Gaiam purchased Real Goods and brought the www.realgoods.com site over to their main site at www.gaiam.com last year. I was confused about this move myself, thinking “What the heck is a yoga company doing selling solar panels”?

As it turns out, I wasn’t the only one who was confused. Gaiam has put up a page about their decision at http://www.gaiam.com/yoga/ :

“The word yoga means union — it’s about the connection of body, mind, spirit and planet. This is the inspiration behind everything we do at Gaiam, From our yoga programs to eco-friendly furnishings to solar power systems.”

Then I found this on their Wikipedia page:

Yoga is a tool to better appreciate the connections of body, mind, spirit – and earth. We, through practice, “recognize our interconnectedness with all that is around us.” Most of us have no trouble recognizing oneness with our own bodies (and therefore would never cut off our limbs to feed our body). It is the lack of this recognition of oneness between self and the Earth ”...that allows us to exploit our environment for short-term gain.” This is where yoga informs environmentalism.

Things make a lot more sense now. But still, I’m not sure how they’re going to get along selling bio-deisel fuel processors to 35-year-old men on the same site that sells Cami Unitards to 45-year-old women. I may be generalizing, but you can’t deny that solar modules and facial creams cater to two totally different markets!