Effective January 7, 2022, in response to the rapid spread of the new Omicron variant, all guests and faculty will provide proof of negative PCR, NAAT, or antigen test results at time of check-in. The test must be taken within 72 hours before arrival and results must come from a laboratory or healthcare provider. Results from a COVID-19 self-test, sometimes referred to as “home test,” will not be accepted.

If you have been exposed to COVID-19 or are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms including, but not limited to, fever, chills, loss of taste or smell, sore throat, fatigue, and/or cough, please reschedule your visit. To reschedule a visit at no additional charge, please contact our Guest Services team at (831) 667-3000 option 1, Monday through Saturday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM. Any cancellations due to COVID will be subject to our standard cancellation policy.

This requirement is implemented in an abundance of caution for the safety of our guests, staff, and faculty. It is an extra layer of protection provided in concert with our existing vaccine policy and California’s recent statewide mask mandate. For more information about our current COVID protocols, including our vaccine requirement, please review our complete COVID guidelines, these FAQs, or send us an email at safety@esalen.org.

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Esalen Institute’s newly-launched Digital Extended Education Program (DEEP) is offering 50% off Standard Tuition for the January 2022 DEEP Courses.* These specially curated, six-week, online workshops will keep you learning, especially if you can’t travel to Big Sur during these challenging times.

To receive this offer, please register for one of the two DEEP courses at Standard Tuition and apply code DEEP50 during registration prior to payment. Please note this applies to our Standard tuition only. Please please email learn@esalen.org with questions or for more information.

First Online Course: We’re All Gonna Die
‍Up first, Bodhi Be kicks off We’re All Gonna Die on January 10, 2022 to help us explore how a healthy life includes a healthy relationship to death. Journey toward awareness, shaping who we are as a community and our ability to care for each other — now, and when we are dying.  

Up Next: Moon Lodge: Honoring the Sacred Feminine
‍The second online course begins January 17, 2022. Moon Lodge focuses on celebrating the body of Woman+ and the sacred feminine within. Through ritual and spiritual practices, instructors Lucia Horan and Dr. Julia Von will share the sisterhood of humanity and all that it encompasses.

*Registration will remain open for two weeks after the date each course begins.

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We would like to express our deepest gratitude to all of our Friends of Esalen for their generous support during our 2021 end of year fundraising campaign. We set a goal to make 300 new friends and we made over 600 new friends. We also set a goal of raising $450k by the end of the year and through the collective support of so many in our community we surpassed that goal to raise over $800k. These funds will fuel our daily operations and allow us to continue to create a space for healing and transformation for all who are called to Esalen. Thank you to everyone who supported this effort. We would also like to invite any of you who are not yet a Friend of Esalen to join our community today!"

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The Tools For Transformation, February 7–11, 2022 with Laura Day, Gahl Sasson, and Nancy Winston
Alchemy is all about taking the mundane, the unexpected, even the inconvenient, and creating Magic. Due to a series of teacher cancellations, this incredible group of visionaries took this as a synchronistic sign to come together as a team and share with you the tools they share with each other to create successful lives. Join us for a collaborative experience in Human Alchemy, where we engage in healing, neuro-linguistic programming, hypnosis, astrology, intuition, ritual, and personal mythology to transform your reality in tangible ways.

Creative Catalyst: The Transformative Power of Making Art, February 7–11, 2022 with Dana Albany and Michael "Flash" Hopkins
The Artist lives within everyone and Art can be made out of just about anything! In this transformative workshop, we will use repurposed material in a whole new context of re-creation. Come experiment with a vast array of reused materials to create mixed-media mosaics, sculptures, and collages.

Quick Hits for Lasting Change, February 11–13, 2022 with Laura Day, Gahl Sasson and Nancy Winston
You as a human being are composed of your beliefs, your habits, and the world they create around you. The gift of ritual is sacredness. When you choose to make something sacred it has the power you give it. That power is the material with which you can build a New Reality. In this workshop, each teacher will give you their simple practices to rely upon daily, when your habits are not creating the results you want.

The Power of Breath: Embodied Liberation, February 11–13, 2022 with Sadia Bruce
In this new and electrifying experiential workshop, we’ll explore and deepen the relationship of self-to-breathing-body through a number of somatic pathways: embodied movement, breathwork, presencing exercises, meditation in motion, and sound. Operating from philosopher Havi Carel’s conception of breath as “a juncture of the physiological, psychological, existential, spiritual, and cultural,” we’ll practice dancing and digging at this intersection, and in effect access a felt reconnection to our wholeness.

​​Writing and Mindfulness: How a Mindfulness Practice Can Make You a Better Writer, February 14–18, 2022 with Janis Cooke Newman
We know that a consistent meditation practice lowers stress, improves health, strengthens relationships, and increases happiness. But did you know that cultivating mindfulness can also make you a more creative and skillful writer? This combination writing and meditation workshop invites writers and meditators of all levels to delve deeply into both practices. Throughout the workshop, we will practice together in a number of ways to encourage your own work and practice to flourish.

Esalen® Massage for Couples and Friends, February 18–20, 2022 with Oliver Bailey and Daniela Urbassek
Touch is our forgotten language. In this introductory massage course, participants will learn to listen to each other, gain the sensory skill of initiating touch, experience the felt sense of touch and muscle release, and close with a balanced tenderness. Seasoned instructors will offer exercises, demonstrations, and at-the-table guidance during the supervised practice. The simple principles of Esalen massage — presence, connection, attending rather than fixing, self-care, receptivity, and slow-paced strokes encompassing the body — will build a heartfelt experience with your partner or friend, and perhaps most significantly, with yourself.

Integration From the Core: Embodiment through Yoga, Dance, and Sound Meditation, February 21–25, 2022 with Jovinna Chan
Drawing on the embodied practices of yoga, pranayama (breath practice), sound meditation, and conscious dance, we reconnect our bodies and minds this week, digest our feelings and emotions, and open ourselves to the wisdom of our hearts. Most of all, we expand our vision to include a bigger perspective on the suffering of the world.

Deep Recovery: Meditation for Caregivers and Anyone Facing Burnout, February 25–27, 2022 with Lorin Roche, Camille Maurine, Dr. Maria Ramos, and Dr. Mayya Shveygert
Meditation is part of our survival instinct, a way to access rest and relaxation deeper than sleep. In this weekend workshop, you will learn about a variety of doorways into meditation that have proved useful for people living in the modern world, who have busy, responsible lives, who want to learn how to access deep rest. We will explore different ways to enter a meditative state so you can find what feels effortless and natural to you.

Exploring the Shadow and the Psychology of Fame, February 28 – March 4, 2022 with John W. Price Ph.D., LPC
In this workshop, uncovering the root of these questions is the very quest we are on — to recognize that often what we seek “out there” is found within and that the unlived parts of us often carry a heavy burden whether we know it or not. Reflecting upon and integrating these beautiful segments of our bodies, minds, and souls offers us an invitation to a broader and more expansive life, greater awareness and presence with the nature of our personal experience, and the depths of the patterns and forces encountered in the human experience.

Restorative Weekend, March 4–6, 2022 with Janet Stone
Join Janet in this nourishing weekend designed to replenish the nervous system and adrenals, boost the immune system, and ground into simplicity. We will drop into the body, mind, and spirit to find space between effort and surrender, allowing our systems to release into their great integrative power.

Moving into Stillness, March 7–11, 2022 with Janet Stone
Restore. It can take time and great effort to move away from the ego-affirming busyness of modern-day life toward a reflective stillness. In this workshop we will cultivate this slowing, deepening, and going within. Through slow, nourishing yoga practices, restorative postures, meditation, mantra, writing, and intentional silence we’ll allow ourselves to dive below the surface of our thoughts and identities to know ourselves more intimately and untether from the chords that hold us to old behaviors and belief structures.

Trauma, Memory, and the Restoration of One’s Self, March 14–18, 2022 with Bessel van der Kolk and Licia Sky
The function of the brain is to take care of us and to be in sync with the body’s systems. Trauma changes the way our brains process information and the way our bodies engage with the world. Trauma makes people afraid to know what they know and feel what they feel. This is expressed in heartbreak and the state of being out of sync with oneself and one’s surroundings. This course explores how, because of altered biological systems, traumatized people continue to be trapped by their history and react to current experience in a myriad of ways as a replay of the past, shows ways to break the cycles of re-enactment and suffering, and explores ways of representing and befriending our inner experience.

Welcome Spring: Fresh and Fun Springtime Yoga, March 25–27, 2022 with Ulrika Engman
Sluggishness from winter begone! Kick your heels into the air and welcome the spirit of spring with a fresh and fun Spring cleansing yoga workshop. We’ll lighten the load of winter lingering in our bodies with springtime Sun Salute variations revolving around the Solar Plexus to stimulate metabolism and a radiant flow of energy with playful flows, gentle backbends, and energizing movement. Learn prana pulsing, coconut oil joint rejuvenation, simple chi activation, the art and science of dry brushing for healthy skin, and tension clearing yoga for the face and feet.

Luminous Yoga Spring Renewal, March 28 – April 1, 2022 with Ulrika Engman
Polish your luminous body by revamping not just your yoga poses, but yourself, with innovative practices that renew body, mind, and spirit. Our yoga spring renewal practices consist of energizing movement, flow yoga, core activations, meridian sequencing, tapping, rejuvenating holds, and cleansing rituals based on the five elements.

The Path of the Wounded Healer, April 4–8, 2022 with Lucia Horan
The healing path has a trajectory. Gabrielle Roth called this The Path of The Wounded Healer. It is here that we look closely at our healing process. We mark both where we are and where we want to be. We dance through the five stages of healing in relationship to being the victim, the survivor, the healer, the transformer, and eventually the one who rests in compassionate service.

Designing the Life We Want: Self-Renewal in the Spring, April 4–8, 2022 and April 8–10, 2022 with Mark Nicolson
You have never been where you are today. You have never been the age you are today, or had the experience you have today. At times, you must pause and reflect: Have you created the impact you want? Are you showing up the way you want to? Are you going in the right direction? Drawing on psychological principles, movement practices, and ancient wisdom traditions, we will create a unique environment in which peers can come together for a rare opportunity of intense personal learning, interaction, and exploration.

The Embodied Voice, April 8–10, 2022 with The Brothers Koren
Brothers Thorald and Isaac Koren create a safe space for students to reclaim their power and connection to their bodies while grounding into the gravity of the whole body instrument. Create powerful sounds and experience what it feels like to be... and be fully alive.

Esalen® Massage: The Basics, April 15–17, 2022 with Char Pias and Deborah Anne Medow
The soothing quality of massage is a delightful antidote for stress or that out-of-sorts feeling. Sharing a massage heightens non-verbal connection and awakens sensory awareness. Whether a novice or professional, this workshop will guide you through the basic concepts of Esalen Massage in a pleasant, easy-to-follow format. With brief lecture demonstrations and plenty of at-the-table guidance, the instructors will offer the essential elements, highlighting the foundational long, integrating strokes, and gentle stretches.

Plus, we have even more programs still open for enrollment or wait list.

And if you’ve always wanted to visit Esalen but haven’t been able to find the room in your budget: do you know about our scholarship program?
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