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I'll return for my third annual journey to China for the Kula Festival. This year's theme is Finding Atman: I am who I am.
An invitation to explore the essential self beneath roles, titles, and expectations. This is a journey
of presence, awakening, and rediscovering what truly remains when all labels fall away.
I'll offer three workshops and an immersion.
Life opens with the first breath and returns to stillness with the last. Between the two, breath arrives and departs, again and again; with each cycle, we continue living and begin anew. Yet in the midst of life, we often forget to pause and listen: What is this body saying in this moment?
Janet will guide a journey through breathwork and Vinyasa Flow, allowing movement to arise naturally from the breath rather than moving ahead of it. Every stretch, pause, ache, and softening can become a doorway into the body. Instead of rushing to judge or change what we find, we allow awareness to move beyond familiar old stories, gradually sinking into muscle and bone, where we can hear the body’s innate wisdom once more.
As movement gradually recedes, the class will come to a close in stillness. We listen to the body and remember again: although breath moves within each of us, it never belongs to any one of us alone. KULA’s “This Body” day begins here—listening to the body through breath, and through our own breathing, meeting this moment and one another anew.
“The sun is the ātmán of all that moves and all that stands still.” — Rig Veda 1.115.1
As a new day breaks, we begin again. What Janet invites us to awaken is not only the body at dawn, but also our capacity to turn toward the world—toward the warmth of the sun, and toward those beside us with whom we welcome this day.
Janet will guide us through Surya Namaskars, gradually rising into a flow carried by mantra, breath, and rhythm. Each bow, rise, stretch, and pause is more than one movement following another. It allows the body to remember its own aliveness and our sleeping senses to open once more to the world.
In Janet’s class, movement and stillness are not opposites. Ātman is not only in silence; it is also in sweat, in laughter, and in the pulse we share. Between movement and chanting, there will also be moments of quiet spacious enough to hold an entire day. We awaken from stillness not only to return to ourselves, but also to turn once more toward the people beside us and this living world. KULA’s “Human World” day begins with a morning salutation in which we awaken together.
The heart can break because we have truly loved and lost, and because we have allowed people and experiences to reach us deeply. The heart can also open when we no longer seek only to protect it, but become willing to let love, grief, joy, and sorrow be felt—and witnessed.
Janet will invite us to return to the heart and feel the beauty and love we have given and received throughout our lives. Through heart-opening asana, breath, movement, and chanting, we make space for the many emotions that come with being alive and awake. We do not choose only the so-called positive emotions, nor do we rush to fix or change anything. Instead, we allow every true feeling to be fully witnessed.
Christian DiMarco will respond to the movement of body and emotion with a live soundscape. Sound will hold the breath, the chanting, and the gradually opening heart, allowing feelings that are difficult to put into words to be heard and held through vibration.
“Seeing Myself” is not only about allowing others to see us when we feel whole and radiant. It also means being willing to stand before another in our vulnerability. We practice being seen exactly as we are, and truly seeing another—moving from “me” toward “we,” and through that encounter, returning to a clearer and softer “me.”
Then, we DANCE. Not to escape whatever lives in the heart, but to let every emotion that has been witnessed return to the body and, through rhythm, become part of being alive.
Some forms of stillness do not arrive simply because movement stops. The body continues to hold the memory of sustained effort, vigilance, and unfinished responses; even when we lie down, something within us may still be rushing forward. For Janet, returning to stillness is not about temporarily withdrawing from life. It is about allowing yoga to guide us through the many layers of bodily experience and back toward a deeper part of ourselves.
This four-hour immersion offers a rare opportunity to experience international yoga teacher Janet Stone and international sound healing artist Christian DiMarco teaching together. One enters through the body, breath, and awareness; the other opens a path into deeper listening through sound, vibration, and resonance. Their distinct practices meet here, creating a shared journey from movement into stillness.
Janet will begin with Vinyasa yoga, breathwork, gentle strengthening, and restorative practices—first awakening the body’s vitality, then gradually softening the pace and supporting the nervous system as it shifts from ongoing tension and activation toward steadiness, ease, and openness. When the body is ready to enter deeper rest, Janet will guide Yoga Nidra while Christian creates an immersive live soundscape. Movement, breath, awareness, and sound will become one continuous path from the outer layers inward, and from effort toward restoration.
The healing explored in this immersion is not about adding one more technique. It is about creating the conditions in which the body can regulate and restore itself. When sustained effort finally has somewhere to settle, we can return to the breath, return to the body, and return to inner stillness—reconnecting with the vitality and liberated, fluid joy that have never truly left us.
This immersion may be especially supportive for you if:
• Your life is often busy or exhausting, and you find it difficult to truly settle even when you stop;
• You are familiar with effort, discipline, and strength, but would also like to learn how to restore through practice;
• You wish to explore deeper rest and inner listening through Yoga Nidra and immersive sound;
• You are a yoga teacher or mind-body practitioner in need of a complete and deeply nourishing exploration of your own.
Enrollment is directly through the Kula Festival.
Janet’s studentship began at 17 under the meditation teachings of Prem Rawat. His reverence for simplicity and finding joy in the rise and fall of life live on in her practice and teaching today. In 1996, she traveled to India, the birthplace of her grandfather, and became dedicated to the path of yoga. Janet blends the alchemy of her own practice with decades of studentship. She aspires not to teach but to allow the practice to emanate from her, letting awareness blend with movement and breath. Based in Bali and San Francisco, she leads immersions, retreats, workshops and more.
