Workshops

The voice is more than sound — it is the breath of our being made audible, the vibration of our essence moving through space. It is our most innate instrument, a direct channel between the soul and the world. When sounded with intention, the voice carries the power to heal, connect, and transform. This is an immersive experience to return to the source of your voice — your primal, dynamic sound that lives within you. Through deep sensing, visualization, somatic exploration, and playful vocal exercises, we will release the blocks that stifle expression and awaken the pleasure, power, and resonance of our true voice.

Together, we will:

• Explore vocal embodiment, using the body as a resonant chamber for sound.
• Engage in practices that dissolve tension, unblocking emotional and physical expression as a pathway to self love.
• Awaken the imagination and open new pathways of vocal creativity and deep connection.
• Let breath and vibration guide us into dynamic, sonic liberation.
• Experience the joy of surrendering to our voice, allowing it to move through us freely with power, care and love.

This is an invitation to become your voice, to reclaim its raw beauty and medicine, and to honor the deep impact of speaking, singing, and sounding with love and intention. When we free our voice, we free ourselves — our capacity to express, to connect, to be fully seen and heard. This practice strengthens our confidence, deepens our relationships, and supports our ability to move through the world with clarity, presence, and truth. By attuning to the natural resonance of our voice, we cultivate authenticity, self-trust, and a profound sense of belonging within ourselves and our communities.

Awaken the voice you arrived with. Open the portal. Come home to your sound.

Please note: This workshop includes physical touch, such as a hand placed on the body to aid in sounding, as well as physical embrace within the group.

We sleep one-third of our lifetime, an average of 20 to 25 years. Dream yoga is a practice that spans every moment, waking and sleeping. It is a powerful tool of awakening used for hundreds of years by the great masters of the Tibetan traditions. Foundational practices in dream yoga change the practitioner’s relationship to all experiences, develop conscious awareness and often lead to lucidity in dreams. Unlike in the Western psychological approach to dreams, the ultimate goal of Tibetan dream yoga is the recognition of the nature of the mind or enlightenment itself.

Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche will discuss the relationships between dream and waking, and dream and death. He will show how the causes of dreams are related to the six chakras, and how we can heal blocks in the chakras. He will teach the “four preparations” for sleep and the uses and methods of lucid dreaming.

Recommended reading: Rinpoche, The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep and Rinpoche, Sleep & Awakening the Sacred Body.

Since falling in love is biologically natural, but sustaining love is biologically unnatural, Soul Mate focuses on the art and discipline of sustaining love. You begin with learning how to appreciate your partner so specifically and frequently that your partner feels fully seen and loved.

You then practice both the art and discipline of hearing your partner’s criticisms without becoming defensive. For example, so you don’t have to fear “walking on eggshells” before sharing a concern, your partner first learns how to prepare her or himself to emotionally associate your criticism with an opportunity to be more deeply loved.

Soul Mate is designed as the next evolutionary shift beyond active listening. Active listening allowed the criticizer to feel heard, but failed to teach the person hearing the criticism how to emotionally associate the criticism with an opportunity to be more deeply loved. The problem? Unless the receiver of criticism feels safe the person sharing their concern cannot feel safe.

You will learn a series of practices you may integrate into your everyday life:

• Six methods of sustaining a “conflict free zone” for 166 hours of your 168-hour week.
• A “Caring and Sharing Time” the remaining two hours by practicing six mindsets that allow you to not feel defensive when criticized.
• “Eleven Wisdoms” as a foundation for deepening your love.
• The four “depleters of love,” aka the “Four C’s” (Criticisms, Complaints, Controlling, and Complacency)
• How to use your new skills with your children, parents, work colleagues and people you differ with politically.
• How to use music and dancing to revitalize your love (to be practiced by dancing before each session)

To sustain your practice after the workshop, I invite you to free, ongoing, group follow-up calls to resolve stumbling blocks. If you wish to review the insights and exercises at any time, you will also have the option of purchasing a Zoom and book version of the course.

This workshop is for couples of all genders and sexual orientations.  Developed over the past 30 years, the workshop is also used by many health professionals in their work with clients and patients.

Recommended Resources: Role Mate to Soul Mate by Warren Farrell (BenBella: July 2024); additional video content on warrenfarrell.com.

Warren Farrell's Couples' Communication Video-from-Workshop

This Advanced Esalen® Massage workshop will address those chronic hot spots that often feel stiff and sore — the shoulder junction and the hip/gluteus/leg junction — and their co-relationship. Posture and attitude play their role in creating discomfort and, ultimately, the breakdown of these always-in-motion segments.

We will review the hidden muscles of the hips and practice body mechanics and leverage, hand positions, and skeletal movements to achieve deep contact with our clients’ bodies. Demonstrations will include the benefits and challenges of massage for those who have undergone joint replacement. We will also review the muscles of the shoulder and learn how to use bones to facilitate release. We’ll practice in prone and supine positions, using stretches to integrate and add playfulness.

This course will briefly review the integrative long strokes elemental to Esalen® Massage and bring home the adage that we are all connected — body, mind, spirit, and community. Discomfort in one area often breeds discomfort in another. By becoming more attuned to our clients, practitioners can innovate and effectively evoke a whole-person sense of comfort and ease.

This workshop is by your request, designed for those with prior massage training who want to learn more. Participants will explore new skills to bring to their practice while the mountainous backdrop, steamy hot springs, and crash of the ocean waves below rebuild our sense of connection, both within and without.

12 hours CE credit by NCBTMB for EMBA teachers. CAMTC transcript credit pending

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 internationally 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 workshop is suitable for those who have never taken a vow of silence and want to explore what it feels like to observe noble silence in small doses, as well as veteran silent retreaters who want to refine their senses of awareness and perception.

NOTE: For small portions of this workshop, participants will be encouraged to take a vow of silence — during which there will be no writing, reading, or talking.

BIPOC SCHOLARSHIP: Hawah has established a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, person of color) scholarship for his workshops.  For more information on receiving one to participate, please contact him at Everlutionary@gmail.com.

This workshop includes a material fee of $4.50.

What if what we experience wasn’t always a serious endeavor, but rather an invitation to play, to grow and to learn? Hindu philosophy encapsulates this idea in the Sanskrit word Lila, which means “divine play.” Lila suggests that creation isn’t an obligation but a spontaneous and joyful expression of the divine. Perhaps we’re so deeply immersed in the drama of it — like actors lost in our roles — that we’ve forgotten it’s a playful dance? Suppose existence is just a cosmic joke, a juggling act of the relative and the absolute. This  experience is designed to help you learn to dance between the everyday mundane and the sacredness of now.

Each day will begin with the ancient technology of yoga and  breathwork. Morning classes are designed to release stress, physical patterns, and common discomforts to help you access peace and resilience and gently unravel your authentic self.

You’ll then be guided through various exercises to develop body awareness, followed by physical games and rituals that give birth to organic impulses inspired by the child within. There is no pressure to perform, just an invitation to get lost and found inside yourself, an openness to go beyond your comfort zone, and a willingness to play within the moment.

Each day will close with the practice of Yoga Nidra and meditation. This helps to absorb the benefits, make sense of your experience, and allow for genuine healing and connection through community.

This workshop is physical, but open and accessible for all levels and diverse bodies. Practices will be adapted and tailored to support you. Please come unprepared.

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

This workshop will give you the tools to help you stop holding yourself back. Whether you have a desire to lose 20 pounds, write a book, launch a business, start a side hustle, open your heart to love, shift your relationship with money, or figure out your next chapter — whatever goal you set — this workshop will help you get out of your own way.

Through the powerful lens of shadow work, you can uncover the hidden forces that drive you and how to break through them.

During our time together, we will dive deep to:

• Set better and healthier boundaries.
• Break through fear
• Get clear about what you really want next for your life.
• Have greater accountability.
• Leave with clear action steps to walk toward your goals.

Using a practical, evidence-based approach, Justin Michael Williams will help you understand and fully embrace your shadow so you can overcome your self-limiting patterns and step into the life you really want.

Build confidence. Break through your patterns. Let go of old stories. Shift your relationship with your inner voice. Live a life of greater authenticity and truth — with tools and a plan for action that can last well after the retreat is over.

This is your moment to reset, overcome fear and self-doubt, and say “yes” to the life that’s waiting for you.

Recommended reading: Stay Woke, Justin Michael Williams

What happens when we look beyond the familiar boundaries of the mind and begin to explore what psychedelics can teach us about consciousness, mental health, and healing?

Through science, dialogue, embodiment, music, and direct human experience, this educational journey will explore a groundbreaking new paradigm for mental healthcare: one that sees psychological suffering not simply as a chemical imbalance, but as a state of excessive mental rigidity. We’ll examine how these substances can disrupt entrenched patterns of thought and perception, opening new possibilities for understanding and treating some of the most difficult mental illnesses.

At the heart of the workshop is an exploration of the hidden mind. We’ll look at how psychedelics can illuminate aspects of our inner world that are ordinarily difficult to see, including the beliefs, narratives, and habitual patterns through which we construct our experience of ourselves and reality.

Neuroscientist Robin Carhart-Harris will lead us through his groundbreaking exploration of how psychedelics may unlock long-held mysteries of the mind and how these revelations can help treat some of the most crippling mental illnesses.

Alongside Carhart-Harris’s teachings on the neuroscience of the psychedelic state, this weekend includes live musical performances by East Forest, whose sound work has long been intertwined with psychedelic ceremony and contemplative practice. Radha will lead embodiment practices of meditation, self-awakening yoga, and breathwork to create accessible doorways to inner insight.

The weekend includes:

• Teachings and dialogue with Robin Carhart-Harris on the neuroscience of psychedelics and mental rigidity
• Intimate live musical performances by East Forest
• Group co-creative musical process with East Forest
• Yoga, meditation, and breathwork practices with Radha
• Awe-inspiring time in nature
• Deep rest
• Journaling for personal integration
• Dance party for collective celebration

This is an invitation to hold science and ceremony, intellect and embodiment, together. To investigate how rigidity might give way to openness, how new perspectives can illuminate what was previously hidden, and how a deeper understanding of the mind may point toward new possibilities for mental health and human flourishing.

Workshop Disclaimer: While some of our workshops explore the history and potential of psychedelic tools and altered states, Esalen workshops do not involve the use, provision, or facilitation of any psychoactive substances.

Recommended Reading: How Psychedelics Work by Robin Carhart-Harris

This workshop includes an additional $350 in faculty tuition. 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.

Take a week-long journey into the cartography of self — mapping the terrains that live beneath language — where breath meets bone, memory lives in muscle, story shapes identity, and the future self waits patiently to be remembered.

Through breathwork, somatic movement, writing, sound, and relational mirrors, we’ll explore distinct layers of being. Each day will open a new landscape to traverse — from the dense knowing of the body to the subtle currents of emotion, from inherited stories that live in our bones to the archetypes that move us unseen. We move slowly, curiously, mapping sensation, story, memory, and meaning as they surface. This is not a week to become someone new. It is an invitation to meet the one who has been here all along — layered, complex, rhythmic, alive.

Throughout the week, each participant will be given the guidance and tools to create their own Inner Atlas: a living body-map of sensation, story, lineage, and possibility. A compass to guide them back when life asks them to choose themselves.

We live in an age of extraordinary access to information, and many of us are hungry for a deeper way back into our bodies and the felt experience of being alive. In this five-day workshop, you will explore what it means to move toward a more embodied, regenerative relationship with the world, one step, one breath, one element at a time.

The week is woven from two converging paths. One offers elemental meditation, mantra, and pranayama, with earth, water, fire, air, and space as direct doorways back into the body and nature. The other brings research on regeneration, tracked through what’s known as GDR, or Gross Domestic Regeneration, the practice of measuring what we build back rather than what we extract.

This workshop includes:

• Elemental meditation practice, held outdoors, weather permitting, so intuition and presence become felt experiences met directly on Esalen’s land.
• Group inquiry into regeneration, weighing what you personally extract and rebuild.
• Practices for meeting conflict and grief, including ecological grief, with care rather than avoidance.
• Sensory reawakening and devotional music, to settle each day’s inquiry into the body.
• Inquiry into AI, energy, and what it means to be human, held from an embodied place rather than an abstract one.

This workshop brings together contemplative practice and the leading edge of regenerative research, two paths holding the same conviction: that the shift we’re looking for won’t come from more thinking, but from more feeling. This is an invitation to practice that, together, on some of the most beautiful ground there is.

Beyond your time together, there will be ample free time to soak in Esalen’s natural hot springs, wander its cliffside gardens, rest, and take in everything else this remarkable land has to offer.

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, grow your discernment,, 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 the power of your voice as an energy healing tool, through vocal opening practices and Tantric Shakti mantras to feel and free your energy, ground in your power and authority, and open to creative flow.
• Practice divine feminine and Buddhist 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.
• Learn about research which shows how 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.

Join this weekend of joyful exploration into the distance between the head and the heart with teachings that bridge dance and meditation. One releases energy outward, the other inward. One explores the freedom we express and let be witnessed, and the other the inner courage to reimagine ourselves, our past, and our future.

The retreat goes beyond traditional practice and invites you to discover the intelligence inherent in all forms of movement: movement of the body, of perspective, of breath and air.

Together, we’ll blend imaginative, expressive movement (Bohemian) with grounding, introspective practice (Gravity) into a holistic, adaptable approach open to anyone, regardless of age or experience. Through dance, intuitive movement, guided meditation, breathwork, and other somatic practices, we’ll move between dynamic and deeply restful states, carried by curated music drawn from ethical, electronic, and instrumental sources.

Sessions are designed to awaken awareness, deepen creativity, expand personal freedom, and align head, heart, and gut. Participants often experience the release of long-held tension rooted in unconscious patterns, opening space for imagination, joy, and inner freedom.

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 Lori Sheridan, a certified psychic medium, will guide you in exploring and developing your own intuitive abilities. Through experiential exercises, Lori will help you recognize the different ways intuition communicates, strengthen trust in your inner guidance, and explore your connection with spirit guides and the unseen world.

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 weekend 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.

Recommended Reading: Thought Revolution: How to Unlock Your Inner Genius by William Donius and Soul Compass, Trusting Your Intuition and the Wisdom Within by Lori Doupe Sheridan

Revamp, reinvigorate, and polish your luminous self this Spring with innovative yoga practices for body, mind, and spirit! This yoga renewal workshop includes energizing movement, flow yoga, core activations, meridian sequencing, tapping, rejuvenating holds, and cleansing rituals based on the five elements.

Yoga for the skin sloughs off the old with a potent five-step cleansing ritual. Revitalizing and fluid yoga sequences stimulate the body before thoughtfully weaving muscles and mind together into a recreated and radiant being. We will even take advantage of the potent Esalen springs with specific bathing rituals. The daily practices of the sparkling Yoga Spring Renewal workshop will be fresh, fun, and rejuvenating — and will leave you feeling the same!

Certified in Anusara Yoga and the Halprin Life Art Process, Ulrika blends holistic practices of yoga, somatic movement therapy, and Swedish skin rituals with the elements of nature for movement medicine. The many layers and systems of the body are addressed, with balanced attention given to the physical and the energetic, the form and the formless,  the unique individual and the collective universal patterns.

Participants should bring a dry brush, coconut oil, and a facial clay mask.

This workshop encourages at least three months of a yoga practice.

You are never truly alone — loving guidance has always been by your side. Your spirit guides, part of your soul family and spiritual GPS, are waiting to assist, support, play, and dance with you. In this five-day immersion, you’ll explore how to access their wisdom with patience, trust, and an open heart, and discover how to create a steady, lasting connection with the unseen love that surrounds you.

Through guided practice, instruction, and community support, you will:

• Explore ways to recognize the guides you were born with and engage with them more steadily and reliably.
• Experience meditations that quiet doubt, expand awareness, and open your intuitive channels.
• Participate in interactive exercises designed to illuminate how guidance shows up in clarity, synchronicity, and inspiration.
• Invite your guides into daily life for creativity, healing, and spiritual restoration.
• Share insights within a supportive circle of seekers, strengthening both confidence and connection.

This workshop welcomes seekers who are energetically sensitive and open to receiving support from beyond the veil. Whether you are beginning to sense intuitive guidance or already feel the presence of your guides, this framework invites you to discover how to trust these connections more deeply and access your guides more dependably. A profound journey that can change how you navigate this world’s layers — emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually.

Please make sure to bring your favorite journal or notebook to capture your notes and experiences during our time together!

Note: This workshop is not suited for anyone who experiences delusions, breaks with reality, or psychosis. This meditative experience could trigger an episode.

Join master craftsman and musician Guillermo Martinez for a hands-on journey into the art of Native American flute making. Working with cedar wood and the patient rhythms of handcraft, you’ll create a Native American-style flute of your own — shaped, tuned, finished, and ready to play.

Throughout the workshop, you’ll be guided step by step through the process. Beginning with a prepared cedar blank, you’ll learn how to glue and shape the wood, gradually bringing the form of the flute to life. You’ll then explore the delicate process of tuning before applying the finishing touches that make each instrument uniquely your own.

For those who wish to continue exploring, optional evening sessions will offer lessons in playing the flute — discovering breath, tone, and melody.

More than a woodworking project, this workshop is an invitation to slow down and enter into the creative process: to listen closely, work patiently, and experience the transformation of a simple piece of cedar into an instrument capable of carrying your breath and tune.

It has been more than 15 years since this flute-making workshop has been offered. No previous woodworking or musical experience is necessary. All tools will be provided. Join us and leave Esalen with a cedar flute you have shaped, tuned, and brought to life with your own hands and spirit.

This workshop includes a $250 material fee.

The most practical thing you can do for yourself is remember how to feel again, and be able to express it. Many men are running on empty, tense in the body, stuck in their heads. This weekend utilizes movement, breath, rhythm and voice to bring you back into your body and into real community with other men.

The what, why, and how of our time together:

• Chronic tension blocks presence. Rasa Yoga and Foundation Training rebuild a strong, resilient back through functional movement, so grounded strength follows you home.
• Stress keeps you stuck in your head. Breathwork, meditation, live drumming, free movement, vocalizing, song, and mantra shift your energy and open your senses.
• Old reactions keep repeating when nobody names them. In paired dyads and sentence stems, you’ll practice shadow tracking: listening to understand first, then responding with appreciation and gratitude.
• Rigid roles box us in. Embodying the Warrior, Lover, Magician, Sovereign, and Alchemist through movement and reflection widens who you can be.
• Isolation grows when there’s nowhere honest to connect. Men’s council, conscious conversation and shared rhythm rebuild real camaraderie.

Discover practices you can use, plus more presence, connection and ease.

This workshop is specifically designed to create a space for sacred brotherhood for participants who identify as male.

Recommended Reading: Bringing Your Shadow Out of the Dark and To Be A Man by Robert Augustus Masters

Revolutionary findings in neuroscience have demonstrated that we can literally re-architect the very structure of our brains. In fact, we can even rewire our neurology to be more focused, calmer, and happier.

In this workshop, Dr. Shauna Shapiro — a leading scientist studying the effects of meditation on well-being — will teach you the most powerful science-based practices for increasing the neural pathways of happiness. She’ll explain basic brain science and offer a clear roadmap for living a joyful, connected, and meaningful life. Be prepared for unexpected transformation and delight.

During this weekend workshop, we’ll learn:

• Science-based practices to increase your baseline level of happiness.
• How to cultivate greater joy, gratitude, and connection.
• To integrate these practices into our everyday lives.

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 tuition scholarship at slshapiro@scu.edu.

Join ceremonial leader and wisdom carrier Erika Gagnon on a sacred journey to look beyond the false duality of a divided self and the destructive concepts of “self versus other” and “self versus nature” to rediscover how to live in harmony within ourselves and with the world around us.

We live on a constant spectrum of choice between polarities, Black/White, Night/Day, Earth/Sky, Happiness/Sadness, Yin/Yang, Masculine/Feminine, Active/Passive. If you believe these are opposites — choices between one or the other — a separation occurs that can eventually lead to conflict. But if we understand that none of these can exist without their counterparts, we realize they are not opposites but complementary aspects.  When we understand we are the wholeness that encompasses our dual nature, we move beyond duality into unity.

How can we identify what is out of balance, both within us and in our lives? What emotions, memories, and old patterns are keeping us stuck or are no longer serving us? How can we identify the social, cultural, racial, religious, and historical energies influencing our lives?

Over the course of the workshop, we will engage with healing wisdom, practices, and ceremonies to honor our gifts and continue to heal our wounds. You will have the opportunity to participate in three traditional healing ceremonies.

You will be offered tools to transform trauma and unhealthy patterns and realign body, mind, spirit, and soul as we explore the origins of dis-ease in our physical, mental-emotional, and spiritual bodies. Reconnect to your authentic wisdom and power as you find the balance within. From that wholeness, reconnect to the natural and spiritual elements of this planet in gratitude for all that we experience in life.  

Note: Please bring a journal and items for our altar, including photographs of loved ones and ancestors and sacred objects that have meaning for you.

Special Note on Gift Economy: For this workshop, Esalen will not be collecting the typical leader fees. Erika embraces the tradition of the gift economy and reciprocity. Her compensation will be self-determined by each attendee. At the end of the workshop, participants will offer a donation amount that reflects their feelings of gratitude, value, and desire to support Erika and her ongoing work.

BIPOC SCHOLARSHIP: Erika has established a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, person of color) scholarship for her workshops. For more information on receiving one to participate or to make a donation to support this scholarship, please contact her at info@erikagagnon.com

This workshop is for anyone who knows they are at a threshold and want more aliveness and truth in the next chapter of their lives.

Our time together will unfold through a progression of experiential exercises, including movement, reflection, intimate group work, and practical frameworks for understanding where you are and what comes next. The majority of the workshop will draw on the Esalen tradition and imaginal psychology, where we will engage embodied knowing, intuition, and the wisdom of the heart to discover what calls to us at this stage of life and begin building a vision grounded in that truth. Expect real depth and real fun.

This is not a workshop you just do alongside other people. The group itself is an essential part of our work together. The witnessing, shared vulnerability, and live coaching create a container that private reflection can rarely replicate.

The environment is carefully designed — rigorous and warm, challenging yet safe — to create a space where key questions can be explored honestly, in community with others doing the same work.

If you want a more powerful and authentic life, one lived with integrity and directed by what you truly value, this is where the work begins. Active participation is warmly encouraged. Nothing is required.

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.

We are erotic primates living in culturally imposed domestication. We have the lineage and bodies of hunter-gatherers, but we exist in a modern context that is deeply afraid of Eros. Like other domesticated animal species, we have been removed from the wild to live a more settled life. For many of us, this has had the unfortunate effect of cutting ourselves off from the somatic and erotic aliveness within our own bodies, both in our relationships and from the whole of our lives.

In this modern world, we are often left wondering, Why does my sexuality feel so difficult, unsatisfying, and limited? Why do my erotic relationships seem unsustainable and challenging? How do I access my erotic aliveness? Am I sexually broken, and how do I fix…me?

You are not broken! It’s not you. It’s the domestication — the context that cuts so many of us off from our bodies and aliveness.

In this workshop, you will be invited to:

• Develop a working understanding of what it means to ReWild Eros and un-domesticate the erotic body.
• Creatively explore the foundation of somatic erotic sovereignty.
• Discover the role of internalized and social shame in interfering with erotic connection to your body.
• Understand how Grief and Eros are connected and the role of moving grief in reclaiming and liberating erotic expression.
• Use playful, connective, and experiential somatic practices to build erotic energy and aliveness.
• Learn how to integrate these practices to create erotic sustainability in your life and relationships.

Together, we’ll explore traditional, experiential, and somatic learning, including exercises with movement, consensual touch, and group interaction. Participants will have agency to modify any exercise for their boundaries and safety. Although erotic healing and growth are part of this experience, this workshop will not be supportive for people with unaddressed primary sexual or somatic trauma.

This workshop is for individuals, couples, and people of all relationship orientations. People of all sexual and gender identities are welcome and celebrated. This workshop is sex-positive and erotic-inclusive and will rest on a foundation of embodied consent and boundaries practices. Though Eros is invited into the space, no overt sexual behavior will be part of the workshop.  

You are invited to bring a couple of small items for a shared altar that we will build together. The first item could connected to your family, lineage, or ancestors and the second could be connected to your body or sexuality. All items will be returned at the end of the workshop.

Recommended Reading: Come As You Are, by Emily Nagoski,  The Spirit of Intimacy, by Sobonfu Somé, The Body is Not An Apology, by Sonya Renee Taylor, Reviving Kinship and Sexual Abundance, Dr. Kim Tallbear on For the Wild podcast

The Earth holds us, breathes with us, moves through us.

Since time immemorial, human beings have lived in deep, reciprocal relationship with landscapes—our movements shaped by terrain, our nervous systems regulated by the rhythms of seasons and tides, our sense of self inseparable from the more-than-human world. Yet, in this modern, frenetic age, we are conditioned to see our bodies as isolated, our healing as individual, and “nature” as separate. This retreat is an invitation to remember an older truth: to inhabit our own bodies fully is to reinhabit the living Earth.

Rooted in the Gestalt traditions of Esalen and the emergent field of eco-somatics, our four-day backpacking journey will guide us through the wilds of Big Sur—Esselen tribal territory—in an immersive exploration of belonging, awareness, and interconnection, followed by a weekend of retreat and integration at Esalen Institute.

While trekking through awe-inspiring wilderness, we will engage in somatic practices that reawaken our felt kinship with the natural world. Embracing slowness and spaciousness, we will attune to gravity, breath, and the sensuous aliveness of place. Silent hiking, intuitive movement, meditation, and earth-based ritual will dissolve the false boundary between self and landscape. Exploring embodiment as an intimate community, we will move beyond notions of individual self-care to a lived experience of healing as relational and ecological.

Through this retreat, we step into a different rhythm—one guided by the living world around and within us. As we listen with our whole bodies, we begin to sense the reciprocity woven into all things. What emerges is not just connection but remembering—a return to a relationship as ancient as our true body: the Earth.

Important Notes:

• The full experience takes place over six days, from Tuesday, April 27th to Sunday, May 2nd, 2027.

• This is a partner program with Wildtender, an organization based in Big Sur exploring the embodied 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.org/earthbody

Experience with backpacking is not required. Wilderness skills will be taught before and within the program, and participants will be supported in preparations. Please see Wildtender’s program page for a more detailed hiking itinerary and backpacking eligibility criteria.

In this light-polluted and highly distracted age, it’s more important than ever to find a way to stay centered and balanced. Dark retreat offers that way.

An ancient spiritual and shamanic practice, dark retreat traditionally entails spending time — from hours to weeks — in a totally dark cabin or cave. It has been practiced for healing, insight, creativity, and preparation for the end of life. Essentially a concentrated form of meditation, dark retreat is a powerful method for exploring the depths of the unconscious mind.

This profound practice has been preserved within spiritual lineages for centuries, but it is rapidly being recognized by the scientific community as an antidote to the stressors of the modern world. This experiential workshop provides an accessible introduction to the approach, along with cutting-edge neuroscience, psychological modeling, and philosophical frameworks that bring one of the most transformative practices ever devised into the 21st century.

Every morning, using an eye mask, you’ll discover how darkness can restore your nervous system and equilibrate your body-mind. In the afternoon sessions, you’ll engage with simple visual exercises that curtail sensory overload to realign your sense faculties. Throughout the workshop, we’ll investigate how dark retreat works with the unconscious mind, what actually takes place at the neurological level.

Dark retreat is uniquely situated to address the meta-crisis, which is a crisis of touch. Blinded by the light of distraction and immersed  in the dangers of AI, we’ve lost touch with ourselves, with one another, and with the planet. Going into the dark puts us back in touch — and helps us reclaim our humanity.

Recommended reading: Total Eclipse of the Mind: Unleashing the Power of Darkness for Creativity, Healing, and Transformation, by Andrew Holecek & Consciousness at the Edge of Death: Dark Retreat, Near Death Experience, and Generative Brain Dynamics, By Mark Miller et al.

More and more, people are discovering the Enneagram as an accurate and profound map of personality. In this workshop, we’ll explore the full scope of its power to illuminate our greatest wisdom, become our truest selves, and face life’s challenges with fortitude and grace.

The nine Enneagram types are based on the three primary centers of intelligence: thinking, emotion, and instinct. However, in almost all human beings, distortions or blockages in these centers lead to a loss of connection with our essential nature and arising ego structures to compensate for this loss. Thus, while our Enneagram type, our true nature, is usually obscured with a characteristic web of defenses, discovering ourselves through the Enneagram can serve as an opening to the deeper reality of spirit.

This workshop will recognize the ways the nine Enneagram types play out in our own personalities. We’ll combine psychological insight into the inner workings of the different personality types with meditation practices and exercises designed for a more direct experience of the qualities of essence, such as presence, clarity, compassion, and joy. Conversational instruction will be added along with group meditations, small-group work, physical movements, and music to help us fully integrate the richness of the Enneagram material into our daily work and relationships.