2nd annual Sacred Fest offers ‘conscious celebration of life’

True Nature Healing Arts is home to a variety of products and services: It has yoga, a spa with more than 25 different treatments, food for sale from a production kitchen five blocks away and a boutique with conscious retail.

What holds True Nature together is the Peace Garden, said True Nature co-owner Eaden Shanya. The 1-acre, free public garden with a reflexology path and labyrinth was completed and opened to the public one year ago at the first annual Sacred Fest.

“The Peace Garden is really special because it kind of holds the whole space,” Shantay said.

---

---

The garden will play a significant role in True Nature’s second annual Sacred Fest, a “conscious celebration of life,” which takes place from noon to 10 p.m. on Saturday at True Nature.

Sacred Fest is a sober event with food, kids’ activities, a massage and acupuncture tent, yoga workshops and four sacred-music acts.

---

---

“Sacred music is probably not a term that a lot of people have heard of, but it’s very influenced by cultures all over the world that chant mantra,” Shantay said. “They’re very powerful words, which evoke certain energies in the body, which help balance and support our healing, our copening, that which we want to bring into our life. We’re bringing four really wonderful kirtan bands. Kirtan is a specific kind of chant from India, and all kirtan means is call and response. It usually starts out slow, builds in tempo, crescendos and then slows down.”

The headliner for this year’s Sacred Fest is C.C. White, who performs what she calls soul kirtan.

“Some people might not understand what sacred music is, but C.C. White gets through all barriers,” said Deva Shantay, co-owner of True Nature. “Someone who went to Lenny Kravitz is going to love C.C. White. I love that she brings in this amazing vibration with the music so that you just want to dance and jump and sing along with her, even if you don’t know what you’re saying.”

While White is the main attraction, Sacred Fest also will feature three other regional or national kirtan acts as well as local entertainment throughout the day, such as an African dance troupe and opening drum circle at noon.

“If there’s one thing that gets people out in Carbondale, it’s a drum cirlce,” Deva Shantay said with a laugh. She said anyone is welcome to bring drums, sticks or shakers at noon to join the drum circle. She expects at least 100 people to participate.

Overall, the Shantays hope Sacred Fest introduces even more members of the community to all the offerings at True Nature, and they hope the festival brings awareness of sacred music and kirtan to Carbondale.

“Some people might be hesitant to come to True Nature because it’s founded in yoga, and they might be scared because they’ve never taken a yoga class, or whatever it is,” Eaden Shantay said. “But we want to let the community know that it’s very nondogmatic. It’s very nonreligious. It’s just about finding our purpose and our joy and living it. So people can come here form all walks of life, all traditions, all practices and find what they’re looking for.”