Love Light Yoga & Arts Festival 2018

 Last weekend, my wife Loretta & I went to the Pearlstone Center in Reisterstown, Maryland for the Love Light Yoga & Arts Festival.

Here is a photo album of our experiences with some videos, too:

Google Photos:

 Love Light Yoga & Arts Festival 2018

We camped out from Friday to Sunday afternoon, and had an awesome time. The outdoor setting of the Pearlstone Center among the rolling hills, fields, & trees was a beautiful environment for mindful practice of yoga, and just for the joy of being alive!

 

Everything was in walking distance, and from our campsite on a hill, you could see most of the grounds, with the various pavilions & buildings.

There were dozens of classes and workshops over the course of the weekend, covering all kinds of topics and practices. I went to several different yoga classes- including ayurvedic & acrobatic/thai yoga (partnered up with my wife), and also kundalini meditations, tantric shamanism & breathing workshops. Loretta went to power & primal flow yogas, and also participated in events at the Healing Village. It's so great to have all these opportunities to try new techniques with different teachers, all in one location.

There was also a main stage with musicians and bands, playing throughout the days & nights. One set that stood out to me was singer Ajeet Kaur & Sukhmani Kaur Rayat on tabla drums. The music & vibe the artists were putting out was amazing.
 

There were also artists & vendors with booths around the concert area, selling all kinds of cool items & services.

The last night we were there, Loretta & I left the main stage around midnight & went to a bonfire and drum circle. It was family-friendly, with no visible drugs or alcohol (other than us being the only 2 with drinks in our hand, & the occasional smell of some weed being smoked out of sight.)

 

It got wild, as I ended up being shirtless & we joined the dance around the heat of the blazing fire. Finally, Loretta told me it was 2am, & we should get going so we could get some sleep for the next day. I could have partied all night, but I also didn't want to feel like garbage the next day.

Unfortunately, it started raining on Sunday, making the conditions fairly miserable. Everything got muddy & wet, but we still went to classes and workshops until we decided to head out in the afternoon when there was a brief pause in the rain for us to pack up our tents & gear.

The festival overall was a memorable and enlightening experience (even with having to pack up in the crappy weather). When the weather was nice, it was downright utopian. We met a lot of kind, loving, & inspirational people who felt like a big community. The location was idyllic and a perfect setting for a festival like Love Light.

We are probably going to go back next year if they have it there again, and hopefully the weather will be nice the whole time!

Large Walking Stick

I saw this big walking stick climbing up the side of my house & got some closeup photos of it for my online nature album.

Nature Photography

by Paul Micarelli

I thought it was cool that its body was brown, but the legs were green- mimicking new shoots coming out of a branch.

Trey Trimble

I love finding new artists, and come across great stuff on Reddit, Instagram, and other sources. There are so many talented people out there creating amazing content.

After coming across Trey Trimble's art awhile back & bookmarking his Instagram page, I'm finally getting around to posting about him. He does some really cool 3D rendering, with a lot of retro 80's & vaporwave aesthetic to them.


On his website, he has a section of pieces that he made every day, over the course of 1000+ days. Despite myself being a graphic artist who creates almost every day, I have no idea how artists like him & Beeple find the time and motivation to produce this kind of output. It almost seems superhuman to me.

www.TreyTrimble.com

Instagram:

@treytrimble

Here's his Behance portfolio with albums of his work:

Trey Trimble on Behance

Here are some examples of his work that I thought were pretty RAD:

I played most of these NES games (he rendered the cartridges in 3D) 

and can't tell you how many hours my brothers & I put into Contra alone.

 

Blooming Fungus

Last year around this time, I posted about a crazy-looking, large orange fungus I saw in the woods surrounding my parents' house.

Recently, I came across another bright orange fungus growing in their woods, standing out against the grey-browns and greens of the rest of the forest. I think fungi like this look awesome and are almost alien in their appearance.

I added the photos of this interesting lifeform to my nature photo album:

Nature Photography

by Paul Micarelli

When I came back to check it out again in a few days, it had "blossomed" into an even bigger fungal form, resembling a flower. It became a more thorough shade of orange, with some yellow, to make it appear even brighter against the drab forest background.

Here is a photo with my hand next to it, for scale. It was about 12 inches across: