Walk the Talk Show with Waylon Lewis Matas: video of green+yoga+music Wanderlust Festival, in Lake Tahoe.

Video via Alex King of Mitomedia for elephantjournal.com.

I’ve been in this business for seven years, and Wanderlust Fest is the first time I’ve ever seen first tier yoga in a context of “hip”…or big-time music in a context of mindfulness (green, yoga etc.). Rothbury and Bonnaroo are green, and huge, but don’t have the yoga classes/teachers element.

From the hip, clean web site to the musical acts (Sharon Jones, Michael Franti Common, Broken Social Scene, Girl Talk, Honey Bros., Andrew Bird, Spoon, Jenny Lewis, Kaki King, MC Yogi…) to the yoga stars—Shiva Rea, John Friend, Elena Brower…it was a can’t miss event (which I missed, though my savvy staff didn’t). Kudos to the co-founders, Sean and Jeff—and I’ll be there next year, fo’sho.

Next year, we hope to offer our talk show at Wanderlust, lending an additional “how we can save the world in a fun way” element, inviting and interviewing the likes of, say, Deepak Chopra, Bill McKibben, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Alice Waters or Michael Pollan—and interviewing and finding out what’s behind the music, and asking and exploring how the yogis take their practice off the mat.

And so, with a mixture of jealousy and gratitude to (videographer) Alex and (talent) Matas, who put together the fun, longer-than-our-usual video below, and to the lovely Joana Smith, our writer/photographer who most diligently and poetically covered the Fest (with an assist from her husband, who also attended)—enjoy—and see you there next year.

Full screen it (and click here for lots more videos):

Click here for my personal addendum to the above, re why I didn’t go to Wanderlust.

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*A personal addendum:

Wanderlust played a big role in my life, though I wasn’t even there.

I stayed in Boulder so as to push my burgeoning Boulder City Council campaign forward. The night Wanderlust started, I was banging away on my iPhone and laptop, trying to get final designs for my VOTE WAYLON yard signs in. The designs weren’t quite coming in on time, and my campaign consultant, understandably, was disappointed in me. The next morning, getting a sense of the power and reach of something like Wanderlust to connect with a wider audience, I decided to forgo my political “career,” for now—and instead focus on blowing up the balloon that is our talk show.

For if we can do for yoga, organics, sustainability, conscious consumerism, outdoor sports, the contemplative arts, ecofashion, non-new agey spirituality…one-tenth of what Jon Stewart has done for politics over the last 10 years—if we can, like Wanderlust, present “living a good life that’s good for others, and our planet” in a hip, accessible, fun yet fundamentally serious manner—well, our little Walk the Talk Show with Waylon Lewis could get the good green word beyond the choir.

~

This is the first time I’ve announced that I’m not running publicly. I figured that since Wanderlust played such a timely role in my decision, by reminding me of the potential of “fun” to change the world, well, it seemed appropriate to annouce it here. I hope to jump into public service in the future. (Gotta be of some use to this crazy, sad, wonderful world).

Next year our talk show will be based at Naropa University, one of our sponsors. We’re in talks with local papers Daily Camera and Boulder Weekly about sponsoring the live events, which draw 350 per show,  and hosting our videos—giving us an additional 600,000 viewers each month. We’re seeking other national sponsors who want to host the videos on their sites, now. We’re already on Huffington Post, elephantjournal.com, Intent.com, Shambhalatimes.org, hopefully Tricycle, Care2, Yoga Journal and Shambhala Sun, and Greenupgrader.com.

Yours in the vision of bringing together those working (and playing) to create enlightened society,

Waylon Lewis