Workshops

Now is the season to know
That everything you do
Is sacred. — Hafiz

Celebrate the coming of the summer solstice with a transformational retreat in the breathtaking beauty of Big Sur.

Each day, we’ll explore powerful sound journeys, embodiment practices, authentic movement, bespoke teachings, beautiful music, community connection, and the metaphysical properties of crystals and sacred geometry to inspire your life and embodiment of love.

Together, we’ll play with the universal law of resonance and the power of vibration to:

• Release stress and tension on a cellular and soul level to rewire our nervous systems for ease and self-trust.  
• Learn new tools to help us feel safe, supported, and loved.
• Transform default and habitual patterns of self-doubt, worry, and feeling overwhelmed into clarity, calm, focus, and trust.
• Experience joy, awe, and pleasure in our lives.
• Integrate mind, body, and soul through sacred sound, deep listening, and gentle movement.

Supported by the healing mineral waters, fresh ocean air, and starry skies, you’ll be invited to slow down and reconnect with your full, authentic self and the beauty of nature.

Sacred Big Sur Elder Damaris (Penny Vieregge) will share her wisdom and the evocative poetry of Hafiz during our Wednesday morning session to inspire us to reach our highest potential.

Come away feeling deeply nourished, aligned, and attuned with your true self for your journey ahead.

Immerse yourself in the eros of creation. Play in the divine dance between consciousness and form. Explore the dynamic, generative relationship between Shiva (the masculine principle of pure awareness) and Shakti (the feminine principle of creation and form). As you integrate these energies in your own embodied experience and reunite with the beloved within, the nature of your very being begins to transform.

During our week together, you’ll be led through an intentionally curated arc of emergent practices. Centering and grounding more fully in the magical truth of who you are as a conscious co-creator of your life and world.

Through movement, somatic and subtle energy body exploration, process art, journaling, energy transmission teachings, meditations, relational play, land-based practices, and ritual, you’ll be invited to rekindle your relationship with the living life force current that pulses in and around you. Weaving all parts of yourself into a cohesive whole. Alchemizing unconscious conditioning and innovating new ways of being.

Out of a sea of endless spaciousness (Shiva) emerges a magnificent radiant light (Shakti). Emerge purposefully renewed and wildly reinspired by the beauty and miracle of life exactly as it is, exactly as you are. Return home with tools and practices that you can continue to apply in meaningful ways.

We will meet just days before the summer solstice, held by Esalen’s sacred lands. It will be an auspicious time to gather, with flowers blooming, bees buzzing, birds humming, waves crashing, springs bubbling, and sunshine glistening.

Our days will unfold, overflowing with inspiring practice, community connection, delicious meals, deep rest, and starlit soaks in the healing waters. Join us in this love affair with all creation.

If we carry intergenerational trauma (and we do), we also carry intergenerational wisdom. It’s in our genes and in our DNA. —Kazu Haga

What if your healing journey lies within you and in the wisdom carried by your ancestral line? The Listening When Parts Speak workshop is a curated experience designed to help you access the gifts of your ancestry while transforming the burdens of personal, cultural, and intergenerational trauma. Together, we will facilitate a relationship between your parts and your internal healing resource called Self.

Through mindfulness, guided meditation, experiential exercises, and teachings from the Internal Family Systems (IFS) model, you’ll deepen your connection to your internal healing resource, known as Self, and build relationships with the parts of you that carry the weight of trauma.

During this workshop, we will explore:

• Mindfulness practices to bring attention and presence to here and now experiences.
• The key concepts of the IFS model of working with trauma.
• Experiential exercises to connect with your inner parts and wise ancestors.
• Demonstrations of the healing potential of IFS and ancestor wisdom.

By the end of the workshop, you’ll be invited to explore ways to incorporate these tools into your daily life to help calm activated or triggered parts of yourself. You’ll have the opportunity to cultivate a new or deepened relationship with supportive ancestors to guide you through your daily life. Additionally, you’ll be encouraged to reflect on a greater understanding of the inner parts of others that make you less likely to personalize their behavior. Recommended Reading: Listening When Parts Speak: A Practical Guide to Healing with Internal Family Systems Therapy and Ancestor Wisdom by Tamala Floyd, LCSW

In this retreat, you will get in touch with a deep relaxation to rejuvenate the body and the mind through non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) and yoga nidra. No matter your reasons — whether you need a break from the constant pressure, are in a life transition, or just want to delve deeper into your meditation practice — this retreat will provide space and time for contemplation and reflection.

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

We’ll go on an inner journey together, and the hope is we’ll emerge more connected to both ourselves and our life paths to leave feeling refreshed and deeply rested.

Together, we will:

• Practice yoga nidra for restoration and rejuvenation.
• Discover the connection between nondual meditation and yoga nidra for deepening our meditation practices.
• Reflect on where we are in our lives and leave with a greater sense of self-connection and clarity.
• Dialogue about meditation for connection and community.
• Learn about the link between non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) and better sleep.

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

When we experience moments of ecstasy, we taste what life is meant to be. — Gabrielle Roth

The 5Rhythms® maps hold all the information required to lead us where we want to go. What is your destination? There is a science to achieving ecstatic states, and this is the mastery we have come to share. This workshop is designed for all who want to discover these possibilities for entering altered states in a natural way.

"I want to take you to a place of pure magic ... It's the place athletes call ‘the zone.’ Buddhists call ‘satori’ and ravers call ‘trance.’ I call it the Silver Desert. It's a place of pure light that holds the dark within it. It's a place of pure rhythm,” wrote Gabrielle Roth. Her dance and somatic meditation can assist you in navigating your way out of resistance and into ecstasy and help you build a skill set that supports balance, ease, and joy. If you have been looking to increase appreciation, gratitude, and happiness, now is a perfect time to celebrate being alive in the wild, wondrous, natural beauty of Esalen.

This course will include:

• 5Rhythms dance both indoors and outside by daylight and moonlight
• Creating art in nature through group projects with resident artists
• Trauma-sensitive mindfulness, including Dharma talk and sitting and walking meditations
• Live and recorded music
• An evening program guest speaker

Lucia and Douglas, the dancing duo, invite you to join them for a week of dance and celebration under the new moon. Together with our team of musicians and artists, we seek to bring you inspiration and lightness so you return home feeling nurtured and alive.

Leah Song of Rising Appalachia will lead a collective community song practice! Join voices and feel the collective power of unity through song and breath!

Sanga of the Valley, master drummer and living embodiment of the 5Rhythms cosmology, will be joining along with musical savant Nick Ayers.

Martha Peabody, original Gabrielle Roth dancer and founder of the art installation branch of the 5Rhythms, will lead daily community art sessions.

Recommended Reading: Sweat Your Prayers by Gabrielle Roth, Maps to Ecstasy by Gabrielle Roth, Connections by Gabrielle Roth, Dancing with the Dharma edited by Harrison Blum

This workshop has an additional $100 of faculty tuition.

In a world that often pulls us away from ourselves — into roles, expectations, and chronic busyness — there is power in returning to the body, the breath, and the truth of who we are. This weekend workshop offers an immersive experience in embodiment — a space to inquire, move, and breathe your way back to what’s real within you.

Over the weekend, you’ll engage in somatic self-inquiry to explore and soften the internal narratives that shape your identity. Movement and stillness will be used as pathways to reconnect with your body as a compass, while breathwork will offer space for regulation, release, and presence. Relational exercises will open the door to grounded, authentic connection — both with yourself and with others.

Together, we’ll explore:

• The body as a portal — awakening sensation and intuitive knowing.
• Breathwork as a tool for emotional release, regulation, and alchemy.
• Movement as a pathway to restore flow, release held patterns, and invite curiosity.
• Sound and silence as anchors for presence and inner listening.
• Integration practices — self-inquiry and journaling — to support a return home to the self and a remembering of our innate wholeness.

You’ll be guided to reframe your inner landscape — not by fixing what’s “wrong,” but by listening deeply to what’s already whole as you reimagine what it means to feel at home in your own being. A weekend of remembering.

Relational mindfulness offers 9 principles and practices for meeting the beautiful, dynamic, and messy field of human relating as our laboratory for awakening. It offers a path for cultivating greater peace, understanding, joy, resilience, and freedom within ourselves and our world.

Sitting alone on a meditation cushion is a wholly different exercise than engaging socially, at work, in conflict, politics, or romance. Or is it? Relational mindfulness acts as a bridge, bringing the spaciousness of awareness off the cushion into every aspect of our lives.

The principles are:

• Intention
• The Sacred Pause
• Deep Embodied Listening
• Mindful Inquiry and Clear Seeing
• Transparency and Speaking from the Heart
• Turning Towards, Rather than Away
• Not Taking Personally
• Taking Responsibility
• Compassionate Action

Intimacy begins with our willingness to see ourselves and one another clearly from the heart — beyond the myth of separation. We have to remember how to “be with” the pretty and less-pretty aspects of our experience without needing to fix, solve, or change anything in order to welcome the full spectrum of our humanity into wholeness. On this restorative retreat, we’ll explore together:

• Practices for finding greater freedom and authenticity in how we relate.
• Ways to strengthen our capacity for meeting adversity, conflicts, and trauma with compassion, equanimity, and conscious response.
• Ways to resource ourselves and one another to navigate the times we are facing with resilience.
• Support for engaging in our lives with love, wholeness, and fierce compassion rather than fear, scarcity, or the myth of separation.

Join us for a transformative exploration of the personal, interpersonal, transpersonal, ecological, societal, and mystical impacts of relational mindfulness. This workshop will include embodied meditation, experiential practices, conscious movement, reflective writing, and deep time in nature. All are welcome.

Recommended Reading: Relational Mindfulness: A Handbook for Deepening Our Connection with Ourselves, Each Other, and Our Planet by Deborah Eden Tull

The chakra system is one of the greatest gifts the ancient yogis and rishis of India shared with the world: a powerful spiritual map for our healing and the awakening of our consciousness so we can fully come alive! This week is an invitation to explore this map and unlock the unbridled joy, creative power, and freedom that lives inside of you.

The ultimate goal of yoga is to live in embodied enlightenment. It is to know and feel the current of mukti (the force of liberation that expands you in the direction of pure potentiality and higher consciousness) and to feel and celebrate bhukti (the gift of embodiment and all the pleasures and abundance of earthly reality). This workshop offers us the opportunity to bring these concepts into reality and into our living beings.

Through embodied ritual practices of yoga, live music, dance, meditation, sounding, and communion with nature, you will begin to shape an intimate connection with each of your energy centers. Together we will work to break through the blockages that keep you stuck and stagnant — preventing you from healing and experiencing the fullness of your power and life. We will dive deeply into the chakra system through accessible, dynamic, and interactive discussions and exercises.  

Each day, Cristi will guide us in her signature, dynamic chakra-based vinyasa, woven with mudra, kriyas, and pranayama, supported by the sacred rhythms and healing soundscapes of our musical guide DJ Marques Wyatt.

These practices will be enhanced by a variety of daily rituals, ranging from:

• Interactive lectures and discussions about each of the chakras.
• Movement meditations
• Transformational dance practices, including The Deep Exhale Experience and JourneyDance.
• Deeply nourishing soma practice and journaling.
• Somatic Sound Healing
• Spending time in nature to activate our chakras through the five sacred elements: earth, water, fire, air, and space.

Join us as we turn the yoga dance floor into a ritual of self-expression. You’re invited to experience every ritual as a prayer to your highest self to return you home to your body and nature, awaken pleasure, and give you permission to feel. Ignite your power. Heal your heart. Claim your vision and voice. Connect to your own divinity and celebrate this gift of life!

Recommended reading: Chakra Rituals by Cristi Christensen

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed. — Mary Oliver

From the beginning of time, the natural world has called humans to pause, reflect, and reconnect with life’s essence. This workshop invites you to immerse yourself in Big Sur’s awe-inspiring wilderness and the art of authentic contemplation. Together, we will deepen our awareness of the wilds within and around us, rediscovering the simple yet profound practice of being fully present and alive.

Big Sur’s stunning landscapes — rugged cliffs, ocean breezes, and ancient forests — will serve as both our setting and teacher. Through mindful awareness and direct experience, we can awaken our inherent connection to the elemental, allowing the magnificence of this wild world to touch our bodies, minds, and spirits.

Highlights of the Week:

• Nature as Teacher: Direct experience of the elements — earth beneath your feet, Pacific waves crashing, fresh coastal air, and Esalen’s healing hot springs — awakening all our senses to an animate world.
• Daily Wilderness Hikes: Venture 2–6 miles each day through diverse terrains to explore Big Sur’s natural beauty and rich ecological diversity.
• Contemplative Practices: Engage in timeless and contemporary practices of mindfulness, movement, and stillness, cultivating presence, aliveness and deeper relationships with self and the wilds.
• Community Connection: Share wholesome meals, heartfelt conversations, and moments of silence, fostering a sense of belonging with others and the eco-community of the wild natural world.
• Integration and Simplicity: Discover how to bring what you are touched by into daily life, with space for reflection on how to do less, be more, and live in alignment with what matters most.

This week is an invitation to slow down, step out of habitual patterns, and show up fully for life as it unfolds moment by moment. Whether walking, sitting, or simply being, we will cultivate space, silence, and stillness to meet the beauty and mystery of the world — within and without.

Come ready to explore the meeting places of mountain and sea, inner and outer landscapes, and the boundless wildness of existence.

Please note: This workshop will be a larger, nature-based group experience than Steven and Gary typically lead. Mornings will be spent together as a whole group, either indoors or on the Esalen grounds. After lunch, we will divide into smaller groups to explore Big Sur’s wilderness trails and be back in time for dinner at Esalen.

All levels of experience are welcome. Be prepared for the invigorating challenge of physical activity that the mountains of Big Sur require and the opportunity to simply sit still 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

An additional $40 will be added to the workshop cost to cover permit and park entrance fees.

Join Amina Peterson on a transformative journey where you'll discover a revolutionary model of erotic communication. Immerse yourself in a safe and empowering space to cultivate deeper intimacy, pleasure, and connection. Through somatic tools, communication strategies, and boundary-building practices, you'll learn how to navigate relationships with authenticity and respect.

This intimate weekend is a unique opportunity to explore your desires, express your boundaries, and experience the joy of consensual intimacy.

• Learn to communicate desire and pleasure with tools from EroSomatic Touch.
• Use somatic movement and Resonant Boundaries to discover new ways to listen to your body, calibrate your inner compass, and honor your boundaries.
• Play with partners and in groups to experience erotically embodied consent negotiation using tools from Betty Martin's Wheel of Consent and Amina’s coaching practice.

Come dance, play, and learn from a renowned expert in erotic communication and intimacy. Share your experiences and insights, and connect with a community of like-minded individuals passionate about fostering healthy connections.

Recommended reading: Authentic Consent Workbook by Amina Peterson, Decolonizing Non-Violent Communication by Meendachi, The Art of Giving and Receiving by Betty Martin

Through mindful viewing of eight feature films — today’s vehicles of myth and meaning — participants will open their hearts to gratefulness, which can be defined as a general state of resonant appreciation that can be gained from seeing what can be received from others. Recent studies and reviews have shown that experiencing gratitude can enhance well-being, life satisfaction, and overall psychological happiness while creating positive effects. This seminar offers a self-enhancing mindfulness experience through seminal films from Asia, North America, and Europe in which characters experience gratefulness as a path to resilient well-being. The films are being shown to renew these qualities in the lives of workshop participants.

This workshop employs methods developed over the course of 28 film seminars at Esalen co-led by Francis Lu and Brother David Steindl-Rast, including mindful film viewing, contemplative reflection, and group interactions focused on participants’ unique experiences of carefully curated films. This process of learning spiritual lessons from evocative films is in keeping with the teachings of Joseph Campbell —  “The images of myths are reflections of the spiritual and depth potentialities of every one of us…. Through contemplating those, we evoke their powers in our own lives to operate through ourselves.”

The viewing experience will be supported by 4K Blu-Ray video projection on a large screen and surround sound of six loudspeakers.

5.5 CE Credits for Health Professionals are available for an additional $35 fee payable to the workshop leader. For further information about the workshop, please contact Francis Lu, MD, at francislumd@gmail.com.

Through mindful viewing of four feature films — today’s vehicles of myth and meaning — participants will open their hearts to encountering the beauty of being in Tao. The word Tao points toward a natural harmony that can be attained within everyday existence accompanied by a sense of the meaning of life itself as a source of resilience. This seminar will offer a self-enhancing mindfulness experience through films by Yasujiro Ozu, Akira Kurosawa, and Wim Wenders in which characters experience the beauty of being in Tao. These films are being shown to inspire similar discoveries in the lives of workshop participants.

This workshop employs mindful film viewing, contemplative reflection, and group interactions focused on participants’ unique experiences of carefully curated films. The viewing experience will be supported by 4K Blu-Ray video projection on a large screen and surround sound of six loudspeakers.

2.5 CE Credits for Health Professionals are available for an additional $35 fee payable to the workshop leader. Click here for details. For further information about the workshop, please get in touch with Francis Lu, MD, at francislumd@gmail.com

How can we navigate life’s transitions with elegance, grace, and gratitude? This is a fundamental question for growth and transformation, no matter where we are in our stages of life. This workshop is designed for anyone pondering their aging process as well as active caretakers for those entering their third act. Using an experiential approach, we will move through concrete steps, including nine simple evidence-based practices, for achieving personal goals.

Together, we will discuss how to embrace challenges as opportunities by cultivating curiosity and a growth mindset at every stage of life. We will explore ways to engage in the practice of purposeful intention — to gain insights into how attention shapes our worldview and where our cognitive biases get in our way.

Building new skills and capacities is essential, much like training muscles, and we will discuss how to strengthen personal growth practices with trusted guidance, both from external mentors and our own inner wisdom. Additionally, we will explore ways to apply what we learn—accepting aging and the developmental stages of life, from adolescence to adulthood, to make peace with our mortality. Finally, we will consider steps to engage the world and bring this elegant aging program into our lives, work, and communities.

This workshop offers hands-on tools for aging with grace and elegance, empowering each of us with new insights and practices to embrace the fullness of our lived experiences. Please bring a journal to support and document your experience.

Recommended Reading: Living Deeply: The Art & Science of Transformation by Marilyn Schlitz, Cassandra Vieten, and Tina Amorok.

Step away from the noise of daily life and reconnect to the sanctuary of your own heart, where love — in its purest, most expansive form — resides. This retreat invites you to reconnect with the boundless love that lives within you, a love that transcends conditions, circumstances, and partnerships.

Through yoga, sound healing, chanting, breathwork, dance, and community connection, we will journey together, rediscovering the boundless love that remains constant and unwavering. Whether in partnership or standing alone, this is an opportunity to experience “capital L” love — the love that never fades.

Join us on this sacred journey back to love, where the mind quiets and the soul reawakens so you may carry this timeless, unwavering love with you into all that you do.

Come to Esalen for the long summer days and be greeted with a dynamic, nourishing yoga experience. We will create pathways to heal and reclaim our bodies and voices so we can share authentically.

Let’s turn down the noise and tune into the heart’s rhythm with Janet Stone and DJ Drez. This will be a weekend of movement, music, and creativity to reset and connect with joy.

This workshop includes an additional $100 faculty tuition.

If your thoughts, decisions and actions are not being determined by your own highest values, they are certainly being determined by someone else’s. — Living a Values Based Life

Join this engaging, interactive experience designed to support the discovery, clarification, and meaningful application of your highest personal values. It’s a surprising fact of life that most people do not know — or cannot clearly articulate — what their values truly are. Guided by Robert MacPhee’s unique and accessible approach, this process is crafted to reduce confusion and enhance clarity with simple ways to bring your discoveries into your daily life.

Together, we’ll explore your values in deep, experiential (and fun!) ways that address a variety of learning styles. The journey can be relevant across all areas of life — at home, at work, in relationships, as a parent, and as a leader.

In this workshop, you’ll be invited to:

• Explore the areas of your life that feel most meaningful to you.
• Identify qualities and characteristics you most want to express.
• Learn how to implement and apply what you have discovered to be most important to you, both personally and professionally.
• Begin crafting a personalized plan that aligns your daily life with living a truly values based life.

Gaining clarity around your values can become a powerful compass, gently guiding your decisions, your attention, and your time. This workshop offers a space to reconnect with what feels most authentic, purpose-driven, and meaningful for you.

Our clown is the authentic, curious, and playful version of ourselves. Clowning as a life practice is the balancing of our light and shadow while laughing at our attachments. Clown is about being soft, brave, and available to the moment. This workshop is an immersion practice that explores our deepest, most vulnerable, creative self.

Using tools found in improvisation, meditation, altered states, and movement practice, we will explore clowning as a spiritual practice. The work begins with exercises that help you drop into the body and descend from the mind to access the clown state. With the foundation of a sacred container, we will engage in primarily nonverbal, physical games and rituals that give birth to organic impulses inspired by the child within. There is no pressure to perform, but an invitation to get lost inside yourself, an openness to go beyond your comfort zone, and a willingness to play within the moment.

There is nothing to learn but rather much to uncover — to allow us to move through life in a more open state, with a greater connection to ourselves and the world. This workshop is physical, open, and accessible for diverse bodies. Come unravel the clown within! Please come unprepared and ready to explore.

Recommended reading: Animal Joy by Nuar Alsadir, Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey, Stillness Speaks by Eckhart Tolle

Experience five days of deep rest, reflection, and rejuvenation through movement, guided meditation, and the profound practice of Yoga Nidra. This workshop is designed to restore the body, clear the mind, and shift the habitual patterns that keep us from experiencing a state of calm, clarity, and balance.

Yoga Nidra, which translates to “yogic sleep,” guides you to that liminal state between wakefulness and sleep, where you can systematically release stored physical, emotional, and mental tensions. In this state, you can let go of old beliefs and habits that keep you stuck in the past and fearful of the future. With this practice, you can fully experience your emotions while knowing that there is unchanging, unshakable ground beneath you — a calm inner presence that allows you to see clearly and navigate life with greater ease.

Throughout the retreat, we will work with our bodies and minds, creating clear intentions to shift from living by unconscious, automatic programming and find a new perspective — an aware, deliberate way of being. You’ll explore how to bring this newfound awareness of your true self into your personal life, relationships, work, and moments of solitude and love.

Together, we will cultivate new tools to help us navigate when we feel lost, tired, or confused and forget who we are. These guiding instruments can help us negotiate life’s challenges, welcome them as opportunities, and remember our true nature.

This workshop is a unique opportunity to recognize your wholeness, the truth of who you are, and the inner peace that has always been within you — that unchanging, unshakable ground of being that you are. All that is being asked of you is to show up, lie down, and let go. Yoga Nidra will do the rest.

What to bring: blankets, a yoga mat, an eye pillow, and anything else you need to lie comfortably on the floor for extended periods. We’ll also have opportunities to practice outdoors, so make sure you have layers to stay comfortable in varying conditions.

Recommended Reading: Yoga Nidra: The Art of Transformational Sleep, by Kamini Desai; and Yoga Nidra: A Meditative Practice for Deep Relaxation Healing, by Richard Miller

“You didn’t come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here.”~ Alan Watts

Throughout the ages and across cultural traditions, nature has inspired the human spirit. The wilderness of Big Sur allows us to imprint the collective wisdom of this alive and wild coast in our bodies. The ancient redwood-forested canyons, dramatic meeting of earth and sea, and soft grassy hills remind us of the presence, wisdom, and deep sense of belonging that live in each of us.

This workshop will present simple yet profound practices designed to help us access our connections with the essential movement processes of life — and enhance our capacity to both participate and innovate. Along with physical practices, group discussions, and direct experience of nature, we will draw on ancient movement traditions of tai chi, aikido, and contemporary somatic practices that offer ways of centering, grounding, and knowing our belonging to the greater community of being.

During our time together, we will venture out on four to eight-mile hikes. Being immersed in the wild we are in an intimate embodied sensory dialogue that literally invites us to come to our senses. We will experience increasingly refined awareness and explore perceptual practices to enhance our sensitivity to all the wilderness offers, and reawaken the elements of wilderness within. With awakened senses, we can receive nature’s richness and beauty, inspiring a deepening relationship with grounding, centering, and embodiment.

All evenings and most meals will be at Esalen. All levels of experience are welcome, although participants should be prepared for vigorous physical activity that the mountains of Big Sur require — and the opportunity to simply sit still 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.

An additional $80 of faculty tuition and $40 to cover park fees have been added to this workshop.

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.

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 more 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.

We all face death, but how many of us are actually ready for it? Whether our own demise or that of a loved one comes first, how prepared are we? This workshop offers a wide array of resources and teachings to help participants address that final unfinished business and make the most out of every moment that comes before it.

All of life is held within the context of its inevitable extinction. By acknowledging and preparing for death now, we will find ourselves living more fully and fearlessly. Join us as we celebrate the preciousness of life, and ready ourselves and others for this final journey. We will explore how to die a good death and help others pass, engaging with meditations and contemplations that prepare us for letting go. As the Buddhist tradition proclaims, “If you die before you die, then when you die, you will not die.”

With preparation, we can transcend death, turning the greatest obstacle into a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and even attain enlightenment. The bardo teachings lead to the death of death. The journey through the bardos is a journey into our mind, so by exploring the bardos, we are exploring ourselves. The teachings apply to any moment that ends – which means they also relate to daily life and can help you live fully within the time you are given.

Together we’ll explore:

• Meditations that prepare you for the end of life
• Teachings that support the meditations
• Discussion groups to create a sense of community  

We hope you’ll join us for this exploration into the unknown, so that we may all return – fearless, and full of compassion for ourselves and those transitioning from this life.

Recommended Reading: Preparing to Die by Andrew Holecek

The Yoruba divination tradition of Ifá is arguably the most widely practiced Indigenous religious/wisdom tradition in the world. Millions across the globe increasingly turn to Ifá, commonly described as existing to “mend our broken world,” for wisdom that brings order and peace to their lives.

In this workshop, we will explore and apply the fundamental concepts and insights of Ifá — such as embodied philosophy, archetypes as cosmic order, and divine balance and complementarity — to help us identify, understand, and live in harmony with the cosmic order undergirding all of existence and our own individual lives and purposes.

By tapping into our previous experiences and practical demonstrations with sacred art, Indigenous archetypal storytelling, and encounters with the natural world, we will develop tools for embodying wisdom and allowing it to transform first ourselves, and then the world around us.

We’ll learn how the Yoruba cosmology and Ifá transcend common modern binaries, such as mind/body, physical/spiritual, and even good/bad, and practice getting in touch with a direct form of transformational knowledge that promotes deep understanding and cosmic balance.

Toward the end of the workshop, Robin Garcia, an expert scholar-practitioner of the global Ifa tradition, will lead individual divination sessions to help us, through Ifá’s timeless wisdom, learn more about who we are, how we should live, and how to maintain harmony with the cosmic order all around us.

Matter is Energy … Energy is Light … We are all Light Beings — Albert Einstein

Each of us walks around within our own energy halo. When two people touch, they spark an energetic exchange. This felt relationship is the heart and soul of Esalen® Massage. With a spirit of gratitude, we invite you to learn and experience the massage that we developed here at the Institute that has since spread around the world. Esalen Massage is known for its flowing integrated strokes, offered from a grounded and centered place. The slow pace and detail provide entry to states of relaxation, connection, and balance.

This course expands the massage experience by incorporating an energetic awareness, allowing us access and interaction with the energy patterns that exist around and through our bodies. Meditation enriches the journey, lighting up a connection to our own deeper patterns. Two senior massage teachers will guide the class during this informative and fun experience. Teaching methods include experiential exercises, brief lecture demonstrations, lots of supervised hands-on practice with classmates, and shared self-reflection.

All levels of experience are welcome, including practitioners and caregivers seeking a fresh focus.
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NCBTMB CE Status Pending

Have you ever wanted to learn how to grow your own food? Experience a dynamic week in the Esalen Farm and Garden and fully participate alongside our talented and experienced staff. Local food security is a major issue facing communities worldwide. It is said that there is no greater form of activism than growing one’s own food—no greater sense of connection to the land than sowing, cultivating, and harvesting from the earth that sustains us. This is the essence of SLOW food (Sustainable, Local, Organic and in respect to the Wild).

Come into a deeper relationship with and celebration of the whole process. By working directly with the Esalen Farm and Garden crew, you will experience the joys and challenges that come with making a garden thrive.

Our days together will include:

• Hands-on experience: harvesting, composting, bed preparation, seed starting, cultivation, irrigation systems, transplanting, and other farming techniques.
• Daily curriculum sessions: diving deeper into specific topics, with space to ask questions and have discussions.
• Community and connection: working together to cultivate teamwork and meaningful relationships.

From a seed planted with intention, the world can change. Participate in the amazing cycles of the season in the garden. We will cultivate community with each other and be part of the magic in the fields of the Esalen Farm & Garden. You are invited to learn about organic and regenerative farming practices that embody our mission of human potential in harmony with nature. Join the legacy of this collaborative creative project, grow healthy, nutrient-rich foods, and become part of the next generation of growers, educators, and land stewards to build connected, thriving, and ever-strengthening communities.

During this workshop, 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.

Learn to call on your spirit guides and tap into your intuitive mind. Join us in a transformative workshop combining scientifically proven brain-enhancing techniques with intuitive guidance to help you break free from self-limiting patterns and create the life you desire.

This workshop brings together two powerful approaches to help you develop tools for personal growth and transformation. Through easy-to-learn exercises, you will learn how opening neural pathways to your higher consciousness can bring valuable insights into areas where you may feel stuck. By thinking outside the box and accessing your intuitive mind, you have the ability to unlock your creative potential and experience increased productivity and happiness.

Guest faculty Joseph Perreta, a certified psychic medium, will guide you in connecting with your support system on the other side. Joseph’s ability to channel messages directly from the spirit world offers validation, clarification, healing, and peace. His presence will enrich your experience and provide a deeper understanding of the spiritual realm.

Throughout the workshop, you will develop practical tools that you can apply whenever you face important decisions or obstacles in life. By harnessing your intuition and uncovering profound insights about yourself, you will gain the clarity and confidence needed to make positive changes.

Our intention is to empower you to unlock your intuitive mind and carry these transformative practices with you long after the workshop ends. Please come prepared with a notebook or journal and a pen to capture your experiences and reflections.

This workshop has two options on length of stay: a traditional weeklong of two nights or a long weekend of three nights. The extended stay workshop will include more workshop content which is reflected in the extended stay schedule.

Discover the profound connection between ancient practices and modern science as we explore the transformative potential of the biofield. Western science is uncovering the power of this energy for healing, from cells to communities. Published research demonstrates how subtle energy healing can reduce pain, alleviate anxiety, shift hormone and immune function, and even prevent the spread of cancer within the body.

In this workshop, you are invited to deepen your relationship with energy and the biofield to help release stagnant emotions and pain, sharpen focus, and open to new possibilities for your creative and spiritual expression. We’ll be illuminated by the confluences of empirical science with ancient wisdom, exploring both the research in biofield science alongside powerful energetic self-healing practices, including breathwork, vocal work, and meditation from tantric and other biofield healing traditions.

During our time together, you are invited to:

• Engage in breathwork and movement practices to amplify your felt sense of energy and vitalize your body and mind.
• Learn energy psychology techniques to release anxiety, stress, and pain.
• Explore Eastern-based vocal opening practices and Shakti mantras to feel and free your energy, ground in your power and authority, and open to creative flow.
• Practice divine feminine meditations to heal your ancestral karmas and stop the flow of trauma patterns, deepen your spiritual connection and intuitive capabilities, and manifest possibilities for yourself with less “efforting.”
• Explore how systems and complexity science, along with breakthroughs in quantum research, show us how shifting our energy and consciousness can shift the fabric of our inner and outer worlds, including our relationships with others and the possibilities of our life’s trajectory.
• Hear about the healing power of the biofield and how research shows our mind and energy can facilitate healing down to our cells, beyond placebo effects.

This workshop offers a space for curiosity and learning, inviting you to explore the brilliant energetic being you are and the benefits you can experience within your own presence. Leave with knowledge, tools, and a new understanding of energetic power to integrate back into your life.

Continuing education credit is available for professionals through the Spiritual Competency Academy, an approved sponsor of CE by the American Psychological Association. If you plan to apply for CE credit, please notify the faculty during your first workshop session. Additional Continuing Education information here.

Love Yourself For Everyone Else’s Sake

Mark Abramson designed the course as a deep dive into self-compassion after seeing students achieve self-kindness from work with his Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Clinic at Stanford University. Thirty years of teaching have taught Dr. Abramson that bringing kindness and compassion to one’s self is truly the most altruistic of all practices.

Imagine always being able to count on your own mind being kind to you — no matter what challenges life presents. That is your birthright, and now is the time to claim it! Immerse yourself in this mindfulness-based approach to self-love and compassion.  

Mindfulness, meditation, and contemplative practices have entered all spheres of our society, including corporate settings, sports,  performance, medicine, and psychology. Science has confirmed that ancient mental and physical training systems, such as meditation practices, confer health benefits for immunity, brain architecture, and pain management, as well as mental and physical resilience.

During our time together, you are invited to:

• Learn mindfulness meditation practices.
• Connect and experience your own loving attention.
• Learn to take back control of your body/mind to create a more peaceful you.

Throughout the weekend, you will have the opportunity to unite your body, mind, and soul into a self-nourishing whole person while strengthening your ability to give love to others by first loving yourself.

Recommended Reading: Love Yourself For Everyone Else’s Sake by Mark Abramson

When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop being comforted by the sweet territory of silence? —Gabrielle Roth

Your life is not simply a task to be managed but a mythopoetic mystery to be lived. Take a break from the mundane and let yourself be enchanted again. This workshop offers a profound opportunity to commune with the deeper aspects of Self through movement, inquiry, and mythology. To dream. To play. To feel alive.

Since the beginning, humans have looked to stories to make meaning of our lives. Revered mythologist and 1960s Esalen faculty Joseph Campbell wrote, “Mythology is the penultimate truth — penultimate because the ultimate cannot be put into words. It is beyond words.” On this retreat, we’ll engage with daily stories that have the power to help us make sense of our lives, nourish, teach, inspire, empower, and heal us.

Experiential practices include:

• Archetypal wisdom and nondual yogic mythology
• Breathwork and meditation
• Yoga (all levels), dance, and somatic journeys
• Self-inquiry and writing
• Rewilding, song, and nature ceremony

Music, nature, poetry, connection, and ritual are exquisitely curated for your hero/heroine’s journey. Our nourishing schedule is balanced harmoniously with relaxing meals, community care, and soaks in Esalen’s healing baths.

Whether you’re searching for renewed meaning in life, navigating life’s complex transitions, or simply enjoy being enchanted, this workshop will help awaken your spirit to courage, gladden your heart, calm your mind, and widen your perspective to vast possibilities. You might just fall in love with existence again.

Grace awaits.

What will you do with your one wild and precious life? — Mary Oliver

Do you yearn to spend less time scrolling online and more time being present, creative, and embodied in your real life? In just two decades, technology has rapidly reshaped our psyches, relationships, and communities. The average person now spends the equivalent of 61 to 80 days a year on their smartphones. Apps increasingly hijack our attention while human empathy has steadily declined.

Though living a phone-based life can be overwhelming and feel hopeless, the power is in your hands. This workshop invites you to recover your focus, creativity, and humanity. In community, we will reckon with the impact of the digital age and remember the wisdom of our somatic and ensouled selves.

Psychology, attachment theory, neuroscience, and ancient wisdom all affirm the same truth: There is regenerative power when we go offline together.

New research reveals that insecure attachment styles (anxious or avoidant) make us more vulnerable to compulsive smartphone use as we seek a digital "secure base" over human connection. By rebuilding our capacity to turn toward one another, we can re-parent ourselves and repair relational ruptures from our past.

During our time together, we’ll explore how to rewire our neuropsychology and rekindle our creative potential. Your hands are the living hands of your ancestors. What wants to be expressed through you?

Each day will include:

• Morning meditation to connect to the inner self.
  
• Lectures on the psychological and relational impacts of technology.
  
• Guided exercises to reflect on our attachment histories and “styles.”
  
• Interpersonal practices to replace screen time with real connection.
  
• Collective ritual for going offline intentionally.
  
• Practices in poetry, movement, ritual, song, and nature-based meditation to re-engage and reignite the creative spark.
  
• Community gatherings to rest and restore, including Yoga Nidra for attuning to the technology of the heart.
  

The digital age calls for re-humanization. Join us to discover the tools, strategies, and community needed to make a meaningful change and reclaim your whole self.

Recommended reading: Stolen Focus by Johann Hari, Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport, Trust Your Truth by Shannon Algeo

Asanga’s Nine Stages of Staying is one of the oldest and most comprehensive systems of concentration in the Buddhist tradition. Sometimes called the Elephant Path, this approach was originated by the great Buddhist master in 506 A.D., and it is now the main method of training the mind in the Tibetan tradition.

In this weekend meditation retreat, participants will learn the stages of the Elephant Path using the body as the primary object of concentration. Students will also receive an introduction to the basic stages of ordinary insight. By the end of our time together, students will have all the instructions necessary to successfully incorporate a robust meditation practice into everyday life.

Training the mind in this way can lead to a direct experience of equanimity and can put the student in a range of practice wherein pointing out the real nature of the awakened mind is possible.

No experience with meditation is required. If you have your own preferred meditation pillow and mat, please bring them.

You are invited to an immersive weekend retreat where we will explore how to consciously and effectively respond to our planet’s call for regeneration. Be held by a supportive community and the wonders of the natural world as we learn ways to integrate body, mind, heart, and spirit in the regeneration of both your life and the Earth.

This retreat weaves together Raquel Santiago’s BioResilience somatic method, which restores individuals’ innate capacity for regeneration and deep rapport with nature through movement, and Manuel Maqueda’s approach to regenerative economics, which envisions wise and abundant human-Earth systems that nurture the health and renewal of the entire web of life.

Over the course of the weekend, you’ll be guided through mindfulness practices, accessible somatic and movement sessions, contemplative nature immersions, and playful community activities to illuminate your role in personal and collective regeneration during the challenging times of the Anthropocene.

Together, we will explore powerful practices that nurture both personal transformation and planetary healing. Through group discussions, we’ll consider fresh perspectives on regenerative thinking to foster a quantum leap from the traditional sustainability mindset.

Discover a renewed sense of empowerment and a deeper commitment to becoming an agent of planetary regeneration in your everyday life.

Recommended reading: Active Hope by Joanna Macy

There is an inner community inside of us: a community of selves. Some have a voice, and some are quiet. Some are known through sensation, emotion, and thought. Other selves have agendas, advice, and accusations.

Each of these selves has a history, an emotional state, and a felt sense in the body. Each represents a particular aspect or part of our (mostly) Unified Self. This weekend, we’ll notice our habitual reflexes, our “go-to” responses both on and off the dance floor. We’ll learn to find our inner selves and build our capacity to access the most useful ones for any given moment.

In mindful movement, we can substantiate selves that have been hiding or cast out. We can learn to calm the selves that work overtime, find unknown selves, and embody a self we have been waiting to become.

Andrea and Kathy facilitate a dynamic, non-judgmental, well-informed dance playground embodying these inner conversations. This practice is not only fun and awakening; the creativity of movement illuminates new possibilities and choices. Exploring distinct parts of our personalities can help illuminate all that is held within.

For hundreds of thousands of years, plants have been humanity’s greatest allies, shaping culture in material and spiritual ways. Across the Northern Hemisphere, a shared cohort of plants has profoundly influenced human existence, providing sustenance, medicine, textiles, and more. Honored as wise relatives, they carry mythic and spiritual significance across diverse cultures, forming a thread of kinship connecting our ancestors across continents and histories. Though modernity has painfully estranged us from the expansive web of relationality that our ancestors shared with the more-than-human-world, we can reclaim our “inalienable belonging to the earth community,” in the words of Joanna Macy. Meeting our botanical kin with curiosity and intention is a gesture toward restoring this enchanted ecological paradigm.

Join us to meaningfully engage with the lore and lives of pan-culturally significant plants — such as oak, nettle, mint, mugwort, elder, and rose — attuning to their presence in Big Sur’s wildlands while cultivating our botanical and cultural literacy. Through hands-on collaboration and an approach of reciprocity instead of extraction, we will craft herbal medicines, natural pigments, fibers, and tools in a manner that benefits the land and plants. Ceremony will invite us to discover these plants’ archetypal dimensions, revealing their roles as teachers and healers. As guests on Esselen tribal land, we will root our explorations in respect and reverence, honoring the relational worldviews of all our land-connected ancestors. Guest faculty Ariel Johnson will offer somatic practices to help guide us into embodied kinship — grounding us in gravity, sensory awareness, and open-hearted presence with our floral relatives.

Through these efforts, we remember our belonging, and we are remembered in return. The plants know us, after all, and welcome us back into our ancient traditions of botanical kinship.

Important Notes:

This retreat will include one full-day immersion as well as two half-day hiking excursions in the Big Sur wilderness, involving hikes up to 3 miles each. Please be aware that the hiking terrain can be steep, rugged, and sometimes strenuous, including prolonged sun exposure. Participants must be able to hike and carry what they need for the day: 2 liters of water, pack lunch provided by Esalen, and sun protection. Other workshop sessions will be mostly situated outdoors on the Esalen property.

This workshops includes an additional $60 of faculty tuition and $40 for park entrance fees.

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.

In the words of Carl Jung, “People don’t have ideas. Ideas have people.” 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. We must 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 five days, 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 nonlinear brainstorming to deepen our inspiration, along with experiential exercises. 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). In either case, we encourage those who want to participate in the incubator and get the most out of the lab to describe their project in one paragraph, tell us where you are with it, and where you want to take it. In another paragraph, please give us a sense of your professional background and how your project applies (or doesn’t at all) to what you’re already doing in your life now. ‍

Email us at: S2S@thisiscounterpointfilms.com.

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

When was the last time you gave something your undivided attention? Nearly 2,500 years ago, Buddha worried we had become too distracted — and that was before paper, let alone smartphones. In 2022, our days are filled with convenient distractions that promise happiness while mostly delivering busyness and frustration. So many of us today live life in a hectic fog, working too much and noticing too little.

There is a different way. For this weekend workshop, we will disconnect, slow down, and meditate together. We will learn the ancient Zen practice of sitting still, bringing our full awareness to what is now.

Our time together will follow a gentle schedule of sitting meditation punctuated by brief lectures, group discussion, relaxing meals, and soaks in the healing baths, all while exploring the process and practice of mindful living. We’ll be listening to our own bodies, noticing the food we eat, and truly engaging with the people around us – exploring what it means to be fully present.

Together we will explore everything you need to start, revive, or deepen your daily meditation practice. You will receive instruction in traditional Zen Buddhist meditation and we will sit together in guided sessions, practicing what we’ve learned. We’ll work together on everything from the mechanics of sitting posture to the mental barriers we all face. We’ll discuss how to overcome common obstacles to meditation and the many ways to incorporate more mindfulness and presence into our daily lives.

Whether you’re brand new to meditation or even if you’ve been practicing for years, join us in learning how to bring meditation into your life and mindfulness to your work and home – today and every day. Come reclaim a healthier and happier way to be.

Recommended Reading: Buddha’s Office, by Dan Zigmond

Pleasure is the measure of your aliveness. It is not frivolous — it is your birthright, your compass, and your healing. — Anonymous

What if your pleasure is the key to your liberation? What if it could be your prayer, your medicine, and your power? When was the last time you felt fully alive in your body — unapologetically?

Pleasure Alchemy is a somatic journey designed to awaken, heal, and empower you through the sacred art of sensual embodiment. By engaging all five senses through sacred touch, movement, and sound rituals, we’ll explore how to rewire shame and reclaim pleasure as a path to healing. Together, we will co-create alchemy through collective care. We invite you to experience yourself in community more fully and authentically by:  

Activating the body temple through guided somatic practices, breathwork, and movement rituals designed to reconnect to your sensual body as a source of truth, beauty, and divine intelligence.

• Rewiring shame into sovereignty by exploring the roots of erotic shame through compassionate inquiry and release practices.

• Experiencing the alchemy of touch with guided consensual touch rituals — solo and partnered — that can reawaken your pleasure pathways and open portals to healing and intimacy.

• Awakening the inner lover through mirror work, sensual self-devotion practices, and energetic cultivation to deepen your relationship with your erotic self.

• Reclaiming pleasure as medicine through sound healing, journaling, and group integration circles. With tools for integration, you can anchor the wisdom of your pleasure into your daily life as a revolutionary act of self-love and spiritual power.

Join us for an opportunity to reclaim your pleasure as a source of personal power, liberation, and deep connection in community. Pleasure is not just indulgence — it’s medicine.

Please Note: Pleasure Alchemy is best experienced somatically — in the body — and through community ritual. We invite learning through touch and presence. You are always at choice. While sensuality will be invited into the space, no overt sexual behavior will be part of the workshop.

The voice is calling me, to come home, to the river that is flowing within me. — Sophia Tuv

The voice is more than sound — it is the breath of our being made audible, the vibration of our essence moving through space. It is our most innate instrument, a direct channel between the soul and the world. When freed from inhibition, the voice carries the power to heal, connect, and transform. This is an immersive experience to return to the source of your voice — the primal, unbridled sound that lives within you. Through deep listening, somatic exploration, and playful vocal exercises, we will release the blocks that stifle expression and awaken the pleasure, power, and resonance of our true voice.

Together, we will:

• Explore vocal embodiment, using the body as a resonant chamber for sound.
• Engage in practices that dissolve tension, unblocking emotional and physical expression.
• Awaken the imagination and open new pathways of vocal creativity.
• Let breath and vibration guide us into dynamic, liberatory self-expression.
• Experience the joy of surrendering to our voice, allowing it to move through us freely.

This is an invitation to become your voice, to reclaim its raw beauty and medicine, and to honor the deep impact of speaking, singing, and sounding with love and intention. When we free our voice, we free ourselves — our capacity to express, to connect, to be fully seen and heard. This practice strengthens our confidence, deepens our relationships, and supports our ability to move through the world with clarity, presence, and truth. By attuning to the natural resonance of our voice, we cultivate authenticity, self-trust, and a profound sense of belonging within ourselves and our communities.

Awaken the voice you arrived with. Open the portal. Come home to your sound.

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 in faculty tuition.

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 a tuition scholarship at slshapiro@scu.edu.

How does your body transform in the vast and ever-changing tapestry of the universe? Join Tantric scholar-practitioners Sravana Borkataky-Varma and Keith Edward Cantú as we explore Tantric practices, including the cultivation of energetic bodies, that have the potential to change our internal and external environments.

Together, we will immerse ourselves in the latest research into Indic teachings and practices that challenge and reframe our conventional understandings of what Tantra was, is, and can be. Staying true to the roots of Esalen, we will also intertwine discussion with authentic South Asian folk musical performances, songs, and guided meditations for a creative, visceral experience for the mind, body, and heart. We will cast light on Tantra’s connections to a wide variety of vibrant artistic and meditative practices in an eye-opening and unforgettable way.

In this workshop, you’ll be invited to:

• Develop an embodied understanding of Tantra.
• Creatively explore your divine nature and potential.
• Enjoy the benefits of overcoming negative projections and self-generated illusions.
• Learn practical modes of meditation, including internal visualization and externalization through mandalas.

We invite both couples and individuals to join us in this workshop that blends meditation, art, and music with a holistic inquiry into Tantra’s power and therapeutic potential to unlock a happier and more fulfilling life. Bring an open mind as we explore deep questions about our bodies and minds in a safe space and nurturing environment.

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

This workshop includes $50 of additional faculty tuition.

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 14″ 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 14” 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 $200 material fee, which covers all materials for instrument making.

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

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

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

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

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

“Wilderness, by itself, has its own way of teaching. The direct experience of wilderness can spontaneously bring wholeness back into the human community.”  – Manual of Gestalt Practice in the Tradition of Dick Price

When we are present in the here and now, every moment in the natural world represents an opportunity to enrich, heal, and clarify our relationships to the Earth, ourselves, and one another. Esalen’s co-founder Dick Price spent much of his time hiking in the Big Sur wilderness, and he believed that wild nature supported wholeness and healing for himself and others. With roots in the Gestalt tradition and values Dick developed at Esalen, Relational Gestalt Practice is designed to help us live our lives with increased awareness and embodied presence — and can be powerfully explored within the natural world.

For five days, we will immerse in awareness practices and deep nature connection on the sacred grounds of the Esalen Institute and in the Big Sur wild (ancestral lands of the Esselen People). Together, we will explore our inner and outer landscapes by mindfully engaging with biodiverse wilderness and Gestalt practices under the open sky. Dorothy Charles, co-founder of Tribal Ground Circle and founder of Relational Gestalt Practice, will support the cultivation of presence, awareness, and the authentic expression of our hearts and minds. Wildtender co-founders Noël Vietor and Fletcher Tucker will guide our reconnection with the living world through a framework of kinship. A community of wild relations — redwood groves, ravens, mossy boulders, and all the beings and aspects of Big Sur — will expand our circle to include the more-than-human world.

• Answers to frequently asked questions about the workshop can be found here.
• Various hiking abilities can be accommodated, bearing in mind that day hikes for this workshop will be up to four miles long with rugged, uneven, and sometimes steep terrain. Participants must be able to sit on the ground for periods of time. 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 fee.

This immersive experience invites participants to journey through the seven chakras, guided by the subtle wisdom of medicinal plants and shamanic tea meditations. Rooted in embodied connection to the elements — earth, water, fire, and air — this workshop explores how the energetic and physical systems of the body mirror the natural world.

Each day focuses on one or more chakras, unfolding through practices such as plant meditations, tea ceremonies, guided rituals, and nature connection. Participants will work with herbs like kava kava, rose, blue lotus, tulsi, skullcap, cacao, and others — many sourced directly from Esalen’s Farm & Garden.

Through experiential practices such as flower essence creation, intuitive journaling, ceremony, and medicine making, the group will explore the art of plant spirit communication. These interactions offer a window into internal landscapes, clarifying intention, revealing heart truths, and awakening relational presence with the more-than-human world.

Time will be spent in the gardens and on the land — walking, harvesting, and creating in community — as well as in more intimate, reflective spaces. Fire rituals, water practices, and song circles will complement the work and provide pathways for integrating the spiritual and the somatic.

This work invites personal insight to arise organically from the interplay between body, breath, land, and plant. Participants will leave with handmade herbal preparations and tools to build a deeper resonance with the natural intelligence of the Earth.

Recommended reading: The Witch’s Herbal Apothecary, by Marysia Miernowska; Eastern Body, Western Mind by Aodea Judith

Somewhere inside you—buried deeply, or maybe just below the surface—there is a story you’ve been wanting to tell. Like every great story, the creative process follows an arc: a beginning where inspiration stirs, a middle where challenges arise, and a resolution where something new takes shape. This workshop is an opportunity to explore that arc—both in your storytelling and in yourself—through movement, mindfulness, and writing.

Through carefully curated practices, we invite you to step into your creative flow with curiosity and openness. Whether you’re a seasoned writer or just beginning to explore your voice, this space is for you.

During this weeklong experience, we will step away from our daily routines and immerse ourselves in the open air of Esalen. You will have the opportunity to move your body, find your breath, observe your mind, and engage with your words in a new way. Writing sessions will offer guidance and gentle encouragement to move past fear, explore your creative edges, and deepen your connection to storytelling.

This workshop will include:

• Journaling and creative writing exercises to explore the arc of your personal story
• Creative pathways to support in discovering and shaping your narrative
• Hatha-inspired yoga movement and Yoga Nidra practices to invite the connection of body, mind, and intuition
• A supportive and playful community to nurture your creative process

As educators, storytellers, and lifelong learners, Darnell and Cara believe in the power of storytelling and movement to awaken creativity. Just as every story unfolds in its own way, so too does our creative path. This workshop is an invitation to explore that unfolding, to experiment with new creative practices, and to discover what feels most alive for you. You will be encouraged to develop techniques and rituals that support your creativity, with the possibility of weaving them into your daily life in ways that feel natural and sustainable.

In this retreat, you will get in touch with a deep relaxation to rejuvenate the body and the mind through non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) and yoga nidra. No matter your reasons — whether you need a break from the constant pressure, are in a life transition, or just want to delve deeper into your meditation practice — this retreat will provide space and time for contemplation and reflection.

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

We’ll go on an inner journey together, and the hope is we’ll emerge more connected to both ourselves and our life paths to leave feeling refreshed and deeply rested.

Together, we will:

• Practice yoga nidra for restoration and rejuvenation.
• Discover the connection between nondual meditation and yoga nidra for deepening our meditation practices.
• Reflect on where we are in our lives and leave with a greater sense of self-connection and clarity.
• Dialogue about meditation for connection and community.
• Learn about the link between non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) and better sleep.

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

Gestalt is, at its heart, an awareness practice — one that invites us to be fully present with what is. This presence becomes the portal through which insight, inner guidance, and emotional regulation naturally emerge.

Gestalt practice allows us to connect with what is real and true for us — beyond old patterns, assumptions, habitual self-judgments, or the need to fix ourselves. Integrative Gestalt Practice™, developed by Perry and Johanna Holloman over the past 30 years, combines deep awareness with embodied exploration, offering practical tools to navigate life’s transitions, relationships, and inner questions with greater clarity and authenticity.

In this immersive workshop, we’ll guide you step by step in Integrative Gestalt Practice, a deeply experiential approach that engages body, heart, and mind. Through structured inquiries, breath practices, and movement, you will explore how awareness unfolds in real time and how it can bring clarity and a deeper connection to yourself and others. Group exercises, dyadic and triadic explorations, and guided self-inquiry will provide a dynamic space for transformation.

During this workshop, you will:

• Learn Gestalt-based self-inquiry practices that deepen awareness and connection.
• Engage in breath and movement-based exercises to access embodied wisdom.
• Work in dyads and triads to practice deep listening to one another and your own soul’s unfolding wisdom.
• Participate in guided group processes that create a dynamic space for transformation.
• Some participants will also have the opportunity to engage in individual “open seat” sessions with Perry and Johanna, supported by the group’s presence.

By deepening your capacity for presence and authentic connection, you cultivate trust in yourself and life itself, even in the midst of uncertainty. Join us for an immersive experience to create a stronger sense of agency, clarity, and connection to your own inner wisdom.

Recommended Reading: Gestalt Therapy Verbatim by Frederick S. Perls and Steve Andreas and The Unfolding Now by A. H. Almaas

This workshop includes an additional $50 in faculty tuition.

Our awareness of energy both expands and becomes more subtle as we deepen into relaxation.

The ancient Chinese practice of Qigong, often translated as “cultivating Life Force”, is a system of movement that relaxes and energizes the body/mind. You will find this form “Wai Dan Gong” easy to learn and a powerful means of  experiencing Life Force in and around you. We will enjoy moving on the Earth, under the heavens, while gazing at the Pacific. Wai Dan Gong is an excellent preparation for sitting, walking and standing meditation. Two mornings will be held as a retreat, we will keep noble silence until lunch. At other times we will share with compassion and humor our experiences of riding the wild waves of the mind.

In this rejuvenating retreat we will explore:

• the 25 movements of Wai Dan Gong.
• shorter Qigong sequences for ease in daily practice.
• sitting meditation (you may sit in a chair).
• walking and standing meditations.
• gentle meridian stretches.
• a full body self massage routine.
• the six healing sounds.
• simple breath practices.

Please come ready to enjoy a deep sense of ease and an expanded sense of the energy body.

Recommended reading: The way of Qigong by Kenneth Cohen

The Earth holds us, breathes with us, moves through us.

Since time immemorial, human beings have lived in deep, reciprocal relationship with landscapes—our movements shaped by terrain, our nervous systems regulated by the rhythms of seasons and tides, our sense of self inseparable from the more-than-human world. Yet, in this modern, frenetic age, we are conditioned to see our bodies as isolated, our healing as individual, and “nature” as separate. This retreat is an invitation to remember an older truth: to inhabit our own bodies fully is to reinhabit the living Earth.

Rooted in the Gestalt traditions of Esalen and the emergent field of eco-somatics, our four-day backpacking journey will guide us through the wilds of Big Sur—Esselen tribal territory—in an immersive exploration of belonging, awareness, and interconnection, followed by a weekend of retreat and integration at Esalen Institute.

While trekking through awe-inspiring wilderness, we will engage in somatic practices that reawaken our felt kinship with the natural world. Embracing slowness and spaciousness, we will attune to gravity, breath, and the sensuous aliveness of place. Silent hiking, intuitive movement, meditation, and earth-based ritual will dissolve the false boundary between self and landscape. Exploring embodiment as an intimate community, we will move beyond notions of individual self-care to a lived experience of healing as relational and ecological.

Through this retreat, we step into a different rhythm—one guided by the living world around and within us. As we listen with our whole bodies, we begin to sense the reciprocity woven into all things. What emerges is not just connection but remembering—a return to a relationship as ancient as our true body: the Earth.

Important Notes:

• The full experience takes place over six days, from Tuesday, October 7th to Sunday, October 12th, 2025.

• This is a partner program with Wildtender, an organization based in Big Sur exploring the embodied intersection of wilderness and wisdom traditions. Prior to registering with Esalen, you will need to register and pay tuition fees through Wildtender for the wilderness portion of the program. For more details and to register, visit wildtender.org/earthbody
• Experience with backpacking is not required. Wilderness skills will be taught before and within the program, and participants will be supported in preparations. Please see Wildtender’s program page for a more detailed hiking itinerary and backpacking eligibility criteria.

Since falling in love is biologically natural, but sustaining love is biologically unnatural, Soul Mate focuses on the art and discipline of sustaining love. You begin with learning how to appreciate your partner so specifically and frequently that your partner feels fully seen and loved.

You then practice both the art and discipline of hearing your partner’s criticisms without becoming defensive. For example, so you don’t have to fear “walking on eggshells” before sharing a concern, your partner first learns how to prepare her or himself to emotionally associate your criticism with an opportunity to be more deeply loved.

Soul Mate is designed as the next evolutionary shift beyond active listening. Active listening allowed the criticizer to feel heard, but failed to teach the person hearing the criticism how to emotionally associate the criticism with an opportunity to be more deeply loved. The problem? Unless the receiver of criticism feels safe the person sharing their concern cannot feel safe.

You will learn a series of practices you may integrate into your everyday life:

• Six methods of sustaining a “conflict free zone” for 166 hours of your 168-hour week.
• A “Caring and Sharing Time” the remaining two hours by practicing six mindsets that allow you to not feel defensive when criticized.
• “Eleven Wisdoms” as a foundation for deepening your love.
• The four “depleters of love,” aka the “Four C’s” (Criticisms, Complaints, Controlling, and Complacency)
• How to use your new skills with your children, parents, work colleagues and people you differ with politically.
• How to use music and dancing to revitalize your love (to be practiced by dancing before each session)

To sustain your practice after the workshop, I invite you to free, ongoing, group follow-up calls to resolve stumbling blocks. If you wish to review the insights and exercises at any time, you will also have the option of purchasing a Zoom and book version of the course.

This workshop is for couples of all genders and sexual orientations.  Developed over the past 30 years, the workshop is also used by many health professionals in their work with clients and patients.

Recommended Resources: Role Mate to Soul Mate by Warren Farrell (BenBella: July 2024); additional video content on warrenfarrell.com.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHtXyzKk6bQ&t=229s

I think it’s the worst thing that we do to each other as women, not share the truth about our bodies and how they work and how they don’t work. —Michelle Obama

The pelvis is a powerful part of our body and is foundational to our overall health. The tissues and bones of our pelvis encompass our reproductive, eliminatory, and digestive organs. They shift and change according to stress, infection, pregnancy and birth, hormonal changes, lifestyle, and trauma. When it is in balance, we feel at ease; when out of balance, it can significantly impact the quality of our life.

This retreat will focus on pelvic health along the span of the reproductive spectrum, from preconception through menopause. A broad range of topics will be covered, including:

• Pelvic floor anatomy and self-care practices
• Menstrual health
• Sexual health
• Nutrition and the digestive system
• Plant medicine
• Mindfulness
• Mental health
• Yoga and other movement practices
• Community building and journaling activities
• Hormones and fertility
• Pelvic care across cultures and history

Our goal is to help our participants increase their knowledge, self-awareness, and literacy on the workings of their body, pelvic floor, fertility, and sexual health during different spans of their lives. Participants will discover an array of resources, a community of women to support them on their journey, lifelong education, and self-care practices that are accessible and supportive for their body and pelvic health.

Recommended Reading: Wild Feminine by Tami Lynn Kent, Dr. Sonia’s Guide to Navigating Pelvic Pain by Sonia Bahlani, Hello, Down There: A Guide to Healing Chronic Pelvic and Sexual Pain by Alexandra Milspaw and Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

Participants must bring their own set of tune-up yoga massage balls for use during the workshop. They can be purchased here.

We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking. — Richard Rohr

In a world in flux, where uncertainty is the norm, how do we cultivate the inner resilience to enact outer change? This workshop invites educators, social impact leaders, and business professionals to explore healing-centered learning environments as a means of building personal and collective capacity.

This guided weekend retreat experience integrates two transformational frameworks: the Healing-Centered Education Paradigm, a restorative and contemplative approach to learning and leadership, and the Archaeology of Self™ Methodology, a reflective practice of self-excavation to deepen self-awareness and disrupt biases.

During our time together, participants will engage in:

• Mindfulness-based practices — grounding techniques to navigate uncertainty and develop inner clarity.
• Somatic and embodied reflection — movement-based and sensory practices to attune to our body’s wisdom.
• Journaling and critical reflection — guided writing exercises to explore personal narratives.
• Peer-to-peer dialogue — interactive discussions to deepen connections and share insights.
• Poetry writing and storytelling — creative practices to unearth wisdom and reimagine possibilities.

This retreat is for those at the intersection of education, leadership, and community care — those committed to deepening their own growth while contributing to collective healing and systemic transformation. Participants will be given the tools to discover a renewed sense of purpose and clarity in their work to leave rejuvenated, reinvigorated, intellectually stimulated, and spiritually grounded.

We all long to be happy. We all long to feel at ease, to be at peace, and to know that we’re okay and we belong. When it feels like the world is on fire, when divisiveness is commonplace, it can seem harder than ever to access such belonging — both personally and collectively.

Most of us are deeply habituated to believe that we are separate — from one another, from the world, and even from ourselves. We are habituated to fall for the story that we must fix ourselves in order to earn and experience deep connection.

We forget that belonging is already seated in the heart of who we are — and that it’s always available if only we look within. When we do, we can transform far more than just our own lives.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Have you ever touched this peace, this contentment, this deep return to belonging but then feared losing this experience?
• Have you ever struggled because you recognized the world around you did not reflect this experience of your true nature?
• When faced with the enormity of the collective problems before us, have you wondered how one individual’s spiritual practice can make a tangible difference in our world?

These questions will guide our time together as we explore how meditation, mindfulness, and contemplative technologies can — and must — be applied collectively. Our daily meditation practice will serve as a framework onto which we will begin to weave teachings with personal reflections. You will have the opportunity to connect to yourself, others, and the world beyond in solo and group exercises and discussions that inspire us to put our values into action.

Join us in this return to belonging — this remembering of the deepest truth of who we are — with the intention of using this understanding to transform our own lives and the world we share.

Recommended reading: The Heart of Who We Are: Realizing Freedom Together by Caverly Morgan

Join us for a deeply nourishing sound immersion where sacred resonance becomes a gateway to transformation. In this weeklong workshop, we work with alchemy crystal singing bowls — instruments of subtle energy and crystalline intelligence — to harmonize the nervous system, soften emotional residue in the biofield, and awaken a more grounded, joyful state of being.

Each day includes spacious sound journeys designed to support theta brainwave states and foster deep relaxation, subconscious clearing, and intuitive insight. As we attune to the bowls’ harmonic field, we invite a gentle re-patterning of the nervous system and access to peace, presence, and embodied vitality.

Through practices in mantra (a Sanskrit word meaning “mind tool”), movement, voice, and reflection, we’ll explore how sound can:

• Clear energetic stagnation.
  
• Cultivate inner calm and self-trust.
  
• Interrupt and rewire habitual stress loops.
  
• Open pathways to awe, clarity, and inspiration.
  

You’ll experience seven alchemy crystal bowl sound journeys, heart-opening vocal practices, and a co-creative session in the Art Barn. We’ll also share journaling, partner work, and restorative space for integration. Midweek, we’ll be joined by Big Sur elder Damaris (Penny Vieregge), who will bring luminous presence and the poetry of Sufi mystic Hafiz to uplift our hearts.

Held within the elemental beauty of Esalen, where ocean waves, mineral springs, and towering trees invite deep renewal, this retreat offers space to soften, realign, and reconnect with your true self.

Come as you are. Leave radiant from within.

Join us to experience deep rest and renewal! You need and deserve this. So many of us are overtaxed by constant demands, burdens, and worries, especially those of us providing extra support for others through caregiving, healthcare, activism, and other service-oriented jobs.

We bring you expertise in the science, art, and practice of restoration from stress.

• Learn the practical and cutting-edge science of stress resilience.
• Be guided into states of deep rest and rejuvenation through meditation, yoga nidra, and restorative yoga.
• Awaken all of your senses to reconnect with your body and increase vitality through gentle yoga, expressive movement, nature immersion, and sound healing.

Immersed in the beauty of nature at Esalen, our work is well supported. We will learn and practice new ways to restore ourselves, and you will develop a toolbox of short practices that support your daily rejuvenation and sustained vitality.

Love is an ecological process.  — Andreas Weber

Most of us have lost our sensual connection to our bodies and to the living world. We have become numb to the Earth's touch. This weekend workshop offers an immersive experience in the erotic ecology pathway — a space to reawaken our sensory, pleasurable, and nourishing connection to two landscapes: our bodies and the Earth. You are invited to slow down and discover how to let the Earth touch you, heal you, and love you.

Through embodied exploration, you can rediscover your birthright: an intimate relationship with the Earth as lover and healer. This kinship reminds us that, at our essence, we are not separate from the Earth — we are the Earth.

Set amongst Esalen's sacred landscape, where redwood forests meet the Pacific Ocean, we'll engage in practices that are designed to open you to ecological eros: abundant source of pleasure, aliveness, and vitality.

Together, we will:

• Savor the nourishment of surrendering to the Earth's embrace.
• Awaken a felt sense of kinship with the natural world.
• Reconnect with your body's innate intelligence and capacity for healing.
• Taste the deepest wellspring of rest and nourishment that is always available to us.
• Remember your aliveness.
• Practice talking and listening to the Earth.

You'll be guided to return home with the kindled flame of a love affair with the Earth — an enduring resource in an increasingly disconnected world.

Recommended Reading: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

For thousands of years, autumnal holidays such as Samhain, Hallowe’en, and Vetrnætr have served as ceremonial foundations — connecting pre-modern peoples to landscape, ancestors, and ritual time. Many cultures believe “the veil thins” during this time, letting enchantment flood back into our world. The time is rife with opportunities to renew sacred relationships with the Earth, ourselves, and beings seen and unseen.

As the deciduous trees draw inward to direct energy into their roots, we too may feel drawn to our deeper inner worlds. The Big Sur wilderness — Esselen Tribal territory — is a fertile habitat for mind and spirit, and a potent domain for ritual to support transformation during this liminal season. Approaching the landscape as our teacher and guide, we will engage with the natural world in an embodied ecological context and explore the mythological and psycho-spiritual dimensions of land connectedness.

Drawing from their own European earth-based kinship traditions while holding a larger frame of pancultural land relationship, facilitators Fletcher Tucker and Micha Merrick will offer daily encounters with the medicinal, ecological, and ritual dimensions of plants found across the Northern Hemisphere. Diverse practices, including sound journeywork and guided meditations, will aid us in cultivating enhanced awareness, interconnectedness, and ceremonial reverence. Rooted in the Gestalt tradition of Esalen, we will build a container of safety and heart-centered community to connect meaningfully with ourselves and one another. Over five days of presence, play, and practice on the land, we will depart from modernity’s anthropocentric paradigm and descend into the ancient, potent, animate world of kinship and enchantment.

Important notes: This retreat will include one full day of immersion in the Big Sur wilderness, with a hike up to three miles. Please be aware that the hiking terrain can be steep, rugged, and sometimes strenuous. There may be prolonged sun exposure. Participants must be able to hike and carry what they need for the day: two liters of water, a pack lunch provided by Esalen, and sun protection. Other workshop sessions will be mostly situated outdoors on the Esalen property.

For thousands of years across many cultures, enhanced states of consciousness have been used as a strategy for meaningful transformation and self-exploration — marking life’s major transitions and rites of passage and deepening one’s connection to self, community, and the natural world.

In this workshop, we will gather in the rich field of community for an immersive experience and personal exploration of enhanced states of consciousness. Our time together will include strategies for navigating, integrating, and preparing for these experiences. Holotropic Breathwork® offers language, method, and structure for turning inward and working with deeply personal material as it emerges, uniquely, from one’s own intrinsic intelligence. We will be supported by time-honored practices that are simple, yet powerful. These unique states can offer us unmediated access to the self as a deep source of healing, insight, and evolutionary potential. Participants will experience four Holotropic Breathwork sessions, with two as “breather” and two as “sitter.” Your time assisting others in “non-ordinary state” space will complement your personal exploration. Additionally, contemplative practice, movement, expressive arts, and time in community will support the integration process throughout the week.

Originating from the pioneering psychedelic researcher, Stanislav Grof, and his late wife, Christina Grof, Holotropic Breathwork is a particularly useful practice for those interested in or training to work in psychedelic-assisted therapy.

This workshop is suited for all those of heart who are curious about exploring enhanced states of consciousness and opening to an evolutionary process of unfolding. New or novice explorers/breathers are very welcome, along with experienced navigators/breathers. The fundamental urge to grow, to heal, and to be transformed in a truly authentic way drives us not outward but inward, toward the depths of our own being, toward a deep mystery within. This inward journey strengthens and nourishes our senses in a way that can revitalize our daily lives with creative and emergent energy.

We are living through a polycrisis — a time of profound unraveling and emergence. Old systems and structures are collapsing while new possibilities stir beneath the surface. This shift isn’t just happening “out there.” It is alive within each of us, inviting us to transform inherited stories into new ways of being, relating, and belonging.

American Detox is a bold and embodied exploration of how we’ve been shaped by history, trauma, and culture and what it’s going to take to heal. Based on the critically acclaimed book by Kerri Kelly, this journey invites us to challenge the myths that have shaped our reality — separation, supremacy, and scarcity — so that we can move toward personal and collective wholeness. Through dynamic movement, radical inquiry, and creative engagement, we will:

• Unlearn limiting beliefs, inherited stories, and toxic patterns of being and doing.
• Explore transformative practices that move energy, disrupt patterns, and metabolize trauma.
• Build greater capacity and resilience for the discomfort of change and the uncertainty of (im)possible futures.
• Cultivate an everyday practice of collective care that ensures all of us can be well.
• Reimagine ways of being, doing, surviving, and thriving together.

We are being called to rise to the occasion — to take stock of what is no longer serving us so that we can step into our full power and potential. This retreat is designed to facilitate just that — an awakening of the mind, body, and spirit that enables us to meet this moment and shape the future that we all deserve.

This workshop offers a limited number of faculty scholarships, including various room options to accommodate different financial capabilities. Please consider your social location and proximity to privilege when requesting scholarship/support to ensure equitable access. Link to financial assistance form. If you would like further financial assistance, you may also apply for an Esalen Scholarship.

Embody the power of fall this Halloween as we explore the many ways to let go, let loose, release, and be at ease with yoga, movement, and stillness.

With an internal focus on fall, turn your thoughts and attention inward and toward the earth and trust in the process and practice of letting go to replenish the body with deep rest, grounding energy, and calm.

In the spirit of the season, we will “mask and unmask,”  bridging the contrasts of form and formlessness, holding and releasing for greater harmony in the process of asana and Savasana, the cycle of life, day and night, light and dark. We’ll contrast stillness with movement and long-held yoga poses with fluid vinyasa. We’ll awaken positive muscle memories with relaxation and alignment techniques and learn how to lean deeper into the bones for inner strength and support while practicing a multitude of ways to expand our breath capacity naturally.

This fall, mirror the trees and awaken inner peace by standing tall through the process of release.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When was the last time you gave something your undivided attention? Nearly 2,500 years ago, Buddha worried we had become too distracted — and that was before paper, let alone smartphones. In 2022, our days are filled with convenient distractions that promise happiness while mostly delivering busyness and frustration. So many of us today live life in a hectic fog, working too much and noticing too little.

There is a different way. For this weekend workshop, we will disconnect, slow down, and meditate together. We will learn the ancient Zen practice of sitting still, bringing our full awareness to what is now.

Our time together will follow a gentle schedule of sitting meditation punctuated by brief lectures, group discussion, relaxing meals, and soaks in the healing baths, all while exploring the process and practice of mindful living. We’ll be listening to our own bodies, noticing the food we eat, and truly engaging with the people around us – exploring what it means to be fully present.

Together we will explore everything you need to start, revive, or deepen your daily meditation practice. You will receive instruction in traditional Zen Buddhist meditation and we will sit together in guided sessions, practicing what we’ve learned. We’ll work together on everything from the mechanics of sitting posture to the mental barriers we all face. We’ll discuss how to overcome common obstacles to meditation and the many ways to incorporate more mindfulness and presence into our daily lives.

Whether you’re brand new to meditation or even if you’ve been practicing for years, join us in learning how to bring meditation into your life and mindfulness to your work and home – today and every day. Come reclaim a healthier and happier way to be.

Recommended Reading: Buddha’s Office, by Dan Zigmond

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

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

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

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

You are invited to:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This workshop includes an additional $100 faculty tuition.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This workshop includes $175 additional faculty tuition.

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

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

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

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

Beginners and “advanced beginners” are welcome.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Note: Please bring a journal to write in, and items for our altar, including photographs of loved ones and ancestors and sacred objects that have meaning for you.

Special Note on Gift Economy:  For this workshop, Esalen will not be collecting the typical leader fees. Erika embraces the tradition of the gift economy and reciprocity. The leader’s compensation will be self-determined by each attendee. At the end of the workshop, participants will offer a donation amount that reflects their feeling of gratitude, value, and desire to support Erika and her ongoing work.

BIPOC SCHOLARSHIP: Erika has established a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, person of color) scholarship for her workshops.  For more information on receiving one to participate, please contact her at ErikaGagnon11@gmail.com

What happens when we refuse to dismiss mystical, metaphysical, and anomalous experiences as mere fantasy, pathology, or accident? What if these moments — often brushed aside by mainstream discourse — actually reveal deeper structures of consciousness and reality?

The Soul Is a UFO offers an imaginative, grounded space to explore such questions — designed for those who seek to make meaning of their own mystical or paranormal experiences; those who wish to invite such experiences safely by using coherent metaphysical frameworks; and those simply curious about the possibilities that lie beyond the surface of conventional reality.

Drawing on Platonic Surrealism, a framework developed by Kevin Cann, we will engage in structured dialogues and experiential exercises to explore how the metaphysical can be encountered without losing contact with embodied life. The method serves as a stabilizing interface between metaphysical vision and everyday cognition — which is especially valuable for neurodivergent thinkers, seekers disillusioned with reductionist models of the self, and anyone questioning culturally prescribed limits on identity and perception.

This seminar is part of the Super Story Series, sponsored by the Center for Theory and Research (CTR) at Esalen Institute. The series includes three thematic cycles: The Physics of Mystics, Biological Gods, and this current seminar, The Soul Is a UFO. The Super Story is a poetic and conceptual framework designed to capture the mythic and mystical narratives that have emerged over the last two centuries in deep resonance with evolving paradigms in physics, evolutionary biology, cosmology, and idealist philosophy. This project situates personal transformation within a larger cosmological and cultural re-enchantment, connecting the individual’s inner experiences to the macro-myths of science and spirit.

This workshop works with the deepest levels of ontology, before and beyond any human concepts of god. Keeping an open mind during this workshop is highly recommended.

Recommended reading:   How to Think Impossibly, by Jeffrey J. Kripal; Fourth Wall Phantoms, Joshua Cutchin; Why Materialism Is Baloney, by Bernardo Kastrup

Whether you’re brand new to the Enneagram or have spent years exploring its insights, The Fixations Training, developed by Oscar Ichazo, offers a rare opportunity to experience the system in its original context.

Before the Enneagram became widely known as a personality typing tool, it was part of a profound inner map designed to help describe who we are and also help us transcend the habitual patterns that limit our experience of self and reality.

At the heart of Ichazo’s work is the concept of the Fixations: nine distinct ego structures that arise from early disconnection from our essential nature. Each of us is shaped by three, one from each of the body’s centers of intelligence: head, heart, and gut. Together, these form what Ichazo called the Trifix™.

Over the course of this immersive weekend, you will:

• Identify your personal Trifix™, gaining insight into the mental, emotional, and instinctual patterns that subtly shape your perceptions and behavior.
• Explore the Fixations through guided practices, small-group dialogue, and Ichazo’s meditative and movement-based exercises, which help to harmonize and energize the whole self.
• Receive a comprehensive introduction to all nine Fixations, revealing how these patterns function both individually and as a system of interlocking tendencies.

This is not about putting yourself in a box — it’s about clearly seeing the box you’ve unknowingly lived in and stepping beyond it. For those already familiar with the Enneagram, this workshop offers depth, precision, and a connection to its spiritual roots. For those new to the work, it opens a grounded and practical pathway into self-observation and growth.

Come prepared to gain insight into your personality and the deeper forces that shape your experience of mind, heart, and body.

In an era fascinated by peak experiences and personal revelations, the deeper task of transformation is often overlooked. This workshop offers a grounded path for those who have touched something sacred — through psychedelics, mystical states, or profound life transitions — and are now asking, How do I live in service to what I’ve seen?

Rooted in Jungian psychology and contemplative practice, this week at Esalen will guide participants into the art of integration — not as a checklist, but as a lifelong discipline of becoming. We will explore the difference between having an experience and being changed by one.

Participants are invited to:

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

This course is not about chasing visions — it is about carrying them with integrity. Come if you are ready to descend, reflect, and reshape your life in honor of what has already begun within you.

The destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars.

— Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower

In winter’s stillness, renewal begins underground — quiet, unseen, and full of potential. This season invites us inward, offering the space to reflect, restore, and root deeply in what truly matters before new growth emerges. As our intentions and ambitions sharpen, we get to discern what parts of our lives we will continue, what we will leave behind, and what we will start. Whether we are feeling stuck at a crossroads in life or work, transitioning through relationships, or beginning a new project, now is the time to seed self-renewal.

In this week-long workshop, we will turn to the teachings of nature, the stars, embodiment, guided inquiry, and collective wisdom — all for the sake of regenerative growth.

Through highly interactive journaling prompts, paired and small group discussions, guided movement meditations, and other ritual practices for renewal, participants will discover tools to clarify hopes and dreams, release old beliefs and behaviors, and chart new strategies for curating the future. Join us as we internalize a powerful framework from nature to refresh our worlds and seed possibilities for life to come.

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

This workshop will include:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All levels are welcome.

This workshop includes an additional $20 material fee.

Gather with us on the longest night of the year for a weekend of deep ritual, mythic remembrance, and communal rebirth. As the sun pauses in stillness, we will circle the hearthfire to honor the turning of the wheel and the return of the light through sacred ceremony, fire circles, folklore, green magic, herbcraft, candlelit herbal baths, sound healing, self-inquiry, and divination.

Drawing on solstice observance rituals of Celtic, Nordic/Eurasian, and Indo-European origins – and respectfully informed by Indigenous animistic practices from around the world — this gathering is a weaving of ancestral wisdom and living earth-based spirituality. Together, we’ll step into a shared ceremonial container of reverence, gratitude, and connection with our Earth Mother as she begins her sacred journey back toward the light of our brilliant sun.

During our time together, we will honor the Solstice turning with:

• A ceremonial spiral of light
• Harvest herbs and hands-on herbcraft
• Sunset and sunrise ceremonies to mark the sacred transition
• Solstice fire and storytelling by the flames
• A nourishing dinner and feast in community
• A candlelit herbal sound bath in hot spring waters

Come as you are — in devotion, curiosity, or quiet wonder. This is a space for remembering, re-rooting, and rekindling the light within.

This workshop includes an additional $15 for materials.

Soul is flow. It’s an ever-changing play of sensations and feelings. It’s how the deathless presence meets and moves our finite human body. In this workshop, we will reclaim the body-in-motion as a doorway to the life unfolding just under the surface of everyday forgetting.

A formless dance form, Soul Motion® allows for passionate, full-bodied movement as well as mindful inner explorations, art-making, ritual, and luscious lounging. Together, we will integrate conscious movement, body-based inquiries of Gestalt Practice, and the stillness of nature for a process to transform body, heart, and spirit.

Soul Motion is a meeting between self and other in a dance that is deeply creative, nourishing, and transforming. It is a movement toward the dynamic stillness at the center of all things — the place of rest at the heart of sound and motion.

During this week together, we will:

• Dance, inspired by a wide range of music and the great sound of silence, supported by the benevolent presence of earth and sky.
• Learn skills for stress reduction, relaxation, and renewal through conscious movement and stillness.
• Build resonance with the movements of life around us by moving from the inside out — alone, in pairs and trios, and as a group, sometimes indoors, sometimes in nature.
• Explore and express what is alive inside us through movement, awareness practices, and sharing in pairs and as a group.
• Experience through movement all the landscapes of relating — to self, to the world, and to the great Mystery that we also are.
• Spend time on the land in sitting and walking meditation, allowing ourselves to dissolve a little into space.

Open to anybody willing to move, pause, listen, and truly relax into one timeless moment. This workshop is especially helpful for people in the healing professions who work with clients, patients, and students.

All light arises from darkness, including insight, creativity, vision, joy, and possibility. The luminous darkness is the spacious presence and receptivity through which we also access light. It is the field of all potential and emergence that we sometimes forget in the context of ordinary life and habit. In this deeply restorative retreat, at the threshold of a new year, we will commune with the luminous darkness to listen deeply, renew possibility, and set conscious intentions for our lives and our world in the year ahead.

We will replace knowing with not knowing and rest in the embodied presence from which clearer seeing arises.

With compassion and curiosity as our guides, we will reflect on the past year, both harvesting lessons and releasing limiting beliefs. This regenerative and transformative process is about remembering who we really are — and stepping into possibility on behalf of our collective.

We will deepen our capacity for compassion and clear seeing  through:

• Meditation and Dharma talks
• Relational mindfulness and inquiry
• Conscious movement and dance
• Embodied practices to invoke the realm of dreaming and conscious imagination and to embrace shadow and the unknown
• Reflective writing
• Deep time in nature

This workshop, inspired by Eden’s book Luminous Darkness, draws upon the wisdom streams of Buddhist meditation and mindfulness, non-duality, eco dharma, somatic awareness, and conscious dance. This work is heart-opening, transformative — and also incredibly fun!

Recommended reading: Luminous Darkness: An Engaged Buddhist Approach to Embracing the Unknown by Deborah Eden Tull

Bring in the New Year with a rejuvenating weekend of meditation, music, and gentle yoga, guided by Buddhist teacher and author Lopön Chandra. As winter invites us to slow down and turn inward, we’ll explore “wintering” — the art of embracing rest, renewal, and the quiet gifts of this time.

Enjoy meditation sessions, both indoors and outside, while gazing over the Pacific Ocean, perhaps even spotting migrating whales. Learn techniques for developing shamatha, meaning “calm abiding,” and concentration, including mindfulness of breathing and Buddhist-based awareness practices. Experience the healing benefits of mantra recitation and devotional music, along with gentle, therapeutic yoga to support deeper states of relaxation and insight.

This weekend is designed for fun, reflection, and restoration. Whether you’re new to meditation and yoga or an experienced practitioner, you’ll find accessible practices, supportive accommodations, and a welcoming community. Seated and supine meditations will be offered for all bodies and abilities.

Come as you are and leave refreshed, carrying winter’s quiet wisdom and renewed inspiration into the New Year. All are welcome.

Come to dance and be danced! Move until you are moved. Dance until the dancer disappears and only the dance remains.—Gabrielle Roth

The gateway of the body is a powerful vessel that allows us to move and be moved. Together, we will dance into and through the gateway of the new year, crossing the thresholds of past, present, and future. We will honor the darkness of this season while igniting the light of prayer and hope for the future, dancing out of distraction and into the focused space of collective movement medicine.

If we have the courage to move the body, the heart and mind can follow. Come open the gateway of your body by unlocking presence and potential. Come see what is waiting for you on the other side. The 5Rhythms®, a moving meditation practice, teaches us skills and tools to use in our everyday lives that help us facilitate the union of presence-based awareness. The rhythms — Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical, and Stillness — allow us to explore the true nature of who we are and how our energy moves in this world.

Seated meditation allows the space for quiet integration of the nervous system. In the 5Rhythms, we engage in mindfulness while in motion as a pathway to externalize energy. The two polarities of moving and sitting meditation together mirror the dance of life and open the door to cultivate peace, well-being, and balance.

Join us as we dance into the new year! No experience is required. All workshop hours contribute to 5Rhythms teacher training prerequisites.

This workshop includes optional sessions with Guest Artist Martha Peabody focused on the investigation of the 5Rhythms Visual Practice for personal and community ritual.

Recommended reading:  Maps to Ecstasy, Connections, & Sweat Your Prayers, by Gabrielle Roth, Dancing with the Dharma Edited by Harrison Blum, Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness by David Treleaven

This workshop includes an additional $100 of faculty tuition.