Tuesday, July 28, 2015

ARISE Music Festival offers unique inspirational and informative workshops



Arise Music Festival Flyer
Courtesy of ARISE Music Festival
The 3rd annual ARISE Music Festival begins in less than two weeks in Loveland,Colorado. Organizers are getting down to crunch time, putting together the last details for the event which will feature music from many genres, yoga classes, visionary art, daily parades, films, dance, educational workshops, and more. The three-day camping event, which takes place at Loveland’s beautiful 100 acreSunrise Ranch, Aug. 7-9, is intended to be “a feast for the senses.” It also aims to be a place that uplifts festival goers as much as it educates them about community and environmental stewardship.

Musical acts include Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic ZerosThe Polish AmbassadorEmancipator EnsembleJoe Russo’s Almost DeadOzomatli,Trevor HallRising Appalachia and over 100 more live performances spanning six stages. Visionaries in the performing and visual arts, social and environmental activism, film, and more will offer festival goers special talks gleaned from their vast knowledge. Special guest speakers at the event include filmmaker Josh Fox (Gasland, Gasland ll), Actress/Activist Sheryl Lee (Twin Peaks) and renowned herbal medicine expert, Brigitte Mars. “More than a Music Festival, ARISE provides a wealth of inspirational programming, round-house discussions addressing locally relevant environmental and social justice issues,” states Tsunami Publicity in a recent press release.

One of the unique offerings from ARISE is an abundance of educational workshops that include everything from laughter yoga to belly dance and permaculture to learning how to build a conscious community. Below follows a list of seven of the many workshops that will be available at the festival.

For more information about ARISE Music Festival download the full program guide which was released July 28. Visit the ticket link for more information about festival and camping passes. For updates and to connect, visit ARISE onFacebook and on Twitter.



Keep Yourself in The Groove: Informational Workshops on All Aspects of Health and Wellness at Summer Music Festivals
Keep Yourself in The Groove: Informational Workshops on All Aspects of Health and Wellness at Summer Music Festivals ARISE Music Festival

Keep Yourself in The Groove: Informational Workshops on All Aspects of Health and Wellness at Summer Music Festivals

Learn how to keep yourself healthy at summer music festivals with this open roundtable discussion presented by Groove Medical Services. The workshop will include discussions about the environment, how to practice good self-care when dealing with the summer elements, as well as some keys to improving overall health like: eating, staying hydrated and good sleep. Presenters have extensive knowledge of the music festival scenes as well as specific knowledge in areas that include healthy eating, the environment and wilderness/emergency medicine.
Zero Waste with Love
Zero Waste with Love ARISE Music Festival

Zero Waste with Love

Elizabeth Plumb & Chris Styx (Boulder, Colorado) teach festival goers how to go above and beyond recycling in their “Zero Waste With Love” workshop. During their talk, they will inform participants on ways to decrease their impact on the environment, “from the bedroom to the bathroom, from the garage to the grocery store.” A zero (or very little) waste life is possible and it doesn’t have to be as challenging as one might think. Learn how to make sustainable behaviors easy, even in a world that does not yet cater to it.
Healing Foods
Healing Foods ARISE Music Festival



Ryse for Solutions

Ryse for Solutions ARISE Music Festival



Healing Foods

Heath Perry (Ojai, California) gives a workshop on healing foods that can decrease or completely eradicate the need for over the counter and prescription drugs. Healthy foods, herbs, brews, and elixirs will be discussed. Find out how to fend off the common cold, the flu, acid reflux, joint pain, digestive disorders, skin issues, depression and chronic fatigue with food that is also medicine.


Ryse for Solutions

Russell Mendell (Boulder, Colorado) and Earth Gaurdians speak with the intention of rounding people up with the goal of working towards solutions for climate change. Earth Guardians is a youth-led group of activists, artists and musicians from all over the world who educate their communities and all the people they touch about what can be done. Co-led by 15-year old indigenous change agent and Youth Director of Earth Guardians, Xiuhtezcatl Martinez, this workshop will incorporate song, prayer, and storytelling. A roundtable for participants to envision a “just transition back to nature,” will incorporate principles brought forth from indigenous wisdom and permaculture.
West African Drumming with Faro Tolno
West African Drumming with Faro Tolno ARISE Music Festival

West African Drumming with Faro Tolno

Fara Tolno, master drummer and dancer from Guinea, West Africa teaches West African drum and Djembe hand techniques. The class will focus on how to evoke the many beautiful sounds from the drums, while interweaving the drums’ cultural contexts.











Finding Voice, Receiving Song
Finding Voice, Receiving Song ARISE Music Festival

Finding Voice, Receiving Song

Songwriter and performer Ayla Nereo (Oakland, California) leads a workshop that will help singers of all levels (whether they are performers or singers in the shower) to open themselves to vocal play where singers will experiment with song, opening themselves up to their own creative processes and channel their music with deep and connected intention. “Through trusting our ability to listen and create sound, we learn to trust our own intuition and power to be creators of our lives.”
Visionary Stewardship
Visionary Stewardship ARISE Music Festival

Visionary Stewardship

Laura Chiraya Fox (Sedona, Arizona) teaches energetic activism and visionary stewardship. In her workshop, participants learn about “the impact of human consciousness on ‘the field’ of collective human experience.” Learn how to to create harmony and divine order in life, personally and collectively and design a “visionary stewardship action plan” to take home, practice and share with others.

Monday, July 27, 2015

American Beverage Association sues the city of San Francisco over new soda ban


The American Beverage Association filed a lawsuit against the state of San Francisco last Friday on the grounds of First Amendment rights violations.
The American Beverage Association filed a lawsuit against the state of San Francisco last Friday on the grounds of First Amendment rights violations.
Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Saturday, July 25, 2015

Fans can star in the upcoming movie 'Jem and the Holograms'



Monday, July 20, 2015

How to increase your luck: Simply expect that you are lucky

You can keep crossing your fingers. It can actually improve your luck!What if being lucky was a choice rather than mere coincidence? Rather than calling on the Fates to change Luck’s influence or humbly and sadly accepting that some have all the luck, and others. . . not so much, why not just expect that lucky things can happen more often? It is a lot easier than casting spells or working within the constraints of the planetary alignments and moon cycles, to be sure. It also might save a bit of time.

An article posted July 20 at LifeHacker explains how Fortune indeed favors the bold. Studies find that expecting to be lucky essentially changes one’s whole mindset, helping them to become more confident. Those who are more confident take more chances. The weight of pre-existing worries are lessened when a person carries that confidence, and if it’s a numbers game, more chances taken means the possibility of more lucky breaks.
That doesn’t mean that you have to get rid of your lucky rabbit’s foot or shirk crossing your fingers when holding your breath for results. Good luck charms seem to viably work. 

Psychologists at the University of Cologne reported that superstitious beliefs and charms led to reduced tension in stressful situations such as big contests and exams. Participation in superstitious activities also increased participant's belief in their own abilities. "Engaging in superstitious thoughts and behaviors may be one way to reach one's top level of performance," the researchers related in their journal article, “Keep Your Fingers Crossed! How Superstition Improves Performance.

Some researchers warn against the kind of fantasy thinking that psychologists call “the illusion of control,” where people believe they can influence the outcome of random events such as in the case of gambling. For more success,Mentalfloss suggests forgetting about trying to influence random events or even focusing on desired outcomes. Research has pointed out that the more people fantasize about positive outcomes, the less those wanted outcomes occur, “perhaps because fantasy replaces effort that could get them ahead in the real world.”

Want to know how to attract good luck with methods that are backed by research? There are numerous books and articles on the subject that can help. In the meantime, why not try taking more chances but not without first telling yourself that you are one lucky so-and-so.

*originally published at the now defunct Examiner.com

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Social psychology professor's extra credit question goes viral



Curious Theatre Company remounts 'The Brothers Size' for a limited engagement




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Curious Theatre Company remounts 'The Brothers Size' for a limited engagement
YouTube / Curious Theatre Company
"He cry out, he make us all miss our brothers; brothers we ain’t never even have." --Elegba
You can’t always walk away from your past, nor can you avoid it. Sometimes you have to run and never look back and it’s a heartbreaking truth. That’s one of the things audience members might carry home with them from Curious Theatre Company’s remount of “The Brothers Size”, part two of the “Brother / Sister Plays” by Tarell Alvin Mccraney.
The play is directed by Dee Covington and stars Laurence Curry as Oshoosi Size, Damion Hoover as Elegba and Cajardo Rameer Lindsey as Ogun Size. The play is about the tight bond that exists between Oshoosi and Ogun, despite their differences and any misgivings. They are afterall brothers. The story is also about the intertwining friendship between Oshoosi and his good friend from jail, Elegba. It’s a friendship from which Oshoosi can’t seem to disentangle himself. It’s also a friendship that could destroy him and send him back to jail.
“The Brothers Size” takes place in the heart of the Louisiana Bayou. Physically, the players act, sing, dance, and play props like percussion instruments from a stage that is very simply made. A platform might become many things such as a cage, a bed or a car. A stage of simple platforms might be accented by mist, a glowing moon, or the shadows of the Bayou plant life.
West African rhythms and dance steps are performed by the players and incorporated into dreamscapes, memory sequences and scene changes. All of these elements combine to draw in the audience’s full attention, and to weave a haunting story about two brothers who without a doubt love one another and the best friend who is starving for a love like that.
“The Brothers Size” is playing for a limited engagement through Aug. 1. It is the second in the trio of plays by Tarell Alvin McCraney called “The Brother / Sister Plays” which explore a varied cast of characters who come of age in the “distant present” through “trials of heartache, love and kinship.”
Following “The Brothers Size”, Curious will present the last of the three plays, “Marcus; or The Secret of Sweet”, Nov. 7 through Dec. 19.
To purchase tickets for “The Brothers Size” visit Curious Theatre Company’s website. To keep updated with news and events, follow Curious Theatre Company on Facebook and on Twitter.

*originally published at AXS.

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Extreme upcycling: How a dumpster becomes a classy cargotechture swimming pool


Learn how to turn an old 30 foot dumpster into a repurposed and beautiful swimming pool.
Learn how to turn an old 30 foot dumpster into a repurposed and beautiful swimming pool.
Facebook / Dumpster Dive DeLux - The Pool Box

NYU researchers find out why screams are so scary via new study



Tuesday, July 14, 2015

ARISE Festival walks the talk, fosters environmental stewardship and community




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ARISE Festival walks the talk, fosters environmental stewardship and community
ARISE Music Fest / YouTube

ARISE Music Festival, Loveland, Colorado’s own conscious festival featuring uplifting music, yoga, visual art, performance art and workshops on everything from health and wellness to creating lifestyles that are also good for the environment, is less than thirty days away. The festival, which begins Aug. 7 and goes through Aug. 9, promises to not only uplift those who attend but to be a feast for the senses with visionary art, daily parades, films, dance and music spanning a broad range of genres.
The festival will take place at Sunrise Ranch, a venue in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains that also offers opportunities throughout the year for personal growth and educational programs in the arts, wellness and sustainability. Similarly, ARISE, which had its beginnings in the summer of 2013 at Sunrise Ranch, will host numerous opportunities for attendees to learn more through health-oriented workshops and talks with artists and environmental presenters.
Musical acts include Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic ZerosThe Polish AmbassadorEmancipator EnsembleJoe Russo’s Almost DeadOzomatliTrevor HallRising Appalachia and over 100 more live performances spanning six stages. Sunrise Ranch’s 350 acres leaves plenty of space for attendees to build theme camps and creative installations. The festival will have plenty to do for all, including children. For a full schedule of performances, workshops, and scheduled events, visit the ARISE Festival Schedule link.
The festival’s main focus is to embody and share an attitude of green living, community, education and environmental stewardship. ARISE is a festival that walks the talk, offering all attendees free drinking water instead of allowing the sale of plastic water bottles. Other green practices such as recycling and composting are within reach at the ranch, along with knowledge that attendees can carry forth even after they have left the event. ARISE has also collaborated with Fort Collins-based non-profit Trees Water & People. This collaboration results in one tree planted for every ticket sold to the festival.
ARISE Festival tickets are still available. For further details, visit the ticket link where there is more information about early camping passes, as well as VIP passes and the special permaculture course being hosted right before the festival with The Polish Ambassador. For updates and to connect, visit ARISE on Facebook and on Twitter.

*originally published at AXS.