Transcend Yoga Festival VT | My Yoga Festival Journal

Transcend Yoga Fest Vermont was set at Stratton Mountain Resort, the former home of Wanderlust Vermont.

Wanderlust was before my time as a yogi. By the time I found yoga and began my journey, it was no longer hosting festivals there. It had been some time since a yoga festival had taken place on this mountain, and I was excited to experience this space for myself.

What I noticed right away was the refreshing mountain air.

Coming from Colorado, I had been missing the mountain vibes. Seeing the landscape roll and expand in every direction was beautiful. The village reminded me of the mountain towns back home as I followed the meandering walking paths between buildings to find our vendor booth location.

The vendors were set up on the grass at the base of the ski hill, where mountain bikers came hurtling down the mountain in perfect summer weather. Once the Bhav booth was set up, Lauren and I explored the festival grounds and campground. We found the locations where we would each be presenting our offerings and began settling into the weekend.

I taught a mantra meditation workshop that included how to begin a home practice and how to use a mala. My intention was to give people something they could continue after the festival rather than an experience that ended when the workshop was over.

I also had a deep conversation about artificial intelligence from a yogic perspective. AI is becoming part of our lives whether people feel ready for it or not, and yoga gives us a meaningful framework for considering awareness, discernment, attachment, consciousness, and our relationship with the tools we create.

Lauren led an ecstatic dance for festival participants, bringing her own energy and offering into the weekend.

We had a great time and loved connecting with everyone at the festival. Between our workshops, conversations at the Bhav booth, and time exploring Stratton Mountain, the weekend gave us several different ways to participate. We were vendors and presenters, though we still had space to experience the festival ourselves.

Transcend was especially well suited for people looking for variety. The schedule extended beyond conventional yoga classes into embodied movement, meditation, aerial practices, wellness and spiritual workshops, outdoor experiences, ecstatic dance, and live music. Someone could build an active weekend around movement and exploration or follow a more reflective path through meditation, conversation, and spiritual practice.

The mountain setting tied those experiences together. Classes and workshops were surrounded by alpine air, forest views, the movement of people through the village, and the constant presence of the ski hill rising behind us.

By the end of our time at Transcend, we were already missing the mountain vibes.

It felt good to return to that landscape, even briefly. Vermont is not Colorado, and Stratton is its own mountain, but being there reminded me how much I value the sense of scale, movement, and possibility that comes from spending time at elevation.