The dates of the retreat are November 2-4. We will begin on Friday afternoon and go through midday on Sunday. This will be a silent meditation retreat with yoga practice each day.

Michael Stone

Michael Stone is a Yoga teacher Buddhist teacher, author and psychotherapist. He is the Founder of Center of Gravity, a urban community in Toronto integrating Buddhist practice, Yoga and social action. He is a voice for a new generation of young people integrating spiritual practice with environmental and social issues. His most recent book is “Awake in the World: Teachings from Yoga & Buddhism for Living an Engaged Life.”

Cost of the retreat is $350 prior to June 1, 2012, and $375 after June, 1, 2012 – including meals and lodging. To save your place, please print and mail the form below with a non-refundable deposit for $100. Please, make checks out to Junction Center. We will be sending another form to registered attendees to gather more info when we get closer to the retreat date.

Mail to:
Junction Center
3435 N Junction Rd
Egg Harbor, WI 54209

Name:______________________________

Dennis Hawk

From 7 – 9 pm, Dennis Hawk will lead a shared musical experience known as Kirtan, featuring Sanskrit mantras set to fresh melodies and sounds. Kirtan is intended as a holistic healing experience designed to bring participants into a more organic form of meditation, either in stillness or in motion. One of the oldest of sacred sound traditions, Kirtan’s call-and-response chanting involves Satsang, an ancient Sanskrit term that describes the community that exists between an assembly of people who listen to, talk about, and assimilate their impressions of truthfulness.

It was more than ten years ago that Kathy Navis was practicing yoga with a group that met in the basement of Melissa Nelson’s former chiropractic office in Sturgeon Bay. She didn’t intend to become a yoga teacher, but when the instructor who had been commuting from Green Bay decided to stop coming, the group was left without a leader. They asked if Kathy would take on the role, so she proceeded to get her yoga teacher certification, but still had no intention of opening her own studio or to teach more than a couple of classes.

At the same time she was selling her business, the former Imported clothing store in Egg Harbor. She wanted to move out of the upstairs apartment and had been searching for a farm-ette.

“I had pretty much given up the search when my realtor called and said, ‘Kathy you have got to see this farm.’ It soon became Junction Center,” says Kathy. “The previous owners, Dick and Barb Kolpack were blacksmiths and did metal sculpture so they had remodeled some of the barn and had built the lean to, which is now the yoga studio, as a blacksmith shop.”

When Kathy walked into that former blacksmith shop she immediately realized it was the perfect yoga studio. She went home with her head spinning and then decided to act. She made an appointment to meet with the owners and walked in with all sorts of statistics on comparable sales and other bargaining tactics and came to meet Dick, all 300 lbs. of him standing behind an anvil with a huge hammer in his hands.

Kathy says, “He was not interested in any of my info, but when I proposed a price that was in their ballpark he said, ‘Do you drink coffee? I roast my own beans’ and the next thing we were sitting around the kitchen table crafting an agreement that everyone was happy with.”

In July of 2001 she began working with a local carpenter to turn the blacksmith shop into a yoga studio. They added skylights, patio doors and a large picture window looking out over the meadow in the back. The floor was a concrete slab which Kathy was determined to turn into a heated floor. She did the research online and spoke with contractor friends to come up with a plan… one that unfortunately included hauling all of the concrete in 5-gallon buckets to create mass for the heating system. She called some friends including Wence Martinez and his son, to help create a day long bucket brigade.

Much has transpired over the past ten years and now Junction Center Yoga Studio is a mainstay, with regular classes for all levels of practitioners. Yoga has also transformed here in Door County with the general public coming to realize that practicing yoga is one of the most enjoyable forms of preventive medicine you can undertake.  On Sunday, October 23 Kathy Navis invites you to celebrate a ten-year anniversary.

Dennis Hawk, a Cherokee of Mesquaki descent, a pipe carrier and teacher of Native American spirituality, is also a well-known singer, songwriter and story-teller who plays guitar and Native American flute. He does a superb job of sharing his Kirtan insights and knowledge of Sanskrit chanting, its purpose and how it may affect you in order to deepen your own understanding and spiritual experience with Kirtan. There are no prerequisites or religious beliefs needed to participate in Kirtan, just bring an open heart and mind and join in by lifting your voice or just sit back and listen to how the music, vibration and meaning impacts you physically, mentally and spiritually.

If you want to experience yoga at Junction Center, Kathy is teaching a new beginner’s 4-class session starting Monday, October 31, from 9:30 – 11 am. Junction Center Yoga Studio is located at 7821 Junction Road, (just off County Hwy. A, north of Jacksonport).

“For some yoga practitioners, the body is a sacred vessel that should not be tainted. For others, the skin represents a blank, movable canvas for tattoos displaying thoughts, texts and deities that inspire and inform their practice. These works of art, stretched across shoulders, chests, arms and legs, may be tucked away during the workday. But when clothing comes off, as it often does in yoga studios, they are on display for all to see.”

Here are a few more fresh articles from the New York Times yoga section:

The Sky’s the Limit as More Yogis Seek Open Spaces

By MARY BILLARD
Outdoor yoga, once mostly confined to resorts, is spreading in the New York area to rooftops, parks and beaches.

Yoga Therapy May Help Prevent and Treat Orthopedic Problems

“W’ ll discuss and then practice how to incorporate a series of asanas coupled with a life-altering live food diet to attain rejuvenation, detoxification and the elimination of impurities,” says Andrea Slaby. “These movements and the food introduced into your daily life are the tools you need. You don’t have eliminate anything, no stressing over a set of dieting rules and regulations. You just add these tools to your daily routine. Eventually, the items you want to eliminate will simply fade away without trying to stop them cold-turkey.”

According to yogic philosophy, kundalini is a spiritual energy or life force located at the base of the spine. It is conceptualized as a coiled up serpent. Literally, kundalini or kundala is that which is coiled (Sanskrit kund, to burn; kunda, to coil or to spiral). It is believed that Kundalini yoga is that which arouses the sleeping Kundalini Shakti from its coiled base through the 6 chakras, and penetrate the 7th chakra, or crown.

Eighty percent of the asanas Andrea suggests are to support and stimulate the organs most responsible for detoxification, elimination and circulation. You will learn to stimulate these key organs to eliminate toxins from within the body and learn how to keep them at optimal health on a daily basis with a minimal investment of time. You will also learn how to stimulate your hormones to maintain balance, radiating vitality through the elimination of toxins and better choices in the foods you put into your body.

“I bring my chef Anthony Carroccio along and we prepare food together,” says Andrea. “Anthony will then discuss the key foods that stimulate healthy cells and a healthier lifestyle through a system of Sustainable Detoxification.”

After class, refreshments were served to alkalize the system and awaken the senses for a conversation about restoration, rejuvenation and a lifestyle that supports detoxification on a daily basis without “fasting and binging” cycles. During the talk Anthony will introduce the group to some raw and sprouted delights. He will provide handouts and recipes for the attendees. This workshop was all about developing life-long habits.

Andrea Slaby teaches Yoga Workshops that combine food and kundalini in Santa Barbara, CA and in the Midwest. Originally from Milwaukee, she brings her skills to the Midwest so people can grasp and learn what necessary changes they need to make in order to heal their mind, body and spirit. People come to enjoy themselves, build community and learn about the food and recipes. It’s fun and the food is delicious.

Andrea recently produced a kundalini yoga workshop that focused on the parts of the body that go along with spring; the liver and gallbladder and then made a raw food dinner of foods that heal those areas of the body. She teaches people certain yoga and meditation techniques that help them on a personal level as well as a social level.

All you need to practice yoga on the shore is a mat, and Kathy will bring them if you don’t have your own. Celebrate the elements outside in the fresh Door County air, with your feet planted firmly on the earth, gazing at the beauty of the waters of Green Bay under the bright shining fire of the sun. These ongoing weekly classes will teach you how to begin adding the daily practice of yoga to your personal campaign for optimum health and wellness.

Drop-in’s are always welcome… there’s plenty of “space” at the Egg Harbor Beach. If it rains or there is an impending summer shower, don’t worry! Classes will still be held under the large covered pavilion above the beach parking lot. The cost is a flat fee, $12 per session.

The enormous physical benefits of yoga are actually a side effect that comes from the greater work, harmonizing your mind with your body:

• Increasing flexibility – yoga Asanas (poses) act upon the various joints of the body including those joints that are not often exercised, insuring retention of a full range of motion.
• Increasing lubrication of the joints, ligaments and tendons – ancient yoga positions exercise the different tendons and ligaments of the body. Surprisingly, a human body which may have been quite rigid starts responding to yoga with a remarkable increase in flexibility, even those parts which have not been directly worked upon. Why? Research has shown that seemingly unrelated “non strenuous” yoga positions act upon certain parts of the body in an interrelated manner. When done together, they work in harmony to create a situation where flexibility is attained relatively easily.
• Massaging all organs of the body – Yoga is perhaps the only form of activity which massages all the internal glands and organs of the body in a thorough manner. This stimulation and massage of the organs in turn benefits you by keeping away disease and providing a forewarning at the first possible instance of a likely onset of disease or disorder.
• Complete detoxification – By gently stretching muscles and joints as well as massaging the various organs, yoga ensures an optimum blood supply to various parts of the body, flushing out which leads to benefits such as delayed ageing, energy and a remarkable zest for life.
• Excellent toning of the muscles – Muscles that have become flaccid and weak are stimulated repeatedly improving muscle tone and overall fitness.

Junction Center Yoga Studio, also has a full slate of indoor yoga and tai chi classes taught throughout the week by several different instructors. The studio is open the year ‘round at their rural re-purposed barn location on Junction Road, a few miles north of Jacksonport, just off County Highway A. Find out more by calling 920.823.2763, check the complete schedule online at JunctionCenterYoga.com and join in the conversation on Facebook at www.facebook.com/yogaclasses.

Carol and Bill Hoehn

In China, Carol Hoehn studies tai chi chuan under Chan Ming Shu and Chen Tzu Wei, two highly regarded masters. As a follower and participant under their mentorship, she has entered and placed in the World Cup Tai Chi Chuan Championships in 2008 and 2010. Tai chi chuan is at the root of traditional martial arts and is practiced for both meditative and health benefits as well as for self-defense. It is also practiced by people of all ages.

Carol is presenting a three-week series of six classes in tai chi chuan throughout July. The twice-weekly morning classes at Junction Center are appropriate for students with no prior experience and focus on the basic principles of breathe and motion, including a basic form for daily practice. Loose-fitting clothing and flat-soled, flexible shoes are encouraged and appropriate for the classes. The six classes take place on Mondays and Wednesdays from 8 – 9 am beginning on Monday, July 11 and continue through Wednesday, July 27.

The introductory 6-class series is $75 and drop-ins are welcome at $15 per session. Call 920.823.2763 or visit Junction Center Yoga Studio (3435 Junction Rd. just north of Jacksonport off Cty. Hwy. A) in person to learn more.

Daira Quiñones Preciado

Daira is among 4.9 million Colombians displaced by violence. She currently works with other displaced people in Bogota. Daira’s strength, courage and compassion have made her both a threat to repressive powers and a beacon of hope for the victims of Colombia’s armed conflict. Daira is also one of the founders of FUNDARTECP, the Foundation for Art and Culture of the Pacific.

• Learn about Witness for Peace and the current struggle for human rights in Colombia
• Hear about the recent all-women delegation to Colombia, based upon seeing through the eyes of women, hearing their stories and feeling the depth of their struggles to protect their families and communities
• Hear from special guest Daira Quiñones Preciado, joining us from Bogota, Colombia

Join us on Wednesday, June 29, from 7 – 8:30 pm at Junction Center Yoga Studio, 3435 Junction Road (north of Jacksonport, just off County Highway A) in the Town of Egg Harbor. Followed by cookies, tea and coffee. Suggested donation $5 – $10.

“With peace in Sri Lanka, the most stressed-out people are now the politicians,” said the instructor in charge, Chamin Warnakula.

His yoga organization has produced a leaflet headed “Yoga for MPs – For Mind, Body and Soul”.

Breathing and posture exercises will “teach them discipline, good behaviour, and how to control themselves in stressful situations”, he said.

“MPs get very stressed and they’re not in a position to do other exercise,” said his pupil, Sanjeewa Perera.

Film actress and Sri Lankan MP Malani Fonseka

The sessions will be held before parliamentary sessions begin in hopes of deescalating tension. The BBC reports that film actress and MP Malani Fonseka introduced the idea of yoga sessions for Members of Parliament noting that, “if the lawmakers concentrated intently on what their bodies were doing, it would bring calmness to their minds, giving them a break from stress factors and helping them put things in perspective.”

“We hope at least that by doing yoga they can learn to respect democracy and be more disciplined,” said Sri Lankan Parliament member Ranjan Ramanayake,.

On other pages, the BBC reports that, The Indian government is planning to patent nearly a thousand yoga postures. Western companies are claiming the rights to certain asanas, driving India to protect their cultural heritage in defense of everyone’s rights to practice yoga. Click to read and listen… Can you patent yoga postures?

Yoga is spreading across Kenya, where thanks to the Africa Yoga Project, a non-profit organization, the classes are free to even the poorest communities. Read the entire BBC feature… Stretching the bodies and minds of Kenyans.

Indian authorities in the state of Madhya Pradesh say that Yoga helps to improve prisoners’ self-control and reduce aggression so they are being freed early if they complete yoga courses. For every three months spent practicing Yoga posture, balance and breathing the inmates can cut their jail time by 15 days. Read and watch this BBC feature to learn more… India inmates take yoga to reduce their jail sentences.

If only Ponce de Leon had made it to India... he might have discovered the real fountain of youth!

Yoga originated in India over 5,000 years ago. The name for these ancient teachings is a Sanskrit word meaning union or joining, similar to yoke. The physical postures or poses are called Asanas and are intended to join body, mind and spirit. But the Asanas are only one part of an “eight-limbed” system that includes mental and spiritual well being as well as physical activity. In the West most yoga instruction is centered on the Asanas as a means to well being.

Whether it’s the immediate reduction in levels of stress or the measurable improvements in circulation and blood pressure, practicing yoga is one of the most enjoyable forms of preventive medicine you can undertake. After a few sessions you will begin to notice improvements in your flexibility and balance. Over time, Yoga is also a strength builder.

The benefits of Yoga do not occur overnight, but the results are indeed long lasting. As you become fit and flexible most practitioners will begin to notice an increase in overall vitality and a greater sense of wellness. The different Asanas each focus on gently improving the functional capacity of your skeletal joints, muscles and connective tissue. By linking the actions to the breath, one also begins to “quiet the mind” – to hush that endless stream of thoughts that some mistake for consciousness.

Yoga students will also begin to take greater notice of their posture as they gain awareness of the alignment and range of motion inherent in their own musculoskeletal system. According to a notable physiologist, we become less flexible as we get older mainly because of certain changes that take place in the connective tissues as our bodies gradually begin to dehydrate. It is believed that “stretching stimulates the production or retention of lubricants between the connective tissue fibers, thus preventing the formation of adhesions.” Perhaps the greatest realization you will experience in taking up the practice of yoga is that you are actually capable of changing and improving your range of motion.

“This is what aging gracefully looks like,” says the slogan on a Junction Center t-shirt that one of the yoga students is wearing. Classroom attire in Yoga sessions is freeform, but dressing in layers is advisable so you can peel them off depending on the level of exercise and temperature of the room. Students will often wear leotards, shorts, t-shirts and tank tops under a layer of sweats that can be removed.

There is only one way to find out if yoga is right for you. Sign up for a beginner’s 6-session introduction at Junction Center. All of the equipment is provided in a safe and comfortable environment. Beginner’s classes are for all ages, male and female and for any level of fitness or ability. Every 6 weeks a new Beginner’s Session starts,  meeting each week on Mondays from 9 – 10:30 am. Call 920.823.2763 to make a reservation or continue to explore this Website to learn more.

Ask a dozen sniffling, sneezing people to talk about the bug they’ve caught, and you’ll likely discover a pattern. Chances are good that before they came down with the cold or flu, they were working long hours, eating on-the-go, getting little sleep, operating at full-speed ahead. While not always the case, many people report that these winter afflictions creep up on them in times of stress, when they’re pushing themselves too hard.

More and more, it seems that science backs up this observation. According to William Mitchell, N.D., a Seattle-based practitioner who teaches advanced naturopathic therapeutics at Bastyr University, studies show that many viruses and bacteria quietly reside within us until something within the body’s internal environment becomes unbalanced. Then they rally into action and attack.

As many longtime yogis can attest, asana practice provides a gentle, natural means of supporting the immune system on a day-to-day basis—no matter how hectic your schedule might be. Yoga helps lower stress hormones that compromise the immune system, while also conditioning the lungs and respiratory tract, stimulating the lymphatic system to oust toxins from the body, and bringing oxygenated blood to the various organs to ensure their optimal function.

“Yoga is unlike other forms of exercise that focus only on certain parts of the body,” says Kathleen Fry, M.D., president of the American Holistic Medicine Association in Scottsdale, Arizona. “Yoga works on everything.”

, from Wikimedia Commons”]

By http://theholisticcare.com [CC-BY-3.0

• Kurmasana (Tortoise Pose) supports the thymus.
• Adho Mukha Svanasana (Downward-Facing Dog) encourages blood flow to the sinuses—although Mitchell adds that most inverted postures or forward bends will focus the immune system on the sinuses, ultimately helping to ease congestion.

These particular types of poses also work to prevent the complications of secondary infections by draining the lungs.

If bronchial congestion has you gasping for air, Mitchell suggests you practice:

• Ustrasana (Camel Pose),
• Gomukhasana (Cow Face Pose), and
• Balasana (Child’s Pose) with arms extended in front, moving into
• Bhujangasana (Cobra Pose) to open the chest and prevent pneumonia.

Should you come down with the flu, however, it’s best not to practice yoga at all, since the condition requires absolute rest. The one exception to this rule, according to Alice Claggett and Elandra Kirsten Meredith in their book Yoga for Health and Healing: From the Teachings of Yogi Bhajan (1995), is in the case of fever. Sitting in Sukhasana (Easy Pose), with the backs or sides of the hands resting on the knees, thumb and index finger touching in gyan (or jnana) mudra and breathing through a U-shaped tongue for a minimum of three minutes will help reduce a temperature.

It seems reasonable to focus preventive measures on the areas of the body that fall directly under siege: namely, the nasal and bronchial passages. But the yoga tradition also suggests that colds and flu result from poor digestion or an energy imbalance originating in the digestive tract, which results in a build-up of mucus and phlegm that moves into the lungs. The theory, suggests Gary Kraftsow, a Viniyoga teacher based in Maui, Hawaii, is that improper digestion causes toxin build-up, which in turn manifests as disease anywhere in the body. Poses that gently compress, twist, or extend the belly can help a host of digestive ailments.

Pranayama Power

While the asanas make up the cornerstone of infection prevention, yoga’s benefits don’t stop there. Since both colds and flu attack the bronchial passages, it makes sense that conditioning the lungs and maximizing one’s breathing capacity through pranayama would build resistance to preying organisms.

Kraftsow, in his recent book Yoga for Wellness (Penguin, 1999), explains that cold and flu infections, allergies, asthma, and other chronic respiratory conditions are “directly linked to a weakened immune response” due to “disturbed, irregular habits of breathing.”

Drs. Robin Monro, R. Nagarathna, and H.R. Nagendra, authors of Yoga for Common Ailments (Fireside, 1991), also emphasize breathing exercises. Sectional breathing and rapid abdominal breathing (Kapalabhati) “increase the resistance of your respiratory tract,” they advise, while the nasal wash and alternate-nostril breathing “increase the resistance of your sinuses.”

Recent findings from a Penn State University study involving 294 college students support this. Those who irrigated daily with saline experienced a significant reduction in colds.

Finally, meditation also reduces the incidence of infectious ailments by de-stressing the body and mind. Ample research has shown that just 20 minutes of meditation a day increases endorphins, decreases cortisol levels, and fosters positive states of mind to promote better health.

So how does one begin an immune-boosting yoga program? Rest assured that whatever your current yoga practice entails, it already strengthens your resistance.

But if you want to take extra steps to avoid infection, take this advice from Richard Rosen, frequent Yoga Journal contributor and instructor at Piedmont Yoga Studio in Oakland, California. He explains that modified versions of forward bends, backbends, and twists can all lend a hand in supporting and strengthening the immune system. Practice the sequence regularly throughout the winter to better your chances of staying healthy. And if you do succumb to illness, you’ll find these poses provide just the R & R you need to get better.