elephant journal: daily blog, videos, e-newsletter & magazine on yoga + organics + green living + non-new agey spirituality + ecofashion + conscious consumerism=it's about the mindful life.

yoga | organics | sustainability | buddhadharma | indie business | comtemplative arts

elephant magazine is your guide to what we like to call ‘the mindful life’: yoga, organics, sustainability, genuine spirituality, conscious consumerism, fair fashion, and the contemplative arts. We’re available in our hometown, Boulder, and five states in the Rockies-and more and more, through ‘elephantnation,” to any mindful hotspot, anywhere: yoga studios, bodywork offices, natural groceries and restaurants, & indie bookstores and cafés.While our new site is flash-y, it is still under construction. More content is added every day-and soon ele:live will be posted on a daily basis, along with blogs and reviews and letters from you: send suggestions, musing, thoughts etc to editorial [at] iamelephant [dot] com.For now, be sure to check out our editor’s half-baked blog, and our video team’s lovely mostly-unedited videos of ele interviews with Deepak Chopra, Nawang Khechog, and others.For more, visit our friends at newwest.net: and look for “The Mindful Life,” with ele’s editor Waylon H. Lewis. For more: www.myspace.com/143952279 (catchy, hunh?), and elephantmagazine.zaadz.com

ele: mission

ele:mission >> elephant is dedicated to bringing together those working (and playing) to create enlightened society.

ele:eco >> Newsstand magazines have a 20-40% pickup rate. The rest get tossed. Environmentally, that’s awful (and it’s bad for advertisers, too). So if the system ain’t sustainable, buck it. We’re free in our birthplace, giving us a 90% pickup rate locally. Otherwise, we’re $4.50: 1) we distribute directly to yoga studios, cafés, natural groceries, pharmacies & restaurants. By cutting out the middleman, our sell-thru is 90% and our friends can make twice as much. To sellephant: info@iamelephant.com 2) at Whole Foods & such, we work with the only distributor we’ve found thus far with a high sell-thru rate (80%).

ele:ads: >> Creating an independent ecopaper magazine doesn’t come cheap. Sometimes our readers say, “Love the magazine, but so many ads!” That’s ‘cause we start in a $25K hole: our printer bill. I say, “Who do you think pays for our articles? Rather than bemoan their presence, appreciate ‘em-support ‘em-you’re seeing in these pages the mindful businesses who put their money where your mouth is.” And the more ads we get in, the more articles and features on worthy causes and personages we can afford to print.

ele:deadlines >> Each issue is on streets, stands and in studios for three months, beginning on the 21st of June, September, December & March. Deadlines precede publication by 1-2 months. Inquire: info@iamelephant.com re: articles, ads, discounts, Mindful Guide listings. Ads, however, will be accepted until two minutes prior to publication.

ele:svp >> If you like ele, support one advertiser per issue. The words “I heard about you in elephant” will keep them advertising, us printing & you reading.

ele:write >> We can’t pay. Still interested? Visit iamelephant.com for our writer’s guidelines, then contact us for wordcount. ele retains future rights to published material-articles, photographs, etc.-unless previously arranged in writing.

ele:subscribe >> Mail name, address & $20 to elephant/P.O. Box 6121/Boulder, CO 80306. Includes postage & fair-labor, and we’ll include three stickers if you want ‘em. Two years or a subscription for you and a friend: $40. Back issues: $4 each.

eledistribution >> We have 30,000 elephants in Colorado, the Rockies & a half dozen copies in Berkley, Madison, Santa Monica, Portland and N.Y.C. If you want to buy us at your favorite Whole Foods or co-op, yoga studio, indie bookstore or café, ask them to email info@iamelephant.com.

ele:paper >> We work with a local printer, paying local taxes. Most other magazines print in China (unfair labor, boats & gas-guzzling trucks) or the Midwest (paper trucked to and fro). We’re proud to print on state of the art eco-paper, with soy-based inks. Please pass ele on to a friend, your favorite local café or yoga studio, make a collage out of it-or re-recycle it.

ele:egalese >> The contents of this publication copyright 2007 Waylon H. Lewis Enterprises, LLC. Yoga asanas & bodywork described herein can be dangerous, particularly if practiced without supervision, or with self-improvement in mind. Views expressed are those of our contributors, not elephant, we don’t even know them.