Our workshops are designed to support you in the challenging work of self exploration, in partnership with some of the leading minds of the day. Join us in discovering the next frontiers of individual and societal transformation.
Interested in a scholarship?
Learn MoreYou are what you practice. Or, as the Buddha said, “Whatever you frequently reflect and ponder upon, that becomes the inclination of your mind.”
This essential observation is examined from our intertwined perspectives on contemplative practice, brain science, and music. Through interactive inquiries and guided meditations, Nikki Mirghafori will lead a journey into mindfulness and compassion cultivation. Neuroscientist Clifford Saron will take us on a voyage of discovery into the mysteries of the brain and neuroplasticity. San Francisco Symphony cellist Barbara Bogatin will inspire us with Bach and provide a rare glimpse from inside the process of musical creativity.
Each day unfolds with a thematic focus, allowing us to dive deep into the three intertwined practices and perspectives. Together, we will:
This workshop is for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of themselves and their connection to others through the lens of mindfulness, science, and creativity. Whether you’re a meditator, musician, clinician, or simply curious, you’ll find valuable tools and perspectives to enrich your personal and professional life. No previous experience in meditation, music, or brain research is necessary!
Join us for this unique exploration of how these practices can harmonize, offering paths to inner peace and more joyful engagement with the world.
Qualified participants can receive 18 CE credits via the Spiritual Competency Academy. Click HERE to learn more.
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Join ceremonial leader and wisdom carrier Erika Gagnon on a sacred journey as we gather to look beyond the false duality of a divided self and the destructive concept of “self versus nature” to discover how to live in harmony and balance within ourselves and the world around us.
You are your greatest healer and greatest medicine, and this is your opportunity to examine what that means while sharing healing wisdom, practices & ceremonies. This workshop will offer you tools to transform trauma and unhealthy patterns and to realign your body, mind, spirit, and soul, as we explore the origins of dis-ease in our physical, mental-emotional and spiritual bodies.
How can we honor the gifts, and heal the wounds that we have inherited from our ancestors? How can we identify any social, cultural, racial, religious, and historical energies that may be influencing our lives? We will explore all of this, and discuss the importance of ceremonies, sacred altars, and medicinal plants. You will have the opportunity to participate in a traditional South American healing ceremony, a sound healing and “doctoring” ceremony, and a water blessing prayer ceremony.
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 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, 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
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. — Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi
Partners Ihab and Ora Balha, a Muslim man and a Jewish woman, are trained in the Mevlevi tradition of Jelaluddin Rumi, one of the greatest mystics and poets the world has ever known. Together, they will share the wisdom of the whirling dervishes, which has been passed down for 750 years.
Each day will include:
The whirling dervishes, mystics who believe one’s path is to God, are devoted to developing one’s abilities and capacity through emotional, intellectual, and physical practices. This workshop will deepen your connection to love, creating an internal peace that brings harmony and healing to the world.
“When you plant a tree every leaf that grows will tell you, what you sow will bear fruit. So if you have any sense, my friend, don’t plant anything but love, you show your worth by what you seek.” — Rumi
Recommended Reading: The Last Barrier: A Journey into the Essence of Sufi Teachings by Reshad Feild, Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks, Rumi Comes to America: How the Poet of Mystical Love Arrived on Our Shores by Bruce Miller
Open to the mysteries and remember the full truth of who and what you are — a magical multidimensional human being and an integral part of all creation. Join Gitanjali, creator and founder of the Syntara System School of Energy Awareness, as she leads you on a skillfully curated journey through your subtle body and morphogenic energy fields, exploring consciousness in deeply integrated and embodied ways.
Culturally, we don’t have a lot of language or context for the unseen realms. In this experiential workshop, we will explore ancient practices and innovative frameworks that will allow you to integrate the sacred with the mundane, becoming a more powerful and compassionate co-creator of the world we know is possible.
Some of the techniques we will use are:
Together, we will gather on these sacred lands, commune with the natural world, embody our essence nature and remember our deep belonging. Honoring all that has come before as we move with awareness towards an emergent future.
Some of the frameworks shared will include:
Our days will follow a nourishing schedule of experiential practices woven together with refined structural teachings, delicious meals, community connection, soaks in the healing waters, and reciprocity with the nature spirits and land.
This work is accessible to beginners while being nuanced enough for those more advanced on the path. Join us!
“If art doesn’t make us better, then what on earth is it for?” –Alice Walker
How can art contribute to healing while staying centered in the creative process? What kind of art-making responds to the therapeutic experience? What does it mean to live an aesthetic life? And what is possible when we do?
In the early 1960s, a new interdisciplinary approach was developed to explore and respond to these questions: The Halprin Life/Art Process. This work influenced the worlds of dance, environmental design, theater, and psychology. This workshop will be an immersive experience in that approach to the creative process, movement, and healing art. It is aimed at those who identify as artists as well as those who are simply lovers of art seeking to open the doors of their own creativity.
We will enter into an exploration of art-making as a way to encounter and explore themes, challenges, and dreams that are informing our lives. Maps and methods will be taught that are easily accessible and applicable to personal and professional practice.
The opening welcome session will create an environment of group collaboration, including intention setting, play, and collaboration. Each day that follows will emphasize different mediums, including movement/dance, drawing, and poetry/narrative. On the fourth day, we’ll develop ritual performances for participants to present artwork dedicated to something personal and meaningful.
Participants may expect to leave with the following:
Participants must bring the following: Writing materials and a special writers journal, a box of varied and well supplied Craypas pastels/water colors if desired.
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 activity. All participation will be voluntary at all times.
Our goal is to step back from our lives and renew. We will create a courageous community to both challenge and nurture 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.
This workshop has an additional $15 of faculty tuition.
Learn to tap the source and break through creative barriers during this hands-on workshop. Together, we’ll explore a variety of mediums and techniques to find entry into creative expression, including:
The poet Rumi speaks of a river of joy that courses through the world. Through these creative practices, we invite that river to flow freely through us and the powerful energy of Esalen’s natural environment to fill us, dissolving internal blocks and flowing through our hands onto the page.
The core of this workshop is inspiration and energy, but we’ll explore techniques and design principles that will inform your aesthetic and native mark-making language in an intuitive way, without fear of criticism or failure.
We’ll provide multimedia sketchbooks to fill with your artistic experiments. They’ll serve as a repository, a totem, a teacher, and a reminder of what you can achieve when you dip into the river of joy. The blank white pages, which you will fill with a treasured collection of artistic ideas, will be a metaphor for our process.
Whether you are a seasoned professional in the arts or you’ve never picked up a paintbrush, these immersive sessions will awaken the artist within and help you make peace with your inner critic.
There is a $60 material fee for this workshop. All essential materials, including acrylic paints, watercolors, paintbrushes, writing pens, collage materials, sketchbooks, and painting surfaces — everything you need to participate fully in each exercise. Feel free to bring your favorite pens, brushes, or other art-making tools.
Recommended Reading: Drinking From a Cold Spring, a Little Book of Hope, and Color Duets by Erin Lee Gafill
Open to people of all backgrounds and experience levels, this workshop will explore the lessons that traditional African spirituality can teach us about creation, how the universe was brought into being, how to manifest things we want in the world, and how to fashion a life filled with divine harmony. It will first introduce the world of African ritual through a screening of Marques Redd’s highly acclaimed film Obi Mbu (The Primordial House): An Igbo Creation Myth — a fantasia of dance and theatrical performance.
From there, we will:
Transcendent and practical, traditional African rituals are an important part of our global spiritual heritage. They can help you effect transformation, cultivate vitality, and expand your consciousness. This workshop will provide you with many tools that you will be able to use to plug directly into potent spiritual energy and empower your life!
Recommended Reading: Of Water and the Spirit by Malidoma Some and Cosmologies by Mikael Owunna
This workshop includes $85 of additional faculty tuition.
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Join us for this unique opportunity to explore the masculine traditions of the Esselen Tribe, integrated with the fundamentals of the 5Rhythms® movement practice. Answer the call of 55000 Highway 1’s healing waters and travel with Douglas and Little Bear on a hero’s journey. Together, we will explore what it means to embody the sacred masculine in this modern world. With courage, integrity, and receptivity, we will create renewed understandings of masculinity as a group and learn how we, as men, can “walk our talk.”
Healthy and uplifting rites of passage have always been an important aspect of humanity, yet they are largely missing from modern society. People from all walks of life and religions have historically gone through different experiences and coming-of-age ceremonies to prove they were ready to move into their next stage of life. Men were traditionally taught by their fathers, grandfathers, and uncles, but this traditional upbringing is now missing for many. In order to overcome today’s accepted norms of masculinity, it is important for men to be able to find solace with one another, learn from one another, and relate at the heart level.
In this weeklong workshop, we will have the opportunity to:
The intentions for our week together are to create a sacred space for men to come together and reignite our sacred fire, as well as to build a new bridge to manhood — to gentle warriorhood.
This workshop includes an additional $110 of faculty tuition.
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:
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!
Join us for an extended opportunity to explore the true essence of Esalen, and find yourself in the process. Like a snapshot of all that we do here on campus, this workshop is composed of enlivening and heart-opening classes that are driven by Esalen’s founding areas of focus: Heart, Mind, Body, Spirit, and Community.
During this month-long program, a cohort of like-minded students will have the opportunity to lean into the richness and diversity of programming that has both grown up on campus and is being infused into its current culture. In addition to working in service to the running of Esalen, the workshop classes have been designed to support the process of healing, transformation, and joy.
Classes will be led by the Esalen Resident Faculty Team, each bringing something uniquely transformative to the daily experience. Practices will include:
Come experience Esalen for a heartful and healing month of service and transformation!
Somewhere inside you – buried deeply, or maybe just below the surface – there is a story you’ve been wanting to tell. Movement and mindfulness practices are carefully curated to support moving past your creative obstacles and connect you with your inner voice. We invite you to connect to that deeper authentic story and that deeper authentic You. No matter where you are on your journey, beginner or expert, there is space for you here.
During this weeklong, we will disconnect from our devices and our default-world lives and immerse ourselves in the open air of Esalen. You will be invited to move your body, find your breath, observe your mind, and fill pages with your words. Through the writing session, participants will be guided to relinquish fear and live fully in their creativity.
This workshop will include:
As educators, storytellers, and human do-ers, Darnell and Cara truly believe in growth and happiness. They invite you to lean into the symbiotic relationship between storytelling and movement and the magic that happens when they come together. This workshop intends to foster an environment that will encourage you to confidently call yourself an artist and have the opportunity to cultivate techniques and rituals that will fuel your creativity and give you the audacity to integrate it all into your daily lives.
Join ceremonial leader and wisdom carrier Erika Gagnon on a sacred journey as we gather to look at our ancestral lineage and how our ancestors continue to influence and affect our lives today.
Gratitude for our ancestors! We are the reality of their dreaming. We are the tip of the arrow of our entire ancestral lineage, which traces back to the beginning of time. You are your greatest healer and greatest medicine. This is your opportunity to examine what that means while sharing healing wisdom and practices. This workshop will offer the tools to transform and transmute ancestral trauma, as well as other forms of trauma and unhealthy life patterns.
We all inherit our ancestors’ gifts, as well as their traumas. This is true if you are of European, African, Indigenous, Asian, or Arabic origin, any other ancestry, or are multi-racial.
In this workshop, you will learn how to identify and honor all of your ancestors’ positive attributes, as well as heal the discordant or destructive energies you have inherited from your, racial, social, cultural, religious and/or historical heritage.
Together, we will examine the origins of “dis-ease” in our bodies, minds, spirits, and souls and how to heal and realign them. We will discuss the importance of ceremonies, sacred altars, and medicinal plants in this healing process. You will be offered the opportunity to participate in a traditional South American healing ceremony, a sound healing and “doctoring” ceremony, and a water blessing prayer ceremony.
You are 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 strengthen your connection to the sacred in everyday 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 feelings of gratitude and value and their 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.
This workshop is your opportunity to reckon with the digitization of our times, reclaim the lost self from technology, and rewire your relationship to creativity.
“What will you do with your one wild and precious life?” Mary Oliver asked in her beloved poem The Summer Day. The average person now spends 61 to 80 days each year on their smartphone devices, and technology companies are becoming even more effective at designing apps that psychologically captivate and sustain the attention of hundreds of millions of people. We are faced with a collective conundrum that holds great grief for what we have lost and great opportunities for what we might create moving forward.
Recent psychological research shows that individuals with insecure attachment styles (anxious or avoidant) are more vulnerable to compulsive relationships with their smartphones as they attempt to experience a reliable ‘secure base’ through devices over direct relationships.
How can we remember the power that lies in our hands? How can we reclaim our unlived lives, rewire our neuropsychology in community, and shift our attention toward our souls’ longings and creative potential?
With the support of a community, a collective of creative souls, each day together will include:
Your hands are the living hands of your ancestors — and we are here for such a brief, precious time. In this one life, something uniquely expressed is meant to come through you, and you have this opportunity to bring something new onto this resilient earth and into this fragile world. Put down your device and reclaim your creative right to contribute the art that can only come through your hands.
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.
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.
Join Heidi Rose Robbins for an enlivening exploration of your astrological chart. Through group study, movement, writing, and poetry, we’ll bring our astrological map to life — and in so doing, we will practice loving, act courageously, and fully embrace our next life steps.
In this workshop, we will come together in the beauty of the circle to reflect and share wisdom. Your astrological chart is a lens through which you can see yourself and the gifts you have to share. As we study the map of the heavens from the moment we are born, we can become ever more generous and daring, naming our fears and uncertainties and courageously offering up our gifts to liberate love in others and ourselves.
During our time together, we will focus on:
Once we receive your birth data, we will prepare your unique astrological chart, and you will receive it in the workshop! All are welcome. Previous knowledge of astrology, poetry, or movement is not necessary. Come with an open mind and a willingness to embrace the richness of your astrological chart.
Recommended reading: Everyday Radiance: 365 Zodiac-Inspired Prompts for Self-Care and Self-Renewal by Heidi Rose Robbins; Zodiac Love Lettersby Heidi Rose Robbins; Wild Compassion by Heidi Rose Robbins
This workshop includes $10 for workshop materials.
What role does dominant culture play in how we experience the sensations, thoughts, feelings, and deeper existential mysteries of our bodies?
Roger Kuhn, a Poarch Creek Two-Spirit Indigequeer activist, artist, sex therapist, and somacultural theorist, believes that viewing our bodies through a somacultural lens can help us better understand how dominant culture informs and, all too often, misinforms our relationships to them.
Somacultural liberation is an embodied practice that helps individuals connect with the intersections of their identity. Kuhn’s revolutionary mode of inquiry illuminates the full impact of our cultural reality in shaping both our individual and shared sense of self.
Over the course of the workshop, participants will:
This workshop is ideal for therapists, coaches, healthcare professionals, activists, and anyone interested in exploring the impact culture has played in their personal and collective experiences and the pathways to liberation.
Recommended reading: Somacultural Liberation by Roger Kuhn
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.
Build inner strength and resilience through a blend of gentle and restorative yoga, stress-relief meditation, Yoga Nidra, and focused writing exercises. Participants will embark on a journey to identify and overcome personal and creative challenges.
This workshop begins with restorative yoga sessions to release physical tension and prepare the body for creative work, followed by guided meditations to ground and center us. Writing exercises will help us explore and articulate personal challenges, fostering a supportive community through group discussions and shared experiences.
As the week progresses, dynamic yoga flow sessions are added to energize participants and help them break through mental and physical blocks. Writing exercises complement the yoga sessions, welcoming the expression and release of pent-up emotions.
Through these empowering practices and guided visualizations, participants can cultivate the courage to pursue their creative goals fearlessly and confidently call themselves an artist. By the end of our time together, you will have the tools and confidence to integrate these practices and techniques into your daily lives for sustained creativity, stress management, and a resilient mindset.
Explore your unique creative process and express your human potential in a weekend deep dive with The Brothers Koren.
Discover your distinct creative personality and how to find harmony and coherence in your own creative process.
The brothers specialize in facilitating a safe space for you to move beyond the inhibitions and align to your authentic expressive impulse by identifying and supporting your distinct voice and creative code.
By using their embodied voice techniques, creative process design flow, and collaborative games, you will learn how to hold a space for playfully encountering your own brilliance and bring your creative expression to life.
Bring your voice, your ideas and your curiosity. All creative modalities are welcome. Art, music, voice, entrepreneurship, anything!
The brothers believe that almost everything we do in life involves a level of creative energy; from writing a song or painting a picture, to choosing what to wear in the morning and having a conversation – we are constantly improvising and using our creative life force.
However, many of us feel disconnected, blocked and disempowered in our creative process. Some of us end up feeling stuck or shut down in different stages of our creations, whether experiencing trouble starting or finishing ideas.
What might be possible for you if your creative process was back in flow? The brothers are ready to help you reframe what it means to be creative, and to connect back to the way nature intended it. Life is a radically creative act. Join them and explore what is possible!
No creative experience necessary.
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:
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 art materials.
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As life changes, we also must change — yet this isn’t guaranteed. Too many of us get stuck at our thresholds. Nature, creativity, and ritual can help us cross them gracefully, helping us ground, listen, and orient to what is changing.
Join us for a transformative workshop designed to provide the skills and understanding needed to create your own modern rituals, with a special focus on the healing modality of Morning Altars. By working with nature and the incredible power of the land at Esalen, we will reawaken our creativity, open to possibility, and witness what is changing in our lives.
Guided by award-winning author, artist, teacher, and ritualist Day Schildkret, you are invited to:
This workshop is designed for anyone in a life transition who wants to learn creative ways to ritualize it. Crafted with great care, this experience welcomes all genders, races, identities, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Threshold moments are meant to be crossed together. Join us if you feel your transition has become protracted or need greater support and attention to skillfully move to your next chapter.
Recommended Reading: Hello, Goodbye: 75 Rituals for Times of Loss, Celebration, and Change and Morning Altars: A 7-Step Practice to Nourish Your Spirit through Nature, Art, and Ritual by Day Schildkret
This workshop includes a $30 material fee.
Join LaVerne McLeod and Melanie DeMore for a weekend of exploration and celebration of Black History Month as we express ourselves, connect, play, and honor humanity.
Together, we will explore what it is like to walk in another person’s shoes to understand and empathize with viewpoints that might differ from our own. We will build a safe container of trust and get curious about what might be lying beneath the surface — while moving toward resilience and empowerment.
Using empathy, songs, visualization, and movement exercises, we will connect and relate to one another, letting go of what no longer serves us and learning effective responses to life’s challenges.
In this workshop, LaVerne McLeod will lead the group in empathetic practices that call forth bridging gaps of separation. In celebration,Melanie DeMore, a vocal activist, will lead soulful ballads to energize spirits and exemplify the rejuvenating power of healing through music.
This workshop is highly recommended for all races, identities, gender expressions, and nationalities. It can be a creative catalyst for educators, therapists, and artists that leads to one’s own inner healing. Those in leadership roles working with diverse populations may find this workshop to be a source of empowerment. Together, let’s connect our heart centers to the path that nourishes and heals us.
Recommended Reading: Corn Hollow, 2nd edition by LaVerne Hillis McLeod and The Crossroads of Social and Climate Justice by LaVerne Hillis McLeod.
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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 activity. All participation will be voluntary at all times.
Our goal is to step back from our lives and renew. We will create a courageous community to both challenge and nurture 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.
We are all born as natural storytellers. Our need to tell stories is primal for it connects us with our deeper selves and with one another. Most of us lose this inherent ability as we grow up, and our stories often become subjected to grades and criticism, which can make our voices shrivel, even disappear. This loss manifests in all sorts of ways, such as feeling disconnected from one’s self, feeling purposeless, or experiencing a constant sense of malaise and dissatisfaction. This workshop is about reclaiming that sacred and unique part of ourselves.
Over the course of the week, you will be led through a series of oral storytelling exercises passed down through generations from the historic city of Shushtar, Iran. Being witness to these stories opens people up to their own hidden stories.
Finding your voice and telling your authentic story is a courageous act. As a group, we will move through a gentle and vulnerable process to build and bond as a community and witness the re-emergence of long-hidden voices. Everyone has a story to tell, and every story counts in our collective container. Join us for a week of self-discovery and connection. All are welcome.
Recommended Reading: Please listen to Sob by Firoozeh Dumas, available on audible.com or Amazon. Funny in Farsi by Firoozeh Dumas is recommended but not required.
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Get notified about new programs.
Esalen Institute
55000 Highway 1
Big Sur, CA 93920
US: 1-831-667-3000
info@esalen.org
