Our families voyage to our Earthship!

We have been warmly welcomed home to Taos, N.M ! So excited to be here and bask in the abundant beauty! Come visit! I start Kid's Yoga classes at Shree Yoga this Wed. from 4-5! Let's play!

Yoga Rocks the Park 2011

Octopus Arts Children's Yoga

Octopus Arts Meshes Art as a blend of Yoga, Creative Expression through many mediums Paint, Pencil, Photography, Music , Jewelry, Furniture, Tribal Tattooing, Yoga Gear, and everything else under the sun! We have our tentacles in EVERYTHING! Perma-culture at its finest~

Sea Turtles

Higher Ground
The Battle to Save Florida's Beaches




CCC announces the completion of a new documentary film titled, “Higher Ground: The Battle to Save Florida’s Beaches.” Produced by CCC in partnership with award-winning environmental filmmaker CAVU (Clean Air, Visibility Unlimited), the film is drawing attention to the complex issues threatening Florida’s beaches and sea turtles, while calling for progressive new policies that will control coastal development and help Floridians adapt to the reality of an eroding shore.

Watch the full movie of Higher Ground: The Battle to Save Florida's Beaches
Download or watch the trailer of Higher Ground: The Battle to Save Florida's Beaches

Florida’s beaches are under siege—from poorly-sited coastal development; inadequate coastal construction setback policies, stronger and more frequent erosion-causing storms; and slow-rising sea levels. As private properties along the coast are threatened by erosion, panicked beachfront residents and resource managers look for relief through costly, repetitive beach nourishment projects and the construction of unsightly and harmful sea walls. Meanwhile, state and federal subsidies continue to encourage shoreline development by providing low cost insurance for the riskiest beachfront developments—all at taxpayers’ expense. This combination of factors creates a recipe for disaster that threatens the future of Florida’s sandy beaches and coastal habitats. Caught directly in the middle of this quagmire are threatened and endangered sea turtles that nest on Florida beaches in numbers seen nowhere else in the United States.

Higher Ground is being released at a pivotal time in the history of coastal management in Florida. Due to recent coastal storms and extensive beach erosion, there is widespread concern about the wisdom of allowing risky development on critically eroding beaches. Scientific institutions around the globe increasingly are speaking out about the reality of sea level rise and encouraging world leaders to prepare. Florida has been singled out as being particularly vulnerable to the threats of climate change and rising seas. Recreational groups, such as surfers, divers and sport fishers, are becoming increasingly concerned about the impacts of repetitive beach nourishment and the spread of sea walls. And general beach goers are finding it more difficult to find suitable beach access on developed shores.

Capitalizing on growing public unrest with beach protection policies and new lawmaker interest in coastal policy reform, the film is being used by CCC to encourage debate on these complex issues. The aerial perspective provided through Higher Ground is helping people understand more fully the current state of Florida’s beaches and the implications for the future. The film provides CCC with an excellent communication tool for compelling the public, the media, lawmakers and beach managers to discuss and debate the need for creative new coastal policies—before it is too late.

Code of conduct

As yoga teachers, we are stewards of peace and positivity in our communities. We have a responsibility to our students, to our teachers, and to ourselves to behave in a moral and ethical manner and to maintain a high degree of personal integrity.








Yoga World Reach Code of Conduct is based on the Classical Yoga Ethical Guidelines found in the Yamas (Behavior restraints concerning how one relates with society and the natural environment) and the Niyamas: (Internal-restraints concerning how one observes his/her daily life)





The Yamas





Ahimsa (Non-harming): Non-violence. Loving kindness to oneself and others, not blocking or obstructing the flow of Nature, compassion, gentleness.





In Practice:


Honor and love yourself.


Be loving, kind, friendly, and respectful to the students, willing to serve and help them as best as you can.


Never demean or abuse a student physically or verbally.


Be patient with yourself and the students, never forcing things to happen against the natural process of yoga.


Never degrade or demean other yoga teachers or yoga systems.











Satya (Truthfulness): Being genuine and authentic to your inner nature, having integrity, honesty, being honorable, not lying, not concealing the truth, not downplaying or exaggerating.





In Practice:


Stay genuine to who you are and centered in your divine Self.


Show humility, admitting your limitations and when you just don’t know the answer to a question.


Truthfully and accurately represent your teaching experience and training in all self-promotion.


Before speaking, examine what you are about to say using The Four Gates of Speech:





• Is it truthful?





• Is it necessary to say?





• Is it the appropriate time?





• Can it be said in a kind way?








Asteya (Non-stealing): Not taking what is not yours—money, goods, or credit. Not robbing people of their own experiences and freedom. Non-desire for another’s possessions, qualities, or status.





In Practice:


Never exploit the student’s position for your own personal gain or gratification..


Give credit where it is due, by verbally honoring your teachers, students and the sources of your knowledge and skill.


Seek to uplift others whenever possible and give students the opportunity to co-create their unique and individual experience of yoga.








Brahmacharya (Walking or having ethical conduct like God): Relating to another with unconditional love and integrity, without selfishness or manipulation. Practicing sexual moderation, restraining from sexual misconduct, and avoiding lustful behavior.





In Practice:


Welcome all students regardless of gender, race, religion, creed, nationality, cultural background, or sexual preference.


Avoid sexual relationships with students.


If the student-teacher relationship is about to be compromised by any intimate relationship, it is advisable for the teacher to assist the student in finding another qualified yoga teacher.


Never sexually harass a student.


Follow all civil laws and other legal codes of behavior.





Aparigraha (Non-clinging): non-possessiveness, not accumulating things beyond what is necessary, non-attachment to possessions, greedlessness.





In Practice:


When charging for services and classes, be honest and in integrity about what is financially sustainable and fair.


Practice a spirit of giving and sharing: time, energy, and resources.





The Niyamas





Shauca (Purity): Cleanliness, orderliness, precision, clarity, balance. Internal and external purification. Cleanliness.





In Practice:


Take the responsibility of creating and sustaining a clean and safe, sacred environment for all students.


Honor your body and personal space with cleanliness and order.











Santosa (Contentment): Equanimity, peace, tranquility, acceptance of the way things are. Contentment.





In Practice:


Be content and at peace.


Give positive feedback first. Let all constructive feedback come from a place of acceptance, non-judgement and love.


Maintain equanimity and tranquility of presence, even with students who are dull or unresponsive.





Tapas (Heat): Burning desire for divine inspiration expressed through self-discipline, purification, willpower, austerity, and patience.





In Practice:


Maintain your own regular personal practice of yoga asana, pranayama and devotion.





Svadhyaya (Study of the Self): Self-inquiry, mindfulness, self-study, study of the scriptures.





In Practice:


Maintain your own regular personal practice of book study, chanting and meditation.


When you don’t know the answer to a question, be willing to do research and to bring an answer back to the student as soon as possible.


Remind the students that you are also a student.


Keep your beginner mind, staying humble and open to learning.








Ishvara Pranidhana (Devotional offering to Divine): Surrender to grace, open-heartedness, love, devotion to positive universal supreme consciousness





In Practice:


Have shraddha (faith and trust) in the power and order of the Supreme. Put your will in alignment with the will of the Supreme and open to the power of Grace

Monsanto Seeds!!!!!! Read on......

For decades, the Monsanto Corporation of St. Louis has been slowly dominating the world's supply of seed for staple crops (corn, soybeans, potatoes) -- a business plan that Monsanto's critics say is nothing short of diabolical. Monsanto says it is just devilishly good business.

Monsanto has spent over $30 billion in recent years buying numerous U.S. seed companies. As a result, two firms, Monsanto and Pioneer (recently purchased by DuPont), now control the U.S. seed business. Monsanto specializes in genetically modified seeds -- seeds having particular properties that Monsanto has patented.

The U.S. government is very enthusiastic about these new technologies. From the viewpoint of U.S. foreign policy, genetically modified seeds offer a key advantage over traditional seeds: because genetically modified seeds are patented, it is illegal for a farmer to retain seed from this year's crop to plant next year.

To use these patented seeds, farmers must buy new seeds from Monsanto every year. Thus, a farmer who adopts genetically modified seeds and fails to retain a stock of traditional seeds could become dependent upon a transnational corporation.

Nations, whose farmers are dependent upon corporations for seed, might forfeit considerable political independence. The Clinton/Gore administration has been aggressively helping Monsanto promote new, untested gene-altered products, by-passing U.S. health and safety regulations.

A key component of the U.S./Monsanto plan to dominate world agriculture with genetically modified seeds is the absence of labeling of genetically engineered foods. All U.S. foods must carry labels listing the ingredients: salt, sugar, water, vitamins, additives, etc. However, three separate U.S. government agencies -- the Food & Drug Administration (FDA, the. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) -- have ruled that genetically- modified foods deserve an exception: they can be sold without being labeled "genetically modified."

This strategy has successfully prevented consumers from exercising informed choice in the marketplace, reducing the likelihood of a consumer revolt, at least in the U.S., at least for now.

Earlier this year, opposition to genetically modified foods exploded in England and quickly spread to the European continent. Burgeoning consumer opposition has now swept into Asia and back to North America.

In a NY Times article, it states that Japan -- the largest Asian importer of U.S. food -- passed a law requiring the labeling of genetically modified foods.1 A subsidiary of Honda Motor Company immediately announced that it will build a plant in Ohio and hire farmers to supply it with traditional, unaltered soy beans. Soy is the basis of tofu, a staple food in Japan.

Subsequently, the largest and third-largest Japanese beer makers, Kirin Brewery and Sapporo Breweries, Ltd., announced that they have stopped using genetically modified corn. Other Japanese brewers are expected to follow suit. (American micro-breweries take note.)

South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand have all recently passed laws requiring the labeling of genetically modified foods.

However, the U.S. government has publicly protested against such labeling laws, and has privately lobbied hard against them, unsuccessfully.

Grupo Maseca, Mexico's leading producer of corn flour -- recently announced it will no longer purchase any genetically modified corn. Corn flour is made into tortillas, a Mexican staple. Mexico buys $500 million of U.S. corn each year, so the Grupo Maseca announcement sent a chill through Midwestern corn farmers who planted Monsanto's genetically modified seeds.1

About 1/2 of U.S. Corn Crop is Grown from GMO seeds

Gerber and Heinz, the two leading manufacturers of baby foods in the United States, announced that they would not allow genetically modified corn or soybeans in any of their baby foods.2 After the baby food announcements, Iams, the high-end pet food producer, announced that it would not purchase any of the seven varieties of genetically modified corn that have not been approved by the European Union. This announcement cut off an alternative use that U.S. farmer's had hoped to make of corn rejected by overseas buyers.

As the demand for traditional, unmodified corn and soy has grown, a two-price system for crops has developed in the U.S. -- a higher price for traditional, unmodified crops, and a lower price for genetically modified crops. For example, Archer-Daniels-Midland is paying some farmers 18 cents less per bushel for genetically modified soybeans, compared to the traditional product.1

The American Corn Growers Association, which represents mainly family farmers, has told its members that they should consider planting only traditional, unmodified seed next spring because it soon may not be possible to export genetically modified corn.1

Deutsche Bank, Europe's largest bank, has issued two reports within the past six months advising its large institutional investors to abandon ag-biotech companies like Monsanto and Novartis.3

In its most recent report, Deutsche Bank said, "...[I]t appears the food companies, retailers, grain processors, and governments are sending a signal to the seed producers that 'we are not ready for GMOs [genetically modified organisms].'"

Deutsche Bank's Washington, D.C., analysts, Frank Mitsch and Jennifer Mitchell, announced nine months ago that ag-biotech "was going the way of the nuclear industry in this country."

"But we count ourselves surprised at how rapidly this forecast appears to be playing out," they told the London Guardian.3

In Europe, the ag-biotech controversy is playing out upon a stage created by an earlier -- and ongoing -- scientific dispute over sex hormones in beef.4

Over 90% of U.S. beef cattle are treated with sex hormones -- three naturally-occurring (estradiol, progesterone, and testosterone) and three synthetic hormones that mimic the natural ones (zeranol, melengesterol acetate, and trenbolone acetate). Hormone treatment makes cattle grow faster and produces more tender, flavorful cuts of beef.

Since 1995, the European Union has prohibited the treatment of any farm animals with sex hormones intended to promote growth, on grounds that sex hormones are known to cause several human cancers. As a by-product of that prohibition, the EU refuses to allow the import of hormone-treated beef from the U.S. and Canada.

The U.S. asserts that hormone-treated beef is entirely safe and that the European ban violates the global free trade regime that the U.S. has worked religiously for 20 years to create. The U.S. argues that sex hormones only promote human cancers in hormone-sensitive tissues, such as the female breast and uterus.

Therefore, the U.S. argues, the mechanism of carcinogenic action must be activation of hormone "receptors" and therefore there is a "threshold" -- a level of hormones below which no cancers will occur. Based on risk assessments, the U.S. government claims to know where that threshold level lies. Furthermore, the U.S. claims it has established a regulatory process that prevents any farmer from exceeding the threshold level in his or her cows.

An EU scientific committee argues that hormones may cause some human cancers by an entirely different mechanism -- by interfering directly with DNA.5 If that were true, there would be no threshold for safety and the only safe dose of sex hormones in beef would be zero. "If you assume no threshold, you should continually be taking steps to get down to lower levels, because no level is safe," says James Bridges, a toxicologist at the University of Surrey in Guilford, England.4

Secondly, the EU spot-checked 258 meat samples from the Hormone Free Cattle program run jointly by the U.S. beef industry and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This program is intended to raise beef cattle without the use of hormones, thus producing beef eligible for import into Europe. The spot check found that 12% of the "hormone free" cattle had in fact been treated with sex hormones. EU officials cite this as evidence that growth hormones are poorly regulated in the U.S. beef industry and that Europeans might be exposed to higher- than-allowed concentrations if the ban on North American imports were lifted.

"These revelations are embarrassing for U.S. officials," reports Science magazine.4 Nevertheless, the U.S. government continues to assert that its hormone- treated beef is 100% safe.

Thus we have a classic scientific controversy characterized by considerable scientific uncertainty. This particular scientific dispute has pro- found implications for the future of all regulation under a global free trade regime -- including regulation of toxic chemicals -- because the European Union is basing its opposition to hormone-treated beef on the pre- cautionary principle. The American government insists that this pre- cautionary approach is an illegal restraint of free trade.

The EU's position is clearly precautionary: "Where scientific evidence is not black and white, policy should err on the side of caution so that there is zero risk to the consumer," says the EU.6

The Danish pediatric researcher, Niels Skakkebaek, MD, says the burden of proof lies with those putting hormones in beef: "The possible health effects from the hormones have hardly been studied -- the burden of proof should lie with the American beef industry," Dr. Skakkebaek told Chemical Week, a U.S. chemical industry publication that is following the beef controversy closely.6

It appears that European activists have seized upon hormones in beef, and upon Monsanto's seed domination plan, as a vehicle for opposing a "global free trade" regime in which nations lose their power to regulate markets to protect public health or the environment. The New York Times reports that the Peasant Confederation of European farmers derives much of its intellectual inspiration and direction from a new organization, called Attac, formed last year in France to fight the spread of global free trade regimes.7

The Confederation has destroyed several McDonald's restaurants and dumped rotten vegetables in others. Patrice Vidieu, the secretary-general of the Peasant Confederation, told the NY Times, "What we reject is the idea that the power of the marketplace becomes the dominant force in all societies, and that multinationals like McDonald's or Monsanto come to impose the food we eat and the seeds we plant."

What began as consumer opposition to genetically-modified seed appears to be turning into an open revolt against the 25-year-old U.S.-led effort to impose free-trade regimes world-wide, enthroning transnational corporations in the process. If approached strategically by alliances of U.S. activists and their overseas counterparts (and it must not be viewed as merely a labeling dispute), genetic engineering could become the most important controversy in this century.


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Although not mentioned in the above article, Monsanto's #1 consumer product is the highly toxic herbicide called Roundup.

Also note that Monsanto's US patent for this pro0duct expired in September, 2000 and the Scotts Company may be licensed by Monsanto, or has gotten around the Monsanto trademark, since a check of Google will show they offer the product Roundup as well.

YogaRocks the Park!

Hi Yoga Rockers!

This Sunday promises to be amazing! We'll see you all at Congress Park, 4 p.m. (meet near Josephine and 8th Ave) for an afternoon of yoga and live music!

Vital Yoga's Desi Springer will guide us through an inspiring Anusara inspired flow!

Gong bath musician and healer Gary Fishman is now going to be joined by tabla player Nabin Shrestha who you can learn more about at www.myspace.com/nabintabla for the music.

We are now offering FREE pizza from our sponsor BASIL DOCS PIZZA, while HIGH COUNTRY KOMBUCHA will also be on site offering samples.

See you all Sunday!


PS - please bring some cash towards the $10 donation as we aren't set up for credit cards :)