Our workshops are designed to support you in the challenging work of self exploration, in partnership with some of the leading minds of the day. Join us in discovering the next frontiers of individual and societal transformation.
Interested in a scholarship?
Learn MoreFor thousands of years across many cultures, enhanced states of consciousness have been used as a strategy for meaningful transformation and self-exploration — marking life’s major transitions and rites of passage and deepening one’s connection to self, community, and the natural world.
In this workshop, we will gather in the rich field of community for an immersive experience and personal exploration of enhanced states of consciousness. Our time together will include strategies for navigating, integrating, and preparing for these experiences. Holotropic Breathwork® offers language, method, and structure for turning inward and working with deeply personal material as it emerges, uniquely, from one’s own intrinsic intelligence. We will be supported by time-honored practices that are simple, yet powerful. These unique states can offer us unmediated access to the self as a deep source of healing, insight, and evolutionary potential. Participants will experience four Holotropic Breathwork sessions, with two as “breather” and two as “sitter.” Your time assisting others in “non-ordinary state” space will complement your personal exploration. Additionally, contemplative practice, movement, expressive arts, and time in community will support the integration process throughout the week.
Originating from the pioneering psychedelic researcher, Stanislav Grof, and his late wife, Christina Grof, Holotropic Breathwork is a particularly useful practice for those interested in or training to work in psychedelic-assisted therapy.
This workshop is suited for all those of heart who are curious about exploring enhanced states of consciousness and opening to an evolutionary process of unfolding. New or novice explorers/breathers are very welcome, along with experienced navigators/breathers. The fundamental urge to grow, to heal, and to be transformed in a truly authentic way drives us not outward but inward, toward the depths of our own being, toward a deep mystery within. This inward journey strengthens and nourishes our senses in a way that can revitalize our daily lives with creative and emergent energy.
Recommended Reading: Holotropic Breathwork by Stan Grof
Knowing that you love the earth changes you, activates you to defend and protect and celebrate. But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond.
― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
Foraging is the antidote to our too-too-busy lives and convoluted, complex food systems. When we are out in nature, we learn to live by nature’s rules. Check the tides before heading out for clams, sea urchins, or seaweed. Notice rain patterns for optimal mushroom hunting. Learn the plants and trees that are delicious and can heal what ails you. Be very grateful to be an earthling.
What if we receive the generosity of planet Earth with reverence and pass it along? Could we then become a keystone species that improves habitat for ourselves and all other life that share this planet?
In this immersive, experiential workshop, we’ll explore:
Big Sur is a spectacularly beautiful place, and gathering wild food is an intimate and fascinating way to discover it. Come spend a weekend tapping into your right brain, your animal body, your free spirit, your awe and wonder. Come fall in love with nature through wild foods.
This immersive experience invites participants to journey through the seven chakras, guided by the subtle wisdom of medicinal plants and shamanic tea meditations. Rooted in embodied connection to the elements — earth, water, fire, and air — this workshop explores how the energetic and physical systems of the body mirror the natural world.
Each day focuses on one or more chakras, unfolding through practices such as plant meditations, tea ceremonies, guided rituals, and nature connection. Participants will work with herbs like kava kava, rose, blue lotus, tulsi, skullcap, cacao, and others — many sourced directly from Esalen’s Farm & Garden.
Through experiential practices such as flower essence creation, intuitive journaling, ceremony, and medicine making, the group will explore the art of plant spirit communication. These interactions offer a window into internal landscapes, clarifying intention, revealing heart truths, and awakening relational presence with the more-than-human world.
Time will be spent in the gardens and on the land — walking, harvesting, and creating in community — as well as in more intimate, reflective spaces. Fire rituals, water practices, and song circles will complement the work and provide pathways for integrating the spiritual and the somatic.
This work invites personal insight to arise organically from the interplay between body, breath, land, and plant. Participants will leave with handmade herbal preparations and tools to build a deeper resonance with the natural intelligence of the Earth.
Recommended reading: The Witch’s Herbal Apothecary, by Marysia Miernowska; Eastern Body, Western Mind by Aodea Judith
For thousands of years across many cultures, enhanced states of consciousness have been used as a strategy for meaningful transformation and self-exploration — marking life’s major transitions and rites of passage and deepening one’s connection to self, community, and the natural world.
In this workshop, we will gather in the rich field of community for an immersive experience and personal exploration of enhanced states of consciousness. Our time together will include strategies for navigating, integrating, and preparing for these experiences. Holotropic Breathwork® offers language, method, and structure for turning inward and working with deeply personal material as it emerges, uniquely, from one’s own intrinsic intelligence. We will be supported by time-honored practices that are simple, yet powerful. These unique states can offer us unmediated access to the self as a deep source of healing, insight, and evolutionary potential. Participants will experience four Holotropic Breathwork sessions, with two as “breather” and two as “sitter.” Your time assisting others in “non-ordinary state” space will complement your personal exploration. Additionally, contemplative practice, movement, expressive arts, and time in community will support the integration process throughout the week.
Originating from the pioneering psychedelic researcher, Stanislav Grof, and his late wife, Christina Grof, Holotropic Breathwork is a particularly useful practice for those interested in or training to work in psychedelic-assisted therapy.
This workshop is suited for all those of heart who are curious about exploring enhanced states of consciousness and opening to an evolutionary process of unfolding. New or novice explorers/breathers are very welcome, along with experienced navigators/breathers. The fundamental urge to grow, to heal, and to be transformed in a truly authentic way drives us not outward but inward, toward the depths of our own being, toward a deep mystery within. This inward journey strengthens and nourishes our senses in a way that can revitalize our daily lives with creative and emergent energy.
In an era fascinated by peak experiences and personal revelations, the deeper task of transformation is often overlooked. This workshop offers a grounded path for those who have touched something sacred — through psychedelics, mystical states, or profound life transitions — and are now asking, How do I live in service to what I’ve seen?
Rooted in Jungian psychology and contemplative practice, this week at Esalen will guide participants into the art of integration — not as a checklist, but as a lifelong discipline of becoming. We will explore the difference between having an experience and being changed by one.
Participants are invited to:
This course is not about chasing visions — it is about carrying them with integrity. Come if you are ready to descend, reflect, and reshape your life in honor of what has already begun within you.
Now more than ever, it is important we build practices to strengthen our internal resolve and self-resourcing amidst a dynamically shifting society. Together, we will listen to our heart’s wisdom in this rich four-day journey (Friday to Monday) through sound, ceremony, and self-discovery.
In this intimate and transformative workshop, you will have the unique opportunity to experience multiple East Forest’s live music performances. Additionally, Radha will lead us in embodiment practices of Self-Awakening Yoga, Yin Yoga, and Pranayama to create an all-levels and accessible doorway to inner insights. Through the primacy of our own heart-opening and felt experience, we can discover the inner pathways to fortitude and healing.
East Forest and Radha would like to offer a certain amount of scholarship to those in need. Please apply with this form. If further assistance would be helpful, you may also apply for an Esalen scholarship.
This workshop includes an additional $290 faculty tuition.
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Esalen Institute
55000 Highway 1
Big Sur, CA 93920
US: 1-831-667-3000
info@esalen.org