Workshops

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, and infuse your practice with mythic codes that support your purpose in life.

Each day will offer asana, pranayama, 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 trance ritual (inductions to deepen your mythic experience)

Sianna and Masood will guide you 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!

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

Have you ever worked hard to make a change, only to find yourself slipping back into old habits? Want to supercharge your ability to stimulate behavior change in others when it comes to the issues you care about the most? Is it time to break free from old patterns and build your next chapter? This workshop is for people in the process of change and those who work as change agents with individuals, groups, and organizations and in society.

Through dialogue, experiential practice, and creative process, we will bridge the science of breakthroughs with indigenous, religious, spiritual, and secular models of transformation. You will:

• Learn what works and what doesn’t to inspire lasting change in yourself and others.
• Explore how peak experiences, a-ha! moments and awe can stimulate change.
• Examine how we and those we work with can get stuck or lost, and find ways to shake free from periods of inertia or patterns that prevent us from moving forward.
• Investigate the transformative potential of pain, hitting bottom, and post-traumatic growth.
• Delve into stories, symbols, and metaphors of transformation to guide your path.

Join us for this transformational exploration of our most deeply entrenched behaviors. Learn how to break free from the patterns that no longer serve you — and create new habits that will change your life.

Additional embodiment practices will be provided by Guest Faculty Member Nichol Chase.

Nichol’s yoga practice is informed by a vast and eclectic set of influences that blend invigorating flow with precise and insightful instruction and extensive study with a variety of innovative teachers. She is a Garrison Institute Fellow and a faculty member and teacher trainer for The Mazé Method.

Recommended Reading: Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life by Marilyn Schlitz, Cassandra Vieten, and Tina Amorok

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.              

Please note: This is an advanced class. Participants must have taken CFR® Week 1.

All knowledge / until it’s in the body / is still a rumour. — Anonymous

In a world that constantly pulls us away from ourselves, this is an invitation to return to the living intelligence of the body. Through movement, awareness, and curiosity, we’ll explore the physical architecture of embodiment: the foundation upon which all emotional, cognitive, relational and spiritual experience rests.

Over three days, we will re-member ourselves from the inside out. Open Floor practices teach us to include everything — the tense, the tired, the strong, and the shy — allowing each part of our experience to take its rightful place in motion. Held by this field of movement, familiar patterns begin to dissolve, giving way to what is spontaneous, fluid, and alive.

Through the subtle play of weight, direction, and contact, we can discover how even the smallest shift can open new pathways for expression and connection. What begins as physical movement becomes a field of awakening — a remembering that embodiment itself is intelligence.

Rooted in the essential structures of Open Floor practice, Bare Bones is an opportunity to place the extraordinary body at the center of experience — to inhabit life not as an idea, but as a lived, moving truth.

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: Living Deeply: The Art and Science of Transformation in Everyday Life by Marilyn Schiltz and Cassandra Vieten.

This workshop has an additional $30 of faculty tuition.

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

Imagine your relationship expressing the true depths of your love and commitment. If you are in love, this retreat is an opportunity to rise even higher in love. If you are in crisis, it is an opportunity for healing on the deepest level. We all carry some degree of negative programming from our past, and there are loving and effective ways to transform this programming into a positive and vibrant celebration of our connection.

During this 5 day workshop, we will naturally dive into a deeper learning experience with much more material than we can cover in a weekend. The extra time allows for a fuller integration of all the practices. Each couple will experience exercises and practices to do with each other, therapeutic coaching by the Vissells, the support of other couples, and time for sharing after each practice.

We will share a collection of tools for deeper appreciation and communication building, including healthy communication of feelings, our partner as a mirror, understanding and respecting each other’s differences, conflict resolution, healing past hurts, sexual wellness, inner child/inner parent, taking responsibility and developing a true inner connection. Take the opportunity to explore these tools with your partner during the workshop and learn to incorporate them into everyday life as you continue to improve your relationship at home. For more information, visit www.SharedHeart.org.

This workshop welcomes couples of all gender and sexual orientations.

When the ground falls out from underneath us, our instinct is usually to cling fast to the beliefs, stories, relationships, and identities that give us the greatest sense of stability and comfort. But what if we viewed these moments as wondrous opportunities instead of terrifying threats? Could the experience of groundlessness offer an unexpected freedom from the constant strain of molding the world to our liking?

In this workshop, we will explore how the loss of our bearings — an inevitable and recurrent fact of life we often intensely resist — can become a spontaneous and nourishing invitation. Together, we’ll ask how we might begin to meet these uncertain moments with curiosity rather than fear. What if we could find pleasure in the ongoing evolution of our identity and greet the natural transformation of our relationships with openness rather than resistance? What might it look like to exchange our grip on control, certainty, and rigid beliefs for qualities like surrender, adaptability, and emotional ease? And how might we come to experience the thrill of groundlessness — not as a crisis to be solved, but as a profound opportunity to live more honestly in rhythm with life’s unpredictability?

We’ll explore these questions by way of a dazzling and playful journey through contemporary film and popular culture, ancient and modern spiritual philosophies, and holistic medicine and psychology. From the Zen Buddhist axiom on resisting the poison of egoic-attachment to the injunction by American Philosopher Alan Watts to live in the present moment, from psychedelic therapy and the loosening of rigid thought patterns to the trippy identity-dissolving visual experiments of recent science fiction and fantasy films — all of these and more will be our teachers.

Together, we’ll tap into a wide range of psychological and spiritual resources — many already at our fingertips yet often overlooked or dismissed in our daily pursuit of holding it together. Because in the end, life offers no absolutes, only the thrill of groundlessness and the freedom that comes when we finally surrender to its flow.

Morning sessions will focus on open group discussion and embodied practices; evening sessions will include nightly film screenings followed by collective dialogue about what we’ve watched.

Recommended Reading: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer, Training in Compassion: Zen Teaching on the Practice of Lojong by Mark Fischer, The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety by Alan Watts, The Feminism of Uncertainty: A Gender Diary by Anne Snitow

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 us for an immersive five-day experience where ancient breath practices intersect with contemporary psychology to unlock the transformational power of your breath. For millennia, diverse yogic and spiritual traditions have harmonized breathwork with mindfulness to foster psychological healing and spiritual growth. Today, science validates the profound impact of breathwork and embodied awareness on stress management and immune resilience. Visionaries like Bessel van der Kolk champion the integration of breath, movement, awareness development, and educated touch for healing trauma.

On the sacred grounds of Esalen, under the expert guidance of the Hollomans, participants will have the opportunity to experience how breath can create altered states of consciousness, supporting deep psychological and spiritual exploration. Perry and Johanna use the powerful tool of Gestalt Inquiry to integrate these experiences into a deeper understanding of who we truly are. Participants will engage in various forms of breathwork, including extended two-to-three-hour breath journeys that open expanded states of consciousness and doorways to deeper dimensions of being. We will also begin our days with shorter, 50-minute “daily-dose” breath practices, perfect for at-home use.

Perry and Johanna will create a safe and supportive environment through Integrative Gestalt Practice and group sharing, ensuring that the insights gained from breathwork support your journey of healing and self-actualization.

In this workshop, you are invited to:

• Engage in two extended two to three hour Hologenic breath meditations to explore the unconscious mind and access altered states of consciousness, complemented by shorter, 50-minute “daily dose” breath practices for ongoing use at home.
• Learn the art of self-inquiry through Integrative Gestalt to cultivate “presence-based consciousness” in daily life.
• Apply breathwork and Integrative Gestalt techniques to address trauma and restore our innate capacities for self-organization and healing.

Embark on this transformative journey designed to nurture personal healing and spiritual growth. Learn essential skills that you can practice in your daily life to continue your journey of self-healing and spiritual development. Whether you’re a professional seeking to expand your practice through the power of breath or an individual committed to deepening self-inquiry, we welcome you to join us for this exploration into expanded realms of consciousness!

Recommended Reading: Breath by James Nestor

This workshop includes an additional $50 material fee.

Disclaimer: Esalen workshops do not involve the use, provision, or facilitation of any psychoactive substances. Breath practice can be catalyzing. Individuals with any significant medical concerns, including a history of stroke, seizures, or cardiac issues, should consult with their physician prior to participation. If you are pregnant, or think you might be, please consult your physician.

Esalen Massage is a moving meditation, a practice in presence and mindfulness, and a sensory healing art. When practiced with focused attention, massage comes from a deep, quiet place that resides inside each of us. This practice of meditation also helps access our parasympathetic nervous system, where healing originates. As we give a massage, this state of mind can permeate the field that practitioner and receiver create together.

In guided sessions, we will explore the practice of sitting meditation to prepare and quiet our minds, and the fundamentals of Esalen Massage as a meditative and self-reflective practice. Special focus will be on quality of touch, breath awareness, centering, and sensitive rapport between partners. The signature long strokes will support a sense of wholeness and integration.  Instruction in detailed work for the shoulders, hips, limbs and neck will contribute to the massage experience. There will be supervised practice daily as students exchange massages, with the support of their experienced teachers.

Beginners as well as seasoned practitioners will welcome this week to explore Esalen Massage and meditation, while enjoying the natural beauty of the Esalen grounds.

This workshop is especially useful for those in the helping and healing professions in working with their clients and partners.

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

Join master craftsman and musician Guillermo Martinez for an unforgettable journey into the sacred traditions of Native American instrument making and music. This immersive, hands-on workshop invites you to reconnect with the spirit of sound by crafting three profound instruments: a Native American bamboo flute, a 16″ elk-hide medicine drum, and a gourd crystal rattle.

Designed for beginners and enthusiasts alike, this workshop begins with an exploration of the Native American flute. You’ll not only learn to play this sacred instrument — with guidance on breath control, finger positioning, and melodic phrasing — but you will also craft your own Native American-style flute using bamboo. Through this experiential journey, you’ll discover the flute’s power to express emotion, foster introspection, and create a deep sense of connection.

Next, delve into the sacred art of drum making as you create a 16” elk-hide medicine drum — a profound instrument that serves as the foundation of a trilogy of sacred tools in Native traditions. Guillermo will share the cultural and spiritual significance of the medicine drum and its role as a vessel of healing, rhythm, and spiritual resonance. Using traditional techniques, you will stretch the elk hide and lace the drum by hand, crafting a one-of-a-kind instrument that carries your unique spirit and purpose.

Lastly, connect with the power of resonance as you create your own crystal rattle using ethically sourced gourds, crystals, and natural materials. By blending traditional techniques with your personal intention, you’ll craft a sacred tool for healing, ceremony, and transformation.

No prior musical experience is necessary — just an open heart and a willingness to listen deeply. All materials will be provided, including tools and components for flute, drum, and rattle making.

This workshop has a $225 material fee, which covers all materials for instrument making.

How would it feel to move into a meaningful relationship with the living world? Beyond a mere passive appreciation of nature? In the long arc of human history, people across all cultures and traditions have lived in communion with the lands they called home. Though this intrinsic connection has been largely severed in our modern age, the perspectives and practices common to our respective Earth-reverent ancestors are not lost. They lie dormant in the land, among the wild beings, and in our own animal bodies, waiting patiently to be remembered and renewed.

Immersed in the beauty of the Esselen tribal lands now known as Big Sur, we will humbly walk the trails in pursuit of reunion with the wild Earth. We will set out each morning for hikes amongst ancient redwoods, golden grasslands, and fragrant chaparral. Our community and teachers will include the plants, animals, stones, and all aspects of the wild landscape. Acknowledging Big Sur to be the ancestral territory of the Esselen tribe, we will endeavor to walk as reverent and respectful guests on sacred land.

Along the trail, we will cultivate innate capacities for presence and wonder, build ecological knowledge, and explore pathways of reciprocity and connection with the natural world. Pausing together to learn from the land, we will participate in some of the most potent work of our time: rejoining our great family on this wild Earth.

Hiking notes:

• Answers to frequently asked questions about the workshop can be found here.
• Various hiking abilities can be accommodated, bearing in mind that day hikes are three to six miles long with uneven and often steep terrain. If you have any questions about your ability to participate, please read the workshop FAQs or email info@wildtender.com.

This workshop includes an additional $60 of faculty tuition and $40 park fees.

Come home to your whole body instrument and rediscover your unique sound. For over 20 years, Isaac and Thorald Koren have been guiding people back to their voices through a groundbreaking, embodied approach that invites courage, freedom, and transformation.

They believe singing and speaking are radical acts of self-expression — and science agrees. Research shows that intentional vocal toning not only creates measurable vitality and joy but also empowers us to fully inhabit our bodies and enrich our experience of life.

During this weekend journey into your Embodied Voice, Isaac and Thorald will create a safe and supportive space for you to reclaim your power and reconnect with your body. Through simple, practical, and experiential practices — designed for anyone, no matter your musical or singing experience — you’ll explore the profound connection between your voice and your whole body instrument.

You’ll discover:

• Grounded freedom: Learn how to embody your voice and tap into the gravity of your body to feel alive and grounded in your unique sound.
• Healing through voice: Move through voice-related trauma and discover how to use your voice as a sacred tool for healing and self-expression.
• Everyday integration: Whether speaking at a conference, teaching a class, or singing for joy, these joyful practices will help you find ease, freedom, and authenticity in any vocal setting.

This is not about performing; it’s about reclaiming a real-time connection to your authentic voice and expressive self. The Korens’ unique method invites you to experience your voice as a distinct, fascinating, and powerful expression of who you are.

Beginners are encouraged. No musical or singing experience is needed — just your willingness to show up and explore.

Are you ready to sing, speak, and live more freely? The invitation is yours. Join Isaac and Thorald on this playful and soulful adventure to sound out who you are and what it feels like to truly be alive. Reconnect with the resonance of life and discover the music of your soul.

Rejuvenate the body and the mind with the deep relaxation that can be found through non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) and yoga nidra. Whether you need a break from constant pressure, are navigating a life transition, or wish to delve deeper into your mindfulness and meditation practice, this retreat will provide space and time for contemplation and reflection.

Non-sleep deep rest, a term coined by Stanford neuroscientist Andrew Huberman, refers to a waking state of deep relaxation with sustained awareness. Evidence suggests reaching this state through NSDR protocols, such as yoga nidra, can reset dopamine levels and provide numerous physical and mental health benefits — including better sleep and enhanced neuroplasticity.

Together, we’ll go on an inner journey to connect to both ourselves and our life paths — and emerge refreshed and deeply rested. This will be a large-group experience, and we will practice lying-down guided protocols throughout the weekend.

This is a beginner experiential course and does not require knowledge of yoga nidra theory or history. There will be lots of chances to journal and connect with one another as we enjoy the natural beauty of Esalen and our time together!

Recommended Reading: The Blind Spot Effect: How to Stop Missing What’s Right in Front of You by Kelly Boys

During this retreat, you’ll be invited to immerse yourself in your own innate wisdom to rediscover your freedom. Through Buddhist meditation, mindful movement, and time in nature, you’ll explore the spontaneous creative essence within you.

Surrounded by the beauty of the natural world, this guided retreat is an opportunity to slow down, listen deeply, and explore what it means to be truly present. By attuning to the elements and rhythms of the earth, you will have the space to cultivate a renewed sense of clarity, openness, and connection.

Explore key practices, including:

• Nature-inspired meditation: Engage in sitting practice, both indoors and outdoors, and allow the natural world to support your inner exploration.
• Mindful walking: Move with intention and cultivate presence through walking meditation, deepening your connection to the present moment.
• Elemental exploration: Experience guided meditations on the five elements (earth, water, fire, air, and space) to reflect on their qualities within you.
• Dharma teachings: Listen to talks that weave Buddhist wisdom with metaphors from nature for perspectives on the freedom already within you.
• Mindful movement: Explore gentle yoga and embodied awareness practices that support connection with the flowing, spontaneous nature of being.

During our time together, you will be able to:

• Explore ways to let go of habitual patterns and rest in innate awareness.
• Cultivate spaciousness, clarity, and ease.
• Tap into your natural creativity and intuition.
• Develop a deeper connection with the natural world and your own true nature.

Throughout the retreat, you’ll be given tools to continue nurturing this natural approach to liberation in your daily life. Join us for this transformative exploration of being natural.

This will be a week of fun, relaxation, and rejuvenation. Whatever your spiritual path or meditation experience, you are welcome just as you are. No prior experience is required. Seated and supine meditations will be offered. All are welcome.

In the words of Carl Jung, “People don’t have ideas. Ideas have people.”

This immersive week-long lab is for creators of all kinds—writers, inventors, filmmakers, musicians, and entrepreneurs—anyone who wishes to integrate their spirituality and creativity to tap into the deepest source of inspiration and higher intelligence as they bring guided work into the world. By breaking down this process of allowing into three stages (Creation, Manifestation, and Transmission), we will walk together along an impactful, sacred path designed for cohesion, connection, incubation, and transformation.

We live in a world of great distraction that doesn’t encourage deep listening. It is imperative to reverse those outer-facing sensory “searchlights” and go inwards. When you dive into the field of all possibilities, ideas surprisingly find you with a very specific intention. As you attune to that purpose, you gain discernment, direction, momentum, and flow.

Over the course of the week, you’ll face the “demons” that get in the way of meaningful work, including inertia, ego, outer blocks, and inner resistance. You will discover how obstacles can become allies in your process, helping you to foster organic, sustainable partnerships, growth, and co-creation.

In this workshop, you’ll be guided through:

• Nonlinear brainstorming to invite new and deeper relationships to ideas.
• “Hotseat Exercises” and small group breakouts to foster vulnerability and creative risk-taking
• Kinetic creation, such as yoga, meditation, and energy balancing, to increase attunement
• Radical pivots and adaptivity to meet obstacles with poise and intelligence.
• Case studies.

Employing timeless principles from Vedic philosophy, this class will use myriad modalities to deepen your inspiration, along with experiential exercises that will help you flow. You will do yoga, breathwork, meditation, and movement to tap into the matrix of your creative capacity. You’ll recalibrate intentions and goals. Every step of the lab will contain practical solutions to push through whatever is in your way.

The lab is open to creators of all levels. You can attend either as an “incubator” (with a specific project or idea that you want to workshop) or as an “observer/participant” (to glean knowledge about conscious creation by watching the process unfold and also participating). If you are planning to workshop a specific project, please tell us about it briefly in one paragraph, describing where you are with it, where you want to take it, and any obstacles (including internal) that are in your way. Kindly email us at: S2S@thisiscounterpointfilms.com.

Recommended Reading: The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke, The Creative Act, by Rick Rubin, and Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki

We live in a world richer than description. Language reveals only by leaving out, and when words fall short — when grief overtakes us, when beauty stills us — we do not fall silent. We reach. We shape. We art.

This workshop is an invitation into the space beyond language. Guided by The Alphabet of Everything, an approach to abstraction that requires deep attention, we will explore how every mark, shape, and gesture can be seen as part of a shared, primordial visual language — a living alphabet sourced from cracks in pavement, lichen on stone, diagrams, dreams, bones, shadows, and myth.

During this week of guided creative exploration, you will:

• Discover waxed powder painting, a meditative art form developed by the instructor that employs powdered pigments and beeswax to create richly layered, textured surfaces.
  
• Work with fieldwalks, somatic prompts, and imagination-rewilding practices—all designed to complement your studio work, loosen the grip of overthinking, and awaken fresh ways of perceiving.
• Engage with the consciousness continuum and explore how different states — attention, reverie, dream, silence, awe — can serve as portals to deeper knowledge.

Our shared space will be gentle, reverent, and non-performative — no prior art experience is needed. The focus will be on presence and process rather than critique or outcomes. The studio will act as a threshold, not a factory, especially supportive for those at personal or creative crossroads.

Anyone drawn to mystery, meaning, and the quiet hum beneath the visible — whether you identify as an artist, a seeker, or simply someone ready to listen more deeply — will find practices here that nourish creativity and restore intuitive capacity. Come with open hands and eyes. Come ready to shape what cannot be said.

This workshop includes an additional $20 material fee.

Peak experiences and personal revelations can be dazzling, but the deeper work of transformation is often overlooked. Many have touched something sacred through psychedelics, mystical states, grief, love, or profound life transitions, yet are left with an unfinished question: How do I live in service to what I’ve seen?

Rooted in Jungian psychology, contemplative practice, and symbolic imagination, the week is devoted to the art of integration as a lifelong discipline of becoming. We will explore the crucial difference between having an experience and being changed by one.

This workshop offers a grounded, initiatory path for those who understand that an experience alone is not enough. Ecstatic experiences are often treated as events to be had or moments to be repeated. In the West, we often do not understand how to let these extraordinary states of consciousness inform a way of life. This requires a framework for integration, one that teaches us how to metabolize these encounters symbolically, psychologically, and ethically, so they reshape how we live, love, and relate.

Together, we will explore how altered states — specifically those experienced through psychedelics — can become initiatory rather than episodic. We’ll examine how these experiences shape the nervous system, constellate archetypal material, and invite us into a more conscious relationship with imagination, psyche, and the sacred.

Participants are invited to:

• Learn how Jungian frameworks such as 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, ritual, and sacred conversation.
• Reflect on the risks of “spiritual inflation” and the necessity of humility, discipline, and reverence after awakening experiences.
• Explore the cultural myths surrounding psychedelics and reframe medicine work as one expression within a larger soul journey.
• Reconnect with the deeper values of love, kindness, accountability, and relational responsibility as the true fruits of spiritual work.

This course is not about chasing visions. It is about carrying them with integrity.

While this workshop explores the history and meaning of psychedelic and non-ordinary states, Esalen workshops do not involve the use, provision, or facilitation of any psychoactive substances.

Do we possess only the physical body we see, or are there multiple layers to our existence?

In the Tantric tradition, it is said we are not just one body but three: the physical body (what we see and touch), the subtle or energetic body (where thoughts, emotions, and prāṇa flow), and the causal body (the deepest layer of consciousness, often linked to karma and past lives). Each plays a distinct role in shaping how we live, feel, and respond to the world around us.

This workshop invites participants to explore these three bodies through the lens of Tantric practice and wisdom. The weekend blends historical context, contemporary research, guided meditation, visualization, and ritual to examine and experience how energy, including Kundalini energy — the coiled life force at the base of the spine — can move through and activate these layers. Together, we will immerse ourselves in the latest research on teachings and practices that challenge and reshape our traditional views of Tantra — its history, current relevance, and future potential.

Designed for both new and experienced practitioners, this workshop offers a grounded framework for understanding Tantra’s view of embodiment and how it can transform our inner and outer worlds.

Please Note: This workshop is NOT about “Tantric Sex” or experiencing enhanced sexual pleasures, although many discussions will address gender identity and sexuality.

Recommended Reading: The Serpent’s Tale: Kundalini, Yoga, and the History of an Experience, Sravana Borkataky-Varma and Anya Foxen

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.
• Barridas (plant sweepings), foraging and working with plant and herb bundles to cleanse energies.
• 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 moon meditation and flowering bathing.

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.

Our ancestors explored spirit-led movement to embody ecstatic states for generations. Whether as a form of celebration, mourning, or prayer, ecstatic dance has long served as sacred medicine, healing the hearts of individuals and communities. 

Join us on this sacred land for a transformative weekend of ecstatic dance ceremony — a journey to tap into the body’s ancestral wisdom, alchemize stored emotions, and liberate the spirit. Supported by live music provided by an award-winning ecstatic dance DJ, we’ll surrender to freeform movement, awaken our power, and manifest hope.

Together, we will explore:

• Ecstatic dance journeys created by a live DJ.
• Grounding prayers to root into the spirit and awaken ancestral wisdom.
• Partner games that spark joy, connection, and embodied trust.
• Mirroring and witnessing practices that deepen attunement and compassion.

Bloomurian, a world-renowned music producer and ecstatic dance DJ, will create genre-fluid soundscapes designed to support our heart-healing and spirit-awakening dance journeys.

Let’s cultivate collective empowerment and create a fully inclusive dance community rooted in presence, reverence, and prayer to groove with the divine as an offering of love. No dance experience is required.

Join us for a celebration of sound and light at the onset of summer, when sunlight stretches to its fullest. By honoring light in its many forms — sunlight, soul light, and vibrational light — this experiential retreat invites you to align with the light found within and through seven alchemy sound journeys, designed to support deep relaxation, gentle re-patterning of the nervous system, and embodied presence.

Composed with a dynamic collection of alchemy crystal bowls — instruments of crystalline intelligence — these alchemical sound journeys can help clear and activate your energy centers (chakras). As we journey from root to crown, you’ll receive a golden thread symbolizing the sushumna nadi, your body’s central pathway of light. Day by day, you’ll mark this thread with colors, symbols, or words that arise to create a sacred artifact — a visual map of the week’s unfolding.

Each day includes creative practices, authentic movement, nature immersion, and teachings to restore connection to Self and source. Big Sur elder Penny Vieregge will join us midweek to share the mystical poetry of Hafiz and awaken your heart chakra.

You will have the opportunity to:

• Experience how sacred sound can help release chronic tension, clear energetic stagnation, and open pathways to clarity and inspiration.
• Learn the history and science of sound healing, with an opportunity to play the alchemy crystal bowls and experience their resonance firsthand.
• Co-create a collective Flower of Life mandala, woven with individual golden threads into a living pattern of light.

Held within Esalen’s wild beauty, where the land, ocean, mineral hot springs, and towering trees invite deep renewal, this solstice retreat offers space to soften, realign, and reconnect with what matters most.

The Summer Solstice is the moment when light lingers longest — a turning point of illumination, expansion, and renewal. Just after the longest day of the year, we’ll gather on the wild cliffs of Esalen to remember this truth: The spark of your soul has never gone out. It may have flickered through the seasons of your life, but the ember remains — steady, luminous, and ready to rise.

Soulstice Soulfire is a full-body creative awakening with yoga, dance, chakra activation, sound, and ritual that both ignites and nourishes your inner fire. These practices awaken your inner light and reconnect you with the sacred healing intelligence that lives within your body.

Throughout the week, you’ll engage in:

• Dynamic somatic movement, including daily yoga practices, Kundalini kriyas, and transformational dance experiences such as Deep Exhale.
• Immersive musical guidance, with every session powered by Marques Wyatt’s live DJ soundscapes, crafted to uplift, energize, and deepen your movement.
• Supportive sonic healing, including crystal alchemy bowls integrated into yin, soma, and meditation practices for grounding, deep restoration, and amplifying your solstice vision.
• Chakra and subtle-body teachings to explore the chakras as seven flames of consciousness and to dissolve the malas, the veils that obscure inner light.
• Ritual and reflections, including Summer Solstice Vision Setting, guided journaling, contemplation, and simple practices you can bring into your daily life.
• An evening sound journey at the Esalen baths, where movement yields to stillness and sound opens portals of release, clarity, and renewal.

Allow a continuous sonic field — Marques’ hypnotic soundscapes paired with Cristi’s bowls — to carry you through activation, integration, and awakening.

This retreat welcomes all levels and all bodies. Come as you are; leave more awake, more alive, and more connected to the light within. By the end of our time together, you are invited to awaken and balance your chakra energy; reclaim your vitality, clarity, and creative flow; experience deeper embodiment, expression, and self-trust; feel nourished, inspired, and connected to inner illumination; and return home with an inner fire that sets your soul alight, along with simple, powerful tools to sustain that illumination.

Recommended Reading: Chakra Rituals by Cristi Christensen

Family photographs carry stories, both spoken and unspoken, about where we come from and who we have become. In this experiential workshop, participants will use personal family photos as catalysts for reflection, emotional awareness, and a deeper understanding of identity.

Through guided exercises, gentle inquiry, and shared witnessing, you will explore:

• The emotional signatures carried in family images.
• Patterns of belonging, loss, resilience, and connection.
• How family roles are expressed visually.
• The stories we inherited and the ones we are ready to update.
• Moments of beauty, ambiguity, and mystery that live in our lineage.

In this workshop, you’ll have the opportunity to gain new insights, renewed compassion for your family system, and an expanded sense of your own narrative. No artistic or Gestalt experience is required.