What’s better than three full days of peace and aloha?
Three full days of peace, aloha and yoga.
The Kauai Yoga and Peace Festival starts today at Lydgate Beach Park and runs through Sunday. It will include music, classes, workshops and more than 15 yoga instructors.
It is being billed as a chance to “become one to create peace on Earth.”
Anya Love, lead organizer, said there are spiritual, emotional and physical benefits to yoga. It’s just that most people don’t know that. That’s why Love and her team will be happy to help them learn more about this practice. It’s why she envisioned this festival years ago.
“Meditation is the bridge between them,” she said.
With all the turmoil in the world, Love said the yoga community wanted to do something to create harmony and peace. What better way then meditating on peace while at the same time practicing and learning yoga, Love said.
“We’re kind of riding that wave,” she said.
While other Hawaii islands have yoga festivals, Kauai does not. Love tried to organize one last year, but it didn’t work out. This year, with an earlier start, better planning, more support and help from people like “Wala‘au’s” Dickie Chang, it did.
“Let’s plant the seed, make it happen, then it can grow,” Chang said.
Love, whose real name is Anna Kazennova Morozob, is a classically trained ballet dancer from Russia. She founded Kauai Yoga on the Beach in 2009 and has been practicing yoga since childhood. She said several hundred people are expected at the festival, which she is confident will overflow with peace and energy.
“This is a very spiritual place,” she said.
It will not be a typical yoga festival, Love said, but more of a soul searching in one of the most magical places on Earth.
Each day will start with a sunrise ceremony at 6, and include peace meditations at noon and 5 p.m. Some of Kauai’s top yogis will lead classes.
Keiki to kupuna are welcome.
“The intention is to connect the community,” she said.
Chang said he became friends with Love after she moved into his neighborhood, and is helping with organization and promotion.
He believes a yoga festival will benefit Kauai. It’s a crowd that doesn’t seek much attention, but does much good, Chang said.
“It can be a big part of healing,” he said.
The nonprofit event is being run pretty much by volunteers. There is a kamaaina discount. Register at www.alohafestival.org or at the gate.
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Bill Buley, editor-in-chief, can be reached at 245-0457 or bbuley@thegardenisland.com.
