PRAMA INSTITUTE

Holistic Education for People and Place

The Prama Institute is a conference and retreat center located on forested hilltops and grasslands surrounded by the Appalachian Mountains. It sits in Marshall, NC, near the French Broad River, about 25 minutes outside Asheville, NC. Our scenic and peaceful surroundings create the perfect place for educational conferences, yoga retreats, workplace seminars, and other events.

Besides the high-quality conferences that the Prama Institute organizes all year round, the facility is also available for rent to all types of groups, organizations, and businesses. Our experienced staff is available to offer you assistance with event planning, marketing, and registration. Let us assist you in creating your own successful workshop or seminar.

JULY 23 - 25

Blissful Path to Bliss - Yoga and Meditation Retreat with Stephanie and Michael Johnson

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French Broad Chocolates

Simply the best chocolate in Asheville. Located downtown on Lexington Ave.

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

2005: Birth first baby (Sam) in the apartment above the restaurant. Realize they’re not beach people. Learn about theobroma cacao from Marcos, the artisanal cacao farmer down the road. Start to play with chocolate recipes. Get hitched, legitimizing their bastard son.

2006: Sell Bread and Chocolate to a young buck (younger than Dan!) from Baltimore. Repatriate, in same school bus, newly ordained missionaries of chocolate. Move to Asheville, preggers once again. Start French Broad Luscious Chocolates.

2007: Hone their chocolate repertoire. Birth Max at our house in West Asheville. Sell chocolates at tailgate markets, Earth Fare and on the interweb. Write a business plan at Mountain BizWorks for a retail location.

2008: Open French Broad Chocolate Lounge February 2. Open seven days a week, we haven’t been closed since.



photo credits: Christopher Shane

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Local Buskers and Street Performers

Some local street performers Around Asheville this weekend were captured by some of our area photo bloggers. Lots of talented folks around here and super surroundings just waiting to be captured and shared.

Derek Olson Photography

Through The Lens

Found via Mountain Xpress

Firefly Gathering

July 22-25, 2010

The Firefly Gathering is for people seeking to deepen and expand their connection with the natural world.

There will be over 100 classes available focusing on self-sufficiency and wilderness skills taught by over 40 masterful teachers from around the region and country.

It offers learning for adults and children, evening entertainment, and on-site camping.

Firefly will be held at Camp Pinnacle, a little over a half an hour from Asheville, NC. Rustic Camp Pinnacle has a beautiful 18 acre lake, many covered areas, plenty of camping, cabins, and showers. If it is hot we have a lake to swim and canoe in, if it is rainy we have plenty of shelter.

Register Now!

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Asheville Community Hoop Jam in Pritchard Park

TUESDAYS

The Asheville Community Hoop Jam is held in Pritchard Park every Tuesday from 5:30-7:30 p.m. through the end of September. The events offer opportunities to hoop it up for fun and exercise as George Pond (Snake Oil Medicine Show) DJs. In this video, we talk to organizer Melanie MacNeil and capture some participants’ sweet moves. (Video by Jake Frankel.)

Link | More Hoop Jam

Asheville, NC Stonewall Commeration Weekend Parade #1.MOV

The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. They are frequently cited as the first instance in American history when people in the homosexual community fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted sexual minorities, and they have become the defining event that marked the start of the gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.

The Appalachian Shangri-La of Asheville, North Carolina holds an annual celebration to commemorate this historic event, with activities including speakers, dancers, workshops, and a grand parade through the downtown district, seen here. Several local non-profit organizations and companies sponsoring the event included Youth OutRight, Our Voice and the Montford Park Players.

(Video by Jeffrey DeCristofaro)

Pack Square Park, Downtown Asheville

If you've not been in downtown Asheville the past year or so, you are in for a surprise. Pleasant or not, depending on your point of view.

They had to bulldoze over some lovely trees to put in lots of concrete but they did leave lots of grass and sculpture in their wake. I was so against the tearing down on one specific tree. But there is more room for live outdoor concerts, plays, picnics, and more.

And I haven't mentioned the best part yet. Smack dab in front of the old City-County Plaza is dancing water fountains. From afar it looks like a large, flat brick courtyard. But keep watching and water will begin spraying up the many spouts. Day or night will find young children and adults playing in the dancing water, which has been nicknamed, "Splashville". At night, you'll notice that the water shooting up is different colors.

The Vance Monument is still there. Behind it where the large pool of water once stood is now a beautiful 20' wide water fountain.

Pack Square Park provides a wonderful venue for events, both old and new. George Pack, who left the land to the city in 1901 specified that it only be used as a park for the people.

So, who's been? Do you like the changes downtown? Or does it suck royally? Go see for yourself in person and in the mean time, take a look at this link here and this one here.

Hands Across The Sand

Join us (Hands Across The Sand & Surfrider Foundation) in drawing a human line in the sand to protest offshore oil drilling & yes to clean energy on Saturday, June 26th, 11am at Carrier Park. 220 Amboy Road & on beaches all over U.S.A!

Please use the Carrier Park entrance with the stone gates at the intersection of Amboy & Michigan. We will be to your left.

TIME: 11am-12:30pm

PLEASE WEAR BLACK. PLEASE CAR POOL. PLEASE BRING SIGNS.

Hands Across The Sand | Twitter

Marijuana - Does Asheville need some Weed?

North Carolina NORML Chapter Inaugural Benefit Concert


Sunday, June 27, 2010, 9:00pm, The Garage at Biltmore, 101-D Fairview Rd., Asheville

Asheville attorney Jennifer Foster announces the initiation of a statewide North Carolina Chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), www.norml.org, a nonprofit, public-interest lobby that for more than 30 years has provided a voice for those Americans who oppose marijuana prohibition. No statewide chapter has existed to date.

NORML supports the removal of all criminal penalties for the private possession and responsible use of marijuana by adults. This model, similar to that recommended to Congress by President Nixon's esteemed Shafer Commission in 1972, is called "decriminalization.” NORML also strongly supports the right of patients to use marijuana as a medicine when their physician recommends it to relieve pain and suffering. NORML has advocated for the legal use of medicinal marijuana since 1972. Lastly, NORML supports the right of farmers to commercially cultivate the non-psychoactive strain of cannabis known as hemp for industrial purposes, such as food and fiber production.

On Sunday, June 27, 2010 at 9:00 pm, The Garage at Biltmore will host a benefit concert for the forming chapter featuring Trouble with Aaron Woody Wood, Jay Sanders, Jason Flournoy, and Mike Rhodes, whose collective resume spans such influential groups as Acoustic Syndicate, The Blue Rags, Donna The Buffalo, Larry Keel and Natural Bridge, Hollywood Red and Shanti Groove just to name a few. Closing out the evening will be The Screaming Js, featuring Jake Hollifield (The Blue Rags), Jason Krekel (Mad Tea Party), Mike Gray (Firecracker Jazz Band), Jonathan Paul Hess (Erika Jane and Remember the Bees). A minimum donation of $10 at the door will help the forming chapter gain 501(c)(3) status and provide for initial operating expenses.

Information will be provided as to how citizens can become involved to support the pending North Carolina Medical Marijuana Act, HB 1380, and otherwise help to reform marijuana and hemp prohibition in North Carolina.

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Firestorm Cafe & Books

Firestorm Cafe and Books is gearing up for a second anniversary celebration today, Saturday, June 5th!

These folks are super plugged in to the Asheville community and the whole damn world for that matter. They bring you good live music, book signings, readings, and more. They have an active presence on Facebook as well.

A worker-owned community event space located in Asheville at 48 Commerce Street.

Open 10am - 10pm (except Sun)
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On Sunday, June 6th | 4:00pm
Firestorm Orientation [meeting]

Come out to Firestorm to learn about how your local worker owned, worker operated cafe and bookstore runs and operates.


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The Spring Idiotarod: The Legendary Shopping Cart 5k returns on May 23

That's Idiot-irod! Sign your team up at raceforawesomeness.com

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It's The "All Go West" Festival

Haywood Road district gets its own festival on Saturday

The inaugural All Go West Festival in Asheville, NC is on Saturday, April 24th, 2010 from noon -10pm.

Long gone are the days when West Asheville was written off by residents as “Worst Asheville.” That frontier off Haywood Road has been settled by artists and entrepreneurs, hipsters and hippies.

This transformation into a bustling creative neighborhood is what the All Go West festival is celebrating from noon-10 p.m. Saturday.

This free street festival will be behind the Rocket Club and near Harvest Records on Waynesville Avenue, Westwood Place and Michigan Avenue in West Asheville. All Go West focuses on neighboring products featuring local art, food, beer vendors and musicians.

Exhibits and booths will showcase local Asheville artists and local nonprofits. There will be an Asheville craft beer tasting from noon-3 p.m. Tickets for the tasting are $20 advance online at www.allgowest.com or at The Rocket Club.

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The Return of Free Water Project

Saturday, April 24, 2010 at 7:00pm

The Garage at Biltmore
101 Fairview Rd. Suite B
Asheville

The Return of Free Water Project is a multimedia installation exploring issues surrounding the commodification of our world's water supply. We hope that you will join us at 7pm for an educational reception hosted by Ilsa Ananda Door of Creatrix Laboratories. Following the reception, at 8pm, you may mingle and dance the night away to fine local artists for the ear, eye and heart!

The Story of the Oasis…

The Oasis is a grove of trees made from the detritus of the water industry (plastic water & soda bottles, discarded PVC pipe, etc.) linked together to filter rainwater, pond water, or gray water into pure, clean water that you can drink. The Oasis is one phase of the Return of Free Water Project, an immersive, collaborative multimedia installation with the intention of helping people realize that they have the power to make a difference in our world’s water crisis by transforming their own relationship with water.

We invite you to join us in an evening of wonderful music and dance, live art, and transformation. Your donation at the door not only grants you entry to the event but helps the RoFW Project to purchase materials crucial to the timely development of this installation. Art has the powerful ability to draw people’s attention to the relevant issues of our time. When complete, the Return of Free Water will tour the Americas to spread its message to the masses.

For ideas on how you can make a positive difference, opportunities for participation, and for more information about the Project and our world’s water crisis, visit:

http://www.ReturnofFreeWater.org

7p - Reception and overview of The Return Of Free Water
8p - 5am(ish) - Music with:
LOGOS (live) http://www.logosmusic.net
Annuaki (live) http://www.touchsamadhi.com/live-acts/Annunaki
Gilbot http://www.ashevillefullmoongatherings.org
Arun - AVLFMG
Zennsie - TOUCH Samadhi
PoiZen - AVLFMG / TOUCH Samadhi

Visuals by Creatrix Laboratories & Awe Lucid http://www.awelucid.com

$10 entry 21+ to drink

Live At Moog with Amanda Palmer

YouTube via MoogMusicInc — April 14, 2010 — "Amanda Palmer & Her Nervous Cabaret Live at Moog Teaser. Catch Miss Palmers raucous performance shot live in the Moog Music Sound Studio in Asheville, NC Premiering April 21, 2010 exclusively at www.liveatmoog.com."

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Tears of Color – Abolishing: Human Trafficking

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