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Sustainable Palm Gains Momentum in the States

It seems like some big U.S. corporations have become more aware of the work the RSPO is doing to shift the paradigm in the palm industry towards more sustainable practices. Wally World, Hershey’s chocolate, and Citigroup have all recently followed our lead and joined the RSPO. Read more about it here.

Our Weekend at Wanderlust 2011

For the second year in a row, GoodLight had the honor of being one of the sponsors of the three-year-old Wanderlust Festival, providing non-toxic candlelight for the festival’s yoga studios and lounge spaces. But this year was much better than last in that we actually got to go to Wanderlust & Squaw Valley for the first time. I could go on and on with a detailed play-by-play account of the weekend, because each moment held significance, but for those with small attention spans (like me), here’s an overview of the highlights:

 

• The people: It was great to get to spend time with the Kula crew from Tribeca and practice with my NYC teachers Nikki Vilella and Kevin Courtney, and just as good to hang with former Telluriders who were everywhere. Whether in class or at a wine tasting or at one of the concerts, we kept running into old friends and making new ones. Everyone had something in common—they were happy to be there and open to whatever the weekend had to teach them.  (Shout-outs to old friends we got to spend time with: Morgan Young, Jen Roy, Gina Guarascio, the Portland girls, Scotty Nichols, Judd from Paonia, Bonnie Luftig, Matt Lewis, Kevin & Dana, Alex, Cali, Dina Amsterdam, Nikki V, and Mr. Brian Holiday.)

 

• The concerts: The Wailers and Spearhead were entertaining, but Portland’s March Fourth Marching Band and the super-freaky-geeky Girl Talk really made the weekend. March Fourth’s afternoon parades and shows at the Casbah—complete with the best stilts-dancers anywhere—were a bonus, blowing the minds of unsuspecting tourists and Wanderlusters alike. And Girl Talk did not disappoint as the Saturday night headliner, mashing up approximately 10 million songs into one 90-minute set of booty-shaking hip-rock-hop. (Big shout-out to the volunteers and crew that had to clean up GT’s confetti-cannon debris the next day. That did not look fun.)

 

• The weather: It may be mundane, but it has to be said—Squaw was gorgeous. It was like summer in the San Juans, but warmer and without the rain. In a word, perfect.

 

• The pool parties at High Camp: Part Playa, part Caddyshack, part Squawllywood—the sun-soaked scene at the pool, with both DJ’s and aerialists spinning all day, is reason enough to go to Wanderlust. Seriously.

 

• Oh yeah, there was also some yoga: The classes were superb. It was like a super-sized asana sampler platter. I finally got to take classes from teachers I had only heard of or seen on the old youtube: John Friend, Seane Corn, Shiva Rea, Jason & Jenny, Nikki Costello. John Friend’s Friday noon class may have had the most impact on me, but the peaceful, easy feeling of Dina Amsterdam’s Saturday morning class up at High Camp was extra-special. Jason & Jenny’s handstand workshop was a lot of fun, too; and, as expected, the Kula classes were amazing in terms of pure flow & alignment. The entire weekend actually felt like one long, extended, continuing class, whether we were standing in line hungry for lunch at the Food Co-op or packed into the tram or hiking through the wildflowers in the high country. Each moment was a chance to practice yoga–not just the poses, but the philosophy. And that’s what I think was the most valuable take-away from the weekend, the reminder that yoga isn’t just about seeing how bendy you can get on your mat, yoga is a way of living—mindfully, purposefully, with compassion. Don’t forget to breathe….

 

GoodLight on the altar of The North Face Space. To see more photos, check out our facebook page at http://on.fb.me/fvlSpJ

 

 

P.S. – Big thanks to Jeff Krasno and Schuyler Grant for putting on this amazing festival, as well as Lydia Berg-Hammond and Morgan Young for all of your help. We’re looking very forward to next year.

 

More yoga studios switching to GoodLight

Many yoginis might agree that there is nowhere that they focus on their breathing more than during their asana practice. And with the exception of those who have a steady home practice, or those enlightened ones who are inspirationally involving yoga in every aspect of their lives, many folks practice yoga mainly at their chosen yoga studio/shala/school/temple. And while Patanjali informed us there are eight limbs of yoga, two of those limbs are often given more attention than the other six. Those two are asana, or yoga poses, and pranayama, which loosely translates to breath control. This is a long-winded way of saying that most of us who practice yoga do a lot of conscious breathing in class.

With so much intention going into that breath, one could theorize that the air we breathe in yoga class penetrates us a little more deeply than usual. So we want that air to be as clean as possible, and we definitely don’t want to be inhaling the toxic fumes of paraffin candles while surfing the waves of our ujjayi pranayama.

The owners of Kula Yoga in New York and Om Base in Portland were the first to start burning paraffin-free GoodLight Natural Candles in their classes last year. Next, Yoga Sutra and Sonic Yoga in New York started burning our non-toxic tea lights in their studios. And then last week, the owner of Tadasana Mountain Yoga decided to burn GoodLight in her new studio in Nederland, Colorado. We want to take this opportunity to thank all of those studios for not only teaching the importance of conscious breathing, but for consciously choosing to keep the air in their studios as pure as possible for their students and teachers. Because you breathe what you burn…

Alfalfa’s Is Back!

The first time I ever went “out west” was on a road trip to Boulder, Colorado. That was back in the hazy days of college, probably 1990, and Boulder was the most exotic place my sheltered Southern self had ever been to. There were things there that I had never seen, like big mountains (well, foothills leading to big mountains). And micro-breweries. And hippies. And a grocery store called Alfalfa’s, which was the coolest grocery store I had ever seen (with the coolest grocery store name I had ever heard).

But about ten years later, Alfalfa’s got bought by Wild Oats. And while a lot of the innards of the store remained the same–shoot, there may have even been some improvements–the general vibe of the store slowly changed, although it still remained a mandatory stop for me whenever I visited Boulder from my newly adopted home, Telluride. A few years later, Whole Foods bought Wild Oats, later shuttering the building that had housed one of the first natural grocery stores of its kind. Sad.

And then I heard the news this winter that Alfalfa’s was going to be re-opened in its original location by a team consisting of some of its original founders. The rebirth had something to do with divestment, but, whatever the reason, I was inexplicably elated. Congratulations are finally in order now, as Alfalfa’s had its Grand Re-Opening a few weeks ago, right around Earth Day. And although I couldn’t be there for the ribbon-cutting ceremony in person (because I now live thousands, and not just hundreds, of miles away), I’m psyched to say that GoodLight was there. Inside. On the shelves.

So Boulder people, if you haven’t been by already, make a special stop into Alfalfa’s soon. The first three people to take a picture of GoodLight Natural Candles on the shelves there and post it on our Facebook page will receive a special gift from us.

GoodLight Goes Carbon-Neutral with Carbonfund.org

When it came time to choose which non-profit we would donate 1% of our 2010 revenues to, I went through the long list on 1% for the Planet’s website and made a short list of those whose mission we most supported. This was fun, but it wasn’t easy, because we like what most of those organizations are doing. But, in keeping with the commitment expressed on our packaging, we wanted to give our money to someone doing something tangible to combat climate change. After much deliberating, we chose–drum roll please–Carbonfund.org.

Carbonfund.org allows its donors to choose which anti-global-warming projects they want their monies to go to: renewable energies,energy efficiency, or reforestation and avoided deforestation projects. Since the palm industry has caused so much deforestation in Southeast Asia, GoodLight chose to dedicate our money to Carbonfund’s reforestation projects.

One of the cool things to come out of the entire process was that we had Carbonfund.org calculate what our carbon footprint is. They input the data we gave them into their formulas and found that in 2010 GoodLight emitted about 26 metric tons of carbon. This came from our tiny offices, from our shipping containers of candles from Malaysia across the Pacific, and from shipping those same candles via UPS to all of our customers around the U.S.A. While 26 metric tons of carbon isn’t anything to brag about, it is actually about 9 tons shy of what Carbonfund says a standard small business creates any given year. Which means that, despite all of the trans-oceanic freight and UPS trucks driving around partially on our behalf, GoodLight is still way below average when it comes to carbon emissions.

So this is all very good… as a result of our being members of 1% for the Planet, we’ve ended up partnering with the very good people at Carbonfund to offset our emissions for our first year in business. And we feel so dang good about it, we’re going to continue working with Carbonfund to neutralize our carbon footprint for 2011 and beyond.

How Pure Is Ultra-Pure? Good Question.

I’m at a friend’s house this week, and I’ve come across a large plastic bottle of paraffin oil–the kind used for old-school lamps like Grandpa used to have around the cabin–and I have to remark on how well it’s being marketed for these modern times.

The product is Lamplight brand Ultra-Pure Paraffin Lamp Oil (a registered trademark), and its label boasts the (also trademarked) slogan/tagline: “The Purest Oil for the Cleanest Burn.” Elsewhere on the label, the paraffin oil is said to be sootless, smokeless, and odorless. Sounds a lot like GoodLight Natural Candles, the main exception of course that, besides being sootless and odorless and clean-burning too, GoodLight is 100% paraffin-free.

Another similarity GoodLight and Lamplight share is that both of our labels educate the consumer on the dangers of paraffin. Check out the Lamplight label, which, aside from telling you that their product is harmful or fatal if swallowed, states the following:

CALIFORNIA PROP. 65 WARNING: This product and combustion products emitted when this product is burning may contain chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects or reproductive harm.

Well, at least they get points for honesty. Unless of course you count the fact that they call it Ultra-Pure.

Seriously though, we’re not trying to pick on these guys. We’re just trying to raise awareness that you should, whenever possible, not be in a room or a restaurant where paraffin  oil lamps or paraffin candles are burning.

 

The Purest Oil for the Cleanest Burn?

Don't Say They Didn't Warn You

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wanderlust and GoodLight: Reunited and It Feels So Good

For those of you who are not one of Wanderlust’s 26,548 friends on Facebook or are otherwise unfamiliar, you’re missing out. Wanderlust takes three of our favorite things in the universe–yoga and music and mountains–and mixes them all up into one spectacular weekend. Actually, make that two spectacular weekends, because this year the three-year-old festival has expanded from its usual weekend in Squaw Valley, California and added another weekend in Stratton Mountain, Vermont so that East Coasters don’t have to wander all the way across the country.

As usual, Wanderlust will be hosting an enormous amount of talent this summer. John Friend, Seane Corn, Elena Brower, Rodney Yee, Shiva Rea, festival founder Schuyler Grant, and many more including personal faves Kevin Courtney, Raghunath Cappo, Dina Amsterdam, and Nikki Vilella will all be leading classes during the days. At night, music and dancing will take over with–depending on which one you go to–Spearhead, Andrew Bird, Girl Talk, The Wailers, Jai Uttal, Krishna Das, and the MarchFourth Marching Band providing the live soundtrack to fresh-air dancefloors with a female-to-male ratio that will likely skew completely opposite of any festival I’ve ever attended.

Oh, and one more thing… we’re proud to announce that GoodLight is sponsoring Wanderlust for the second year in a row. So we’ll be there again, illuminating the yoga studios with non-toxic candlelight for the cleanest, healthiest pranayama.

Check out all the groovy company we’re in here and here. And grab your tickets to Wanderlust soon before they sell out.

GoodLight Local Update: We’re Now in Whole Foods in Northern California

Well, the title of this post pretty much sums it up.

As of Mother’s Day weekend, GoodLight Natural Candles got placed in 33 of the 34 Whole Foods Markets in Northern California. Too bad my mom lives in North Carolina.

Seriously, we’re extremely happy about this, for a lot of reasons:

1. This almost doubles the number of Whole Foods Markets we’re in now. Before now, we were in 36 stores in the North Atlantic and Northeast regions (basically from New Jersey to Maine).

2. Northern California is arguably the epicenter of eco-conscious consumerism. We’re already in a handful of awesome stores here (like Rainbow Grocery and Cole Hardware and Cliff’s Variety and Other Avenues among others), but this will put us within reach of a lot more candle shoppers.We think folks out here are gonna love GoodLight since many of them are already aware of the dangers of paraffin. Hopefully the locals here will be psyched for  affordable non-toxic candles, especially our bulk tea lights.

3. One of the two owners (me) lives in San Francisco now. So GoodLight is now in my local Whole Foods. Which is neat, if you’re me.

Whole Foods is opening one more store in this region next week, across the bay in Lafayette. We’ll be in that store too. So the only one we’re not in in this region is the new store on Haight and Stanyan, aka Hippie Hill. But we hope to add them to the roster soon. Stay tuned…

 

One year ago today…we were born.

On April 1, 2010, for the first time ever, we sent orders of GoodLight Natural Candles to our first customers. So today we are celebrating our first official year in business! I’ve already lit and blown out a ceremonial tea light this morning to commemorate our birthday, and will celebrate more later today with some good friends who are in San Francisco this weekend from Colorado. For those of you in the Ridgway/Telluride area, give Jon a big birthday hug if you see him. GoodLight, as you know, was actually born in his brain many years ago. (So maybe we’re older than we think.)

It’s been a great first year, and the second one is going to be even better. Thank you all for helping us light this fire, and for helping us spread GoodLight around the world!

 

From Sonic Yoga

Johanna from Sonic Yoga in NYC shared this quote with me today and I thought I’d pass it on:

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. — William Shakespeare

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