prAna: Sustainable Clothing

The constant of change ebbs and flows through every facet of life. Happiness and sadness, ease and disease, past or future-these seem separate and different from one another, but all things are connected. This place that all things flow from is everlasting and without opposite. This is what my music is all about. Much like the waves of a lake or ocean, everything returns to this place of true love, life and joy.

Save The Waves Coalition is a global nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting and preserving the coastal environment, with an emphasis on the surf zone, and educating the public about its value. 25% of the proceeds of my first album ‘One’ go towards supporting their efforts. Save The Waves works hard to measure the immeasurable value that I express in songwriting, trying to answer important questions like, “How do we communicate the value of the coast and ocean to individuals from all walks of life? How will this information assist in local, regional, national and international coastal and marine management? And how can we work together to sustainably protect the valuable resources of the coast and ocean?”

My connection to the cause runs deep. Having grown up in a coastal environment just off the East coast of Lake Michigan, I ran up and down the dunes, jumped waves, enjoying every drop of it. When I moved to Chicago for college, immersing myself in nature became a challenge. I found myself making innumerable trips to the lake and for the first time learned the true value of nature. The desire to reconnect to what I felt growing up brought me to those shores every time. Lake Michigan’s coast brought me to an understanding of an intelligence beyond our rational, thinking minds.

The practice of letting go of thinking only with the head, and instead thinking with the whole body. This is often translated in yoga or meditation practices where the focus is on the breath. The waves were my first teacher, before I knew anything about that. Somehow during these times I could sense the vastness of the lake within myself. This experience of oneness is what has inspired my music, and continues to inspire me.

The energy and ease that comes from sitting and watching the waves, in awe of their rhythmic sounds, dissolves the incessant stream of thoughts. Imagine how that can translate between two people or an entire community. The waves become a lesson for experiencing authentic relationships with the capacity to expand, flex and be together without limitation. By no means do we have to surf or even geographically live near them to be aware of this wavelike potential within each of us. It’s there, whether we’re playing a song, climbing a boulder, working in a hospital or sitting on a park bench. The wisdom of the waves can be translated to most everything, that even with all our comings and goings, point to the one thing that will always remain.

Composed of beauty, our coastlines are a source for inner peace, a place to play, and for many-a home. The powerful feeling a coastline conveys has the power to transform and translate essential life lessons. These lessons of life and love deserve to be carried on for generations. Save the Waves encourages people to celebrate and conserve something so great, that conveys understandings that stand the test of time-our coastlines. We just have to be there for it, to build something sustainable through community, with music and the efforts of Save the Waves.

~Kurt Denison, B&W images via Rachel Wolfe

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