Scott Blossom and Chandra Easton return to Telluride Yoga Fest

11 Jul Scott Blossom and Chandra Easton return to Telluride Yoga Fest

For Telluride Yoga Festival board member, teacher, and healer Scott Blossom and for his wife, Chandra Easton, also a gifted teacher and healer, 2009 was a transformative year. For starters, Scott and Chandra had a second child, Tejas, now nine months old.

Scott Blossom also experienced a major shift in direction in his professional life, a career change triggered by a trip to India with his long-time hatha yoga teacher, Shadow Yoga founder Zhander Remete, and his Ayurvedic mentor Dr. Robert Svoboda. The epiphany was related to a discovery: the synergy between Shadow Yoga and the two other disciplines in which he is highly trained, Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine.

One of the results? After five years as a rising star on the national teaching circuit  (last year, Yoga Journal named Scott Blossom and Chandra Easton two  of  the “21 under 40” Yoga teachers shaping the future of yoga)   Scott decided to significantly curtail his travel schedule both to be to be with his family and to be able to offer more focused and in-depth Yoga studies in the San Francisco Bay Area.

“My two children are in their wonder years right now and once that time is gone, there is no getting it back, so my family is my priority. Chandra and I will teach in the Bay Area, although I will still travel to a few workshops and conferences I am really drawn to such as the Telluride Yoga Festival.”

The birth of Tejas obviously put major time contraints on Chandra. Although she has less time for teaching, she too has remained deeply engaged in the healing arts, the past year personally focusing on healing and restoring herself after the birth with Shadow Yoga, Yin Yoga, and Buddhist meditation. Professionally, Chandra joined forces with another Telluride Yoga Festival instructor, Sarah Powers, founder of Insight Yoga. Together the two remarkable women co-founded Metta Journeys.

Metta Journeys raises money and awareness for non-profits working to better the lives of women and children around the world. On its maiden voyage, Metta Journeys guided a retreat to Rwanda last May on behalf of Women for Women International.

Chandra Easton has also been integrating a practice called “Feeding Your Demons,” developed by Lama Tsultrim Allione, Chandra’s Buddhist teacher and founder of Tara Mandala in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. “Feeding Your Demons” works to bring home the disparate aspects of ourselves and make allies of our so-called “demons.” The practice is an adaptation of the 11th Century Tibetan Yogini Machig Lapdron’s teaching called Chöd, which literally means “to sever” and refers to severing our clinging onto our self-centered tendencies. Allione’s book entitled Feeding Your Demons is a national bestseller.

Another by-product of the momentous trip to India: Scott Blossom and Chandra Easton plan to open an integrative medical clinic with some colleagues in San Francisco, focusing on Ayurveda, Oriental medicine, Ayurvedic yoga therapy, Buddhist meditation, and Shadow Yoga, a discipline designed to integrate the common principles of yoga asana, martial arts, South Indian dance and Ayurvedic/Siddha medicine.

Scott Blossom and Chandra Easton are in Telluride to teach a number of classes over the Yoga Festival weekend. Their first intensive, which they co-taught, wove together tantric Buddhist philosophy and meditation with Shadow Yoga. More meditation, Ayurveda and Shadow Yoga are also on their weekend schedule.