Esalen Institute is open! However, Highway 1 to the south is closed — please review the current travel advisory.
Learn More.

Learn more.

Due to road closures along Highway 1 to our north and south, Esalen is closed through April 11.
Esalen Institute is open! However, Highway 1 to the south is closed — please review the current travel advisory.
past workshop

Embodied Writing and Spiritual Practice

June 26–30, 2023

Sravana Borkataky-Varma and Erik Davis

Part writing workshop and part tantric retreat, this unique blended workshop explores the relationship between personal writing and subtle body practices.

Religious historian and Tantric practitioner Sravana Borkataky-Varma will lead experiential sessions largely stemming from Hindu Goddess Tantra practices. Author and journalist Erik Davis will then guide the group in reading and writing exercises for skills and techniques to help us creatively express our direct experiences of the meditations.

Exercises and opportunities will include:

  • Chakra and subtle body meditations.
  • Reading short texts to understand how writing can capture subtle embodied experience.
  • Using writing skills, including metaphor and creative language, to capture and express your own inner work.
  • Techniques to develop a writing practice that supports a deepening engagement with meditation and embodied life.

Over the days, we will collectively cultivate a feedback loop between writing, discussion, and inner work. Through this alchemical process, participants will learn to more intimately and poetically clarify their subtle experiences, while at the same time using the power and energy of such practices to fire up and inspire their writing life.

Sravana Borkataky-Varma

Prof. Sravana Borkataky-Varma specializes in South Asian religions, with a particular emphasis on Hindu practices. Her scholarly work investigates Indian religions and delves into topics such as esoteric rituals, gender issues, and bodily concepts, especially in relation to Hindu Śākta Tantra traditions, often referred to as Goddess Tantra.

Full Bio

Erik Davis

Erik Davis, PhD, is an author, journalist, and teacher based in San Francisco. His wide-ranging work focuses on the intersection of alternative religion, media, and the popular imagination. His most recent book is High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies.

Full Bio