansa Yogananda. Nearly a century after his arrival in the United States, and 65 years since his death, Yogananda remains the best-known and most-beloved of all the Indian spiritual teachers who came to the West. Yogananda’s influence remains vast, through his teachings and the […]

5Rhythms was devised by Gabrielle Roth in the late 1970s and draws from indigenous and world traditions, employing shamanistic, ecstatic, mystical and eastern philosophies, as well as Gestalt therapy and transpersonal psychology. Dancing the 5Rhythms is a practice, a dynamic way to both workout and meditate in the same breath, where the body becomes the […]