By Jill Rivera Greene, Conference Blogger
What lights you up? That’s the question you are invited to explore at the 2015 Northwest Yoga Conference: “Illuminate Your Mind, Body, and Spirit.”
We’ve all experienced how yoga awakens and enlivens the body. The asanas offer plenty of opportunities to understand our bodies in a new way. They can reveal imbalances between the right and left sides, for example, or draw our attention to places that may need additional care. A physical practice also can help us tap into new sources of strength and vitality.
Those who come to yoga expecting a purely physical practice, though, may be surprised to find it has an equally illuminating effect on our minds. Yoga shows us the commotion of our own unquestioned thoughts. It can reveal underlying patterns of belief that no longer serve us. Poses and meditation may help to clarify our motivations, our intentions, and our sense of purpose. Yoga can both expose our agitation and activate a new experience of peace.
The greatest gift of yoga may be its potential to animate and rejuvenate our spirit, ignite our passion and creativity … even bring our life’s path to light.
We hope that this year’s conference theme will intrigue and challenge you—that you will find the conference to be a rich and nurturing place to explore the concept of illumination, decide what it means to you, and replenish your soul in the process. This year’s schedule is packed full of wonderful offerings to help you do just that. Here is just a taste of the many ways we’ll help you get your “glow” on:
To Illuminate Your Mind … Kick off your weekend with Debbie Dixon, delving into the practice of intention. Learn how yoga stretches the mind and can help you tap new sources of creativity in a Yoga and Journaling workshop with Silvia Mordini. Or enrich your understanding of the Bhagavad Gita through an enlightening lecture and discussion with Jeanne Heileman.
To Illuminate Your Body … Deepen your understanding of the anatomy of the pelvis and hips and how to maintain proper alignment in an all-day therapeutics intensive with beloved teacher Annie Carpenter. Explore with Nancey Cohen how the yin side of yoga can stretch and strengthen the spine, pelvis, and hips. Or find the essential building blocks to successful Bakasana “lift off” in Carrie Wallace’s session, Flight Plan.
To Illuminate Your Spirit … Awaken your essential nature through a keynote presentation and meditation workshops with internationally recognized teacher Richard Miller. Forge new pathways to the soul by deepening your relationship with deities and ancient mythologies in a workshop by Amber Tande on Bhakti Yoga. Discover how to create and hold a Sacred Space for ceremony and ritual with healer Heidi Jae Mireles.
Just don’t be surprised when you attend these sessions (or one of our many others) expecting to focus on one aspect of yourself … and find the other aspects lighting up as well!
Yet another facet of our conference theme speaks to the ways that our yoga practice can activate each of the chakras. We are just beginning to explore that subject in a seven-week social media campaign. We hope you will join us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/nwyogaconf), Twitter (@nwyogaconf) and Instagram (@northwestyogaconference), if you haven’t already!
Stayed tuned here, as well … we will post “Illuminate Your Mind, Body, and Spirit: Part 2” soon, exploring this subject in greater depth.
Until then …. Be radiant!