Workshops

Our sense of soul often shows up as the feeling that we are connected to and a part of something much larger than our everyday selves. Though we may manifest the self through work, relationships, and creative endeavors, we will not be fully satisfied if that deepest expression of our soul does not have its place; we feel its absence.

What we cannot figure out cognitively is often abundantly clear through deliberate mindfulness of sensation, intuition, emotion, deep connection to others, and the beauty and pain of our world. The body, the soul’s temporary home, longs for this attention. There can be great joy when we let this mysterious part of us take the lead.

In Open Floor Movement Practice, we are open to what wants to happen through us. Our attention and curiosity allow embodied movement to unwrap us like the perfect gifts we are. Through dance, unrecognized dimensions of our being can take shape and have a voice to let us feel new possibilities in our unfolding.

Joseph Campbell reminds us, “The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” The nature of our soul, when embodied and acknowledged, moves us toward this birthright. Join us in discovering your soul’s unfolding.

In the ancient Tibetan practice of Sleep Yoga, the primary goal is to enter the pure, luminous awareness — the clear light — that is the true nature of the mind. As a profound support for Dzogchen meditation, Sleep Yoga enhances clarity, awareness, and spiritual realization, even as the body rests.

In today’s fast-paced world, many suffer from chronic sleep deprivation — and the consequences ripple through their physical health, emotional balance, relationships, and spiritual development. Drawing from his groundbreaking book, The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep, Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche offers guidance to help access the deep spiritual potential within sleep.

Explore the connection between sleep, meditation, and awakening, and practical steps for improving the quality of your sleep. Rinpoche will guide participants in integrating awareness and the wisdom of clear light into the experience of sleep itself.

A lineage holder of this living tradition, Rinpoche is widely known for his warmth, clarity, and ability to make profound Eastern teachings accessible and practical for Western students. With his guidance, participants are invited not only to rest more deeply but also to awaken more fully.

This retreat offers a rare opportunity to connect with the deep rest of the body, the openness of the heart, and the luminous nature of the mind. Open to all, newcomers and experienced practitioners alike.

Recommended reading: The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

In 1938, researchers at Harvard University began a 75-year study that addressed life’s fundamental question: What makes a good life? The Grant Study, also known as the Harvard Study of Adult Development, found strong relationships to be the clearest predictor of life satisfaction.

In Relational Gestalt practice, direct and response-able communication is essential for creating intimacy and strengthening our bonds to others. The benefits that flow from solid relationships with partners, relatives, and friends, can be a source of connection and great joy in our lives.

Sometimes, the ways we’ve learned to communicate in relationship creates more distance rather than contact with the people who are important to us.

In this workshop, you’ll have an opportunity to become aware of the ways you communicate; you’ll have the chance to learn, unlearn, and practice ways of communicating to enhance your connection to others. Together, we will explore how the past may be keeping you from making use of the contact that is available in the here and now.

Over the course of the weekend, we will use dyads, repeating questions and open seat sessions designed to facilitate communication and understanding.

What if you could use your voice to feel alive and present in your body? What would it look like to discover your own voice and fulfill its unique potential? This November, join sound therapy pioneer Eileen McKusick and transformational voice leaders and international recording artists Isaac and Thorald Koren of the Brothers Koren in a workshop designed to help you find the electric power in your voice.

Eileen, Isaac, and Thorald will combine their disciplines to create an electrified, liberated, embodied experience of vocal expression and play. This program is designed for those with and without previous musical experience — useful for seasoned professionals and first-time explorers of voice.

Using the power of new awareness, breath, sounding, and tuning with interactive immersion into the innate musicality of your human instruments, you will:

• Explore the 12 tones of our sonic anatomy, the resonant zones and the emotional spectrum of your voice.
• Express the range of your emotions with sound and play with musical modes and archetypes
• Learn to use music to express and balance our feelings, bodies, and biofields.
• Learn practical, playful, simple vocal exercises to support your vitality, freedom, and sense of well-being.
• Stretch the boundaries of your expression and liberate your greatest sound healing tool, your own voice!

Leave the immersive retreat feeling recalibrated, uplifted, and sonically invigorated. Previous participants noted dramatic changes in their freedom of voice after this safe and fun experience.

No vocal ability or musical experience required!

We invite you to step into a powerful, immersive experience weaving the dynamic energy of 5Rhythms® movement with the deep wisdom of Indigenous traditions. Rooted in the teachings of the Esselen people, this workshop is an invitation to reconnect — with yourself, your community, and the natural world.

For millennia, rites of passage and sacred ceremonies have marked the transitions of life to foster deep connection and a sense of belonging. Today, many of these traditions have been lost or fragmented, leaving us yearning for meaning and community.. In this weeklong journey, we’ll honor the wisdom of the past while creating space for a new kind of homecoming — one that transcends gender, background, and experience.

Through guided movement, storytelling, and shared rituals, we’ll celebrate diversity and unity, embracing both what makes us unique and what brings us together. This is a space for authentic expression and deep listening, where every story and background is honored.

This workshop is a collaborative initiative as part of the healing and reconciliation process between Esalen Institute, participating faculty, and the Esselen Tribe.

What to expect:

• Embodied movement to awaken self-awareness
• Captivating storytelling that bridges cultures and fosters connection
• Rituals and ceremonies celebrating our shared humanity
• A welcoming space where you can fully express yourself

No prior movement experience is needed — just a willingness to explore and connect. No choreography, no expectations, only the freedom to move, feel, connect, and express.

Come as you are. Return to One.

This workshop includes an additional $110 of faculty tuition.

Breathe. Move. Pay Attention. These three simple actions, natural and always available to us, provide potency to our vitality. They are the legs and wings that carry us into the three worlds within us — the physical, the subtle, and the mystical.

Join Jovinna on the sacred land Esalen Institute resides upon to slow down, reclaim the use of your time and mind, and return to that which holds the deepest meaning. Here, you can inhabit your body, refine your senses, expand your mind and heart, and rest in the simplicity of being.

During this experiential week, you will explore:

• Deep meditative yoga, breath awareness, and conscious dance
• Time and ceremony in nature
• Sound healing
• Contemplation on the subtle body through the lens of the chakra system

Let’s harvest and give thanks to the natural flow of life force, harmony, and magic surrounding us during our time together. And to dedicate the fruit of our time to all sentient beings and the well-being of our lands.

Please bring a journal. Jovinna invites you to detox from or minimize the use of all electronics during your stay at Esalen.

This workshop includes an additional $55 in faculty tuition.

How we sit, stand, move, and respond to our inner and outer world reflects deeply ingrained patterns wired into our nervous systems since childhood. They reflect our early solutions to physical survival in our family system. Out of awareness, these beliefs and strategies can still run our adult lives, limit our choices, and prevent physical ease and emotional healing.

If you still have pain or limitations from a past injury, it is usually because many other areas in your body had to overwork to protect and avoid using the injured area while you were recovering. These unconscious compensations can create an imbalanced workload and, eventually, new issues elsewhere in our body that prevent complete healing.

Using CFR®, we slowly explore and deeply sense small, gentle movements that bring these hidden patterns into awareness. When our genius nervous system becomes aware of a habit that is no longer useful, it extinguishes it. A greater experience of self-trust and self-worth is uncovered. A new sense of self-love, which comes from paying attention to your details without judgment, usually emerges.

This workshop is for the sedentary who want to become more active, the highly active who want to avoid injury and gain a competitive edge, and the chronically tired and stressed who want to improve breathing, posture, and flexibility. It is for those who have experienced physical injury or emotional trauma and those in helping professions who wish to enhance outcomes for clients and patients.  

Our intention is that you will leave equipped with simple yet effective tools for continued self-healing. Your discoveries may lead to a state of awe about what is possible in your body, your movement, and your life.

Recommended Reading: Somatics by Thomas Hanna and The Elusive Obvious by Moshe Feldenkrais

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

Practice is a seedbed of miracles. —Esalen Institute Co-Founder Michael Murphy

What positive shift would create the most meaningful change in your life right now?

Your extraordinary potential is built into your DNA and awaits your discovery. In this enlivening workshop, experience the essence of Integral Transformative Practice® (ITP), a living platform for growth, well-being, and evolution. Created by Esalen Institute luminaries Michael Murphy and George Leonard, ITP focuses on the interconnectedness of all aspects of the self to support the changes you want most — for yourself and the world.

This experiential journey weaves movement, writing, and sharing circles so you can listen deeply to the wisdom of your whole being, revealing who you are, who you’re becoming, and your next natural steps. Using the body as a guide for learning, we’ll engage in solo, partner, and group energy-awareness practices developed by ITP Co-Founder and Master Aikido Sensei George Leonard. We’ll also explore a revitalizing daily practice to restore balance, boost energy, and invite deep relaxation —one that can be integrated as a supportive tool for everyday life.

You are invited to:

• See life through a refreshing new lens.
• Uncover hidden insights.
• Align with your natural rhythms.
• Nurture personal autonomy for the journey ahead.

By applying the integral model of body, mind, heart, and soul — a portal to our innate wholeness — we’ll also explore the worldview that gave rise to Esalen Institute, where this transformative practice was developed. This evolutionary framework offers a pathway to our extraordinary potential, our individual connection to wholeness, which is ready to emerge.

Recommended reading: The Life we are Given, by Michael Murphy & George Leonard & Living an Extraordinary Life: The Magic of Integral Transformative Practice, by Christina Grote & Pam Kramer

Have you created the impact you want? Are you showing up the way you’d like? Are you going in the right direction? You have never before been where you are right now. You have never been the age you are today, never had the experiences you now possess. This is your time to pause and reflect. We rarely allow ourselves the opportunity to stop and look at what is changing — or discover what we truly need to feel fulfilled.

This very interactive workshop will include lots of experiential exercises. Though we will cover valuable theory and there will be plenty of reflection time, this will not be a series of talks/lectures. There will be movement, coaching, a little dance, and lots of opportunity to share insights. Active participation is strongly encouraged; however, participation will always be voluntary.

Our goal is to step back from our lives and renew. We will create a courageous community to challenge,nurture and express ourselves. Participants will have the opportunity to learn what brings them joy and purpose, and then cultivate a vision to serve as a foundation for both the next year and next phase of life.

We will engage in a progression of individual and group exercises focused on reflection, movement, and listening to our inner wisdom. We’ll discover how to navigate major life transitions and learn skills to access our intuition. We will uncover the behaviors that support our overall success, and reveal which ones undermine our goals and fulfillment. If you are passionate about having a more powerful and authentic impact on the world around you, this program of renewal will be especially valuable.

There’s a threshold where the seen and unseen meet. A bridge between this life and the spirit world — and we can learn how to access it with openness, practice, and trust.

Join AJA Daashuur, medium and spiritual guide, for this weeklong experience designed to open the veil between worlds and deepen your personal connection to Spirit.  As the creator of the CCCE Method (Connect, Channel, Clear, Embody), AJA weaves together powerful channeling, energetic healing, and soul-aligned embodiment to help you step into your highest intuitive expression.

This workshop bring you to that liminal space—a place to receive, remember, and realign. With AJA as your guide, you’ll cross into this space where messages flow, past and future selves meet, and the love of your Spirit Guides becomes undeniably real.

During your time with AJA, you will be invited to:

• Expand your intuitive gifts through grounded psychic development and practical daily rituals.
• Create and connect with your own Spirit Language, a unique channel of communication between you and your guides.
• Explore past and future life progressions to unlock insight into your soul’s path and purpose.
• Engage in supportive practice circles that foster trust, feedback, and a sense of sacred community.
• Discover energetic modalities that align with your natural frequency and deepen your spiritual toolkit.

The Spirit Bridge is more than an experience — it’s a passage back to your deepest knowing. Step across with us. Your guides are already waiting.

Please bring your favorite oracle deck and a journal to use throughout the week.

We gather on this powerful land for a weekend to remember — with our bodies, minds, and spirits — all that we have to be grateful for. Amidst all of the turmoil, we come together in community to remember that we are enough as we are. Through yoga, meditation, reflection, cliff side baths, and walking on Esalen’s healing land, we will return to our hearts. We’ll be joined by incredible guest teachers and musicians, sharing their expertise, wisdom and gratitude with us.

Together, we’ll explore dynamic yoga asana, pranayama, chanting, meditation, and yoga nidra. Let’s recognize each breath as a gift, as we’re nourished by delicious organic meals, the natural hot springs, walks among the majestic redwoods, or simply curling up in an ocean-view chair. Whether you come alone or with loved ones, you are sure to return to your daily rhythm with a newfound sense of ease, inspiration, and deep gratitude for the life you’re living.

This workshop includes an additional $100 faculty tuition.

Gestalt Practice at its core is an awareness practice in which we cultivate embodied, present-moment awareness of the unfolding experience of the here and now on a journey toward authentic growth, wholeness, and aliveness.

Drawing from the foundations of Gestalt Practice, wisdom traditions, and contemporary approaches that cultivate awareness, we’ll learn to become increasingly aware of our habitual, reactive, behavioral and emotional patterns — especially those that may no longer be skillful — for a more deeply embodied daily life. We will exercise our emotional and somatic intelligence in parallel to support, respect, and gently turn toward what arises moment to moment — to allow more space and appreciation for silence, sensation, emotional expression, and communication.

During this workshop, we will explore the rich practices and principles of Gestalt Practice. By applying them to everyday life, we’ll begin to experience the simple yet profound potential for showing up more fully and authentically for the daily presentations of living an awake life.

Gestalt Practice cultivates curiosity, equanimity, and acceptance with greater choice for creative possibilities. Rather than focusing on fixing or achievement, this approach offers methods to encourage you to:

• Cultivate awareness and embodied presence.
• Grow responsiveness, resilience, and choice.
• Trust in your organism’s inherent capacity for self-regulation and co-regulation.

Together, we’ll explore the elements of this approach, primarily through experiential personal practices, interactive exercises, and Gestalt Awareness Movement. Practices and exercises will be done solo, in pairs, triads, and groups, allowing participants to grow their awareness and learn how we can deepen our relationships — to self and others. There will be time for some participants to experience classic one-to-one Open Seat practice sessions with Steven in the roles of Initiator and Reflector while in the context of the group. To enrich our understanding, we’ll touch upon the rich history, theory, and neuroscience that supports this approach.

Through Gestalt Practice, we bear witness to ineffable mysteries that can bring us to living life more fully. Participants are invited to show up:  choosing to be present, paying attention to what has heart and meaning, and open to what life presents — letting life live through us.

The workshop is appropriate for all levels of experience with the understanding that participants are exploring a model of an awareness gym or lab — not a therapy. A welcome letter will be sent upon registration along with additional information about our time together.

“Enoughness” is the starting point of any journey toward gratitude. We begin to fully take in the profound gift of all that is unfolding only when we recognize that we are enough.

With Esalen as our transformative container, let’s meet during the week of Thanksgiving. Let’s honor the land and the Esselen people, the indigenous stewards of this place, as we remember the awe of the natural world around us and the life force within us.

Throughout the week, we will practice giving thanks for the world around us. We’ll cultivate curiosity and wonder for the life we have here and now. We’ll begin to move our attention away from the long list of “lack” that can consume our days.

To support the cultivation of this state of being, we will include daily practices to create suppleness in mind, spirit, and body:

• Breathwork
• Meditation
• yoga asana
• Philosophy
• Journaling
• Yoga nidra

We will return to the present to reclaim and embrace ourselves in our wholeness as enough. We will attend to all the ways we are enough, give enough, get enough, and have enough so we can lay claim to the power of life pulsing through us.

Each day will be an exploration of practices and tools that can cultivate and make space for a sense of contentment —and a chance for “giving” to ripple out into the world with grace and gratitude.

This workshop includes $175 additional faculty tuition.

Master Chungliang “Uncle Al” Huang, one of Esalen’s most cherished faculty members, brings 50+ years of teaching  experience to welcome you into China’s ancient practice of qigong.

During this workshop, Master Huang will teach the most essential qigong exercises — guiding students through energetic practices of movement, storytelling, and subtle energy work. This is an experience for those who wish to sustain a daily practice for the mind, body, and spirit.

Master Huang will teach easy-to-absorb, adaptive exercises and assist you through metaphors, visualization, sonic chanting, meditation, and deep circular breathing methods. Participants will hear about the great history of this ancient practice as Master Huang shares his vast wealth of knowledge.

A fun, joyful weekend for all ages and levels of practitioners! We will learn to incorporate this healthy practice as a consistent habit: Wei Wu Wei — “doing by not doing, spontaneously.”

Beginners and “advanced beginners” are welcome.

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

Through lecture, demonstration and practice with your fellow students, you  will be introduced to the essentials, including quality of touch, rapport, a 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 apply the foundational long, intentional strokes and gentle stretches. You will have plenty of time for guided practice and to effectively share your experience. At the end of the weekend, 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 will enjoy an optional evening in the hot tubs, birthplace of Esalen® Massage. 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.

To be truly creative, to let go of preconceived restrictions, is to allow yourself the freedom to flow. Taoist wisdom calls this Wu Wei — the art of not interfering with what is already happening.

During this weeklong workshop, we will playfully reinvent Tai Ji forms with ancient Tai Ji rituals, Five Moving Forces of Nature, and traditional Tai Ji motifs. We will explore, improvise, and evolve to find renewed and refreshed ways to dance the open structures of this ancient wonder of movement meditation.

With more than fifty consecutive years of teaching experience at Esalen, Master Huang creates a unique Tai Ji class for practitioners at all levels. Come prepared to enjoy “Uncle Al’s” storytelling, energy practices, and qigong mastery in this creative “Living Your Tao” Tai Ji experience.

Join ceremonial leader and wisdom carrier Erika Gagnon on a sacred journey, as we gather together and explore the healing wisdom of the “Americas.” We will learn about the importance of ancestral lineage, ceremonies and rituals, sacred altars, medicinal plants, and the origins of dis-ease in our physical, mental/emotional, and spiritual bodies.

You are your greatest healer and greatest medicine, and we will examine what this means in the context of our modern daily lives as we share healing wisdom and practices together. This is your opportunity to transform trauma and unhealthy patterns, and to realign your body, mind, spirit, and soul. You will also have the opportunity to participate in a traditional South American healing ceremony, a sound healing & “doctoring” ceremony and water blessing.

You will be invited to reconnect to your authentic wisdom and power with clarity, gratitude, and forgiveness. When you honor and heal your ancestral lineage, and connect to the natural and spiritual elements of this planet, you will strengthen your connection to the sacred in everyday life.

We are all interconnected in this giant web of life, and every day is a gift in the service of unconditional love: for yourself, your community, humanity, and our planet. If you feel the call to be a part of a new humanity that lives in harmony and balance upon this Earth, then we invite you to join us in this celebration of life.

Note: Please bring a journal to write in, 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. The leader’s compensation will be self-determined by each attendee. At the end of the workshop, participants will offer a donation amount that reflects their feeling 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, please contact her at ErikaGagnon11@gmail.com

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them to the impossible. — Arthur C. Clarke

Imagination is the foundational ingredient in problem solving – the ones in your own life as well as problems in society. Yet how many courses in imagination did you take during your K to12 education? Were you ever taught how to explore, harness, and apply it? How many healthcare professionals have taught you evidence-based ways to use imagination to enhance healing and recovery? Have you ever been taught how negative forms of imagination can contribute to depression, anxiety, or worse?

This workshop focuses on the science, power, and magic of imagination.

• The science: You’ll learn about newly discovered territories of imagination and how it is being redefined as one of the most important skills we can cultivate. You will explore the neurodiversity of imagination and create your own imagination profile.
• The power: You’ll take away tools to implement imagination into your physical and emotional healing, your relationships, and your work to powerfully imagine the next steps in your own life’s journey.
• The magic: You’ll explore the further reaches of imagination to create an extraordinary life. Discovering how altered states of consciousness, shamanism, psychedelics, and virtual reality/AI can provide access to a wellspring of wisdom and embodied imagination. Let whimsy and wonder re-enchant your life and our world.

Imagination is the seed of every invention and every social movement. It has led to nearly every scientific discovery, every building that has been built, every piece of art, film, story, every ship that has ever sailed, and every mission to outer space. Almost every human advancement has been sparked by the question, “What if?”

Through interactive presentations, experiential practices, self-inquiry, thought experiments, and speculative dialogue, you will explore truths that emerge from art, fiction, and fantasy — and return with new knowledge, tools, and inspiration.

Cassandra will be joined by guest faculty Fabrice Guerrier who brings experience knowledge of collective worldbuilding, futurism, poetry, and creative writing. Fabrice will provide unique perspectives and engaging experiential exercises to our work (and play) with imagination.

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:

• Learn how Jungian frameworks like shadow work, archetypes, and symbolic amplification support sustained integration.
• Engage in guided practices for anchoring insight into daily life, including journaling, inner work, somatic reflection, and sacred conversation.
• Reflect on the dangers of spiritual inflation and the importance of humility, discipline, and reverence post-awakening.
• Explore the cultural myths surrounding psychedelics and reframe medicine work as one part of a larger soul journey.
• Reconnect with the deeper values of love, kindness, accountability, and interconnection as essential fruits of any authentic spiritual path.

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.

• Intimate live musical performances by East Forest
• Group co-creative musical process with East Forest
• Daily morning yoga and meditation practices
• Awe-inspiring time in nature
• Yoga
• Pranayama
• Meditation and group insight exercises
• Journaling
• Dance party

This workshop includes an additional $290 faculty tuition.

Healing ourselves is a journey of return. During this weekend workshop, you will be invited to learn about the practice and traditions of “curanderisma” (folk medicine) to bring forth awareness and attune us to our individual healing journeys. Through meditative and contemplative practices, touch, prayer, plants, and natural elements, this work honors a lineage of centuries-old wisdom to bring a sense of well-being to those seeking renewal.

This workshop will include:

• Optional morning movement and meditation practice.
• The Point of Origin, a session focused on the navel and abdominal massage for somatic release and greater self-connection.
• Limpia con humo (smudging) with plant and herb bundles to cleanse energies and clear ourselves.
• Empathic connection, an exploration of our intuition, revealing how to listen and connect with one another and ourselves, more deeply.
• Limpia con huevo (washing with an egg), a lesson sharing the practice of clearing and divining one’s energies with the use of an egg.
• Evening Winter Solstice meditation utilizing the elements of air and fire.

Through Margaret and Michael’s teachings, you’re invited to connect to your own innate healing potential and discover the ability to support others with love and intention.

Winter solstice is a time to reflect — to cultivate vitality and nurture ourselves. The dark days of winter are an opportune time to slow down and make space for self-care. This winter solstice yoga retreat will focus on cultivating inner awareness. By practicing in community, we build inner vitality and brightness to return home renewed.

During this retreat, we will combine three healing practices to  revitalize the body and calm the mind in the exquisite and rejuvenating natural environment of Esalen.

Together, we will focus our attention on being by using:

• Yoga to yoke body and mind for present-moment awareness.
• Meditation to cultivate concentration and empathy.
• Chanting with bhakti yoga, the practice of the heart.

The word solstice is derived from the Latin words sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still) because the seasonal movement of the sun’s path appears to come to a stop before reversing direction at the solstices. Moving into stillness, we can return to our lives refreshed and strengthened for the new year to come.  

All levels are welcome.

This workshop includes an additional $20 material fee.

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