"...Door County's first Yoga Studio located north of Jacksonport."

Tag: Junction Center

Celebrate the Gratitude Tree at JCY&Z!

It all started with the Door County Maritime Museum’s “Merry-Time Festival of Trees.”

gratitude-treePeg Lowry, owner and manager at the Blue Dolphin House in Ephraim, was one of the many local businesses and organizations that created a unique Christmas tree donation.

gratitude-tree-02

She decided to fashion a Gratitude Tree, adorned with tiny bundles of thankfulness notes. Every tree went home with a lucky winner on December 10 at the museum’s “Jingle, Jingle, Mix & Mingle” raffle! Nancy Erickkson, a regular Junction Center yoga practitioner, also works at the Blue Dolphin and attended the museum festivities. When she won the tree, she decided it belonged at Junction Center…  (Thanks so much Nancy!)

You are encouraged to bring non-perishable food or personal care items to Junction Center as a donation to Lakeshore CAP (Community Action Program). The CAP’s motto, “Increasing economic self-sufficiency in Door, Kewaunee, Manitowoc and Sheboygan Counties,” is reflected in their programs to educate families, protect youth, secure shelter, deliver skills training, promote entrepreneurship and to provide food for the needy throughout northeastern Wisconsin. Your contribution will be delivered to Door County’s CAP located at 131 S. 3rd Avenue in Sturgeon Bay.

gratitude-tree-03

The Gratitude Tree has a pair of scissors hanging from one of the branches and a card that explains, “In return, please take with you one of the little polka dot bags filled with notes of appreciation and pass them on to others to whom you are grateful! May the spirit of Gratitude remain with you!”

Each of the cards in the packets has a different saying about gratitude and a place to write 3 reasons why you are grateful to the specific individuals that you choose give a card to. So, plan on sharing the joy next time you visit Junction Center Yoga Studio and have a Merry Holiday Season!

gratitude-tree-01

Buddhist Meditation Retreat with Michael Stone, December 14-17, 2012

Michael Stone will once again be leading a retreat here at Junction Center in Door County, Wisconsin in December, 2012.

The dates of the retreat are December 14-17. We will begin on Friday afternoon and go through midday on Monday. 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, an 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 $450 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 payable 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:______________________________

Postal Address:__________________________________________________

Email Address:________________________

Phone:_____________________________

 

Junction Center Yoga Celebrates 10-year Anniversary with a Festive Gathering and Sanskrit Musical Meditation

On Sunday, October 23, beginning at 4 pm, Junction Center founder Kathy Navis invites you to walk the labyrinth, sit around the bonfire and enjoy some delicious food from Greens N Grains Deli, followed by sharing a very special musical experience inside the Studio.

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).