Wednesday, June 5, 2019 7:00 AM

7-7:30am – Light breakfast from Panera Bread and Coffee from Katz 7:30-8:30am – Morning Mindfulness with Emily Manderson, Conservation Director, Houston Arboretum and Nature Center

The Rothko Chapel and Houston Arboretum and Nature Center celebrated World Environment Day with an all-ages, family-friendly mindfulness offering at the Arboretum with Emily Manderson, Conservation Director at the Arboretum. The morning began with a continental breakfast provided by Panera Bread and Katz Coffee in the Nature Center Building, followed by breathing exercises and a brief talk about the role plants play in cleaning the air.

World Environment Day is the UN's most important day for encouraging worldwide awareness and action for the protection of our environment. Since it began in 1974, it has grown to become a global platform for public outreach that is widely celebrated in over 100 countries. Each year there is a different host country, where the official celebrations take place. The focus on the host country helps highlight the environmental challenges it faces and supports worldwide efforts to address them. The theme for 2019 is “air pollution,” and this year's host is China.

About the presenter: Emily Manderson is the Conservation Director at the Houston Arboretum and Nature Center. She oversees the management of the site’s ecosystems and has been coordinating the landscape portion of master plan construction aimed at increasing biodiversity and ecosystem resilience. Before working at the Arboretum, Emily worked as a Senior Environmental Designer and Consulting Manager at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, TX, on numerous high level ecological projects. Her educational background is in Sociology, Physical Geography, and Landscape Architecture. She is passionate about restoring the human-nature connection and demonstrating that we have the capacity to increase ecological health and our own in the process. She has discovered, through her own work and personal journey with restoration, an inner resilience and a wealth of opportunities for further self-discovery. Additionally, Emily is a certified Level 2 Kundalini yoga instructor, has trained with Christelle Chopard in the Dharmi Method for 8+ years, has lead meditation classes formally and informally for mothers, co-workers, students, and friends, recently graduated from a three month intensive Awakened Motherhood course with Honor Genetski, attended Continuum retreats and a Vision Quest in Chile with Condor Blanco, and has a rich daily meditation practice. Emily and her husband Ben are the parents of two; Iris (5) and Thomas (3). Her family and nature are her greatest teachers and where she loves to be most.

This event was included in a series of offsite programs presented by the Rothko Chapel in partnership with Houston-area organizations while the Chapel is closed for restoration. The Rothko Chapel and grounds are closed to the public, to reopen in early 2020. This temporary closure is the first part of the implementation of the Rothko Chapel Opening Spaces master plan, focused on preserving the Chapel as a unique public art site and spiritual space, serving the growing number of visitors and program participants, and setting the stage for programmatic expansion.