Ahhhhh. Another Yoga Jam in the books! This year’s attendance was bigger than ever, we filled up our main car camping area and started filling up the secondary areas! Primitive campers were nestled in the fields and surrounding forests, and we sold out of our RV slots! Wonderful teachers, performers, healers, and artists of all types converged  once again for a magical experience of movement, music & magic. I am still wondering how it all could go by so quickly, and in the quiet moments I wonder if it was all just a dream.

I watch people arrive in one way, and leave changed somehow. So many folks let go of some of their burdens, allowing the movement or music, a tender or vigorous massage, or a dip in the creek to wash away their troubles for a time. I watch people make new friends that last a lifetime, or make connections that change the trajectory of their futures. The one thing about Yoga Jam is that the folks who come want to live happy and healthy lives of community. Or find out that this is what they have been missing all along! They are interesting in connecting, sharing, and opening to that interconnected reality.

My perspective is my own, unique in that I work for the festival. My first experience was wholly transformative, and I knew from that first year that I HAD to be a part of making this festival go. So I have done various jobs throughout the years: sign up vendors, provide admin assistance, run the box office on event weekend,  and fill in for security, parking and artist relations, babysitter to dearly loved staff and friends, and caring ear to many who are opening to the fact that there is a deeper truth to life that is beautiful and real, and it has nothing to do with how much you achieve, succeed, or collect. Somehow, this little festival feeds those of us who long for meaning in our lives. And I never tire of watching that happen! This year, I got to add TEACHER to my list, as I taught a morning class for the first time ever at a festival. It was sweet and gentle and I got to share my one true love with others – meditation.

This year’s theme was Shine On, and had a cocoon and butterfly logo. I love the literal bug & butterfly as well as the metaphor of the cocoon & transformation, in which we go to fully dissolve before emerging into our radiant, shining expression of aliveness and purpose. During the opening ceremony, several hundred painted lady butterfies were to be released. I was excited to hear about it, since I would not be able to see it, and I was so amused to hear the recap: They opened the box and a few butterflies flew out and promptly landed on the pile of flowers that were heaped nearby as ceremony decoration. Upon closer inspection, the MC looked into the box and realized they were all mating! (I mean, what else are we gonna do in confinement!?!) So a sweet joke was made, and the box was left open for the butterflies to gently make their way out into the festival and the fields and forests. I did manage to meet a few of the butterflies that visited me in box office.

And, I met many, many of the caterpillars, cocooned folks, and butterflies that arrived in their various stages of growth and transformation. Each marvelous and fascinating and beautiful and unique. I cannot even begin to imagine what another year will bring when we meet to do it all over again!