By Nikita Mehta

There are 108 marma points in the body. These are vital life force points where two or more types of tissue meet. They are junctures in our body, places of incredible energy movement. In yoga we connect to these marma points when opening the heart or releasing energy through our crown. But energy centers, chakra points and vortices don’t only exist in our bodies, they also exist across the globe. Vortices are incredibly powerful places on the planet. These are points where the energy of the planet flows up and out and whatever energy you have brought with you will be amplified. These centers allow you to align with your present state and to fully express your own frequency. Sound like a good place to hold a yoga festival? We thought so to.

Last month, SF Yoga Mag traveled to Sedona for the 6th annual Sedona Yoga Festival. The festival, which took place all over Sedona, featured over 200 classes, events, workshops, performances and land journeys. The red rocks and blue skies were the perfect backdrop for this year’s festival which featured Tao Porch Lynch, MC Yogi, Saul David Raye and so many others. The best part of this yoga festival? It was in Sedona! Sedona is an incredibly powerful vortex center that helped us center our practice and connect deeply with each and every class we took. We can’t tell you about every experience that we had on these sacred lands, but we will tell you about the highlights!

The perfect way to kick off the weekend was with a lunch with Tao Porch Lynch at Mariposa! Chef Lisa Dahl created a special menu which she served on the patio of her amazing restaurant, overlooking the red rocks, green trees and blue skies. Tao spent individual time with each of the attendees, recounting her background as a cofounder of the American Wine Society, what it was like to study with B.K.S. Iyengar and Pattabi Jois and how much she loves to tango! There was live music, dedicated to Tao, tantalizing conversation and delicious food. We were so entranced with Chef Lisa Dahl that we will be headed back to Sedona later this year for an exclusive on food, yoga and the power of Sedona.
Nestled at the base of Thunder Mountain, Amalia Camateros led a group of women down into a dried out wash. Here she built an altar on a vortex center, the place where energy had flown out of the ground and created a perfect cross. We chanted and walked in circles around the altar, bathed in the energy of the red rocks and spoke our truth. This intimate land journey was everything that the name stated it would be; a shamanic healing with earth and spirit wisdom. Each land journey at SYF offered a different look at the healing properties and energy centers of the land. While Amalia was leading her land journey at the Sugarloaf trail head, Saul David Raye was leading his own land journey. We couldn’t make it to all of these amazing experiences, but from what we experienced this year we will definitely be placing these at the top of our list for next time.
When we heard that DJ Drez was spinning beats for a class overlooking the red rocks, we were all in. What we weren’t expecting was the incredible Dana Damara, she spoke lovingly about the moon cycles and how each of us are affected by lunar phases. This wasn’t your typical astrological sun sign talk, this was deep knowledge that came from a place of immense respect for the power of the moon. After speaking for 20 minutes, Dana led us through one of the most challenging and soulful classes that we took all weekend. Here is the best part of our fateful encounter with Dana that weekend, we get to see her here in the city! Special bonus: We were so engaged by Dana’s elegant explanation of the moon cycles that we have convinced her to share this knowledge with all of you! Look for new articles written by Dana to begin in early April!
Another Bay Area native who stole our hearts at SYF was none other than MC Yogi. We loved MC and Amanda’s class set to the beat of DJ Drez, but he really got us going at the OM Coming Ball! Beach balls, dancing and MC Yogi spitting his rhymes, the OM Coming Ball was the highlight experience of the entire festival. We watched Tao dance the tango in not one, but two amazing dresses and were in awe of how deep she could dip! We danced late into the night, got called up on stage with 40 of our closest yogi friends and felt the full experience of the Sedona vortex!