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

Source to Screen: Accessing, Manifesting, and Transmitting Great Ideas

August 26–30, 2024

Paola di Florio and Peter Rader

This immersive week-long lab is for creators of all kinds––writers, inventors, filmmakers, musicians, and entrepreneurs––anyone who wishes to integrate their spirituality and creativity to tap into the deepest source of inspiration and higher intelligence as they bring guided work into the world.

In the words of Carl Jung, “People don’t have ideas. Ideas have people.” By breaking down this process of allowing into three stages (Creation, Manifestation, and Transmission), we will walk together along an impactful, sacred path designed for cohesion, connection, incubation, and transformation.

We live in a world of great distraction that doesn’t encourage deep listening. We must reverse those outer-facing sensory “searchlights” and go inwards. When you dive into the field of all possibilities, ideas surprisingly find you with a very specific intention. As you attune to that purpose, you gain discernment, direction, momentum, and flow.

Over the course of five days, you’ll face the “demons” that get in the way of meaningful work, including inertia, ego, outer blocks, and inner resistance. You will discover how obstacles can become allies in your process, helping you to foster organic, sustainable partnerships, growth, and co-creation.

In this workshop, you’ll be guided through:

  • Nonlinear brainstorming to invite new and deeper relationships to ideas.
  • “Hotseat Exercises” and small group breakouts to foster vulnerability and creative risk-taking
  • Kinetic creation, such as yoga, meditation, and energy balancing, to increase attunement
  • Radical pivots and adaptivity to meet obstacles with poise and intelligence.
  • Case studies.

Employing timeless principles from Vedic philosophy, this class will use nonlinear brainstorming to deepen our inspiration, along with experiential exercises. You will do yoga, breathwork, meditation, and movement to tap into the matrix of your creative capacity. You’ll recalibrate intentions and goals. Every step of the lab will contain practical solutions to push through whatever is in your way.

The lab is open to creators of all levels. You can attend either as an “incubator” (with a specific project or idea that you want to workshop) or as an “observer/participant” (to glean knowledge about conscious creation by watching the process unfold and also participating). In either case, you must submit a one-page application describing your background and creative goals. If you’re bringing a project to the lab, please describe it in one paragraph, tell us where you are with it, and where you want to take it.

Recommended Reading: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, and Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki.

Paola di Florio

Paola di Florio, founder of Counterpoint Films, is an Oscar, Emmy and Sundance Jury Prize-nominated writer, director and producer. A Kriya Yoga practitioner and NYU graduate, she is certified in vinyasa, kundalini, and in pranic healing.

Full Bio

Peter Rader

Peter Rader, has worked as a film and television writer/producer, author and ghostwriter for 30 years. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and is accomplished in a broad range of fields, including music and photography

Full Bio