Workshops

In this transformative workshop, you will explore Maranasati, mindfulness of death, a profound practice for embracing life’s natural cycles of birth and death with greater aliveness, presence, and fearlessness. By facing impermanence directly, you can open your heart to live with deeper intention, presence, and less fear, freeing yourself to embrace life in its fullest expression.

Guided sitting and walking meditations will be at the heart of our time together to help us anchor into the body, quiet the mind, and discover peace amid the ever-changing nature of life. We’ll create spaciousness for silence, allowing insights to emerge naturally. Contemplative practices will guide us as we reflect on powerful meditative inquiries. Reflective writing, such as crafting your own obituary, will offer deeper self-exploration. Creative exercises, like haiku writing, will provide a way to express these insights through art, transforming our contemplation into beauty.

Through small group inquiry, we will share and deeply listen to one another’s reflections, fostering a supportive community connected by our shared humanity. We’ll practice letting go, finding ease with the unknown, and addressing the heart’s unfinished business. As we cultivate metta (loving-kindness), we soften our fears and grief with compassion, gradually transforming them into equanimity and acceptance.

Join us in this exploration of mortality to see death as a wise teacher and life as an opportunity for authenticity, love, and presence. This workshop is open to anyone ready to deepen their connection with mortality and embrace life and death with an open heart.

This workshop invites you to explore the creative spirit that resides within each of us. Whether you are an experienced artist or simply seeking to uncover your potential, this meditative experience promises to be enriching.

We will begin with colored pencils to open our hearts and let creativity flow naturally. Then, with acrylic paints, participants will create a personal mandala (an integrated image of wholeness), Sri Yantra (a mystical diagram used in Hinduism that represents the union of the masculine and feminine divine energies), or designs of their choice. By the end of the workshop, you will have finished a unique and beautiful piece of art.

The practice of painting is both healing and meditative, and this journey is meant to expand our consciousness and ability to deepen our connections with nature and our inner selves. It is a gentle entry into the left brain hemisphere to open our capacity for creative experiences. Our time together is designed to provide the foundation for painting as a sacred art, to introduce participants to their possibilities as an artist, and to help them walk down the artist’s path — one paved with joy, insight, and awareness.

This workshop includes an additional $25 for materials.

This workshop is the perfect opportunity for you to enjoy the natural beauty of Esalen’s springtime bloom while gaining a foundation in Esalen® Massage. Senior teachers will guide you in this experience of connection and presence translated to the massage table.

Through lecture, demonstration and practice with your co-students, you will be introduced to the essentials, including quality of touch, rapport, a deep respect for our natural impulse toward healing, and mindful body mechanics. You will listen to what is felt as well as what is said. You will learn how to comfortably drape, and how to easily apply the foundational long, integration strokes, detail work,  and gentle stretches. You will have plenty of time for guided practice and to effectively share your experience. At the end of the week you will be able to give a simple massage to friends and family back home.

Esalen massage promotes feelings of wholeness and reconnects us with our natural state of being. Teaching tools include experiential exercises to awaken the senses, demonstrations, and tableside guidance appropriate for you. The class is appropriate for the new and curious as well as the professional who would like to rejuvenate their senses and the quality of their touch.

26 hours of continuing education provided by the faculty through Esalen Massage and Bodywork Association Teachers.

When was the last time you gave something your undivided attention? Nearly 2,500 years ago, Buddha worried we had become too distracted — and that was before paper, let alone smartphones. In 2022, our days are filled with convenient distractions that promise happiness while mostly delivering busyness and frustration. So many of us today live life in a hectic fog, working too much and noticing too little.

There is a different way. For this weekend workshop, we will disconnect, slow down, and meditate together. We will learn the ancient Zen practice of sitting still, bringing our full awareness to what is now.

Our time together will follow a gentle schedule of sitting meditation punctuated by brief lectures, group discussion, relaxing meals, and soaks in the healing baths, all while exploring the process and practice of mindful living. We’ll be listening to our own bodies, noticing the food we eat, and truly engaging with the people around us – exploring what it means to be fully present.

Together we will explore everything you need to start, revive, or deepen your daily meditation practice. You will receive instruction in traditional Zen Buddhist meditation and we will sit together in guided sessions, practicing what we’ve learned. We’ll work together on everything from the mechanics of sitting posture to the mental barriers we all face. We’ll discuss how to overcome common obstacles to meditation and the many ways to incorporate more mindfulness and presence into our daily lives.

Whether you’re brand new to meditation or even if you’ve been practicing for years, join us in learning how to bring meditation into your life and mindfulness to your work and home – today and every day. Come reclaim a healthier and happier way to be.

Recommended Reading: Buddha’s Office, by Dan Zigmond

Learn to activate the right side of your brain to unlock the insights necessary to break through self-limiting patterns. Based on a Nobel Prize-winning discovery in neuroscience, this methodology helps you think outside the box and live a more creative, productive, happier life.

William Donius, author of the New York Times bestseller Thought Revolution, spent a decade researching and developing this brain-enhancing methodology. He has taught these skills to a wide range of people, from students and corporate executives to scientists and artists. This innovative approach inspires more creative solutions than conventional thinking or brainstorming sessions. Through easy-to-learn exercises, you can discover ways to harness your intuition and uncover profound insights about yourself that make change possible. You’ll develop practical tools you can apply each time you face an important decision or obstacle in life. You can go home with new ways to unlock your own inner genius and create the life you long for.

Please bring a notebook or journal and a pen.

Recommended Reading: Thought Revolution: How to Unlock Your Inner Genius by William Donius

This workshop has two options on length of stay: a traditional weeklong of two nights or a long weekend of three nights. The extended stay workshop will include more workshop content which is reflected in the extended stay schedule.

What if sleep could be more than just crashing into your pillow at the end of a long day? What if it could be a portal to transformation and self-discovery? In this workshop, we’ll dive into the ancient Daoist art of sleep alchemy, where the Wudang Hibernating Dragon and Five Dragons Sleeping methods teach you how to transform snoozing into a practice of subtle awareness and metaphysical transformation.

Rooted in the Wudang Daoist Sanfeng lineage, these techniques harmonize body and soul, turning your nightly shut-eye into a discipline of deep peace. The cosmic journey would be incomplete without Daoist stories like Zhuangzi’s Butterfly Dream and Lü Dongbin’s Yellow Millet Dream, classic tales of metaphysical gaslighting that explore just how slippery the boundaries of reality and illusion can be.

We’ll also talk about practicalities within a Daoist framework, like how your food choices, lifestyle, and daily habits can affect your sleep quality. Expect to walk away with tools for cultivating transcendent rest, resilience, and an appreciation for Daoist cosmology. Along the way, we’ll keep it relaxed — the Dao is at ease. Sleeping in class is encouraged, though snoring will be punished with five hundred years in Daoist hell.  

Participants will practice introductory Wudang sleeping methods to enter, sustain, and deepen sleep states. By the end of the workshop, you will be intimately familiar with practical techniques to deepen sleep, enhance well-being, and dream the dream of life more deeply and lucidly.

Join us for this weeklong wild clay pottery intensive. As a group, we will go through the whole process of making pottery from the wild, including processing clay, mixing various wild clays, and finding and testing clay in the field. We’ll learn how to hand-build pots using various techniques, including pinch pots, slab work, coil and scrape, corrugation, and more. We will find and create mineral paints from the landscape and make our yucca brushes to design and paint our pots with our own artistic expressions. Finally, we’ll prepare a kiln to fire them and go over several different methods for firing earthenware pottery.

Together, we’ll enjoy daily discussions about the metaphysical side of pottery, working with the clay, and balancing the elements. We will slow the process down to see what lessons emerge and what energy and opportunities the materials draw from us, both as individuals and as a group — an opportunity for personal growth and team building through the creation process!

While seated on the grounds of Esalen, we will connect to and draw inspiration from the landscape and the ancient ones who came before us and may have also made pots for function and beauty with the same materials long ago.

This workshop includes an additional $30 for materials.

Know from the rivers in clefts and in crevices: those in small channels flow noisily, the great flow silent. Whatever’s not full makes noise. Whatever is full is quiet. — Buddha

We treasure this life, and yet we rarely can hear ourselves think. We are constantly being bombarded and absorbing information at a dizzying pace. In the 21st century, where stillness and silence are scarce, fast-paced living keeps us bouncing from one task to the next. What might happen if you simply sat and allowed yourself to be? What would arise in the spaces between your thoughts, your breath, and your heartbeat?

Join celebrated teacher, author, and documentary filmmaker Hawah Kasat to explore the depths of silence and solitude. Hawah will guide you with a culturally sensitive soft touch and a compassionate heart toward the bounty of silence. Participants will be guided through silent meditation practices, pranayama (breathwork), asana (movement), and dharma talks, to support the following process:

• Still the “monkey mind” through pratyahara, the withdrawal of the senses.
• Experience the profound connection between physical stillness and silence.
• Sit with what comes up in the spaces between your thoughts, breath, and heartbeat.
• Explore the subtle nuances between Yogic and Buddhist meditation traditions.
• Unravel the mystery of Vipassana Meditation.

This retreat is suitable for those who have never taken a vow of silence and want to explore what it feels like to observe it, as well as veteran silent retreaters who want to tune up their senses of awareness and perception.

NOTE: Noble silence will be observed intermittently throughout the retreat days, sometimes for hours at a time. During noble silence periods, participants will be encouraged not to engage in writing, reading, or talking.

This workshop includes a $10 material fee.

Part of a new chapter of Esalen’s history, this seminar-style workshop considers the audacious possibility that reincarnation may be an empirically established fact rooted in robust and compelling scientific data.

Numerous young children from across the world have reported memories of past lives. These cases have been a focus of careful study at the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences at the University of Virginia School of Medicine over the last 60 years. Over 2,000 cases have been investigated, and in many, the child’s memories appear to match the details of an identified deceased person.

Recently, the Washington Post brought this notion into the mainstream with “The children who remember their past lives,” a meaningful contribution to growing public awareness of reincarnation as a legitimate possibility. Child psychiatrist Jim B. Tucker, featured in the article, is the director of the Division of Perceptual Studies and has worked with nearly 150 families while compiling comprehensive records of past-life memories. He worked closely with the division’s founder, Ian Stevenson, who began gathering data in the 1960s. Clinical psychologist Christine McDowell Tucker focuses on grief counseling and mindfulness meditation. Together, Jim and Christine will share the latest findings and lead discussions about the current research and its implications for us all. Esalen founder Michael Murphy will provide the opening lecture.

This seminar will explore scientific, philosophical, and metaphysical questions about life, death, and meaning, including:

• If these children have reincarnated, does this mean we all have?
• How much of our personalities are shaped by what we bring from our previous lives?
• What do the children’s descriptions of events between lives tell us about the process of moving from one life to the next?
• Can we conceptualize a larger self that experiences lifetimes as different individuals?
• Does this constitute a tipping point in the history of science?
• How can we think about “purpose” in a lifetime?
• How does this phenomenon change our fundamental understanding of reality?

This seminar-style workshop is somewhat new and experimental for Esalen, leaning into our long history as a refuge for people to sort through complexities and find their bearings. It invites our inner reductionists, skeptics, and artful dodgers to rest and allow for new possibilities. This gathering is for those deeply curious about what happens after we die and what it means to fulfill a life’s purpose. It will be both didactic and interactive while exploring meaningful questions and engaging with related meditation exercises.  

Please note: Active channeling, hypnotically prompted age regressions, and other exercises to summon past-life memories will not be included in this seminar.

Trauma is not only about the terrible things that have happened to us but also about what did not happen — such as care, protection, and validation. The only way to create an inner sense of positivity that embraces new possibilities is to have a visceral, real-life experience with what has been missing.

In this workshop, we will explore a variety of theatrical and psychodramatic techniques to help transform our understanding of trauma and instill a deep-seated sense of the nurturing that was not received when it was needed — the support that was lacking. This process has been described in “Filling the Holes: Creating Structures,” a chapter in The Body Keeps the Score, the influential, award-winning work on how traumatic experiences, and the lack of positive ones, shape both the brain and relationships.

This experiential workshop is limited to 25 participants. If you are interested in joining, please send an email with approximately two paragraphs explaining your professional background, prior therapy experiences, and why you wish to be a part of this workshop. Please add “Psychodrama Workshop Participant Submission” to the subject line and send to assistant@liciasky.com.

Asanga’s Nine Stages of Staying is one of the oldest and most comprehensive systems of concentration in the Buddhist tradition. Sometimes called the Elephant Path, this approach was originated by the great Buddhist master in 506 A.D., and it is now the main method of training the mind in the Tibetan tradition.

In this weekend meditation retreat, participants will learn the stages of the Elephant Path using the body as the primary object of concentration. Students will also receive an introduction to the basic stages of ordinary insight. By the end of our time together, students will have all the instructions necessary to successfully incorporate a robust meditation practice into everyday life.

Training the mind in this way can lead to a direct experience of equanimity and can put the student in a range of practice wherein pointing out the real nature of the awakened mind is possible.

No experience with meditation is required. If you have your own preferred meditation pillow and mat, please bring them.

The intellectual and spiritual quest to understand the Universe and our place in it is at the core of science, religion, and spiritual traditions. We are pattern-seeking, storytelling animals trying to make sense of the world. For millennia, we have told stories in the form of myths and through religions that have offered countless explanations. In recent centuries, science has provided a new story, one based on evidence and independent of cultural traditions.

Today, science tells us that we are but one among tens of millions of species housed on one planet among many orbiting an ordinary solar system, itself one among billions of solar systems in an ordinary galaxy located in a cluster of galaxies not so different than billions of other galaxy clusters, themselves whirling away from one another in an accelerating expanding cosmic bubble universe that very possibly is only one among a near-infinite number of other bubble universes in the multiverse. Is it really possible that this entire cosmological multiverse exists for one tiny subgroup of a single species on one planet in a long galaxy in that solitary bubble universe?

In this workshop, we will explore how to find meaning in this apparently meaningless Universe and how to find the sacred and the spiritual in a secular age. Topics will include science and skepticism, science and religion, death and life after death, morality and meaning, the randomness of life and what it means, why we think everything happens for a reason, finding purpose with or without God, why bad things happen to good people, the nature of evil, finding purpose in tragedy and adversity, and the varieties of spiritual experiences.

Guest faculty Ralph Lewis is a Psychiatrist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto, Canada, and an associate professor at the University of Toronto. In his work, Ralph helps people seek meaning in the face of severe and tragic adversity. In addition to having extensive clinical experience with complex and subtle psychiatric and psychological conditions, Ralph is a regular columnist for Psychology Today and is the author of Finding Purpose in a Godless World: Why We Care Even if the Universe Doesn’t.

This seminar-style workshop is open to all. Bring your curiosity, skepticism, and an open mind.

Recommended Reading: Michael Shermer, 2015. The Moral Arc: How Science and Reason Lead Humanity Toward Truth, Justice, and Freedom.

A weekend of transformative exploration to bridge physical movement with the subtle layers of internal flow, connecting body, energy, and perception. This retreat goes beyond traditional practices and invites participants to discover the intelligence and freedom inherent in all forms of movement — not only in the body’s gestures but also in its inner energy and shifting perspectives.

Together, we’ll blend imaginative, expressive movement (Bohemian) with grounding, introspective practices (Gravity) to create a holistic and adaptable approach accessible to anyone, regardless of age or experience. Through a fusion of yoga, somatic therapy, and movement meditation, we will explore both dynamic and deeply relaxing states, accompanied by carefully curated ethnic, electronic, and instrumental music that supports our journey.

The experience fuses a diverse array of techniques, including:

• Body language listening
• Movement meditation
• Imaginative and somatic movement
• Breathwork
• Fusion dance
• Sound baths
• Yin Yang yoga

Led by multidisciplinary artist Yemi A.D., founder of Moonshot Platform, these sessions are uniquely designed to unlock the body’s stored energy, release long-held tensions from unconscious movement patterns, and open up space for creativity, joy, and inner freedom.

Esalen is the trailhead to one of the most spectacular mountainous coastlines in the world. With the Big Sur wilderness as the primary teacher, participants will explore the beauty of this wild coast — one of the most spectacular mountainous coastlines in the world —  which includes ancient canyons of redwoods, dramatic coastal beaches, rugged rocky mountains, and soft grassy slopes.

Drawing from nature and using various experiential awareness practices, individuals will be encouraged to open to the landscapes of both the natural world and their inner world. It is said that Big Sur is not just a place but a state of mind. This wilderness experience seeks to merge mind and place, then to embody what is learned.

Participants in this weeklong workshop will venture out into the emerging springtime magnificence of Big Sur on day-hikes between four to eight miles. Steven will draw from a wide range of contemporary and age-old wisdom traditions, borrowing from psychology, meditation, aikido, and the natural sciences to weave together a holistic experience of self and the natural world.

Each hike will begin right after breakfast and conclude in time to enjoy the hot springs and dinner at the Lodge. Evening sessions will include informal sharing and basic awareness practices with attention to incorporating what we’ve learned into our daily lives.

All levels of experience are welcome. Be prepared for the invigorating challenge of physical activity that the mountains of Big Sur require and the opportunity to simply sit still in quiet reflection. More information and a waiver will be sent upon registration. For an equipment list and frequently asked questions about Steven’s workshops, visit FAQs.

This workshop has $80 of additional faculty tuition and $40 for park entrance fees.

Experience five days of deep rest, reflection, and rejuvenation through movement, guided meditation, and the profound practice of Yoga Nidra. This workshop is designed to restore the body, clear the mind, and shift the habitual patterns that keep us from experiencing a state of calm, clarity, and balance.

Yoga Nidra, which translates to “yogic sleep,” guides you to that liminal state between wakefulness and sleep, where you can systematically release stored physical, emotional, and mental tensions. In this state, you can let go of old beliefs and habits that keep you stuck in the past and fearful of the future. With this practice, you can fully experience your emotions while knowing that there is unchanging, unshakable ground beneath you — a calm inner presence that allows you to see clearly and navigate life with greater ease.

Throughout the retreat, we will work with our bodies and minds, creating clear intentions to shift from living by unconscious, automatic programming and find a new perspective — an aware, deliberate way of being. You’ll explore how to bring this newfound awareness of your true self into your personal life, relationships, work, and moments of solitude and love.

Together, we will cultivate new tools to help us navigate when we feel lost, tired, or confused and forget who we are. These guiding instruments can help us negotiate life’s challenges, welcome them as opportunities, and remember our true nature.

This workshop is a unique opportunity to recognize your wholeness, the truth of who you are, and the inner peace that has always been within you — that unchanging, unshakable ground of being that you are. All that is being asked of you is to show up, lie down, and let go. Yoga Nidra will do the rest.

What to bring: blankets, a yoga mat, an eye pillow, and anything else you need to lie comfortably on the floor for extended periods. We’ll also have opportunities to practice outdoors, so make sure you have layers to stay comfortable in varying conditions.

Recommended Reading: Yoga Nidra: The Art of Transformational Sleep, by Kamini Desai; and Yoga Nidra: A Meditative Practice for Deep Relaxation Healing, by Richard Miller

Part writing workshop and part tantric retreat, this unique practice week 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. Award-winning author and scholar Erik Davis will then guide the group in reading and writing exercises, developing skills and techniques that will help us creatively express our embodied experiences.

Exercises and opportunities will include:

• Chakra and subtle body meditations.
• Reading short texts to understand how writing engages subtle embodied experience.
• Using elements of writing, including metaphor, poetry, and spontaneous  language, to capture and express your own inner work.
• Techniques to develop an ongoing 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.

This workshop has an additional $50 of faculty tuition.

In the mountains east of Esalen, an enchanting, ecologically diverse, and psycho-spiritually fertile wilderness awaits. Over four nights and five days, we will engage in a contemporary form of pilgrimage, backpacking as reverent seekers through these ancestral lands of the Esselen Tribe, now known as the Big Sur backcountry. Our journey will conclude at the coastal grounds of Esalen Institute with a weekend of reflection and integration.

Since time immemorial, people have taken time away from the patterns and demands of daily life to walk with intention on sacred trails — pursuing embodied spiritual wisdom, expansion, and community. In our modern era of profound ecological degradation and severance from place-based ways of life, wilderness pilgrimage is a powerful practice for restoring relationship with the Earth and the depths of our shared humanity.

Each day of our wild pilgrimage, we will rise with the sun, carry only what we need, and walk with presence and curiosity to meaningfully encounter our inner and outer landscapes. As we hike and camp, we will learn foundational wilderness ethics and skills to feel at home in the wild. When night falls, we will share stories and meals by the fire and sleep beneath a blanket of stars.

Inspired by Esalen’s co-founder Dick Price, who found healing in the Big Sur wild and the Esalen community, our intimate and intergenerational cohort will embrace mutual support — engaging relational practices from Price’s Gestalt lineage to authentically connect with ourselves and one another.

Our pilgrimage community will include the more-than-human world: ancient redwoods, sandstone boulders, surging springs, playful jays, and all the countless beings of Big Sur. Through guided mythopoetic, ecological, and somatic inquiry, we will expand our literacy of wild nature, awaken our senses, and cultivate embodied awareness of our interconnection.

May the ardor and intentionality of our trek, across 30 miles of rugged terrain, wash away calcified layers from our essential selves to reveal bright resilience and aliveness. When we arrive at Esalen, we will turn our attention toward integration and service. In accord with the ancient spirit of pilgrimage, how will we carry what we’ve gathered on this journey into our lives, communities, and lands back home?

Important Notes:

• The full experience takes place over seven days, from Monday, April 28th to Sunday, May 4th, 2025.
• Experience with backpacking or Esalen/Gestalt is not required.
• This is a partner program with Wildtender, an organization working at the intersection of wilderness and wisdom traditions. Prior to registering with Esalen, you will need to register and pay tuition fees through Wildtender for the wilderness portion of the program. For more details and to register, visit wildtender.com/esalen2025

Where do you belong in the vast and ever-changing tapestry of the universe? Join Tantric scholar-practitioners Sravana Borkataky-Varma and Keith Edward Cantú as we explore Tantric practices, including the creation of physical mandalas (maṇḍala),  circles, and other shapes with the potential to transform our internal and external environments.

Together, we will immerse ourselves in the latest research on Indic teachings and practices that challenge and reframe our conventional understandings of what Tantra was, is, and can be. Staying true to the roots of Esalen, we will also intertwine discussion with authentic South Asian folk musical performances, songs, and guided meditations for a creative, visceral experience for the mind, body, and heart. We will cast light on Tantra’s connections to a wide variety of vibrant artistic and meditative practices in an eye-opening and unforgettable way.

In this workshop, you’ll be invited to:

• Develop an embodied understanding of Tantra.
• Creatively explore your divine nature and potential.
• Enjoy the benefit of overcoming negative projections and self-generated illusions.
• Learn practical modes of meditation, including internal visualization and externalization through mandalas.

We invite both couples and individuals to join us in this workshop that blends meditation, art, and music with a holistic inquiry into Tantra’s power and therapeutic potential to unlock a happier and more fulfilling life. Bring an open mind as we explore deep questions about our bodies and minds in a safe space and nurturing environment.

Please Note: This workshop is NOT about “Tantric Sex” or experiencing enhanced sexual pleasures, although many discussions will address gender identity and sexuality.

This workshop includes $50 of additional faculty tuition.

**This workshop has two options on length of stay: a traditional weeklong of two nights or a long weekend of three nights. The extended stay workshop will include more workshop content which is reflected in the extended stay schedule.

As organized religion begins to lose its relevance, a fast-growing community of the spiritual but not religious rises to take its place. We are thirsty for the sacred and long to experience it within the heart of our everyday lives.

In this experiential workshop, we will cultivate a mystical way of seeing to reclaim awe and wonder, not in spite of but rather through the portal of our ordinary lives. By intentionally seeking the presence of the sacred in our closest relationships, work, food, pleasure, loss, and grief, we release false notions that mystical experiences are reserved for the spiritually elite and that intimacy with the divine can only be experienced in a religious context.

Throughout the workshop, we will walk through seven gates to reveal your everyday life as a sacred landscape: intention, attention, surrender, teachers and teachings, community, feeling, and ongoing unfoldment. Teachings from Mirabai will be interwoven with writing exercises, both small and whole-group discussions, guided and silent meditation, and interspiritual chanting.

Your life itself is sacred ground. When you decide to walk the path of the mystic, the mundane shows up as miraculous, the boring becomes fascinating, and your perceived shortcomings turn out to be your greatest gifts.

Recommended reading: Ordinary Mysticism: Your Life as Sacred Ground, by Mirabai Starr and Wild Mercy by Mirabai Starr

Learn how mindfulness and self-compassion can change everything about how you feel, how you relate and how you live ― for good.

In this workshop, Dr. Shauna Shapiro ― a leading scientist studying the effects of mindfulness + compassion on well-being ― shows us that acting with compassion toward ourselves is the key. She explains basic brain science and offers powerful science-based practices to alleviate anxiety, boost creative thinking, and deepen our sense of belonging and purpose. With practice, we can literally rewire our brains for greater feelings of calm, clarity, connection, and joy. We will immerse ourselves in the natural beauty of Esalen, allowing the sounds of the ocean, the magnificent views and delights of the gardens to nourish and support us.

This workshop is appropriate for anyone curious about mindfulness + compassion and how to deepen our connection with the beauty and mystery of life. All are welcome.

Recommended Reading: Good Morning, I Love You: Mindfulness and Self-Compassion Practices to Rewire the Brain for Calm, Clarity + Joy and Good Morning, I Love You: A Guided Journal for Calm, Clarity + Joy by Shauna Shapiro.

This workshop includes an additional $375 faculty tuition. *For anyone facing financial hardship, Dr. Shauna Shapiro invites you to contact her directly for a tuition scholarship at slshapiro@scu.edu.

Be inspired and transform your yoga practice with the stories of yoga and the power of myth. Awaken the hero’s journey within you as you explore the legends, lore, and archetypes of the yoga tradition. Deepen your love of yoga, elevate your creativity, and infuse your practice with mythic codes that support your purpose in life.

Each day will offer myth, asana, pranayama, mantra, mudra, meditation, and inner transformational exploration to ground myth into your everyday life. Morning sessions will be energizing, followed by reflective afternoon sessions.

Together, we’ll explore the alchemical practices of:

• asana (physical yoga postures)
• pranayama (breathing techniques)
• mantra (healing sound vibration)
• mudra (energy seals created by the hands)
• meditation (expanded states of awareness)
• mythic codes (stories, legends, and lore of yoga)
• hypnotic trance ritual (inductions to deepen your mythic experience)

Sianna and Masood will guide you on this sacred pilgrimage with five thematic journeys:

Monday: Full Moon Soma Flow — hips, twists, and tantric stories of Shiva & Shakti with full moon mantra meditation.

Tuesday: Leap of Love — backbends and heart-opening practices inspired by the devotion and courage of Hanuman.

Wednesday: Clear the Obstacles — clear the way with Ganesha’s wisdom to remove blocks with breathwork, balance poses, and shadow work.

Thursday: Expand the Evolutionary Edge — explore and embody the avatar forms of yoga through Vishnu and Durga.

Friday: Invoking Grace — a celebration of the goddesses of yoga through vinyasa flow, mantra, music, and community.

This transformative Mythic Yoga Flow™ retreat includes 20 CEUs certified by Yoga Alliance.

Once upon a time … Now let your imagination soar and awaken your quest in a whole new way!

All Lovers of Yoga Practice are Welcome – please know there will be daily physical asana practice for those with some experience with asana as well as storytelling, chanting, and more!

Enjoy a rising tide of empowerment and end your daily guessing game about life. Find the guidance you seek when you say “Yes!” to the Beauty of Tarot.

Join renowned teacher Brenda Rose for this playful and magical journey through the sacred stories of tarot. You’ll gain a meaningful connection with the cards and learn to provide insightful readings.  Stories of the major and minor arcana will be shared in an intimate setting and customized way. The Beauty of Tarot can amplify your spiritual transformation by helping you cultivate more unconditional love and intuitive guidance for your daily life.  

This is an immersive and interactive workshop. The magic of tarot comes alive as you practice giving and receiving readings with your classmates under the supportive guidance of Brenda Rose and her graduate students. We’ll learn vibrant tarot spreads together and discover how both the evident and esoteric tarot stories are activated.

In this workshop, you’ll be invited to:

• Meditate and work with energy practices.
• Engage with each of the tarot cards through their stories and interpretations.
• Practice giving and receiving readings through inclusive, judgment-free and projection-free language.

This immersion welcomes all levels of experience and includes an additional $100 material fee, as each participant receives Brenda’s original deck, The Beauty of Tarot, and a workbook chronicling each card.

“A brain without a body couldn’t think.” — Moshe Feldenkrais

“We want to get you to a place where gravity is your friend, a nourishing force.” — Dr. Ida P. Rolf

Human beings are relational by nature. We are an intricate web of anatomy, energy, space, and time that takes shape through our life experiences. Our physical structure, function, and sense of self are reflected in our fascial layers and formed by our early development, by principles of self-organization, and by how we engage with our environment.

When we fall into habitual patterns, parts of ourselves become undeveloped, unseen. If our bodies are given a setting in which to relate to gravity, others, and our environment with curiosity and attunement, we can be free to move and relate with more choice and ease.

Using the grounds, waters, and spirit of Esalen as our laboratory, Kate and Kevin will use the Feldenkrais Method and Gestalt process as a guide to contact and nurture the influences of the subtle body – our relationship to ground, gravity, and the space between.

In this workshop, participants will:

• Identify the habitual relational patterns that prevent us from cultivating ease in our lives.
• Investigate how the subtle body is influenced by the principles of emotional anatomy, tensegrity, neuroplasticity, and self-organization through experiential movement.
• Be guided through Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement (ATM) lessons tailored toward the subtle body and creating more sophistication in functional movement.
• Explore sensation, weight, gravity, and relationship through movement and contact.
• Learn tools of Gestalt Relational Process to increase presence and awareness and integration of ourselves.

Recommended Reading: Feldenkrais, The Potent Self: A Study of Spontaneity and Compulsion; Gladis, Tales of a Wounded Healer: Creating Exact Moments of Healing; Bodywise: An Introduction to Hellerwork for Regaining Flexibility & Well-Being.

Hapé, the sacred tobacco snuff, has been derived from one of the most respected plants among Indigenous peoples of the Americas for thousands of years, traditionally prepared using dried tobacco leaves and ash from special trees from the Amazon rainforest.

By applying hapé medicine to the nostrils, users activate their senses in unique ways. The potent blend stimulates both physical sensations and inner visions, enabling individuals to explore their spirituality on a deeper level. This sensory experience often leads to profound insights and revelations about one’s purpose in life.

The Global North is now experiencing an explosion of interest in psychedelics and plant medicine, leading therapists, doctors, artists, businesses, non-profit organizations, and researchers to embrace sacred plants as tools for improving health, awakening spirituality, and enhancing creativity. In this workshop, we will talk about the therapeutic, scientific, and cultural dimensions of hapé, covering the diversity of its uses and the most appropriate and beneficial ways to consume it.

Together, we will:

• Identify key points for building good practices in diverse contexts to facilitate and integrate the use of hapé snuff.
• Discuss the complex ethical and cultural challenges associated with the use of hapé.
• Address ways to give back and cultivate reciprocity with Indigenous peoples.
• Learn scientific aspects and traditional perspectives on this plant medicine.
• Prepare the hapé medicine with our own hands, a complex and sacred process that is still largely unknown in the Global North.
• Participate in a hapé ceremony.

Though hapé is legal in the US and is spreading rapidly around the world, it is important to recognize that this is a traditional medicine with different ways of preparation, different types of blowing, and different plants that can make up each recipe. We will explore how to responsibly manage a relatively complex set of procedures and activities. Cultural sensitivity, preparation of the container, silence, music, scent, dose size, and duration are all important aspects to consider for a safe and meaningful experience.

Recommended reading: https://plantmagiccollective.org/hape-medicine-sacred-shamanic-snuff-explained/

This workshop includes a $25 material fee.

Do you love the beauty of the outdoors and delight in the wonder of nature? Do you want to learn how to meditate outdoors? Would you like practices to stay grounded, connected, and open-hearted in life? Then what better place to discover all this than in the majesty of the Big Sur coastline, where we are serenaded by the lulling sounds of the ocean, cradled by rolling hills, and uplifted by exquisite gardens?

Following ancient spiritual traditions that value the transformative power of nature, this experiential workshop will be spent entirely outdoors to explore embodied sensory practices in the natural beauty and mystery of Esalen. Whether during a sunset meditation as we listen to the soothing waves or while we sit graced by the stillness of cypress trees, we will open to the profound serenity and wisdom of nature.

You will learn about the practice of mindfulness — the capacity to be present to ourselves and our environment — and how it supports a rich, contemplative relationship with nature. You will discover how meditative time outdoors leads to beautiful states of joy, peace, wonder, and love. You will also experience greater connection with yourself, with others, and with the larger web of life.

Recommended reading: Awake in the Wild and A Field Guide to Nature Meditation by Mark Coleman

This workshop includes an additional $100 faculty tuition.

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance. – Alan Watts

In these ever-changing times, our familiar and habitual ways of being and knowing the world are often shaken to the core. Many of us find ourselves confronting anxiety, impermanence, and disconnection. Yet, life invites us to remember our innate capacity for resilient adaptation, an open heart, and living intimately with the mystery of the unknown. While mystery can evoke fear and discomfort, it can also be experienced as a profound sense of awe and wonder. We are called to meet uncertainty, both within and around us, with openness, courage, and a willingness to say “yes” to life — to join the dance, even in the face of what we cannot know and is often out of our control.

This workshop offers a gentle exploration of how to cultivate curiosity, courage, and compassion to live more closely with the mystery of life. Together, we will begin where we are and embrace “what is” with kindness and a deepening awareness of our human experience. By acknowledging, turning toward, and befriending the discomfort of not knowing, we can transform it into a powerful source of energy that awakens the potential of the body, heart, and mind.

We will practice individually, in pairs, and in group settings, drawing from mystic wisdom traditions, contemplative practices, and contemporary neuro and somatic psychology, to:  

• Explore how to live more fully in the presence of mystery.
• Cultivate embodied emotional and somatic intelligence.
• Offer practical tools for regulating the nervous system, building resilience, and shifting into a present responsive state.
• Engage in movement, grounding, and centering practices that allow being in and with the unknown.
• Deepen connection to self, others, and the more-than-human world.

Embracing the great mystery of life is a process of letting go of the need for definitive answers and allowing space for the unexpected and unfamiliar to unfold. By living with an open heart, body, and mind, we can dance into the interconnectedness of all things, allowing life to live through us as we navigate an ever-changing world.

Join us in this transformative journey of discovery, where we learn to welcome the mystery with grace and live more fully from a place of embodied presence.

Have you ever felt, even momentarily, that all is well within and around you? How do we cultivate this sense of deep presence and start to sustain it?

This sense of presence is the foundation of awakening. The ancient practices of qigong, meditation, and breathwork open and harmonize the energy body so we might experience ourselves at ease and in connection with all that is.

In this five-day retreat, we will explore:

• Inner qigong, “where the mind goes, the energy flows,” including “the microcosmic orbit” and “the double butterfly.”
• Outer qigong, a 20-minute short form and a 40-minute full form of wai dan gong.
• Easy-to-learn and energizing movement, sound, and visualization exercises.
• Walking, standing, sitting, and supine(lying down) meditations, including “standing as a tree,” “the three treasures,” and “metta/loving-kindness.”
• Breath practices that strengthen the lungs, calm the mind, and rest the heart.
• Full-body meridian self-massage, including sequences for hands and feet.

No experience is necessary. All levels are very welcome. Please come with the intention to relax deeply and shine from the radiance that you are

Recommended Reading: The Way of Qigong, by Kenneth Cohen

Profound relaxation and rejuvenation lie at the intersection of land and sky. In this weekend intensive, we will explore the Tibetan art of rejuvenation, also known as chulen, meaning “essence-taking.” These “rare” inner yogic methods of self-healing include meditations on the sky (space), bathing in natural springs (water), breathing (wind), and movement practices. Inner yoga, or tsalung methods, promotes longevity and life enhancement by strengthening the body’s elements, subtle channels, and vital energies.

As we are immersed in Big Sur’s natural springs and open sky, these practices will settle the body and its vital channels so that we can draw in the essence of the natural environment. Overlooking the cliffs and gazing out on the horizon will support settling into our natural awareness, stillness, and inner spaciousness, all essential for rejuvenation.

These ancient healing methods and the unique natural landscape are brought together for a rejuvenation weekend accessible to participants of all levels of experience. Classes will also include informative lectures to complement our guided meditations and yoga sessions.

When we know how to listen to the body, it will speak with great wisdom. —Tsoknyi Rinpoche

What if your body and mind were not separate entities but part of a dynamic continuum, constantly shaping your experience of the world? In this three-day retreat at Esalen, we’ll explore the interplay between body and mind as a field of research, using ancient somatic meditation practices and contemporary techniques like breathwork and movement research to uncover what lies beneath our habitual patterns of tension, thought, and emotion.

Through this immersive experience, you will:

• Practice somatic meditation, developing a deeper awareness of the subtle dialogue between body and mind.
• Participate in movement research, using the body as a tool for creative expression and inquiry.
• Engage in breathwork, exploring its role in regulating the nervous system and unlocking embodied presence.
• Explore how the body holds emotions and patterns, discovering tools to release and integrate these experiences.
• Leave with practical tools for integrating somatic awareness into daily life.

This retreat offers a grounded and experiential approach to understanding the body-mind connection. It’s an opportunity to step out of autopilot and into direct experience — curious, clear, and fully present. Some prior experience in meditation, mindfulness, and movement is desirable but not a requirement.

How can we know the future? Is it determined? How does the past, specifically past lives, influence the future? In this workshop, we will explore how our previous existences are impacting us in the present and how understanding our past lives can transform the future we are creating.

Together, we will reveal the wisdom of the past and how it relates to where we are now. We’ll participate in group past life regressions to help uncover past life memories and engage with practical tools to integrate and use the knowledge of your own past in your life today.

By understanding the idea that we are souls, not bodies —  that all of the identities we have formed during this current life are actually false identities — we can embrace the fact that we have all lived many lifetimes in different forms and bodies, with different backgrounds, races, and religions. Through this perspective, we can eradicate the concept of “other” and eliminate bias, prejudice, and hate. Accessing past life knowledge could be the key to building a future society filled with compassion, empathy, equality, and love.

During the week, we will engage in intention setting, journaling work, creative exercises, and group past life regressions, leaving plenty of time for questions and discussions. On Thursday night, we will have a fire ritual to release our past lives in order to free ourselves for a brand-new future for both ourselves and all of humanity.

This workshop is open to all. Join us and help create a future that is free of the past!

Recommended Reading: Who Do You Think You Are? An Interactive Journey Through Your Past Lives and Into Your Best Future by Michelle Brock

Have you ever worked hard to make a change, only to find yourself slipping back into old habits? Want to supercharge your ability to stimulate behavior change in others when it comes to the issues you care about the most? Is it time to break free from old patterns and build your next chapter? This workshop is for people in the process of change and those who work as change agents with individuals, groups, and organizations and in society.

Through dialogue, experiential practice, and creative process, we will bridge the science of breakthroughs with indigenous, religious, spiritual, and secular models of transformation. You will:

• Learn what works and what doesn’t to inspire lasting change in yourself and others.
• Explore how peak experiences, a-ha! moments and awe can stimulate change.
• Examine how we and those we work with can get stuck or lost, and find ways to shake free from periods of inertia or patterns that prevent us from moving forward.
• Investigate the transformative potential of pain, hitting bottom, and post-traumatic growth.
• Delve into stories, symbols, and metaphors of transformation to guide your path.

Join us for this transformational exploration of our most deeply entrenched behaviors. Learn how to break free from the patterns that no longer serve you — and create new habits that will change your life.

Additional embodiment practices will be provided by Guest Faculty Member Nichol Chase.

Nichol’s yoga practice is informed by a vast and eclectic set of influences that blend invigorating flow with precise and insightful instruction and extensive study with a variety of innovative teachers. She is a Garrison Institute Fellow and a faculty member and teacher trainer for The Mazé Method.

Continuing education credit is available for professionals through the Spiritual Competency Academy, an approved sponsor of CE by the American Psychological Association. If you plan to apply for CE credit, please notify the Faculty during your first workshop session. Additional Continuing Education information here.

The seemingly opposing forces of stability and chaos are powerful currents we navigate daily. The dance between the two can become an intense emotional process that leaves us yearning for a sense of balance and ease.

Without inner stability, chaos can easily overwhelm, flood, and leave us feeling lost. We must redefine chaos, which is often compared to a natural disaster: a hurricane of emotion, a tsunami of details, a whirlwind schedule. These descriptions denote a quality of being out of control and unsafe. Learning to stabilize ourselves in an embodied way provides grounding, safety, a means to pace ourselves, and a resilient inner core. It transforms chaos from hazard to opportunity.

When we can meet chaos with an embodied sense of stability, we can expand our curiosity and delight in the unknown and unpredictable. This workshop will equip you with the physical and emotional tools needed to navigate the storms we encounter both within and outside ourselves.

10 CE units available for full attendance of this course

• CE credits for psychologists are provided by the Spiritual Competency Academy (SCA) which is co-sponsoring this program. The Spiritual Competency Academy is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Spiritual Competency Academy maintains responsibility for this program and its content.
• The California Board of Behavioral Sciences accepts CE credits for LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFT license renewal for programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association.
• LCSW, LPCC, LEP, and LMFTs, and other mental health professionals from states other than California need to check with their state licensing board as to whether or not they accept programs offered by approved sponsors of CE by the American Psychological Association.
• SCA is approved by the California Board of Registered Nursing (BRN Provider CEP16887) for licensed nurses in California. RNs must retain their certificate of attendance for 4 years after the course concludes.
• For questions about receiving your Certificate of Attendance, contact Nicole@AndreaJuhan.com

For questions about CE, contact Spiritual Competency Academy at info@spiritualcompetencyacademy.com.

What is vitality? Exuberance, vibrance, sparkle, spirit, and verve — terms rarely found in psychology textbooks. Vulnerability to depression and anxiety is widespread, and our culture traditionally emphasizes reducing symptoms with drugs that alter certain neurotransmitters, which is only part of the picture. We are living in a new era where vulnerabilities can become strengths, and what used to be stigma becomes common humanity. Good mental health is being redefined in terms of stress resilience, post-traumatic growth, and vitality.

This workshop explores evidence-based tools for living a vibrant life, even in the presence of stress, depression, anxiety, or any pain we may be carrying. We will help you build your own ecosystem of mental well-being — including new ways to foster vitality and purpose through caring for the brain, body, and gut. In this workshop, we’ll review the latest scientific findings on practices such as:

• Hot and cold exposures
• Optimal physical challenges
• Breathing techniques
• Meditation
• Embodied movement

A mental health renaissance is underway. Mental well-being is being redefined, and a range of evidence-based, whole-person approaches are gaining ground. Learn from renowned authors and cutting-edge scientists to create a flourishing ecosystem of mental well-being for yourself and your clients.

Additional embodiment practices will be provided by Guest Faculty Member Nichol Chase.

Nichol’s yoga practice is informed by a vast and eclectic set of influences that blend invigorating flow with precise and insightful instruction and extensive study with a variety of innovative teachers. She is a Garrison Institute Fellow and a faculty member and teacher trainer for The Mazé Method.

8 CE credits available for professionals through the Spiritual Competency Academy.  Additional Continuing Education information here.

Recommended reading: The Stress Prescription: Seven Days to More Joy and Ease by Elissa Epel; The Telomere Effect: A Revolutionary Approach to Living Younger, Healthier, Longer by Elizabeth Blackburn and Elissa Epel; Spiritual and Religious Competencies in Clinical Practice: Guidelines for Psychologists and Mental Health Professionals by Cassandra Vieten; Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life by Cassandra Vieten

This workshop has an additional $30 of faculty tuition.

Emotional well-being is the next frontier of health and a central challenge of the 21st century, according to US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy.

Guided by Berkeley Professor Dacher Keltner, scientific consultant on Pixar’s Inside Out and Inside Out 2, we will tour the latest science and practice of emotional well-being.  In this workshop we will consider emotions in the body and brain; emotional expression and intelligence; how emotions influence our relationships, narratives, and search for meaning; and emotional regulation, wisdom, and acceptance.

Grounded in these advances, participants will:

• Explore the power language and culture has in shaping our capacity to understand emotions in a granular and complex way.
• Gain awareness of their own core passions and how they guide their sense of identity and meaning.
• Become skilled in the practice of emotional intelligence and in expressing and seeing emotion in others clearly and with authenticity.
• Gain an understanding of the centrality of emotions to relationships and how to cultivate kindness, forgiveness, love, and play
• Learn tools for emotional regulation, how to gain perspective while experiencing hard emotions such as anger and shame, and to practice acceptance by seeing the wisdom of emotions.
• Gain insights into cultivating emotions beneficial for intimate and work relations.
• Understand the role of emotions in our personal, moral, and spiritual lives.

The right balance of emotions could make up a majority of our well-being, and this course will provide the insights, tools, and practices to move us toward greater meaning in life.

Recommended Reading: Understanding Emotions by Dacher Keltner, Keith Oatley, Jennifer Jenkins

The natural world – in all its arresting beauty and enchanting complexity – calls out for our presence and reverence.There are subtle currents of communion and communication happening all around us; the land and wild beings beckon us into expanded states of sensitivity, reciprocity and fellowship.

Immersed in the wilds of Big Sur, and the beautiful grounds of Esalen, we will cultivate our fundamental connection with the land. Through practices of sensate engagement, earth-based ritual, and mindfulness, we will build relationships with this place and our other-than-human kin. We will traverse physical hiking trails alongside the trails of intuition, affinity, and imagination. Following our innate curiosity, we will grow our ecological knowledge and uncover the stories of the mountains, waters, animals, plants, and fungi that live around us.

Acknowledging Big Sur to be the ancestral homeland of the Esselen tribe, we will endeavor to behave as reverent guests on sacred land. Regarding the landscape as both our teacher and relation, we will weave offerings of gratitude and respect into every practice. May these humble efforts help unsettle the anthropocentric paradigm of objectification and extraction which degrades our earth and all life.

Come wander with us, dear wild ones! Ground yourself in the peace of the soil, and feel your animal body lively and awake on the trail. Expand your awareness of the living world, and sense into a renewed state of wholeness – as we begin to relate reciprocally with the land.

Notes:

• Answers to frequently asked questions about the workshop can be found here.
• This workshop will consist of numerous, outdoor, physical practices and a great deal of walking, including two long-form hikes and one half-day hike. Various hiking abilities can be accommodated, bearing in mind that our long hikes are up to seven miles in length, over uneven and often steep terrain. Participants must be able to sit on the ground, practice outside in all weathers, and get a little dirty. If you have any questions about your ability to participate, please read the workshop FAQs or email info@wildtender.com.
• An additional $100 fee to cover parks permits and parking fees is included in the workshop cost.

What binds your Higher Self from soaring? What untapped reservoirs of power lie dormant within you, waiting to be awakened? How can you deepen your connection with your Highest Self to access its limitless wisdom and guiding light?

Embark on a sacred four-night journey of self-discovery and spiritual elevation with renowned medium and spiritual guide AJA Daashuur and multidisciplinary hypnotherapist Laurnie Wilson. Together, AJA and Laurnie will guide you into the depths of your soul so that you can unlock the profound blueprint of your journey, forge a deeper connection with your spirit guides, and awaken the latent potential within you.

The retreat experience begins with a grounding sacred ceremony to set powerful intentions and open the gateway to divine wisdom. Each day, AJA and Laurnie will gently guide you into your subconscious and beyond the veil, helping you access transformative insights that illuminate your path.

Through gentle yoga, reflective practices, and an active exploration of your Matrix of Destiny, you’ll be invited to integrate these celestial downloads into your body and everyday life. Each evening, AJA will channel personalized messages from your spirit guides, offering clarity, support, and guidance around your personal path questions to help you realign with your soul’s purpose.

By the end of our time together, you’ll leave with the tools to decode your divine blueprint, activate a deeper relationship with your spiritual team, and bring your revelations to life.

You hold the key to your inner compass. Join us to illuminate the path to your Higher Self and embrace the boundless possibilities that await you.

This workshop is designed to support us as we open to our own goodness and learn practices to awaken love in others. Based on timeless Buddhist principles, as well as key findings in modern neuroscience, we will explore how to cultivate and sustain certain wholesome states, which, through practice, become the perspective we embody.

By awakening our hearts, we have the power to affect both ourselves and others in a profound way. With practical and accessible exercises and teachings, we will explore the full spectrum of the awakened heart. We’ll discover ways to love ourselves and extend that love into our relationships so that we can truly delight in the joy of others.

During our time together, we will:

• Study the science behind real happiness.
• Discover healthier habits and beliefs through powerful awareness practices.
• Embrace and be embraced by a supportive community.
• Learn tools for a solid mindfulness practice.

Finally, we’ll explore freely expressing our capacity for compassionate action in a spirit of contribution. In this way, our own awakening heart becomes a gift to our troubled world. Join us as we practice and explore together!

Join us for an immersive five-day experience where ancient breath practices intersect with contemporary psychology to unlock the transformational power of your breath. For millennia, diverse yogic and spiritual traditions have harmonized breathwork with mindfulness to foster psychological healing and spiritual growth. Today, science validates the profound impact of breathwork and embodied awareness on stress management and immune resilience. Visionaries like Bessel van der Kolk champion the integration of breath, movement, awareness development, and educated touch for healing trauma.

On the sacred grounds of Esalen, under the expert guidance of the Hollomans, participants will have the opportunity to experience how breath can create altered states of consciousness, supporting deep psychological and spiritual exploration. Perry and Johanna use the powerful tool of Gestalt Inquiry to integrate these experiences into a deeper understanding of who we truly are. Participants will engage in various forms of breathwork, including extended two-to-three-hour breath journeys that open expanded states of consciousness and doorways to deeper dimensions of being. We will also begin our days with shorter, 50-minute “daily-dose” breath practices, perfect for at-home use.

Perry and Johanna will create a safe and supportive environment through Integrative Gestalt Practice and group sharing, ensuring that the insights gained from breathwork support your journey of healing and self-actualization.

In this seminar, we will:

• Engage in two extended two to three hour hologenic breath meditations to explore the unconscious mind and access altered states of consciousness, complemented by shorter, 50-minute “daily dose” breath practices for ongoing use at home.
• Learn the art of self-inquiry through Integrative Gestalt to cultivate “presence-based consciousness” in daily life.
• Apply breathwork and Integrative Gestalt techniques to address trauma and restore our innate capacities for self-organization and healing.

Embark on this transformative journey designed to nurture personal healing and spiritual growth. Learn essential skills that you can practice in your daily life to continue your journey of self-healing and spiritual development. Whether you’re a professional seeking to expand your practice through the power of breath or an individual committed to deepening self-inquiry, we welcome you to join us for this exploration into expanded realms of consciousness!

How might you think about grief, and what are the lessons to be learned about restoring your life? This precise, honest, and heart-centered workshop, led by cultural sociologist and Gomti River ceremonialist Roksana Badruddoja, focuses on exploring grief in a life-affirming way through the sacred wisdom of the Akashic Records and the qualitative feminist writing technique known as autohistoria-teoría.

Over five days, participants will engage in interactive sessions and experiential practices to gain access to the records and explore their grief while developing personal authority and insight. The Akashic Records are an etheric storehouse of all information — every word, deed, feeling, thought, and intent — offering a space for self-repair and healing from personal and intergenerational grief. By tapping into the wisdom of the Gomti River integrated with autohistoria-teoría writing, participants will engage in intentional storytelling by writing a short autoethnographic text focused on a significant grief event, guided by the question: What are you burning to tell the world?

In this workshop, you will:

• Explore the power of consent — physical autonomy and spiritual sovereignty — by awakening your connection with the Gomti Wisdom Keepers of the Akashas.
• Practice techniques that can induce non-ordinary states of consciousness to access the Akashic Records and bring forth visionary messages about how inherited grief shapes your life and how to engage with and interrupt grief.
• Identify and create feminist autoethnographic writing as an intentional tool of cultural storytelling. You may want to bring a journal to support this work.

Ultimately, this workshop aims to empower individuals to transform their grief into healing narratives that foster growth and resilience.

**To fully embrace this work, participants must attend all sessions, believe in a higher ineffable power bigger than us, and be fully open to examining their grief. Required readings will be sent as PDFs upon registration.

Embark on an enlightening journey of self-discovery, guided by the power of intuition and creativity! In this immersive workshop, you’ll uncover your own inner wisdom through the inspiring SoulCollage® method.

Developed by the late Seena Frost, this enchanting personal practice harnesses the magic of images, imagination, and intuition as a way to excavate insight and truth. Through this meaningful, affirming process, we create simple collages representing the many facets of ourselves. With gentle guidance and just a few basic supplies — images, scissors, and glue — these collaged cards become gateways to the strength and wisdom we hold within, unlocking hidden treasures.

During this weeklong workshop, you will:

• Move toward increased self-awareness through card-making, journaling, meditation, group sharing, and other fun activities.
• Connect with your unique self through an exploration of your inner world and creative spirit.
• Leave with the beginnings of your own personal deck of collaged cards, a journal filled with your wisdom, and numerous ways to continue the practice at home.

No prior art or writing experience is necessary, and all materials will be provided. All you need is an open heart and a curious spirit!

Carl Jung said, “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.” Join us for an insightful, artful adventure toward empowerment and reconnecting with your inner self!

This workshop includes an additional $20 materials fee.

As life changes, we also must change — yet this isn’t guaranteed. Too many of us get stuck at our thresholds. Ritual can help us cultivate discernment, recognize gains and losses, and conjure possibility. Join us for a transformative workshop designed to provide the skills and understanding needed to create your own modern rituals. Learn to reflect, reimagine, and renew the purpose of your life’s next chapter.

Guided by award-winning author, artist, teacher, and ritualist Day Schildkret, you are invited to:

• Learn the ins and outs of this ancient technology to expertly navigate change.
• Learn the power of “symbolic action” to align your psycho-spiritual experience.
• Craft your own modern ritual to mark your personal threshold and rediscover yourself.
• Discover the 7-step Morning Altars practice to use nature, art, and ritual for understanding and meaning.
• Experience the support and witness of others also renewing their life’s purpose.
• Create custom “Threshold Wonderings” that provide reflection, refinement, and direction.
• Discover the meaning-making skills needed to step into your life thresholds with renewed grace and purpose.

This workshop is designed for anyone in a life transition who wants to renew their life’s purpose. Crafted with great care, we welcome all genders, races, identities, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Threshold moments are meant to be crossed together. Join us if you feel your transition has become protracted or need greater support and attention to skillfully move to your next chapter.

This workshop include an additional $10 for materials.

Now is the season to know
That everything you do
Is sacred. — Hafiz

Celebrate the coming of the summer solstice with a transformational retreat in the breathtaking beauty of Big Sur.

Each day, we’ll explore powerful sound journeys, embodiment practices, authentic movement, bespoke teachings, beautiful music, community connection, and the metaphysical properties of crystals and sacred geometry to inspire your life and embodiment of love.

Together, we’ll play with the universal law of resonance and the power of vibration to:

• Release stress and tension on a cellular and soul level to rewire our nervous systems for ease and self-trust.  
• Learn new tools to help us feel safe, supported, and loved.
• Transform default and habitual patterns of self-doubt, worry, and feeling overwhelmed into clarity, calm, focus, and trust.
• Experience joy, awe, and pleasure in our lives.
• Integrate mind, body, and soul through sacred sound, deep listening, and gentle movement.

Supported by the healing mineral waters, fresh ocean air, and starry skies, you’ll be invited to slow down and reconnect with your full, authentic self and the beauty of nature.

Sacred Big Sur Elder Damaris (Penny Vieregge) will share her wisdom and the evocative poetry of Hafiz during our Wednesday morning session to inspire us to reach our highest potential.

Come away feeling deeply nourished, aligned, and attuned with your true self for your journey ahead.

Immerse yourself in the eros of creation. Play in the divine dance between consciousness and form. Explore the dynamic, generative relationship between Shiva (the masculine principle of pure awareness) and Shakti (the feminine principle of creation and form). As you integrate these energies in your own embodied experience and reunite with the beloved within, the nature of your very being begins to transform.

During our week together, you’ll be led through an intentionally curated arc of emergent practices. Centering and grounding more fully in the magical truth of who you are as a conscious co-creator of your life and world.

Through movement, somatic and subtle energy body exploration, process art, journaling, energy transmission teachings, meditations, relational play, land-based practices, and ritual, you’ll be invited to rekindle your relationship with the living life force current that pulses in and around you. Weaving all parts of yourself into a cohesive whole. Alchemizing unconscious conditioning and innovating new ways of being.

Out of a sea of endless spaciousness (Shiva) emerges a magnificent radiant light (Shakti). Emerge purposefully renewed and wildly reinspired by the beauty and miracle of life exactly as it is, exactly as you are. Return home with tools and practices that you can continue to apply in meaningful ways.

We will meet just days before the summer solstice, held by Esalen’s sacred lands. It will be an auspicious time to gather, with flowers blooming, bees buzzing, birds humming, waves crashing, springs bubbling, and sunshine glistening.

Our days will unfold, overflowing with inspiring practice, community connection, delicious meals, deep rest, and starlit soaks in the healing waters. Join us in this love affair with all creation.

If we carry intergenerational trauma (and we do), we also carry intergenerational wisdom. It’s in our genes and in our DNA. —Kazu Haga

What if your healing journey lies within you and in the wisdom carried by your ancestral line? The Listening When Parts Speak workshop is a curated experience designed to help you access the gifts of your ancestry while transforming the burdens of personal, cultural, and intergenerational trauma. Together, we will facilitate a relationship between your parts and your internal healing resource called Self.

Through mindfulness, guided meditation, experiential exercises, and teachings from the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, you’ll deepen your connection to your internal healing resource, known as Self, and build relationships with the parts of you that carry the weight of trauma.

During this workshop, we will explore:

• Mindfulness practices to bring attention and presence to here and now experiences.
• The key concepts of the IFS model of working with trauma.
• Experiential exercises to connect with your inner parts and wise ancestors.
• Demonstrations of the healing potential of IFS and ancestor wisdom.

By the end of the workshop, you’ll be invited to explore ways to incorporate these tools into your daily life to help calm activated or triggered parts of yourself. You’ll have the opportunity to cultivate a new or deepened relationship with supportive ancestors to guide you through your daily life. Additionally, you’ll be encouraged to reflect on a greater understanding of the inner parts of others that make you less likely to personalize their behavior. Recommended Reading: Listening When Parts Speak: A Practical Guide to Healing with Internal Family Systems Therapy and Ancestor Wisdom by Tamala Floyd, LCSW

In this retreat, you will get in touch with a deep relaxation to rejuvenate the body and the mind through non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) and yoga nidra. No matter your reasons — whether you need a break from the constant pressure, are in a life transition, or just want to delve deeper into your meditation practice — this retreat will provide space and time for contemplation and reflection.

The term non-sleep deep rest, coined by Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, refers to a waking state of deep relaxation that maintains awareness. Evidence suggests reaching this state through NSDR protocols such as yoga nidra can reset dopamine levels and provide other physical and mental health benefits — including better sleep and enhanced neuroplasticity.

We’ll go on an inner journey together, and the hope is we’ll emerge more connected to both ourselves and our life paths to leave feeling refreshed and deeply rested.

Together, we will:

• Practice yoga nidra for restoration and rejuvenation.
• Discover the connection between nondual meditation and yoga nidra for deepening our meditation practices.
• Reflect on where we are in our lives and leave with a greater sense of self-connection and clarity.
• Dialogue about meditation for connection and community.
• Learn about the link between non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) and better sleep.

Suggested Reading: The Blind Spot Effect: How to Stop Missing What’s Right in Front of You, By Kelly Boys

This workshop includes an additional $50 faculty tuition.

When we experience moments of ecstasy, we taste what life is meant to be. — Gabrielle Roth

The 5Rhythms® maps hold all the information required to lead us where we want to go. What is your destination? There is a science to achieving ecstatic states, and this is the mastery we have come to share. This workshop is designed for all who want to discover these possibilities for entering altered states in a natural way.

"I want to take you to a place of pure magic ... It's the place athletes call ‘the zone.’ Buddhists call ‘satori’ and ravers call ‘trance.’ I call it the Silver Desert. It's a place of pure light that holds the dark within it. It's a place of pure rhythm,” wrote Gabrielle Roth. Her dance and somatic meditation can assist you in navigating your way out of resistance and into ecstasy and help you build a skill set that supports balance, ease, and joy. If you have been looking to increase appreciation, gratitude, and happiness, now is a perfect time to celebrate being alive in the wild, wondrous, natural beauty of Esalen.

This course will include:

• 5Rhythms dance both indoors and outside by daylight and moonlight
• Creating art in nature through group projects with resident artists
• Trauma-sensitive mindfulness, including Dharma talk and sitting and walking meditations
• Live and recorded music
• An evening program guest speaker

Lucia and Douglas, the dancing duo, invite you to join them for a week of dance and celebration under the new moon. Together with our team of musicians and artists, we seek to bring you inspiration and lightness so you return home feeling nurtured and alive.

Leah Song of Rising Appalachia will lead a collective community song practice! Join voices and feel the collective power of unity through song and breath!

Sanga of the Valley, master drummer and living embodiment of the 5Rhythms cosmology, will be joining along with musical savant Nick Ayers.

Martha Peabody, original Gabrielle Roth dancer and founder of the art installation branch of the 5Rhythms, will lead daily community art sessions.

Recommended Reading: Sweat Your Prayers by Gabrielle Roth, Maps to Ecstasy by Gabrielle Roth, Connections by Gabrielle Roth, Dancing with the Dharma edited by Harrison Blum

This workshop has an additional $100 of faculty tuition.

Relational mindfulness offers 9 principles and practices for meeting the beautiful, dynamic, and messy field of human relating as our laboratory for awakening. It offers a path for cultivating greater peace, understanding, joy, resilience, and freedom within ourselves and our world.

Sitting alone on a meditation cushion is a wholly different exercise than engaging socially, at work, in conflict, politics, or romance. Or is it? Relational mindfulness acts as a bridge, bringing the spaciousness of awareness off the cushion into every aspect of our lives.

The principles are:

• Intention
• The Sacred Pause
• Deep Embodied Listening
• Mindful Inquiry and Clear Seeing
• Transparency and Speaking from the Heart
• Turning Towards, Rather than Away
• Not Taking Personally
• Taking Responsibility
• Compassionate Action

Intimacy begins with our willingness to see ourselves and one another clearly from the heart — beyond the myth of separation. We have to remember how to “be with” the pretty and less-pretty aspects of our experience without needing to fix, solve, or change anything in order to welcome the full spectrum of our humanity into wholeness. On this restorative retreat, we’ll explore together:

• Practices for finding greater freedom and authenticity in how we relate.
• Ways to strengthen our capacity for meeting adversity, conflicts, and trauma with compassion, equanimity, and conscious response.
• Ways to resource ourselves and one another to navigate the times we are facing with resilience.
• Support for engaging in our lives with love, wholeness, and fierce compassion rather than fear, scarcity, or the myth of separation.

Join us for a transformative exploration of the personal, interpersonal, transpersonal, ecological, societal, and mystical impacts of relational mindfulness. This workshop will include embodied meditation, experiential practices, conscious movement, reflective writing, and deep time in nature. All are welcome.

Recommended Reading: Relational Mindfulness: A Handbook for Deepening Our Connection with Ourselves, Each Other, and Our Planet by Deborah Eden Tull

The chakra system is one of the greatest gifts the ancient yogis and rishis of India shared with the world: a powerful spiritual map for our healing and the awakening of our consciousness so we can fully come alive! This week is an invitation to explore this map and unlock the unbridled joy, creative power, and freedom that lives inside of you.

The ultimate goal of yoga is to live in embodied enlightenment. It is to know and feel the current of mukti (the force of liberation that expands you in the direction of pure potentiality and higher consciousness) and to feel and celebrate bhukti (the gift of embodiment and all the pleasures and abundance of earthly reality). This workshop offers us the opportunity to bring these concepts into reality and into our living beings.

Through embodied ritual practices of yoga, live music, dance, meditation, sounding, and communion with nature, you will begin to shape an intimate connection with each of your energy centers. Together we will work to break through the blockages that keep you stuck and stagnant — preventing you from healing and experiencing the fullness of your power and life. We will dive deeply into the chakra system through accessible, dynamic, and interactive discussions and exercises.  

Each day, Cristi will guide us in her signature, dynamic chakra-based vinyasa, woven with mudra, kriyas, and pranayama, supported by the sacred rhythms and healing soundscapes of our musical guide DJ Marques Wyatt.

These practices will be enhanced by a variety of daily rituals, ranging from:

• Interactive lectures and discussions about each of the chakras.
• Movement meditations
• Transformational dance practices, including The Deep Exhale Experience and JourneyDance.
• Deeply nourishing soma practice and journaling.
• Somatic Sound Healing
• Spending time in nature to activate our chakras through the five sacred elements: earth, water, fire, air, and space.

Join us as we turn the yoga dance floor into a ritual of self-expression. You’re invited to experience every ritual as a prayer to your highest self to return you home to your body and nature, awaken pleasure, and give you permission to feel. Ignite your power. Heal your heart. Claim your vision and voice. Connect to your own divinity and celebrate this gift of life!

Recommended reading: Chakra Rituals by Cristi Christensen

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed. — Mary Oliver

From the beginning of time, the natural world has called humans to pause, reflect, and reconnect with life’s essence. This workshop invites you to immerse yourself in Big Sur’s awe-inspiring wilderness and the art of authentic contemplation. Together, we will deepen our awareness of the wilds within and around us, rediscovering the simple yet profound practice of being fully present and alive.

Big Sur’s stunning landscapes — rugged cliffs, ocean breezes, and ancient forests — will serve as both our setting and teacher. Through mindful awareness and direct experience, we can awaken our inherent connection to the elemental, allowing the magnificence of this wild world to touch our bodies, minds, and spirits.

Highlights of the Week:

• Nature as Teacher: Direct experience of the elements — earth beneath your feet, Pacific waves crashing, fresh coastal air, and Esalen’s healing hot springs — awakening all our senses to an animate world.
• Daily Wilderness Hikes: Venture 2–6 miles each day through diverse terrains to explore Big Sur’s natural beauty and rich ecological diversity.
• Contemplative Practices: Engage in timeless and contemporary practices of mindfulness, movement, and stillness, cultivating presence, aliveness and deeper relationships with self and the wilds.
• Community Connection: Share wholesome meals, heartfelt conversations, and moments of silence, fostering a sense of belonging with others and the eco-community of the wild natural world.
• Integration and Simplicity: Discover how to bring what you are touched by into daily life, with space for reflection on how to do less, be more, and live in alignment with what matters most.

This week is an invitation to slow down, step out of habitual patterns, and show up fully for life as it unfolds moment by moment. Whether walking, sitting, or simply being, we will cultivate space, silence, and stillness to meet the beauty and mystery of the world — within and without.

Come ready to explore the meeting places of mountain and sea, inner and outer landscapes, and the boundless wildness of existence.

Please note: This workshop will be a larger, nature-based group experience than Steven and Gary typically lead. Mornings will be spent together as a whole group, either indoors or on the Esalen grounds. After lunch, we will divide into smaller groups to explore Big Sur’s wilderness trails and be back in time for dinner at Esalen.

All levels of experience are welcome. Be prepared for the invigorating challenge of physical activity that the mountains of Big Sur require and the opportunity to simply sit still in quiet reflection. More information and a waiver will be sent upon registration. For an equipment list and frequently asked questions about Steven’s workshops, visit FAQs.

Recommended reading: The Practice of the Wild by Gary Snyder‍

An additional $40 will be added to the workshop cost to cover permit and park entrance fees.

Join Amina Peterson on a transformative journey where you'll discover a revolutionary model of erotic communication. Immerse yourself in a safe and empowering space to cultivate deeper intimacy, pleasure, and connection. Through somatic tools, communication strategies, and boundary-building practices, you'll learn how to navigate relationships with authenticity and respect.

This intimate weekend is a unique opportunity to explore your desires, express your boundaries, and experience the joy of consensual intimacy.

• Learn to communicate desire and pleasure with tools from EroSomatic Touch.
• Use somatic movement and Resonant Boundaries to discover new ways to listen to your body, calibrate your inner compass, and honor your boundaries.
• Play with partners and in groups to experience erotically embodied consent negotiation using tools from Betty Martin's Wheel of Consent and Amina’s coaching practice.

Come dance, play, and learn from a renowned expert in erotic communication and intimacy. Share your experiences and insights, and connect with a community of like-minded individuals passionate about fostering healthy connections.

Recommended reading: Authentic Consent Workbook by Amina Peterson, Decolonizing Non-Violent Communication by Meendachi, The Art of Giving and Receiving by Betty Martin

Through mindful viewing of eight feature films — today’s vehicles of myth and meaning — participants will open their hearts to gratefulness, which can be defined as a general state of resonant appreciation that can be gained from seeing what can be received from others. Recent studies and reviews have shown that experiencing gratitude can enhance well-being, life satisfaction, and overall psychological happiness while creating positive effects. This seminar offers a self-enhancing mindfulness experience through seminal films from Asia, North America, and Europe in which characters experience gratefulness as a path to resilient well-being. The films are being shown to renew these qualities in the lives of workshop participants.

This workshop employs methods developed over the course of 28 film seminars at Esalen co-led by Francis Lu and Brother David Steindl-Rast, including mindful film viewing, contemplative reflection, and group interactions focused on participants’ unique experiences of carefully curated films. This process of learning spiritual lessons from evocative films is in keeping with the teachings of Joseph Campbell —  “The images of myths are reflections of the spiritual and depth potentialities of every one of us…. Through contemplating those, we evoke their powers in our own lives to operate through ourselves.”

The viewing experience will be supported by 4K Blu-Ray video projection on a large screen and surround sound of six loudspeakers.

5.5 CE Credits for Health Professionals are available for an additional $35 fee payable to the workshop leader. For further information about the workshop, please contact Francis Lu, MD, at francislumd@gmail.com.

Through mindful viewing of four feature films — today’s vehicles of myth and meaning — participants will open their hearts to encountering the beauty of being in Tao. The word Tao points toward a natural harmony that can be attained within everyday existence accompanied by a sense of the meaning of life itself as a source of resilience. This seminar will offer a self-enhancing mindfulness experience through films by Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa, and Wim Wenders in which characters experience the beauty of being in Tao. These films are being shown to inspire similar discoveries in the lives of workshop participants.

This workshop employs mindful film viewing, contemplative reflection, and group interactions focused on participants’ unique experiences of carefully curated films. The viewing experience will be supported by 4K Blu-Ray video projection on a large screen and surround sound of six loudspeakers.

2.5 CE Credits for Health Professionals are available for an additional $35 fee payable to the workshop leader. Click here for details. For further information about the workshop, please get in touch with Francis Lu, MD, at francislumd@gmail.com

How can we navigate life’s transitions with elegance, grace, and gratitude? This is a fundamental question for growth and transformation, no matter where we are in our stages of life. This workshop is designed for anyone pondering their aging process as well as active caretakers for those entering their third act. Using an experiential approach, we will move through concrete steps, including nine simple evidence-based practices, for achieving personal goals.

Together, we will discuss how to embrace challenges as opportunities by cultivating curiosity and a growth mindset at every stage of life. We will explore ways to engage in the practice of purposeful intention — to gain insights into how attention shapes our worldview and where our cognitive biases get in our way.

Building new skills and capacities is essential, much like training muscles, and we will discuss how to strengthen personal growth practices with trusted guidance, both from external mentors and our own inner wisdom. Additionally, we will explore ways to apply what we learn—accepting aging and the developmental stages of life, from adolescence to adulthood, to make peace with our mortality. Finally, we will consider steps to engage the world and bring this elegant aging program into our lives, work, and communities.

This workshop offers hands-on tools for aging with grace and elegance, empowering each of us with new insights and practices to embrace the fullness of our lived experiences. Please bring a journal to support and document your experience.

Recommended Reading: Living Deeply: The Art & Science of Transformation by Marilyn Schlitz, Cassandra Vieten, and Tina Amorok.

Step away from the noise of daily life and reconnect to the sanctuary of your own heart, where love — in its purest, most expansive form — resides. This retreat invites you to reconnect with the boundless love that lives within you, a love that transcends conditions, circumstances, and partnerships.

Through yoga, sound healing, chanting, breathwork, dance, and community connection, we will journey together, rediscovering the boundless love that remains constant and unwavering. Whether in partnership or standing alone, this is an opportunity to experience “capital L” love — the love that never fades.

Join us on this sacred journey back to love, where the mind quiets and the soul reawakens so you may carry this timeless, unwavering love with you into all that you do.

Come to Esalen for the long summer days and be greeted with a dynamic, nourishing yoga experience. We will create pathways to heal and reclaim our bodies and voices so we can share authentically.

Let’s turn down the noise and tune into the heart’s rhythm with Janet Stone and DJ Drez. This will be a weekend of movement, music, and creativity to reset and connect with joy.

This workshop includes an additional $100 faculty tuition.

Our clown is the authentic, curious, and playful version of ourselves. Clowning as a life practice is the balancing of our light and shadow while laughing at our attachments. Clown is about being soft, brave, and available to the moment. This workshop is an immersion practice that explores our deepest, most vulnerable, creative self.

Using tools found in improvisation, meditation, altered states, and movement practice, we will explore clowning as a spiritual practice. The work begins with exercises that help you drop into the body and descend from the mind to access the clown state. With the foundation of a sacred container, we will engage in primarily nonverbal, physical games and rituals that give birth to organic impulses inspired by the child within. There is no pressure to perform, but an invitation to get lost inside yourself, an openness to go beyond your comfort zone, and a willingness to play within the moment.

There is nothing to learn but rather much to uncover — to allow us to move through life in a more open state, with a greater connection to ourselves and the world. This workshop is physical, open, and accessible for diverse bodies. Come unravel the clown within! Please come unprepared and ready to explore.

Recommended reading: Animal Joy by Nuar Alsadir, Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey, Stillness Speaks by Eckhart Tolle

Experience five days of deep rest, reflection, and rejuvenation through movement, guided meditation, and the profound practice of Yoga Nidra. This workshop is designed to restore the body, clear the mind, and shift the habitual patterns that keep us from experiencing a state of calm, clarity, and balance.

Yoga Nidra, which translates to “yogic sleep,” guides you to that liminal state between wakefulness and sleep, where you can systematically release stored physical, emotional, and mental tensions. In this state, you can let go of old beliefs and habits that keep you stuck in the past and fearful of the future. With this practice, you can fully experience your emotions while knowing that there is unchanging, unshakable ground beneath you — a calm inner presence that allows you to see clearly and navigate life with greater ease.

Throughout the retreat, we will work with our bodies and minds, creating clear intentions to shift from living by unconscious, automatic programming and find a new perspective — an aware, deliberate way of being. You’ll explore how to bring this newfound awareness of your true self into your personal life, relationships, work, and moments of solitude and love.

Together, we will cultivate new tools to help us navigate when we feel lost, tired, or confused and forget who we are. These guiding instruments can help us negotiate life’s challenges, welcome them as opportunities, and remember our true nature.

This workshop is a unique opportunity to recognize your wholeness, the truth of who you are, and the inner peace that has always been within you — that unchanging, unshakable ground of being that you are. All that is being asked of you is to show up, lie down, and let go. Yoga Nidra will do the rest.

What to bring: blankets, a yoga mat, an eye pillow, and anything else you need to lie comfortably on the floor for extended periods. We’ll also have opportunities to practice outdoors, so make sure you have layers to stay comfortable in varying conditions.

Recommended Reading: Yoga Nidra: The Art of Transformational Sleep, by Kamini Desai; and Yoga Nidra: A Meditative Practice for Deep Relaxation Healing, by Richard Miller

“You didn’t come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here.”~ Alan Watts

Throughout the ages and across cultural traditions, nature has inspired the human spirit. The wilderness of Big Sur allows us to imprint the collective wisdom of this alive and wild coast in our bodies. The ancient redwood-forested canyons, dramatic meeting of earth and sea, and soft grassy hills remind us of the presence, wisdom, and deep sense of belonging that live in each of us.

This workshop will present simple yet profound practices designed to help us access our connections with the essential movement processes of life — and enhance our capacity to both participate and innovate. Along with physical practices, group discussions, and direct experience of nature, we will draw on ancient movement traditions of tai chi, aikido, and contemporary somatic practices that offer ways of centering, grounding, and knowing our belonging to the greater community of being.

During our time together, we will venture out on four to eight-mile hikes. Being immersed in the wild we are in an intimate embodied sensory dialogue that literally invites us to come to our senses. We will experience increasingly refined awareness and explore perceptual practices to enhance our sensitivity to all the wilderness offers, and reawaken the elements of wilderness within. With awakened senses, we can receive nature’s richness and beauty, inspiring a deepening relationship with grounding, centering, and embodiment.

All evenings and most meals will be at Esalen. All levels of experience are welcome, although participants should be prepared for vigorous physical activity that the mountains of Big Sur require — and the opportunity to simply sit still in quiet reflection. More information and a waiver will be sent upon registration. For an equipment list and frequently asked questions about Steven’s workshops, visit FAQs.

An additional $80 of faculty tuition and $40 to cover park fees have been added to this workshop.

This course builds on your previous seven rich days of exploration in CFR® Week One. During that crucial week, you laid the foundation for releasing your childhood survival patterns and moving through life with more ease and presence physically, mentally, and emotionally.

You reorganized the stranger you once called “self” to become more objective, compassionate, curious, and hopeful, changing how you live with yourself and others.

We will continue excavating and healing old patterns that no longer serve you. You will gain more appreciation for how embodied movement can serve as a portal to your soul.  Using newly experienced body wisdom, you will uncover what has been hidden, held back, and inhibited, your fullest expression of ease, joy, and authentic self.

Bring your lingering issues, past injuries, and a desire for freedom on all levels. Leave more deeply connected to your body and present in your soul.

Please note: This is an advanced class. Participants must have taken CFR® Week 1.

We all face death, but how many of us are actually ready for it? Whether our own demise or that of a loved one comes first, how prepared are we? This workshop offers a wide array of resources and teachings to help participants address that final unfinished business and make the most out of every moment that comes before it.

All of life is held within the context of its inevitable extinction. By acknowledging and preparing for death now, we will find ourselves living more fully and fearlessly. Join us as we celebrate the preciousness of life, and ready ourselves and others for this final journey. We will explore how to die a good death and help others pass, engaging with meditations and contemplations that prepare us for letting go. As the Buddhist tradition proclaims, “If you die before you die, then when you die, you will not die.”

With preparation, we can transcend death, turning the greatest obstacle into a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and even attain enlightenment. The bardo teachings lead to the death of death. The journey through the bardos is a journey into our mind, so by exploring the bardos, we are exploring ourselves. The teachings apply to any moment that ends – which means they also relate to daily life and can help you live fully within the time you are given.

Together we’ll explore:

• Meditations that prepare you for the end of life
• Teachings that support the meditations
• Discussion groups to create a sense of community  

We hope you’ll join us for this exploration into the unknown, so that we may all return – fearless, and full of compassion for ourselves and those transitioning from this life.

Recommended Reading: Preparing to Die by Andrew Holecek

The Yoruba divination tradition of Ifá is arguably the most widely practiced Indigenous religious/wisdom tradition in the world. Millions across the globe increasingly turn to Ifá, commonly described as existing to “mend our broken world,” for wisdom that brings order and peace to their lives.

In this workshop, we will explore and apply the fundamental concepts and insights of Ifá — such as embodied philosophy, archetypes as cosmic order, and divine balance and complementarity — to help us identify, understand, and live in harmony with the cosmic order undergirding all of existence and our own individual lives and purposes.

By tapping into our previous experiences and practical demonstrations with sacred art, Indigenous archetypal storytelling, and encounters with the natural world, we will develop tools for embodying wisdom and allowing it to transform first ourselves, and then the world around us.

We’ll learn how the Yoruba cosmology and Ifá transcend common modern binaries, such as mind/body, physical/spiritual, and even good/bad, and practice getting in touch with a direct form of transformational knowledge that promotes deep understanding and cosmic balance.

Toward the end of the workshop, Robin Garcia, an expert scholar-practitioner of the global Ifa tradition, will lead individual divination sessions to help us, through Ifá’s timeless wisdom, learn more about who we are, how we should live, and how to maintain harmony with the cosmic order all around us.

Matter is Energy … Energy is Light … We are all Light Beings — Albert Einstein

Each of us walks around within our own energy halo. When two people touch, they spark an energetic exchange. This felt relationship is the heart and soul of Esalen® Massage. With a spirit of gratitude, we invite you to learn and experience the massage that we developed here at the Institute that has since spread around the world. Esalen Massage is known for its flowing integrated strokes, offered from a grounded and centered place. The slow pace and detail provide entry to states of relaxation, connection, and balance.

This course expands the massage experience by incorporating an energetic awareness, allowing us access and interaction with the energy patterns that exist around and through our bodies. Meditation enriches the journey, lighting up a connection to our own deeper patterns. Two senior massage teachers will guide the class during this informative and fun experience. Teaching methods include experiential exercises, brief lecture demonstrations, lots of supervised hands-on practice with classmates, and shared self-reflection.

All levels of experience are welcome, including practitioners and caregivers seeking a fresh focus.
‍

NCBTMB CE Status Pending

Learn to call on your spirit guides and tap into your intuitive mind. Join us in a transformative workshop combining scientifically proven brain-enhancing techniques with intuitive guidance to help you break free from self-limiting patterns and create the life you desire.

This workshop brings together two powerful approaches to help you develop tools for personal growth and transformation. Through easy-to-learn exercises, you will learn how opening neural pathways to your higher consciousness can bring valuable insights into areas where you may feel stuck. By thinking outside the box and accessing your intuitive mind, you have the ability to unlock your creative potential and experience increased productivity and happiness.

Guest faculty Joseph Perreta, a certified psychic medium, will guide you in connecting with your support system on the other side. Joseph’s ability to channel messages directly from the spirit world offers validation, clarification, healing, and peace. His presence will enrich your experience and provide a deeper understanding of the spiritual realm.

Throughout the workshop, you will develop practical tools that you can apply whenever you face important decisions or obstacles in life. By harnessing your intuition and uncovering profound insights about yourself, you will gain the clarity and confidence needed to make positive changes.

Our intention is to empower you to unlock your intuitive mind and carry these transformative practices with you long after the workshop ends. Please come prepared with a notebook or journal and a pen to capture your experiences and reflections.

This workshop has two options on length of stay: a traditional weeklong of two nights or a long weekend of three nights. The extended stay workshop will include more workshop content which is reflected in the extended stay schedule.

Discover the profound connection between ancient practices and modern science as we explore the transformative potential of the biofield. Western science is uncovering the power of this energy for healing, from cells to communities. Published research demonstrates how subtle energy healing can reduce pain, alleviate anxiety, shift hormone and immune function, and even prevent the spread of cancer within the body.

In this workshop, you are invited to deepen your relationship with energy and the biofield to help release stagnant emotions and pain, sharpen focus, and open to new possibilities for your creative and spiritual expression. We’ll be illuminated by the confluences of empirical science with ancient wisdom, exploring both the research in biofield science alongside powerful energetic self-healing practices, including breathwork, vocal work, and meditation from tantric and other biofield healing traditions.

During our time together, you are invited to:

• Engage in breathwork and movement practices to amplify your felt sense of energy and vitalize your body and mind.
• Learn energy psychology techniques to release anxiety, stress, and pain.
• Explore Eastern-based vocal opening practices and Shakti mantras to feel and free your energy, ground in your power and authority, and open to creative flow.
• Practice divine feminine meditations to heal your ancestral karmas and stop the flow of trauma patterns, deepen your spiritual connection and intuitive capabilities, and manifest possibilities for yourself with less “efforting.”
• Explore how systems and complexity science, along with breakthroughs in quantum research, show us how shifting our energy and consciousness can shift the fabric of our inner and outer worlds, including our relationships with others and the possibilities of our life’s trajectory.
• Hear about the healing power of the biofield and how research shows our mind and energy can facilitate healing down to our cells, beyond placebo effects.

This workshop offers a space for curiosity and learning, inviting you to explore the brilliant energetic being you are and the benefits you can experience within your own presence. Leave with knowledge, tools, and a new understanding of energetic power to integrate back into your life.

Continuing education credit is available for professionals through the Spiritual Competency Academy, an approved sponsor of CE by the American Psychological Association. If you plan to apply for CE credit, please notify the faculty during your first workshop session. Additional Continuing Education information here.

Love Yourself For Everyone Else’s Sake

Mark Abramson designed the course as a deep dive into self-compassion after seeing students achieve self-kindness from work with his Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Clinic at Stanford University. Thirty years of teaching have taught Dr. Abramson that bringing kindness and compassion to one’s self is truly the most altruistic of all practices.

Imagine always being able to count on your own mind being kind to you — no matter what challenges life presents. That is your birthright, and now is the time to claim it! Immerse yourself in this mindfulness-based approach to self-love and compassion.  

Mindfulness, meditation, and contemplative practices have entered all spheres of our society, including corporate settings, sports,  performance, medicine, and psychology. Science has confirmed that ancient mental and physical training systems, such as meditation practices, confer health benefits for immunity, brain architecture, and pain management, as well as mental and physical resilience.

During our time together, you are invited to:

• Learn mindfulness meditation practices.
• Connect and experience your own loving attention.
• Learn to take back control of your body/mind to create a more peaceful you.

Throughout the weekend, you will have the opportunity to unite your body, mind, and soul into a self-nourishing whole person while strengthening your ability to give love to others by first loving yourself.

Recommended Reading: Love Yourself For Everyone Else’s Sake by Mark Abramson

When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of silence? —Gabrielle Roth

Your life is not simply a task to be managed but a mythopoetic mystery to be lived. Take a break from the mundane and let yourself be enchanted again. This workshop offers a profound opportunity to commune with the deeper aspects of Self through movement, inquiry, and mythology. To dream. To play. To feel alive.

Since the beginning, humans have looked to stories to make meaning of our lives. Revered mythologist and 1960s Esalen faculty Joseph Campbell wrote, “Mythology is the penultimate truth — penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words. It is beyond words.” On this retreat, we’ll engage with daily stories that have the power to help us make sense of our lives, nourish, teach, inspire, empower, and heal us.

Experiential practices include:

• Archetypal wisdom and nondual yogic mythology
• Breathwork and meditation
• Yoga (all levels), dance, and somatic journeys
• Self-inquiry and writing
• Rewilding, song, and nature ceremony

Music, nature, poetry, connection, and ritual are exquisitely curated for your hero/heroine’s journey. Our nourishing schedule is balanced harmoniously with relaxing meals, community care, and soaks in Esalen’s healing baths.

Whether you’re searching for renewed meaning in life, navigating life’s complex transitions, or simply enjoy being enchanted, this workshop will help awaken your spirit to courage, gladden your heart, calm your mind, and widen your perspective to vast possibilities. You might just fall in love with existence again.

Grace awaits.

Asanga’s Nine Stages of Staying is one of the oldest and most comprehensive systems of concentration in the Buddhist tradition. Sometimes called the Elephant Path, this approach was originated by the great Buddhist master in 506 A.D., and it is now the main method of training the mind in the Tibetan tradition.

In this weekend meditation retreat, participants will learn the stages of the Elephant Path using the body as the primary object of concentration. Students will also receive an introduction to the basic stages of ordinary insight. By the end of our time together, students will have all the instructions necessary to successfully incorporate a robust meditation practice into everyday life.

Training the mind in this way can lead to a direct experience of equanimity and can put the student in a range of practice wherein pointing out the real nature of the awakened mind is possible.

No experience with meditation is required. If you have your own preferred meditation pillow and mat, please bring them.

You are invited to an immersive weekend retreat where we will explore how to consciously and effectively respond to our planet’s call for regeneration. Be held by a supportive community and the wonders of the natural world as we learn ways to integrate body, mind, heart, and spirit in the regeneration of both your life and the Earth.

This retreat weaves together Raquel Santiago’s BioResilience somatic method, which restores individuals’ innate capacity for regeneration and deep rapport with nature through movement, and Manuel Maqueda’s approach to regenerative economics, which envisions wise and abundant human-Earth systems that nurture the health and renewal of the entire web of life.

Over the course of the weekend, you’ll be guided through mindfulness practices, accessible somatic and movement sessions, contemplative nature immersions, and playful community activities to illuminate your role in personal and collective regeneration during the challenging times of the Anthropocene.

Together, we will explore powerful practices that nurture both personal transformation and planetary healing. Through group discussions, we’ll consider fresh perspectives on regenerative thinking to foster a quantum leap from the traditional sustainability mindset.

Discover a renewed sense of empowerment and a deeper commitment to becoming an agent of planetary regeneration in your everyday life.

Recommended reading: Active Hope by Joanna Macy

There is an inner community inside of us: a community of selves. Some have a voice, and some are quiet. Some are known through sensation, emotion, and thought. Other selves have agendas, advice, and accusations.

Each of these selves has a history, an emotional state, and a felt sense in the body. Each represents a particular aspect or part of our (mostly) Unified Self. This weekend, we’ll notice our habitual reflexes, our “go-to” responses both on and off the dance floor. We’ll learn to find our inner selves and build our capacity to access the most useful ones for any given moment.

In mindful movement, we can substantiate selves that have been hiding or cast out. We can learn to calm the selves that work overtime, find unknown selves, and embody a self we have been waiting to become.

Andrea and Kathy facilitate a dynamic, non-judgmental, well-informed dance playground embodying these inner conversations. This practice is not only fun and awakening; the creativity of movement illuminates new possibilities and choices. Exploring distinct parts of our personalities can help illuminate all that is held within.

For hundreds of thousands of years, plants have been humanity’s greatest allies, shaping culture in material and spiritual ways. Across the Northern Hemisphere, a shared cohort of plants has profoundly influenced human existence, providing sustenance, medicine, textiles, and more. Honored as wise relatives, they carry mythic and spiritual significance across diverse cultures, forming a thread of kinship connecting our ancestors across continents and histories. Though modernity has painfully estranged us from the expansive web of relationality that our ancestors shared with the more-than-human-world, we can reclaim our “inalienable belonging to the earth community,” in the words of Joanna Macy. Meeting our botanical kin with curiosity and intention is a gesture toward restoring this enchanted ecological paradigm.

Join us to meaningfully engage with the lore and lives of pan-culturally significant plants — such as oak, nettle, mint, mugwort, elder, and rose — attuning to their presence in Big Sur’s wildlands while cultivating our botanical and cultural literacy. Through hands-on collaboration and an approach of reciprocity instead of extraction, we will craft herbal medicines, natural pigments, fibers, and tools in a manner that benefits the land and plants. Ceremony will invite us to discover these plants’ archetypal dimensions, revealing their roles as teachers and healers. As guests on Esselen tribal land, we will root our explorations in respect and reverence, honoring the relational worldviews of all our land-connected ancestors. Guest faculty Ariel Johnson will offer somatic practices to help guide us into embodied kinship — grounding us in gravity, sensory awareness, and open-hearted presence with our floral relatives.

Through these efforts, we remember our belonging, and we are remembered in return. The plants know us, after all, and welcome us back into our ancient traditions of botanical kinship.

Important Notes:

This retreat will include one full-day immersion as well as two half-day hiking excursions in the Big Sur wilderness, involving hikes up to 3 miles each. Please be aware that the hiking terrain can be steep, rugged, and sometimes strenuous, including prolonged sun exposure. Participants must be able to hike and carry what they need for the day: 2 liters of water, pack lunch provided by Esalen, and sun protection. Other workshop sessions will be mostly situated outdoors on the Esalen property.

This workshops includes an additional $60 of faculty tuition and $40 for park entrance fees.

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, we encourage those who want to participate in the incubator and get the most out of the lab to describe their project in one paragraph, tell us where you are with it, and where you want to take it. In another paragraph, please give us a sense of your professional background and how your project applies (or doesn’t at all) to what you’re already doing in your life now. ‍

Email us at: S2S@thisiscounterpointfilms.com.

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.

When was the last time you gave something your undivided attention? Nearly 2,500 years ago, Buddha worried we had become too distracted — and that was before paper, let alone smartphones. In 2022, our days are filled with convenient distractions that promise happiness while mostly delivering busyness and frustration. So many of us today live life in a hectic fog, working too much and noticing too little.

There is a different way. For this weekend workshop, we will disconnect, slow down, and meditate together. We will learn the ancient Zen practice of sitting still, bringing our full awareness to what is now.

Our time together will follow a gentle schedule of sitting meditation punctuated by brief lectures, group discussion, relaxing meals, and soaks in the healing baths, all while exploring the process and practice of mindful living. We’ll be listening to our own bodies, noticing the food we eat, and truly engaging with the people around us – exploring what it means to be fully present.

Together we will explore everything you need to start, revive, or deepen your daily meditation practice. You will receive instruction in traditional Zen Buddhist meditation and we will sit together in guided sessions, practicing what we’ve learned. We’ll work together on everything from the mechanics of sitting posture to the mental barriers we all face. We’ll discuss how to overcome common obstacles to meditation and the many ways to incorporate more mindfulness and presence into our daily lives.

Whether you’re brand new to meditation or even if you’ve been practicing for years, join us in learning how to bring meditation into your life and mindfulness to your work and home – today and every day. Come reclaim a healthier and happier way to be.

Recommended Reading: Buddha’s Office, by Dan Zigmond

Soul is flow. It’s an ever-changing play of sensations and feelings. It’s how the deathless presence meets and moves our finite human body. In this workshop, we will reclaim the body-in-motion as a doorway to the life unfolding just under the surface of everyday forgetting.

A formless dance form, Soul Motion® allows for passionate, full-bodied movement as well as mindful inner explorations, art-making, ritual, and luscious lounging. Together, we will integrate conscious movement, body-based inquiries of Gestalt Practice, and the stillness of nature for a process to transform body, heart, and spirit.

Soul Motion is a meeting between self and other in a dance that is deeply creative, nourishing, and transforming. It is a movement toward the dynamic stillness at the center of all things — the place of rest at the heart of sound and motion.

During this week together, we will:

• Dance, inspired by a wide range of music and the great sound of silence, supported by the benevolent presence of earth and sky.
• Learn skills for stress reduction, relaxation, and renewal through conscious movement and stillness.
• Build resonance with the movements of life around us by moving from the inside out — alone, in pairs and trios, and as a group, sometimes indoors, sometimes in nature.
• Explore and express what is alive inside us through movement, awareness practices, and sharing in pairs and as a group.
• Experience through movement all the landscapes of relating — to self, to the world, and to the great Mystery that we also are.
• Spend time on the land in sitting and walking meditation, allowing ourselves to dissolve a little into space.

Open to anybody willing to move, pause, listen, and truly relax into one timeless moment. This workshop is especially helpful for people in the healing professions who work with clients, patients, and students.

All light arises from darkness, including insight, creativity, vision, joy, and possibility. The luminous darkness is the spacious presence and receptivity through which we also access light. It is the field of all potential and emergence that we sometimes forget in the context of ordinary life and habit. In this deeply restorative retreat, at the threshold of a new year, we will commune with the luminous darkness to listen deeply, renew possibility, and set conscious intentions for our lives and our world in the year ahead.

We will replace knowing with not knowing and rest in the embodied presence from which clearer seeing arises.

With compassion and curiosity as our guides, we will reflect on the past year, both harvesting lessons and releasing limiting beliefs. This regenerative and transformative process is about remembering who we really are — and stepping into possibility on behalf of our collective.

We will deepen our capacity for compassion and clear seeing  through:

• Meditation and Dharma talks
• Relational mindfulness and inquiry
• Conscious movement and dance
• Embodied practices to invoke the realm of dreaming and conscious imagination and to embrace shadow and the unknown
• Reflective writing
• Deep time in nature

This workshop, inspired by Eden’s book Luminous Darkness, draws upon the wisdom streams of Buddhist meditation and mindfulness, non-duality, eco dharma, somatic awareness, and conscious dance. This work is heart-opening, transformative — and also incredibly fun!

Recommended reading: Luminous Darkness: An Engaged Buddhist Approach to Embracing the Unknown by Deborah Eden Tull