Yoga in the Grass at Landis

The Lan­dis Meet­ing House is the site of wed­dings, memo­ri­als, star par­ties, and, now, yoga. On a glo­ri­ous Sun­day after­noon, cer­ti­fied instruc­tor Vanes­sa Cham­bers invit­ed par­tic­i­pants to spread their mats on the grass and begin ​“an adven­ture of self-exploration.”

Our class attract­ed both expe­ri­enced yogis as well as at least one novice. Gal­way res­i­dent Lisa was excit­ed to intro­duce her friend Don­na to the prac­tice of yoga. As Lisa explained, ​“It’s a new page.”

There­sa from Esper­ance took time from home school­ing three chil­dren to savor the self-care that yoga provides.

Vanes­sa grew up in Rot­ter­dam with a moth­er who loves plants. After con­nect­ing with Erin Breglia, Lan­dis gar­den man­ag­er and a stu­dent in one of her class­es, she looked more close­ly at the Arbore­tum as a poten­tial site for offer­ing a series of yoga prac­tices. Liv­ing near the Adiron­dack Park and hav­ing an appre­ci­a­tion for nat­ur­al places where ​“you can prac­tice as if you are by your­self,” she knew Lan­dis would be a good fit.

Vanes­sa was wowed by our new­ly-redesigned web­site and scanned the equal­ly impres­sive cal­en­dar of events. Yet, there were no yoga class­es. She not­ed, ​“Yoga is invalu­able, in my opin­ion, not just to exer­cise, but to know who you are, and how you are.” And what bet­ter place than Landis?

And so she brought her ​“Know and Nur­ture” yoga class­es to Lan­dis, the ​“rev­er­ent space” she sought out, ​“a con­tem­pla­tive, qui­et space,” per­fect for yoga on the grass, and her oth­er offer­ing, ​“Recal­i­brate: Silent Excur­sions”. Where else but Lan­dis for an oppor­tu­ni­ty for ​“being unplugged … an inter­ac­tion of obser­va­tion” as you take a silent hike after a cen­ter­ing and breath­ing prac­tice includ­ing gen­tle stretch­ing? The hike will hone your abil­i­ty to observe your sur­round­ings, and you will pause to sit, con­tem­plate, and jour­nal before shar­ing some qui­et con­ver­sa­tion with the oth­ers in the class. Month­ly class­es con­tin­ue this sum­mer through Sep­tem­ber (now held in the field above the low­er park­ing lot). 

How will you find your own rev­er­ent space? Join Vanes­sa for one or more of the month­ly yoga class­es from June through Sep­tem­ber, and treat your­self to any or all of her silent hikes held in June, July, and August. For more infor­ma­tion or to reg­is­ter for yoga, vis­it our web­site here for the July class or here for the August class; infor­ma­tion and reg­is­tra­tion for silent hikes can be found here for June 20, here for July 18, and here for August 22

Sum­mer at Lan­dis is restora­tive, a place to unplug, unwind, and dis­cov­er your­self. Priceless.