In 2014, I created and led the Yoga 1008: Clean Water benefit through the non-profit organization charity: water. As part of this campaign, my wife and I each did 1,008 sun salutations in 10 days. In the end, we raised enough money from 58 individual donors to help bring safe drinking water to a community of people in Kirenge, Rwanda. Looking back it is clear that this campaign was the seed for Move for Our Living Planet. There is a thread of intention and inspiration that connects the two.
The thread goes back even further though, to 2006, when I organized and participated in two charity events in San Francisco: the “Great 108” Yoga challenge and the “Feed People Chanting for Children Summer Kirtan Bash.” Both events benefited Operation Shanti, a non-profit organization supporting street children and their families in Mysore, India. Through these two events, I discovered how good it feels to do things that I love for the benefit of others. This blending of passion and compassion as well as the weaving together of contemplative practice and activism have been an integral part of my work ever since.
Since that time, I’ve Initiated, organized and led over twenty charity events and campaigns that have benefited over a dozen nonprofit organizations while raising awareness and support for a broad array of social and environmental projects.
“There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost…”
From “The Way It Is” by Willam Stafford
Photo: Michael Hannum, Iceland
Move for Our Living Planet 