Category: Recreation

"VoiCeS , which began in 2004, creates a deeper understanding of the Bay and the efforts to restore it. This professionally-taught, two-part program, meets each week (for eight weeks) and includes field trips and participant-led community projects. You’ll learn about the Bay’s biology, the issues we face, and how you and your community can help its restoration."

Connect to the GOforChange CollectiveX calender to search dates and locations.

Founder and Director Sarah Ittmann teaches Bikram yoga . A series of 26 poses derived from Hatha principles, each one is done twice to help the body open up and come into openness and alignment. Bikram Choudhury designed these poses in his native India after a weightlifting accident to restore his health. Performed in a heated room for 90 minutes, anyone at any age can feel the benefits of this healing art. Julie practiced Bikram Yoga for almost 5 years and was an avid devotee of Sarah’s. This studio is HIGHLY recommended — a beautiful space with great facilities. With an 8,000 square foot studio, the wellness spa also offers hot stone massage, acupuncture, and salon services.

My good friend, Mare Cromwell , has been a professional gardener for many years. She also has a Masters in Natural Resources from the University of Michigan and has worked in the environmental field for 27 years both internationally and locally in the Baltimore-Washington region. She is offering a workshop on Sunday, October 12 (see our News & Events link to the calendar for more information.) This workshop comes out of her apprenticeship for the past twelve years with a Cherokee Medicine Woman. In these changing times, Mare tells me that Earth Mother is calling us to heal ourselves and our relationship to nature. Our gardens are where we can intimately rekindle a deeper relationship and reverence for the life around us to promote healing. This workshop gives people the opportunity to learn Native American practices and worldviews that will encourage deeper gardening practices honoring nature energies, garden health and planetary healing.

Mare’s gardening informs her other work, which is writing and occasionally speaking on ecophilosophy and eco-spirituality topics such as Environmental Hope, Living Simplicity, Deep Ecology and "Right Relationship". The workshop on October 12 will cover:
– How to bless your garden when you open it up in the spring and put it to bed in the fall;
– Claiming your relationship with the Creator and Earth Mother to honor your sacred place in the world and garden;
– Your garden as an altar;
– Intuitive gardening;
– Deepening your relationship and awareness of life around you;
– Nature as teacher and healer.

Driving along the Blue Ridge Mountains can be an excellent day trip with a breath taking view of the Shenandoah Valley . There’s loads of camping and hiking too!. The perfect weekend get away. Skyland Resort and other lodges have made considerable effort in implementing green practices through PlanetEVERgreen , the official environmental “greening” program of ARAMARK. Thirty rooms at Big Meadows Lodge were renovated utilizing all beetle-kill lumber. No new growth harvest trees were used. Other efforts have been providing local food in the dinning rooms, using environmentally friendly cleaning products, offering products made with recycled materials in their gift shops, and reducing waste by recycling and converting to products with less packaging.

Oregon Ridge Park is host to one of Marylands largest year round recreation and events venue. The Nature Center & Park Council is a non-profit, volunteer organization dedicated to the conservation of natural history and enhancing the enjoyment of nature through seasonal programs, topical seminars, weekend workshops for kids and adults, festivals and trail walks. View their Events Calender PDF for recreation and courses from Sept 08 –Jan. 09 that include HAWK MIGRATION ACROSS THE RIDGE, WILDERNESS FIRST AID, MINERS PICNIC,
CANOE DAYS COVE, AFTER SCHOOL NATURE EXPLORERS, SIGNS OF LIFE HIKE, BOW MAKING COURSE and much, much more.

One Planet,Ours! Sustainability for the 22nd Century is an outdoor interactive exhibition now on view until Oct. 13th, in the National Botanic Gardens in DC. The exhibit demonstrates a variety of examples of how systems of sustainability work with demonstrations of; solar cookie baking, a solar water pump, and rainbarrel catchment. You can also visit a strawbale house built by Baltimore’s very own Polly Bart , a strawbale construction specialist working with Builders without Borders . Other programs and lectures are scheduled throughout the exhibition run and are sponsored by non-governmental organizations, government agencies, and individuals who are leading efforts toward sustainable lifestyles.
View a slide show or press videos of the project through their website.

Quantum Yoga , located in Mount Washington at the Lake Falls Village Center, offers a wide variety of classes in yoga and wellness, including beginner to advanced yoga, kids and teen yoga, yoga nidra, flow yoga, pilates, and Qigong, as well as acupuncture, shiatsu, and Gua Sha. The center is operated by over a dozen men and women, many of whom are certified in various forms of yoga and Qigong. Visit their website for extensive information from frequently asked questions to detailed accounts of the services offered and the research and benefits that comes with them.