Lama Sumati Marut is back in Reno with offerings of talks….AND A CENTER

Reno, Nevada

The non profit “Asian Classics Institute-Reno” has a home and it looks to my eyes to be a good one too.

And, I could hear Lama Sumati Marut tell his friends and students with him, just upon arriving for the very first time, that he liked it alot also.

606 W Plumb (tucked away at Arlington Garden Mall)

 Right now, it looks like there are four instructors for a very rich schedule of classes and events (most are free, it seems, except for one class which I suspect is based on the great and valuable resource by Patanjali called The Yoga Sutras).  See this page to get acquainted with who they are:

http://aci-reno.org/Teachers.html

Last night I was given a schedule of the classes, which you all can see here:

http://aci-reno.org/Schedule.html

The Lama gave a talk last night.  I arrived early and the large space inside was already filled up and an “overflow” seemed apparent outside the door.  My plans are to hear his talk today at 3pm, which I think may be on the practice of lojong (a meditation/healing/compassion practice utilizing breathing and attention).

To see the full schedule of Lama Marut’s “Great Awakening Tour”, go to http://greatawakeningtour.wordpress.com 

He’s very clear…………and funny as hell also.  Even though every time I’ve gone to see him talk they give us detailed resource material as background to his talks (such as the original literature which the subject is based on), this former University professor (yes, he’s an American) does NOT put his “classes” to sleep, that’s for sure.

Tonight, the Diamond Heart Center opens up…..

Reno, Nevada

I’m reposting this from http://greatawakeningtour.wordpress.com/reno

RENO: APRIL 7 & 8

CELEBRATE THE OPENING OF THE NEW ACI-RENO CENTER “DIAMOND HEART”
6:30-7:00pm

Diamond Heart is Reno’s new center for yoga, meditation and wisdom studies run by the Asian Classics Institute – Reno. Ven. Marut is the founder and spiritual leader of Asian Classics Institute – Reno, a non-profit organization dedicated to sharing the authentic teachings of yoga and Mahayana Buddhism.  Diamond Heart, located at 606 W. Plumb Lane #16, in the Arlington Gardens Mall, will serve the greater Reno and Tahoe communities by offering a full schedule of study courses, guided meditation, yoga classes, special workshops and community events. The new center welcomes anyone interested in discovering how to live a happier life.

MORPH AND CORE: PRACTICING BUDDHISM IN THE WEST

April 7, 7:00-9:00 PM

Ven. Marut will discuss how “Tibetan” Buddhism is quickly being adapted into an America spiritual practice. The ancient wisdom of the Eastern worldview has profound relevance to our modern Western lifestyle but how can we make it our own? Ven. Marut will address the delicate questions that arise when following a Buddhist path in the U.S.

FREE, BY DONATION ONLY

Location:
Diamond Heart – Yoga, Meditation, Wisdom
606 W. Plumb Ln. #16
Reno, NV 8950
www.aci-reno.org
Phone: 775-848-2158

Contact:
Beverle Deefoot:
ayyajaya@sbcglobal.net

Video clip from Point Arena Lighthouse, showing kite show by Berkeley Kite Wranglers

Reno, Nevada

The following is one of several video clips I made during Point Arena’s Flower Power and Daffodil Explosion festivities.  This is from Sunday, March 14th when I visited the Point Arena Lighthouse early that morning (when the “show” was just beginning and I was on the first free tour of the Lighthouse offered that day):

Point Arena’s daffodil pathway…….

Point Arena, California

I didn’t show any pictures in the article on the Flower Power Festival of the daffodils lining all of Highway One from Point Arena to the Lighthouse.  Here’s one very short stretch….

This is the northern end of Point Arena, at the corner where the “Main Street” stretch of Highway One becomes “School Street”.  (The high school is one block further north, on Lake Street.  Pictured here is the elementary school.)

Point Arena Merchants Association adopts Flower Power and gives birth to a new festival…..

Point Arena, California

Berkeley Kite Wranglers exhibit large kites on Lighthouse peninsula, Sunday March 14th

The current “Splash” insert for the March 12th edition of the Independent Coast Observer (the area’s weekly newspaper) starts off with an article “from Point Arena Merchants Association, special to the ICO”.   The first three paragraphs describe the birth of a springtime festival for Point Arena:

Daffodils ar blooming all over Point Arena, trumpeting the arrival of spring and the First Annual Point Arena Flower Power Festival and Daffodil Explosion, Saturday and Sunday, March 13 and 14.

The event is sponsored by the Point Arena Merchants Association (PAMA) in response to a need for a springtime event.  When a member mentioned that daffodils blossom all over town and out to the lighthouse and why not have an event centered around that natural sign of spring — a new festival was born.

Point Arena being Point Arena, the merchants group, recalling past days of flower children and other things 60s, named the event the Flower Power Festival and Daffodil Explosion.

On Saturday morning I went down to Main Street and experienced first hand an explosion of daffodils outside the Main Street Gallery, where a show and sale of local arts and crafts were on display for the weekend festival.

Flower Power at 824 Main Street.....

 

inside Main Street Gallery

Botanical Prints by Kirby Leary

 

The above photograph of “Photographic Art” includes the “Point Arena Pintos Calender”.  I found a website of the artist Jacqueline:

http://pointarenapintos.blogspot.com

Arna Means

 There were activities throughout town, with Cioppino seafood stew being served both down at the Arena Cove and in front of the theater on Main Street.

At the library, they had seperate youth and adult Scrabble tournaments…….with early bird participants beginning to set up in this picture on Saturday morning.

A lot more was going on.  People were showing up at the Arena Market and Cafe to buy $2 tickets (and the clues needed) to participate in a Mural Scavenger Hunt…..and, later that night just across the street (and a little up the street), they had a really big concert show at the theater.  (Which included a Master of Jimi Hendrix music, The Ralph Woodson Experience.)

Day two of the festival, Sunday the 15th, shifted somewhat over to the Point Arena Lighthouse just south of town, where spacious peninsula on high bluffs provided perfect staging for a kite exhibition provided by the Berkeley Kite Wranglers.  Early arrivals were treated to a free Fog Signal Building museum and lighthouse tour.

And, finally, I left after being part of the very first wave of tours……and, saw as I was driving out a steady stream of traffic oncoming, being directed by attendants into lines on the spacious field.  It seemed many people from elsewhere had gotten wind of this festival……with its flying sea life also a feature alongside exploding daffodils.

Flower Power enables flight……

Point Arena, California

Yep…..seeing is believing, so first the picture.  (And, maybe later a reality tv show called The Flying Blogger.)

I joined about 15 others, very young, very old, and all in between, in a climb up the 115 stepped steely spined heart of the Point Arena Lighthouse.  We were the very first group who heard the informative talk in the museum and then the final climb and tour of the lighthouse itself.  And, it was all for free to those visiting up to noon today…….as part of the Flower Power Festival and Daffodil Explosion, a first time event put on by the Point Arena Merchants Association.

I don’t know as yet what marketing and advertising they did for this, but as I was leaving around 11 am, there was a steady stream of vehicles being directed by attendants out into organized lines in the spacious fields surrounding the lighthouse.  Many people seemed to have come from elsewhere.

More information and pictures to follow…………

Point Arena gives birth to new festival, Flower Power Festival and Daffodil Explosion

Point Arena, California

Addendum:  I have moved Merita’s posted comments (at “Dateline Point Arena” article) and reposted them here:

Merita Says:
March 12, 2010 at 9:43 pm | Reply   edit

Opening reception tonight, March 12, for the 284 Main St. Gallery Spring Gift Show, launched the weekend of events for Point Arena’s first annual Flower Power Festival and Daffodil Explosion. The opening was well attended, great craft items by local artisans. Large pots full of blooming daffodils greet visitors in the entry garden,
The festival continues tomorrow, Sat., the 13th with a Mural Scavenger Hunt–a fun way to explore the many murals of PA; a SCRABBLE tournament, cioppino feed at The Cove and at Arena Theater; and a night of rock n’ roll at the theater featuring the Ralph Woodsen Experience, performing a tribute to Jimi Hendricks.
On Sunday, the 14th, the “Wind & Whale Celebration” features The Berkeley Kite Wranglers performing at Point Arena Lighthouse with a giant kite exhibition. Large hand-painted silk kites by Madeline Kibbe are on display in the Fog Signal Building. Visitors can climb to the top of the 115 ft. tower for the best vantage point to spot gray whales as they migrate north.

African animal preserve in Point Arena!

Point Arena, California

Yes…….65 animals “representing” varied species of rare and endangered African antelope and zebras live in Point Arena on 100 acres of land that begins only yards east of Main Street Point Arena, at the beginning of Eureka Hill Rd (or Riverside Dr as this intial stretch of road is labeled).

It’s called the B. Bryan Preserve:

http://www.bbryanpreserve.com

Tours can be scheduled only by reservation (707 882-2297).  Popular times are during feeding (4pm during winter, 5:30pm during summer), with the tours an hour and a half long (costing $20 for adults, $10 for children).

In walk with Councilmembers Sharon Zadra and Jessica Sferrazza, Lauren Scott shares great idea

Several people braved the impossible heat at noon today to join Sharon Zadra and Jessica Sferrazza on yet another Monday noon walk, a regular event started about a couple of months ago.  This event gives constituents an opportunity to bring their concerns and issues directly to their representatives on the city council.  Except now, future Monday walks may not happen at noon until our heat wave ends (which doesn’t seem to be anytime soon).  So, plans are to find either an early morning or early evening time to do this on the weekly Monday walks.  Still, people did show up at noon, gathering at the foot bridge at West Street Plaza.  And, thanks to that Facebook site, no one (except this one couple, unknown to me anyway) were strangers. 

Lauren Scott had already posted an idea on the Wall at Facebook and it’s a good one.  It addresses the wasteful and polluting practice of restaurants, etc. discarding their used cooking oil; she pointed out that all that could be used (after a fairly inexpensive processing of it) as biodiesel fuel (for our city buses, for example).  Jessica already knew Lauren was going to bring this up, so it was an easy matter for Lauren to brief Sharon and Jessica on this.   Examples were given of other cities that had programs to use the oil.  Both council members clearly want to follow up with an examination of this as a possible practice in Reno also.  (In addition to city buses, Don Clark also suggested that school buses could also be fueled with biodiesel.  He also had some news in regards to the possible use of fuel cells in city buses.  Clark and his wife Susan are the folks at Cathexes, btw.  See the recent article on the event that was recently held there.)

(Lauren’s Facebook wall post reposted at bottom of this article as an “addendum”.  Note the useful links provided.)

We ended up walking all the way to the spot under the Wells Street bridge where the walk labrynith is and then retracing our steps back to downtown:

In above photo: Sharon, Don, and Lauren

In above photo, couple whose names I don’t know, Donna at rear (she found us late in the walk!) and Jessica on the right.

On another note:  Since I lived and worked in Napa for a little over 20 years, I was curious about the road trip the Mayor and the City Council recently took to Napa (and San Francisco) to check out their open aired market plazas.  So I asked Jessica about that.  She reported that Reno and Napa have similiar flood control plans for the rivers running through our respective cities.  She also noted, that unlike Reno, their river trail (I think she’s probably referring to the downtown area of Napa) didn’t run immediately adjacent to the river.  (At one point, she pointed across the river and told me about that tall building across from the ballpark and how it should have had a set back so people could now have easy walk access also on the north side of the river along that stretch, just east of the downtown center.)

Another note: when I told Jessica about Paula McDonough’s effort to open up an affordable grocery store at the 2nd and N. Sierra St site, she was very enthusiastic….saying such a store was clearly needed.

Addendum:  Here is Lauren’s wall post at the Facebook event page set up for today’s walk.  Note the useful links.

I would like to discuss starting a municipal waste cooking oil collection program (from schools, hotels and restaurants) with the intention of recycling this useful product into biodiesel for private use and for use in the city and county buses and municipal fleets. This program would reduce the amount of oil in the waste stream and sewers, reduce the cities dependence on foreign oil and reduce the pollution from traditional #2 diesel. It might even save some money. For more information —

Used Cooking Oil—Harvesting an Urban Crop from Casinos
http://www.epa.gov/region09/waste/biodiesel/nevada.html#casinos

Producing Biodiesel for Municipal Vehicle Fleets from Recycled Cooking Oil
http://www.alabamacleanfuels.org/docs/AUMuncipalBiodieselGuideFINAL.pdf

Life Cycle Inventory of Biodiesel and Petroleum Diesel for Use in an Urban Bus
http://www.epa.gov/region09/waste/biodiesel/resources/DOE_DOAG_lifecycle.pdf

Friday night in the Celtic Forest…

David Bobzien, an adept DJ with an intense focus and an offering of great sounds (ALBEIT NOT CELTIC!), provided music for the second Friday night celebrations in the Celtic Forest.

And, I finally got it right in photographing the flaming trees and Raven Book (by not panning in and thus having blurred pics as a result).