Feeling good: Yoga by day, party by night

Wanderlust, held in Lake Tahoe from 24 to 26 July on an outdoor stage located at 2,500 metres elevation and reachable only by gondola, is a new kind of open-air event that combines the fun of a music festival with the deeper experience of a yoga retreat. While yoga, indie rock and environmentalism started out as subcultures, today they have enough appeal to attract more than 4,000 hedonistic visitors in stretchy outfits.

The organizers — music executive Jeff Krasno and his wife, Schuyler Grant, a yoga teacher — booked indie artists like Andrew Bird along with yoga instructors like MC Yogi, who invited the audience to "shake your asana!" "Balance" was the mantra of the weekend. "We want people to leave feeling better than they did when they came, transformed in some positive way," Grant told Melena Ryzik of The New York Times. Though the festival didn't break even, the organizers are convinced of its potential and are considering expanding Wanderlust next year to three events on three mountaintops.

More and more people are seeking a holistic lifestyle dedicated to wholeness, well-being, healing and health. But despite this movement, the word "wellness" is still a bit awkward in everyday English, and sounds like you are trying to sell a health package of some sort. A hotel marketed as a "Wellness Hotel" would normally be called a health resort or spa in everyday English. So how did those vistors feel after three days on the Sierra Nevada mountaintops: good or well or both? Do our exercises on the next page to make sure you keep your adjectives straight.

Anne Hodgson