My most blissful experiences and "ah ha" moments have been in nature. About 10 years ago, I dramatically changed the whole direction of my career after a transcendent "mountain top experience" on my first real backpacking expedition. After 5 weeks of backpacking and hiking in New Zealand, I had a dramatic sense of intense gratitude and utter wellbeing that left me in a state of bliss for the next six months. Upon my return home, I left my office-based corporate job for training as a hiking guide, the Peace Corps, the National Park Service, and ultimately here, to Balanced Rock.
The natural world has become so sacred to me that two weeks ago, I made my entire family hike into the wilderness for my wedding. Watching my mother-in-law-to-be scale huge downed logs, large boulders, and trail wash-outs gave me pause, but the shared adventure created an atmosphere of heart-pumping excitement that might otherwise not have been there.
I deeply believe that very few experiences are as transformative as being in nature. Being in the outdoors refreshes, awakens, and rejuvenates us. We are biologically programmed to need sunshine, earth, and fresh air to feel most alive in the present moment. As usual, John Muir says it best:
"Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is necessity; that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life."
Go home to the mountains. Wash your spirit clean.
Warm summer wishes,
Pam (Meierding) Kuhn
Balanced Rock Executive Director
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Thursday, June 9, 2011
The Full Yoga Experience
"Yoga is just a form of exercise, right? I'm not that flexible and I've got a wrist injury so I can't do yoga."
Questions like this are often asked of us here at Balanced Rock. And we'd like to set the record straight. Because for us, rather than being a competitive sport, yoga is about creating a holistic lifestyle that embraces wellness, balance, compassion, and awareness––and anyone can do it. We pair yoga, meditation, and art with the natural world to awaken ourselves to the present moment and our own sense of empowerment.
Yoga has its roots as a 5,000-year-old tradition that seeks to create union between the mind and body. In India, monks went into seclusion with the goal of creating a disease-free body. The original intention of the exercise practice of yoga was to be able to sit in meditation without an achy body. By aligning the body, we are better able to align the mind. Rather than "push" ourselves into positions that we see others achieving, yoga is practice that is meant to mindfully place ourselves into positions that reflect our own individual edges. Besides the physical practice, the full yoga experience includes the cultivation of compassion for all living things, non-attachment, and breath awareness among many other practices.
As Balanced Rock Program Director and instructor Arin Trook M.A. puts it, "I do yoga to accept myself as I am, each day, in all my glorious and absurd imperfections. I do yoga to smooth the rough edges of my breath and body. I do yoga because it is the opposite of sugar and caffeine, and I need a little balance in my life." Read more of his blog "Why Do Yoga"
Join us this summer for the experience of yoga as a full expression of your life.
Questions like this are often asked of us here at Balanced Rock. And we'd like to set the record straight. Because for us, rather than being a competitive sport, yoga is about creating a holistic lifestyle that embraces wellness, balance, compassion, and awareness––and anyone can do it. We pair yoga, meditation, and art with the natural world to awaken ourselves to the present moment and our own sense of empowerment.
Yoga has its roots as a 5,000-year-old tradition that seeks to create union between the mind and body. In India, monks went into seclusion with the goal of creating a disease-free body. The original intention of the exercise practice of yoga was to be able to sit in meditation without an achy body. By aligning the body, we are better able to align the mind. Rather than "push" ourselves into positions that we see others achieving, yoga is practice that is meant to mindfully place ourselves into positions that reflect our own individual edges. Besides the physical practice, the full yoga experience includes the cultivation of compassion for all living things, non-attachment, and breath awareness among many other practices.
As Balanced Rock Program Director and instructor Arin Trook M.A. puts it, "I do yoga to accept myself as I am, each day, in all my glorious and absurd imperfections. I do yoga to smooth the rough edges of my breath and body. I do yoga because it is the opposite of sugar and caffeine, and I need a little balance in my life." Read more of his blog "Why Do Yoga"
Join us this summer for the experience of yoga as a full expression of your life.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
June 2011 El Portal Community Yoga Schedule
Wednesday, June 1st 6:00-7:15 pm School Play, no class
Monday, June 6th 6:00-7:15 pm Heather Sullivan
Wednesday, June 8th 6:00-7:15 pm Karma Yoga with Cynthia Ramaciotti
Monday, June 13th 6:00-7:15 pm Jennie Wheeler
Wednesday, June 15th 6:00-7:15 pm Liesa Scholze
Monday, June 20th 6:00-7:15 pm Cynthia Ramaciotti
Wednesday, June 22nd 6:00-7:15 pm Yoga Holiday, no class
Monday, June 27th 6:00-7:15 pm Arin Trook
Wednesday, June 29th 6:00-7:15 pm Liesa Scholze
Monday, June 6th 6:00-7:15 pm Heather Sullivan
Wednesday, June 8th 6:00-7:15 pm Karma Yoga with Cynthia Ramaciotti
Monday, June 13th 6:00-7:15 pm Jennie Wheeler
Wednesday, June 15th 6:00-7:15 pm Liesa Scholze
Monday, June 20th 6:00-7:15 pm Cynthia Ramaciotti
Wednesday, June 22nd 6:00-7:15 pm Yoga Holiday, no class
Monday, June 27th 6:00-7:15 pm Arin Trook
Wednesday, June 29th 6:00-7:15 pm Liesa Scholze
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Noah Mazé to Lead Local Memorial Day Fundraiser
Join donation-based yoga session with Noah Mazé in El Portal, California!
Noah Mazé is one of the most sought-after, advanced, and proficient practitioners and teachers of Anusara® Yoga, a style popularized by celebrity yogi John Friend. In Noah's classes, yoga philosophy, myths, and stories weave together with yoga postures, breathing practices, and meditation to create a powerful and transformative experience.
On Memorial Day weekend, Noah is teaming up with Balanced Rock for a weekend of yoga and hiking that will culminate in a donation-based fundraiser yoga session. The fundraiser will be held on Monday, May 30 from 9:00am – 11:00am at the El Portal Community Hall. The yoga session is open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis. Email info@balancedrock.org for an advanced reservation. The community hall can accommodate approximately 50-60 yoga mats. There will also be a silent auction including Giants tickets and a weekend stay for two at a beautiful cottage in Point Reyes. Food will be available for purchase after the yoga session.
There are also a few individual fee-based yoga classes with Noah available on Friday, May 27, Saturday, May 28, and Sunday, May 29. Only a few spots left, so reserve now!
Funds generated during Noah’s Memorial Day yoga session will be used for Balanced Rock’s scholarships and empowerment programs for low-income and underserved populations. Balanced Rock is a Yosemite-based non-profit whose mission is to inspire people to live more meaningful, healthy, and sustainable lives through deep connection to nature, community and themselves. Their programs for mind, body, and spirit wellness focus on journeys in the Yosemite Wilderness. Special programs have included free community yoga, Women of Color expeditions, and self-care courses designed for social workers.
One local program that will benefit from the fundraiser is the Yosemite Youth Expedition for Mariposa youth, a partnership project with Mountain Crisis Services, Ethos Youth Center, Mariposa Safe Families, and the Mariposa County Unified School District. This program brings local high-school-aged youth into Yosemite National Park on dayhikes leading up to a 4-day Wilderness Expedition. The next Wilderness Expedition is scheduled for June 16-19 in Yosemite National Park.
For more information, visit www.balancedrock.org, email info@balancedrock.org or call (209)379-9453.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Balanced Rock Gets a Shout Out in the June Yoga Journal!
We're pretty excited to be included in the article Call of the Wild: Climb, Paddle or Surf Your Way to Bliss on a Yoga Adventure.
The text reads: "Hiking and Backpacking: Explore hiking trails and hone your backcountry skills along with your yoga and meditation practice while surrounded by rocky bluffs, cliffs and waterfalls of Yosemite.
Thanks Yoga Journal!
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Forest Inspiration with Andie Thrams
Andie Thrams is a visual artist, educator and occasional publisher as Larkspur Graphics. She will be leading an art and hiking retreat called "A Sense of Place" with Balanced Rock from June 10-12.
Text quoted from:
IN FORESTS, Volume XVI: Great and Graceful
By Andie Thrams; all images © Andie Thrams
This book is part of an ongoing series of artist’s books documenting my experiences in wild forests. This volume holds original journal pages made in August 2008, during an eleven-day backpack with my husband, Dennis Eagan, in Sequoia National Park. We spent much of our trip exploring Redwood Meadow, a complex of several wilderness Sequoia groups in the upper Middle Fork of the Kaweah River watershed.
Page 9:
In the stringer grove, above Redwood Meadow, midday. A creek meanders steeply down, appearing in pools and little cascades, then disappearing under ground or logs or boulders. The Giant Sequoias here grow along this unnamed creek, nearly in it, in places. It is steep terrain & quite shady. This grove follows the creek down to Cliff Creek where we slept last night beneath two Sequoias. A few Sequoias continue downstream from there, eventually linking up with the main Redwood Meadow trees.
Nearly always these trees grow in groups. It is hard to put words to the sense of connection amongst them and the other giant trees like Sugar Pine, Jeffery Pine and White Fir that grow with them. But the term, forest community, seems perfect. A wild ancient forest like this feels unlike any other. It is all pattern & chaos, ordered & unkempt. It feels deeply complicated, interwoven beyond comprehension. And, best of all, it feels like a place thriving, and of grace.
After a bit of time in forests like this, I also start to feel like a thriving being & filled with a sense of grace. I hear flickers, jays, nuthatches, chickadees, chickarees, woodpeckers, moving water, wind up high, juncos, winter wrens, and more I don’t know. Bracken & lady fern, California hazelnut, alum root, pyrola, gallium, a beautiful tall grass in the creek bed, pinedrops, & dried up still crimson snow plant, grey squirrels, bees, funnel-web spiders, and ants, no end to ants. (A person has to accept small creatures crawling on skin around these trees.) Also: snowberry, gooseberry, thimbleberry, currant and kit-kit-dizzee, dogbane, white-stemmed raspberry. I’ll never know them all! It is hot in the sun, but cool & breezy in the shade of these trees. Chickarees cut down cones, which sometimes crash through the branches to the ground. Wind blows down twigs & sometimes limbs, rarely a tree—we thought we may have heard a tree fall last night... so very good to be back here.
Text quoted from:
IN FORESTS, Volume XVI: Great and Graceful
By Andie Thrams; all images © Andie Thrams
This book is part of an ongoing series of artist’s books documenting my experiences in wild forests. This volume holds original journal pages made in August 2008, during an eleven-day backpack with my husband, Dennis Eagan, in Sequoia National Park. We spent much of our trip exploring Redwood Meadow, a complex of several wilderness Sequoia groups in the upper Middle Fork of the Kaweah River watershed.
Page 9:
In the stringer grove, above Redwood Meadow, midday. A creek meanders steeply down, appearing in pools and little cascades, then disappearing under ground or logs or boulders. The Giant Sequoias here grow along this unnamed creek, nearly in it, in places. It is steep terrain & quite shady. This grove follows the creek down to Cliff Creek where we slept last night beneath two Sequoias. A few Sequoias continue downstream from there, eventually linking up with the main Redwood Meadow trees.
Nearly always these trees grow in groups. It is hard to put words to the sense of connection amongst them and the other giant trees like Sugar Pine, Jeffery Pine and White Fir that grow with them. But the term, forest community, seems perfect. A wild ancient forest like this feels unlike any other. It is all pattern & chaos, ordered & unkempt. It feels deeply complicated, interwoven beyond comprehension. And, best of all, it feels like a place thriving, and of grace.
After a bit of time in forests like this, I also start to feel like a thriving being & filled with a sense of grace. I hear flickers, jays, nuthatches, chickadees, chickarees, woodpeckers, moving water, wind up high, juncos, winter wrens, and more I don’t know. Bracken & lady fern, California hazelnut, alum root, pyrola, gallium, a beautiful tall grass in the creek bed, pinedrops, & dried up still crimson snow plant, grey squirrels, bees, funnel-web spiders, and ants, no end to ants. (A person has to accept small creatures crawling on skin around these trees.) Also: snowberry, gooseberry, thimbleberry, currant and kit-kit-dizzee, dogbane, white-stemmed raspberry. I’ll never know them all! It is hot in the sun, but cool & breezy in the shade of these trees. Chickarees cut down cones, which sometimes crash through the branches to the ground. Wind blows down twigs & sometimes limbs, rarely a tree—we thought we may have heard a tree fall last night... so very good to be back here.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
May Yosemite Community Yoga at the El Portal School
All classes are from 6-7:15pm at the El Portal School. Appropriate for all levels of yoga experience. Donation-based classes benefit the Balanced Rock scholarship fund and training for our yoga teachers.
Monday, May 2: Eryn Bordes, 6-7:15pm
Wednesday, May 4: Schuyler Greenleaf, 6-7:15pm
Monday, May 9: Cynthia Ramaciotti, 6-7:15pm
Wednesday, May 11: Liesa Scholze, 6-7:15pm
Monday, May 16: Jennie Wheeler, 6-7:15pm
Wednesday, May 18: Eliza Kerr, 6-7:15pm
Monday, May 23: Heather Sullivan, 6-7:15pm
Wednesday, May 25: Arin Trook, 6-7:15pm
Monday, May 30: Memorial Day Teaching Holiday; Noah Mazé Special Event!
Join us for a special Noah Mazé Donation-based fundraiser from 9-11am at the El Portal Community Hall. This event will raise money for Balanced Rock's social service programs like our Women of Color backpacking trip and Yosemite Youth Expedition for youth at risk of chemical dependency. This event offers the chance to practice yoga with one of the most sought-after yoga teachers in the country.
Monday, May 2: Eryn Bordes, 6-7:15pm
Wednesday, May 4: Schuyler Greenleaf, 6-7:15pm
Monday, May 9: Cynthia Ramaciotti, 6-7:15pm
Wednesday, May 11: Liesa Scholze, 6-7:15pm
Monday, May 16: Jennie Wheeler, 6-7:15pm
Wednesday, May 18: Eliza Kerr, 6-7:15pm
Monday, May 23: Heather Sullivan, 6-7:15pm
Wednesday, May 25: Arin Trook, 6-7:15pm
Monday, May 30: Memorial Day Teaching Holiday; Noah Mazé Special Event!
Join us for a special Noah Mazé Donation-based fundraiser from 9-11am at the El Portal Community Hall. This event will raise money for Balanced Rock's social service programs like our Women of Color backpacking trip and Yosemite Youth Expedition for youth at risk of chemical dependency. This event offers the chance to practice yoga with one of the most sought-after yoga teachers in the country.
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