It’s easy to get hyperbolic when trying to convey my experience of studying with famous yoga teacher Shiva Rea. Let’s just say that the cliche “a force of nature” applies.

I first met Shiva at the Estes Park Yoga Journal Conference in 2007.  She was teaching a 400-person class in the main hall, so I expected my to be anonymous. And perhaps I was—but I felt like she was talking directly to me throughout the class. She has a gift for feeling the field of the room and speaking too it, guiding it, and in doing so, connecting to each person.  The class was a Trance Dance—a personally spiritual, tribal, sweaty roller-coaster through dynamic yogic movements, martial arts, animal inspired movement, emotions and any kind of dance that moves your soul. It would be easy to say that Shiva’s Prana Flow is only about movement—inspired by breath and body and chi, but that would only capture a small part of her teachings.

I have found a stillness in her class that is the perfect reciprocal to the exuberance of her dance and athletic and fluid yoga asana flow.  I and the entire class have played like children in games with each other, with spinning poi, and with our own curiosity. Perhaps that is the thing that I find the most unusual and valuable about her particular way.

During my first teacher training with her last winter, she demonstrated a complex series of poses that seemed to have an odd and untraditional logic.  It took hours for me to finally realize that she wasn’t asking us to memorize her sequence. She was demonstrating how we might learn to create our own.  After six years of trying to make my yoga look like someone else’s (whatever teacher I was studying with), I finally understood one of the most important lessons of yoga: that my practice is for me. It’s not about trying to impress anyone else or be anyone else—it’s about discovering and perfecting a vehicle that helps me to find and polish myself. Her practice began to teach me how to own my own.

She’s coming to my neighborhood, this weekend at the Denver Convention Center (Jan. 30th – Feb 1st 2009).  She has a new mission, called The E2 Evolutionary Edge. The intention of this workshop is to bring together the consciousness-shifting mediums of yoga, music, ecstatic dance, paradigm-elevating speakers, visual arts and sacred activism into an enlivening ritual space to raise the collective vibration and awaken our individual and collective capacity for conscious living in these transformative times.

There will be a number of discussions at E2—Heart Fire: Igniting the Sacred Flame dedicated to the topic of: “How do we tend the flame of our heart in changing and challenging times?” with the intention of creating the vision to increase personal empowerment, creativity, inspiration, deep happiness, and most of all transforming power of love to carrying us through the challenging times of the day. All sessions will be a potent combination of Prana Flow Yoga and meditation offered by Shiva Rea and poetic teachings infused by Andrew Harvey, renowned scholar of mysticism and Sacred Activism along with the science of vibration and sound with Alex Theory, Ph.D. Dave Stringer, celebrated musician and dedicated bhakti yoga rocker, will ignite the Saturday evening Trance Dance and kirtan.

The E2 Evolutionary Tour is sponsored by prAna and local yoga studio, öm time. For additional information about the E2 Evolutionary Edge Tour with Shiva Rea, please contact Amber Kinney, [email protected] or visit www.omtime.com for the full event schedule. This event is open to the public, no experience is required. See you there.

Shiva Rea, M.A., is a leading teacher of Prana Flow Yoga and Yoga Trance Dance worldwide. She began exploring yoga at the age of fourteen as a way to understand her name, given to her by her father, a surfer and artist. Her studies in the Krishnamacharya lineage, tantra, ayurveda, bhakti, kalaripayattu, world dance, yogic art and somatic movement infuse her approach to living yoga and embodying the flow. She is known for bringing the roots of yoga alive for modern practitioners in creative, dynamic and life-transforming ways. As a global adventurer, she has lead over 70 retreats and pilgrimages nationally and internationally as well as served as a creative catalyst for conferences, festivals and actions for the environment, yoga and the arts including the third annual Yogini Conference of Kripalu and Omega. Shiva writes for Yoga Journal and is the author of award winning CD’s and DVD’s to empower and transform yoga home practice. She lives and teaches in Venice California: www.shivarea.com

FRIDAY
Ritual Flow for Teachers: 2:00-5:00pm
Creating the Sacred Mandala
with Shiva Rea and Shiva Kumar
Attendance for this session is optional

Raise the Vibration: Yoga as Sacred Activation
7:00 – 9:00pm
with Shiva Rea, Andrew Harvey, Alex Theory and
Maha Laxmi Puja with Shiva Kumar Entering Sacred Space 9:00-9:30pm
Invoking, Unwinding, Releasing Vinyasa

SATURDAY
E2: The Ecstatic Edge Immersion Day
Experience one session or an entire 12 hour cycle of immersion

Ignite: Tending the Inner Fire
9:00 – 12:00pm
Entering Awakened Space 9:00-9:30am Dynamic, Intense and Empowering Vinyasa

Healing Lunch Break

Melting: The Way Love Moves
2:00 – 5:00pm
Entering the Radical Relaxation Lounge 2:00-2:30pm
Meditative, Healing, Sensual and Divine Vinyasa

Bom Bom Bom Hara Hara: Kirtan and Yoga Trance Dance
7:00 – 10:00pm
Entering Freedom Space 7:00-7:30pm
An evening of kirtan and yoga trance dance for life!

SUNDAY
Raising the Vibration: The Yoga of Liberating Love
9:00-12:00am Closing Session
Entering Loving Space 9:00-9:30am
Integrative, Inspiring and Uniting Vinyasa

Friday – Sunday, January 30 – February 1, 2009
Location
COLORADO CONVENTION CENTER
700 14th Street
Denver, CO 80202
www.denverconvention.com

$225 if registered prior to January 16
$255 thereafter

Register online to guarantee your spot for this exciting event!

If you are interested in SPECIFIC SESSIONS please contact Om Time Denver to complete your registration, 303.963.5306.

17 hours applicable toward Samudra School for Living Yoga certification program and Yoga Alliance CEC credits. Credit hours for those in advanced teacher’s study community at the 300/500 hour level. Samudra Teacher Trainees receive 10% off early bird price.

Tour co-spiritors
prAna, om time yoga, Prana Flow
elephantjournal.com, Organic India, Soundstrue

Email [email protected] with any questions.