Workshops

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

In CFR® Week 1, you reorganized the stranger you once called “self” to become more objective, compassionate, curious, and hopeful, changing how you live with yourself and others.

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

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

Prerequisite: This workshop is designed for advanced (Level 2) students. Participants must have completed either Cortical Field Reeducation®: Accessing the Genius Within workshop at Esalen or a CFR® Level 1 training.

Recommended Reading: The Elusive Obvious by Moshe Feldenkrais, The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van de Kolk, Somatics by Thomas Hanna and The Biology of Trauma by Amie Apigianaa

Continuing education credit is available for Physical Therapists who are licensed in CA and TX. Note that TX has reciprocity with the following states: AL, AK, AZ, AR, CO, CT,  FL, ID, IN, KY, MA , MI, MS, MO, MT, NH, NC, ND, OR, RI, SD, VT, WA. Please check with your state board to confirm.. Please see the faculty during your first workshop session for more information. OR email faculty member Melissa Krikorian info@thenexusway.com

This workshop includes $75 of additional faculty tuition.

Gather together for a week of soul nourishment, herbal magic, and the blessing of spring water. The season of spring is a time of cleansing, embodiment, and joy, refreshing us with the beauty of flowing streams and a natural world in bloom.

Explore the magical upliftment of seasonal celebrations Imbolc and Beltane, in relation to animistic herbal clearing practices from around the world. You will learn, practice, and share herbal clearing rituals, including herbal poultice bodywork, herbal sweeping, water blessing and flower bathing, to brighten and uplift your spirit.

Together, we will experience:

• Rituals of renewal, energy clearing, and sound healing in our spring waters.
• A deep dive into herbal bodywork practices, for yourself and the ones you love.
• Harvesting from the garden and hands-on herbcraft.
• An introduction to herbal poultice bodywork and floral energy work.
• A pilgrimage into the Esalen canyon, source of the sacred waters.
• Folklore and ritual honoring of the fertile spring season, from Imbolk to Beltaine.  

This workshop is for anyone wanting to go deeper into land-based, embodied healing in harmony with the seasons, based on Micha’s beloved Herbal Clearing Ritual and Esalen Alternative Healing Arts.

The herbal bodywork we will share is simple yet profound. No bodywork experience is necessary. The intention is for you to take these self-care skills home and share with your family and loved ones. Healing professionals are welcome and may enjoy this experience as natural inspiration and communal renewal.

Come as you are, open to refilling the inner wellspring.

This workshop includes an additional $25 material fee.

This interactive workshop is designed to ignite your creativity and foster connections through the transformative power of improvisation, play, and imagination. Embark on a captivating journey in which science and spontaneity collide, delve into the world of improvisation, and discover its transformative impacts on the brain.

Find out how engaging in playful activities can stimulate the neural pathways linked to flow, enhance cognitive flexibility, and build emotional resilience. Through scientifically grounded interactive exercises, you’ll learn how improv can shape your mindset and improve your well-being.

Together, we’ll experience the delight of collaborative exploration and engage in partner exercises and group games. You’ll forge meaningful connections with fellow participants as you create spontaneous stories and navigate laughter-filled challenges. Through an unforgettable blend of science, creativity, and connection, we will unleash the imagination and welcome the unexpected with open arms!

Whether you’re new to improv or a seasoned performer, our workshop provides an open and encouraging space for exploration, learning, and growth. Join us for this adventure of self-discovery through play that will leave you feeling inspired, energized, and ready to embrace change.

Recommended Reading: Play by Stuart Brown, Truth in Comedy: The Manual of Improvisation by Charna Halpern, Del Close and Kim Johnson and This Is the Voice by John Colapinto

This workshop includes an additional $15 materials fee.

The myths that built this world — the ones that tell us who we are, what we’re worthy of, and what’s possible — are losing their hold, and the body knows it. Long before the mind catches up, the body has been carrying the weight of these stories: in the armor we wear, the patterns we embody, and the creativity we withhold. The good news is that what was trained into the body can be gently released.

This weekend is an invitation to go beyond the veil and begin the ancient, necessary work of returning to yourself. Through Movement for the Movement (MVMT), a practice of dance, improvisational movement, ritual, play, and reflection, we’ll sense where the old stories live in us and where freedom is already trying to emerge.

Like a wave, the weekend builds, breaks, and settles, moving through five elements:

• Earth: the ground we were given. We feel for the stories about who belongs and who leads that live in our posture, and begin to loosen their grip.
• Fire: the urgency and control that have run our inner lives. We burn off what no longer serves and reclaim that heat as creativity and power.
• Water: what we’ve been holding. We let grief, tenderness, and everything we were taught to keep contained move again.
• Wind: breath and voice. We recover the wisdom, histories, and ways of knowing that the dominant culture taught us to keep quiet.
• Ether: the space between us, where a different story unfolds. This is the part none of us can do alone.

Come as you are, and leave with a practice you can take home and keep moving with. This is the work that makes the other work possible, for anyone who senses the world will not change until we do.

The body is a portal to the numinous dimensions of the soul’s life. It can lead us to healing and wholeness far beyond simple relief of traumatic symptoms — and to increased access to our feelings and a renewed sense of soulful aliveness. Jungian and depth psychology orient to the deepest currents of the soul, where dreams and life experiences take on cohesive wisdom and unfold in a way that guides the individual. However, developmental wounds, particularly those of a traumatic nature, can interrupt the psyche’s innate thrust toward wholeness.

In this workshop, we will work with authentic movement and other somatic practices grounded in the perspective of depth psychology to learn and experience how the body can serve as a gateway to realign with those innate healing currents.

Our ancestors understood that our dreams and visions often speak not just to the individual but to the community as well. In this realm, which Jung referred to as the “Spirit of the Depths,” we can reconnect with the creative unconscious for insights that remain elusive when caught up in the groupthink typical of the “Spirit of the Times.” We will practice both indoors and outdoors, surrounded by the stunning beauty of the natural world, where the inner meets the outer, to engage with these transformative energies as they emerge.

This workshop is oriented toward therapists interested in learning how to access the somatic underpinnings of psychic life and those committed to weaving the body’s way of knowing with life’s unfolding.

10 CE credits pending

Recommended reading: Holifield, B. (2025). Being with the Body in Depth Psychotherapy: Development, Trauma, and Transformation in the Unspoken Realm., Menakem, Resmaa (2017) My Grandmother’s Hands. Las Vegas, Nevada: Central Recovery Press.

Dance is one of the world’s most ancient transformative rituals. From the whirling dervish to the Shamans, the waltz to the rave, we dance for joy, healing, and connection — guided by wisdom that transcends the thinking brain.

This five-day retreat is an invitation to come together to awaken the forgotten wild, ignite your creativity, and dance our way to wholeness. Through an alchemical combination of movement, nature, and sound healing, we’ll reconnect our bodies and minds,  digest our feelings and emotions, and open ourselves to the wisdom of our hearts. Most of all, we’ll expand our vision to include a bigger perspective on our spiritual and human interconnectedness.

The practices we’ll cultivate this week will help you:

• Release fear, inhibition, and judgment.
• Trust your body’s innate wisdom to guide you.
• Revive a sluggish nervous system.
• Clear energetic blockages.
• Step into your uniqueness and self-expression with confidence.

Allow yourself to be nourished by this sacred land, the hot spring waters, the time we share together, and the friends you’ll make. Experience the beauty, awe, and wonder of being alive so you may return home rejuvenated and inspired to continue walking your unique life path.

This workshop includes an additional $55 faculty tuition.

So much energy goes into trying to change. We leave relationships, go to therapy, break down, begin again. Sometimes we seek change or make promises about who we will become. Other times, life changes us without our permission.

But how do people actually change? What role do the stories we tell about ourselves play? And what can our bodies reveal that our stories can’t?

This experiential, open-hearted workshop is for anyone on a transformative journey — or thinking of beginning one. We’ll explore change in two ways: through the narratives we use to make sense of our beliefs and identities, and by paying closer attention to our bodies and nervous systems. Though the stories we tell about ourselves can change how we live, our bodies may hold on to old habits, fears, and ways of responding long after we think we’ve changed. And sometimes the body registers change before we can put it into words.

You will be guided through writing, breathwork and meditation, conversations in small groups, and time on Esalen’s extraordinary grounds, where generations of seekers have explored new possibilities.

Together, we’ll explore personal change at a time when the world seems to be changing faster than we can absorb. What has already shifted for you, and what remains? What do you still hope might change about yourself, and what might need to be accepted or integrated instead? And how do we change ourselves when the structures, identities, and assumptions we’ve built our lives around no longer feel fixed?

Explore these questions with curiosity and a sense of possibility — and leave with more room, and more tools, for whatever comes next.

Recommended Reading: You’ve Changed: The Promise and Price of Self-Transformation by Benoit Denizet-Lewis

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 week, we will use dyads, repeating questions and open seat sessions designed to facilitate communication and understanding.

Recommended reading: Gestalt Therapy: The Basics by Dave Mann

Come with an open mind and an open heart, and allow consciousness to meet you where you are.

Across cultures and throughout history, humans have reported subtle perceptual capacities — deep intuition, nonlocal connections, and heightened sensitivity to energy and emotion — that extend beyond ordinary awareness. While such experiences were once considered natural aspects of being human, modern education and cultural conditioning have narrowed our idea of perception, privileging only what can be measured and easily explained. In the process, many people may have lost access to dimensions of awareness that remain quietly present within them.

Drawing on decades of clinical work, interdisciplinary research, and personal exploration, this experiential approach to expanded consciousness emphasizes embodiment, emotional coherence, and nervous-system regulation. Rather than relying on mental effort or concentration, participants are guided to attune deeply to body, breath, sensation, feeling, and heart, forming an integrated Body–Feeling–Mind field.

Within this unified field of awareness, intuitive and so-called “extra-ordinary” perceptions can arise spontaneously — not as special abilities to be forced or performed, but as natural expressions of coherence, presence, and connection. This workshop does not ask participants to adopt any particular belief system; instead, it invites direct experience, self-inquiry, and integration.

Through guided practices, dialogue, and gentle somatic exploration, we’ll explore how expanded awareness can be accessed safely and meaningfully — and how it may be integrated into everyday life, relationships, creativity, and service. Join us for a transformative weekend of embodied exploration, community, and remembrance of the vast potential of human consciousness.

Recommended reading: The ESP Enigma – The Scientific Case for Psychic Phenomena by Diane Hennacy Powell;  Space, Time and Beyond by Bob Toben

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

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

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

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

Please Note: Due to Big Sur’s rugged terrain, this workshop is best suited to participants with strong hiking fitness and recent experience on moderately strenuous trails. Expect 4–8 mile day hikes with elevation gain and loss on uneven, occasionally steep terrain. These are neither fast-paced, summit-driven treks nor leisurely walks. They balance physical challenge with unhurried time in nature, inner exploration, and opportunities to pause, listen, and rest in quiet reflection.

More information and a waiver will be sent upon registration. For an equipment list and frequently asked questions about Steven’s workshops, visit FAQs.

Recommended reading: The Practice of the Wild by Gary Snyder

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

The spring stars and sun-sparkled ocean waves—with glimpses of whale flumes—form a striking backdrop for exploring the renowned Esalen® Massage at its place of origin. This workshop offers an introduction to the foundational concepts and flow of the Esalen approach through a blend of experiential exercises, lecture-demonstrations, guided hands-on practice, and personal reflection.

Participants engage with key elements found in meaningful massage experiences: breath awareness, mindful centering, body mechanics, quality of touch, rapport, and integration. Long, flowing strokes and gentle stretches—hallmarks of Esalen bodywork—will be explored, alongside methods that may support the release of physical tension through an approach that emphasizes working with, rather than on, the body.

The workshop is open to a range of experience levels, from those encountering bodywork for the first time to professionals seeking fresh perspectives. Instruction includes at-the-table guidance, group discussion, and opportunities for participants to share and reflect on their own experiences.

The practice of Esalen Massage invites connection with one’s sense of wholeness and wonder. Teaching tools include music, charts, massage tables, and exercises designed to awaken the senses. The healing waters of the hot springs and the natural beauty of the Esalen grounds offer a supportive context for this immersive experience.

All levels of experience are welcome.

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

We are going to write. We are going to gather and fill our notebooks with prose, poetry, and possibility.

The moment we dare to show up on a blank page, something begins to shift. Through writing, we can explore our pain and fear, reclaim our energy, and give voice to the truths we carry. The page becomes a reflection of our inner lives and an invitation to imagine what is possible.

Throughout our days together, poetry, prose, and thoughtful prompts will offer inspiration for exploration and discovery. We will make room for curiosity, surprise, and the unexpected ways words can lead us somewhere new.

We will explore the beauty of poetry, but we will write in all manner of forms. There is no need to write poetry this week. Write anything and everything. You will have the space, time, and inspiration to put your heart on the page, follow your own rhythms, and discover what is waiting to be written.

At times, we will share our work with one another, discovering the power of being witnessed and of hearing our own words spoken aloud. When we give voice to something about ourselves or our world, we create space for change, release, and new possibilities to take shape.

Esalen itself is a nature poem. Surrounded by a landscape that invites us to slow down, listen, and notice, we will have the opportunity to draw inspiration from the natural world as well as from our own inner landscapes.

Join us for a week of nourishing, deep-diving days devoted to writing, reflection, connection, and the freedom to discover what words can open within us.

Recommended Reading: Everyday Radiance: 365 Zodiac-Inspired Prompts for Self-Care and Self-Renewal by Heidi Rose Robbins, Zodiac Love Letters by Heidi Rose Robbins, Wild Compassion by Heidi Rose Robbins and This Beckoning Ceaseless Beauty by Heidi Rose Robbins

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

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

Together, we’ll explore the alchemical practices of:

• Asana (physical yoga postures)
• Pranayama (breathing techniques)
• Mantra (healing sound vibration)
• Mudra (energy seals created by the hands)
• Meditation (expanded states of awareness)
• Mythic codes (stories, legends, and lore of yoga)
• Hypnotic journeys (hypnosis to rewire and reprogram your subconscious mind)

You will be guided on this sacred pilgrimage with five thematic journeys:

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

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

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

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

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

“Once upon a time…” is how it all begins. From there, let your imagination soar and awaken your quest in a whole new way!

Mythic Yoga Flow® retreat includes 20 CEUs certified by Yoga Alliance. See workshop faculty for more details.

We are living in a time when many of us are hungry for the sacred, yet no longer find ourselves at home within the boundaries of a single religious tradition. We may long for a more direct relationship with the divine — one that can meet us in the beauty, heartbreak, relationships, and ordinary moments of our lives.

Join interspiritual author and teacher Mirabai Starr for an exploration of the interconnected wisdom at the heart of all religious and spiritual traditions and reignite the sacred dimensions of your own life.

Follow the streams of mystical longing and care for creation through readings from the ecstatic poetry of the mystics —  investigating sacred texts of the world’s religions, sitting in contemplative silence, chanting the names of the divine in an array of languages, and engaging in deep dialogue through conversation and writing.

Discover the unifying teachings and experience the heart-opening practices that carry us beyond an intellectual understanding of humanity’s many spiritual paths to the place where we are transformed by the love at their common core.

Whether you belong to a particular faith tradition, find nourishment in many, or consider yourself spiritual but not religious, you are welcome.

The mystic’s way is not reserved for saints and sages. It is a path available to each of us — and one we don’t need to walk alone.

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

Creating a profound connection to nature begins with observing and understanding the plants surrounding us, awakening to our symbiotic relationship with them. This workshop offers an opportunity to cultivate an intimate bond with a diverse selection of plants thriving in the Esalen landscape, learning their unique characteristics, stories, and the wisdom they impart. Together, we will embark on a journey to not only identify and appreciate these plants but to honor them through art by extracting their pigments and experiencing their colors in a new light.

Guided by the spirit of place, we will gather plants to create a color palette that reflects the soul of coastal California, immersing ourselves in the earthy, ocean-washed hues that define the land. This living palette will serve as both a tribute to and a recreation of Esalen’s essence, which we will channel into plein air painting — “in the open air” — around the Institute to be fully present in our surroundings and their subtle expressions. Each of the paintings will be alive with their botanical inks, changing and transforming to create a remembrance of the passage of time as they darken. As we gather plant materials for our inks, we will also gather a variety of plant material to make our unique handmade natural brushes.

Each participant will be provided with high-quality materials, including multiple sizes of watercolor paper, a custom handmade porcelain palette, and ink bottles, completing their personal Esalen ink kit. This kit will become a cherished tool for you to bring the beauty and spirit of the natural world into your own art practice, enabling you to deepen your connection to both the Esalen environment and the plants that surround you in your own life. Join us on this transformative journey and embrace a holistic and sustainable practice of creativity, nature, and mindful expression.

While all supplies will be provided, participants may want to bring their favorite notebook/sketchbook, comfortable shoes for foraging, small glass jars for additional ink storage (optional—4 small bottles will be provided), and a favorite brush (optional—brushes will be provided and also made in class).

This workshop includes an additional $50 of material fees.

Hapé, a sacred tobacco preparation, has been used by Indigenous peoples across the Amazon as a medicine for clarity, presence, and connection for centuries. Blown gently into the nostrils, this finely ground blend of tobacco leaves and sacred ashes activates the senses in a unique way, opening inner vision and anchoring attention in the present moment. Traditionally used in ceremony, Hapé invites stillness, deepens awareness, and connects practitioners to both their inner landscape and the living forest.

Together, we will take part in a hands-on preparation of Hapé itself for an embodied practice that honors its lineage while creating a shared field of reverence. In preparing Hapé together, participants directly encounter the care, ritual, and mindfulness that go into its making, deepening our relationship to the medicine before it is received. Once prepared, we will enter into ceremony to experience Hapé as a mindfulness tool — to explore how this ancestral medicine can enhance meditation, sharpen presence, and open pathways of reverence, reciprocity, and inner reflection.

As interest in mindfulness and plant medicines grows in the Global North, this is a rare opportunity to build a bridge between ancient contemplative traditions and modern practices of meditation.

Participants will:

• Discover the cultural, ethical, and spiritual dimensions of Hapé within Indigenous traditions.
• Identify best practices for integrating Hapé mindfully and respectfully into diverse contexts.
• Experience Hapé within a contemplative framework designed to deepen meditation and self-awareness.
• Prepare Hapé using traditional methods, guided by cultural sensitivity and embodied learning.
• Participate in a Hapé ceremony.

This is an invitation to experience an ancient practice through a new lens — one that connects forest wisdom and contemporary contemplative life.

This workshop includes a $25 materials fee.

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.

The Artist lives within everyone! Art can be made out of just about anything! It’s a time to leave the critic behind and allow oneself to play, nourish, and replenish the creative spirit. It’s also a time to enjoy the company and camaraderie of like-minded peers. Now is your time to discover the joys of art based on community and collaboration and to find out how meaningful and grand a shared, creative experience can be.

In this transformative workshop, we will use repurposed material in a whole new context of re-creation.

Come experiment with a vast array of reused materials to create mixed-media mosaics, sculptures, and collages. There will be an assortment of recycled glass, metals, wood, plastics, paper, photographs, fabrics, and old artifacts — bits and pieces of the past and present.

In a beautiful, nurturing, supportive setting, we will reclaim and shape society’s scraps and discarded objects into re-imagined meaning. Find your own inner voice of expression as you delve into the process of creating art out of different materials and mediums,  and learn new skills.

Not only will you have the opportunity to explore your own expression and immerse yourself in solo creations, but we will also engage in a collaborative group project to enter the whimsical world of community-oriented magic and play.

There is a transformative joy that comes from engaging with others in the artistic process. It opens doors unseen and forges deeper bonds between people. This exciting, shared experience teaches us how beautiful it is to break down barriers and collaborate.

This workshop is geared toward anyone with the desire to create. From the beginner to the advanced, this is a time to explore new possibilities. Together, we will:

• Explore our own creativity and immerse ourselves in solo artistic expression.
• Engage in a collaborative group project and enter the whimsical world of community-oriented magic and play.
• Leave the critic behind and allow ourselves to play, nourish, and replenish the creative spirit.
• Discover the joys of art based on community and collaboration and how meaningful and grand a shared experience can be.

If there are any recycled materials, special mementos, poems, or photos you would like to bring and include in our creations, please feel free!

This workshop includes an additional $115 for workshop materials.

Rediscover the magic of life through the miracle of conscious movement and the healing power of embodied presence. Drop into your heart, reconnect with what most matters to you, and feel alive again in your messy, mysterious, and magnificent human body.

If you have ever danced with awareness, you know its power to unlock the hidden places within — a shortcut faster than years of talk therapy. In its elegant way, movement lets us be with what needs attention and love inside us.

During our week together, using the practice of Soul Motion® and body-based explorations of Gestalt, we will:

• Meet each day with movement, breath, and sensory awareness.
• Explore our inner landscape through solo and guided movement journeys.
• Connect deeply with others in paired- and small-group practices to be seen and heard.
• Move outdoors, drawing presence and inspiration from nature.
• Reflect and integrate through circles of sharing and silence.
• Include time for teaching and discussion, though most of the program is experiential.

Inspired by a wide range of music and the great sound of silence, supported by the elemental presence of nature, we will travel together across the landscapes of relating — to self, other, the world, and the great  Mystery that we also are.

In the process of waking up together — sometimes glorious, sometimes clumsy — we will deepen our skills for empathy and relational fluidity and find ourselves held in effortless belonging.

Zuza Engler is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) to sponsor continuing education programs for LMFT, LCSW, and LPCC. This workshop offers 18 CE credits for therapists and social workers. Please email angel@zuzaengler.com for more details about CE credits. There will be a $25 fee for the certificate.

Recommended Reading: Body Process: A Gestalt Approach to Working with the Body in Psychotherapy by James Kepner, Spirituality of the Body: Bioenergetics for Grace and Harmony by Alexander Lowen and The Wisdom of No Escape and the Path of Loving-Kindness by Pema Chödrön

What becomes possible when we slow down, open our senses, and meet the living world with our full attention?

On Esalen’s spectacular Big Sur coast, this immersive, nature-based mindfulness workshop invites you to meditate amid the beauty and aliveness of the natural world. Through sensory awareness and outdoor meditation practices, we will cultivate curiosity, connection, and love, rediscovering our capacity for presence and belonging in an increasingly digital world.

During our time together, you will:

• Learn to meditate outdoors, developing skills to bring mindful attention to your experience in nature.
• Explore sensory awareness practices that deepen attunement, receptivity, and connection with the living world.
• Engage in heart-opening meditations that nurture love and care for the Earth and all life.
• Practice looking to nature as a teacher and refuge, discovering opportunities for insight, renewal, and a deeper sense of belonging.
• Engage in interactive exercises that support a fun, creative exploration of the natural world.

Come prepared for moments of awe, mystery, and unexpected delight as you discover nature’s capacity to inspire and awaken — and practices you can carry into everyday life.

Recommended Reading: Awake in the Wild: Mindfulness in Nature as a Path of Self-discovery and A Field Guide to Nature Meditation: 52 Mindfulness Practices for Joy, Wisdom, and Wonder by Mark Coleman

Note: This workshop will take place outdoors, and the weather in Big Sur can change throughout the day. Please bring layers and/or a blanket for use during the workshop.

This workshop includes an additional faculty tuition.

What innate potential lies dormant within you? What dreams are yearning to be expressed? What does it look like to be fully alive, live an integrated and embodied life, and become an engaged part of the larger ecosystem of nature and community? It’s time to meet your future self and find out.

This workshop focuses on creating a robust, loving relationship with the best future version of you — the one who can help you pivot the direction of your life toward your heart’s vision. We will learn how to communicate with and embody that future self while mapping out the new terrain of your life in a process we call “futuremaking.” Using the sciences of imagination, transformation, and hope, you’ll chart a course for your next chapter.

We will engage in futuremaking experiences, including talks to spark insights; small and large group discussions to ground learning; guided imagery, meditation, and creative processes to connect you with your deeper wisdom; and movement and deep engagement with the beauty of Esalen to renew your spirit.

As we weave cutting-edge science with deep experiential practices and rich connection with kindred spirits, you’ll move forward — not back to “normal” or even a “new normal” — but ahead into a new extraordinary. Your future self is calling for you!

Recommended Reading: Imagine That: Transform How Your Think, Feel and Live with the Science of Imagination (Simon Element, 2026) by Cassandra Vieten & Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life by Marilyn Schiltz, Cassandra Vieten, and Tina Amorok

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

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

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

This workshop includes an additional $30 material fee.

What if peace in the world can be nourished by the peace we cultivate within?

Imagine five days devoted to softening the tensions you carry, quieting the noise of everyday life, and remembering the joy of being fully alive.

Gathering on Memorial Day, we honor those who have lost their lives in war while turning toward a more intimate inquiry: How might we transform our inner struggles into compassion, harmony, and peace?

As the days lengthen toward the summer solstice, immerse yourself in seven extraordinary sound journeys with alchemy crystal singing bowls, whose shimmering harmonics invite deep relaxation, embodied presence, and a renewed connection to the light within.

Through Sound Gnosis — from the Greek gnosis, meaning direct, experiential knowing — we explore sound as a gateway beyond habitual thinking and conditioned beliefs. In these spacious states of awareness, we may glimpse new possibilities for living with greater freedom, love, and joy.

Throughout our time together, you will:

• Journey through the seven chakras with sound, movement, mantra, and meditation, exploring the relationship between body, mind, and spirit.
• Discover the science and mystery of resonance, entrainment, and consciousness, with an opportunity to play the alchemy singing bowls yourself.
• Awaken creativity and connection through nature immersion, heartfelt reflection, and shared experiences of beauty and wonder.
• Weave your own golden thread of insight into a collective Flower of Life mandala — a luminous expression of our interconnectedness.

Beloved Big Sur elder Damaris will join us for an intimate sharing of the mystical poetry of Hafiz.

Held within Esalen’s breathtaking landscape of ocean, mineral hot springs, and towering trees, we invite you to return home to yourself and carry the light of greater peace, love, and possibility into the world.

No prior experience with sound or movement is needed.

This is used as a workaround for an issue with Finsweet pagination, where the last 2-3 workshops in the CMS don't get displayed.

This is used as a workaround for an issue with Finsweet pagination, where the last 2-3 workshops in the CMS don't get displayed.