My first experience at the Lucidity Festival came early on a Saturday afternoon, when I wandered into a workshop from Peace Sticks. The activity – led by brothers who make their home in Ojai – was a simple one: pass the sticks back and forth with a partner. Some of them were balanced ones that […]

Every Friday morning when I’m in town, I spend 20 minutes at OsteoStrong, just off Las Positas, and so want to congratulate OsteoStrong’s Assistant Manager Lauren Farewell, who gave birth March 28, at Cottage Hospital, to a beautiful baby girl, Jada Michaela, weighing 8 lbs 4 oz and 20 and 1/2 inches long. Jada is […]

My longtime friend and confidante, balloonist, scientist, physicist, thinker, inventor, conversationalist, and bon vivant, Julian Nott, passed away peacefully on March 26 after suffering multiple injuries from an extraordinary and unforeseeable accident following a successful balloon flight and landing in Warner Springs, California.  Every second or third Saturday morning, depending upon his schedule, we would […]

Things have evolved since last we heard from Yemaya Renuka Duby, the healer whose Bones of Freedom technique was the centerpiece of her practice, including an introductory session at Yoga Soup last spring. While she’s had some forays into nutrition and other modalities, Duby found herself drawn back to what had motivated her for years. […]

Still Alice is considered the definitive and illuminating novel about Alzheimer’s disease and it was written by Lisa Genova. She recently gave a lecture on the subject for UCSB’s Arts & Lectures at Campbell Hall. Prior to the talk, sponsors Hollye and Jeff Jacobs gave a private reception for her at their home. Genova’s TED […]

Paradise Found, the 33-year-old bookstore and boutique across the public library in downtown Santa Barbara, hosts an afternoon of readings at a special Spring Equinox sampler. The Vernal Equinox, with day and night in perfect balance, marks a period of new growth offering a potent and fruitful opportunity for seekers of clarity. Accordingly, five intuitive […]

Mindfulness as a valuable human practice has been popular in the west at least since Ram Dass penned “Be Here Now” in 1971 and the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh wrote his series of teachings of the subject. In recent years, scientific studies at Harvard, Stanford, UCLA, and elsewhere have proven that a consistent mindfulness […]

On a recent sunny day, I stopped by Crane Country Day School for a visit. It was one of those special days when the entire school was out on the quad being served a potpourri of luncheon delights. Food stands, tended by kids and parent-volunteers, burgeoned with a huge variety of offerings: everything from salads, […]

Where can you hear some of the greatest Kirtan/call-and-response chant artists all in one place short of attending a Bahkti gathering? How about Yoga Soup this Friday night, when Sounds into Silence, a feature-length documentary that explores chant meditation, makes its Santa Barbara public debut. Deva Premal & Miten, Krishna Das, Snatam Kaur, Jai Uttal, […]

Santa Barbara photographer Ralph Clevenger looked back at his underwater adventures over the past 45 years, including an in-depth view of the underwater photography course he taught at Brooks Institute, when he spoke at the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum. Clevenger, who grew up on the coast of North Africa and began diving in the waters […]