Esalen Video Shorts

What stories about masculinity have we inherited? Which ones still serve us, and what might become possible when we bring those questions into the body? Join Douglas Drummond, with guest musicians Sanga of the Valley and Nick Ayers, for five days of movement, honest self-reflection, and connection. Through 5Rhythms® practice, guided somatic inquiry, shared witnessing, and live and DJed music, participants will explore vulnerability, courage, and presence in the company of other men.

Rod Stryker’s new program, Luminous Coherence: Ancient Wisdom, Modern Science, Lasting Freedom, invites you into a state of unified awareness where old patterns soften and the deeper self comes into view. Blending tantric practice with modern neuroscience, this workshop offers a rare chance to rediscover coherence, intuition, and the possibility of real transformation.

Join Fletcher Tucker to meaningfully engage with the lore and lives of pan-culturally significant plants and the Big Sur wilderness. In both October's While the Veil Is Thin: Autumn Ritual With Land, Ancestry, and Spirit⁠ with Micha Merrick and November's The Plants Who Know Us: Traditions of Botanical Kinship with Ariel Johnson, you will explore your foundational belonging to the Earth, and get in touch with a deeper substrate of human experience — one in which our fundamental entanglement with all life is felt and encountered. Approaching the landscape as teacher and guide, you will engage with the natural world in an embodied ecological context and explore the mythological and psycho-spiritual dimensions of land connectedness.

In his November, Hawah Kasat leads a weekend exploring pranayama, the ancient yogic practice of working with the breath to regulate the nervous system, steady the mind, deepen attention, and open a pathway into meditation. Drawing from the Sivananda, Iyengar, and Ashtanga yoga traditions, the workshop moves between ancient philosophy and modern science, with practices including alternate nostril breathing, breath retention, gentle movement, and meditation.

How can those of us who yearn without belief or ritual find our way? Some of us have experienced our worlds cracked open with dreams, visions, presences, or moments of mystical union and may not know how to make sense of what has happened. Many of us have lost our connection to a mainstream faith, but together we are capable of more deeply understanding the feeling of loss and awe, while still imagining the possibility of a way forward.

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In his workshop, Finn Deerhart invites queer men to explore sexuality, gender, intimacy, shame, pleasure, and liberation from the inside out. Through guided practices, communal reflection, breath, movement, roleplay, and consensual touch, participants will consider questions that rarely receive enough space, such as: How much of my desire is truly mine? Who am I when I stop trying to be the “right” kind of man? What would it feel like to inhabit my sexuality without apology or choreography?