Creativity & Culture
Website program category as of 2022
COME TOGETHER! A Festival of IntraConnectivity and Spirit | Day Pass
With Daniel Siegel, Elissa Epel, Little Bear Tom Nason, Rhonda V. Magee and Douglas Drummond
We live in times of high existential stress with both ever-increasing personal, societal, and global pressures and the constant pain of witnessing ecological crises and widespread social injustices. These challenges also create opportunities to reconsider our relationships to self, one another, and the planet — and to choose a life of peak purpose and interconnectedness. […]
COME TOGETHER! A Festival of IntraConnectivity and Spirit | ETMC Day Pass
With Daniel Siegel, Elissa Epel, Little Bear Tom Nason, Rhonda V. Magee and Douglas Drummond
We live in times of high existential stress with both ever-increasing personal, societal, and global pressures and the constant pain of witnessing ecological crises and widespread social injustices. These challenges also create opportunities to reconsider our relationships to self, one another, and the planet — and to choose a life of peak purpose and interconnectedness. […]
Meet Your Better Half: Unlock Your Right Brain
With William Donius
Learn to activate the right side of your brain to unlock the insights necessary to break through self-limiting patterns. Based on a Nobel Prize-winning discovery in neuroscience, this methodology helps you think outside the box and live a more creative, productive, happier life. William Donius, author of the New York Times bestseller Thought Revolution, spent […]
Elemental Ceramics
With "Kayenta" Kelly Magleby
Join us for this weeklong wild clay pottery intensive. As a group, we will go through the whole process of making pottery from the wild, including processing clay, mixing various wild clays, and finding and testing clay in the field. We’ll learn how to hand-build pots using various techniques, including pinch pots, slab work, coil […]
Selah: Untaming
With Bayo Akomolafe and Nora Bateson
Selah is the call of grace to make art at the edge of the world. At the end of the world. — Bayo Akomolafe We are often reminded that for social change to be transformative, it must be scaled up. It must be big, written in bold fonts across the night sky. Unambiguously clear. We […]
Bohemian Gravity: Transformation Through Movement and Meditation
With Yemi Akinyemi Dele
A weekend of transformative exploration to bridge physical movement with the subtle layers of internal flow, connecting body, energy, and perception. This retreat goes beyond traditional practices and invites participants to discover the intelligence and freedom inherent in all forms of movement — not only in the body’s gestures but also in its inner energy […]
Science and Spirituality: The Search for Meaning in a Secular Age
With Michael Shermer
The intellectual and spiritual quest to understand the Universe and our place in it is at the core of science, religion, and spiritual traditions. We are pattern-seeking, storytelling animals trying to make sense of the world. For millennia, we have told stories in the form of myths and through religions that have offered countless explanations. […]
The Braided Way: Bringing Ancient Wisdom Into Our Contemporary Lives Through Trance Drumming, Ceremony, and Cross Cultural Wisdom
With Patricia James and Geramy Quarto
When the wisdom of the sky and the wisdom of the earth are braided through the human heart, then there will be a rainbow of people. This prophecy of the Indigenous peoples speaks to the practice of braiding together traditional (earth) and contemporary (sky) knowledge to create something new that embraces both rather than replacing […]
Embodied Writing and Spiritual Practice
With Sravana Borkataky-Varma and Erik Davis
Part writing workshop and part tantric retreat, this unique practice week explores the relationship between personal writing and subtle body practices. Religious historian and Tantric practitioner Sravana Borkataky-Varma will lead experiential sessions largely stemming from Hindu Goddess Tantra practices. Award-winning author and scholar Erik Davis will then guide the group in reading and writing exercises, […]
Awaken The Artist Within: The Sketchbook Immersion
With Erin Gafill and Tom Birmingham
Learn to tap the source and break through creative barriers during this hands-on workshop. Together, we’ll explore a variety of mediums and techniques to find entry into creative expression, including: Color blocking Watercolor sketching Observational image making Timed free writing Abstracting from nature The poet Rumi speaks of a river of joy that courses through […]
Tantra Inspired Mandala Making
With Sravana Borkataky-Varma and Keith Edward Cantú
Where do you belong 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 creation of physical mandalas (maṇḍala), circles, and other shapes with the potential to transform our internal and external environments. Together, we will immerse ourselves in the […]
Mapping Your Hero’s Adventure: A Mythogenesis PlayShop
With Robert Walter
Joseph Campbell used to celebrate his birthday at Esalen. When asked why, he’d recount how Carl Jung — wondering, “What myth am I living by?” and realizing he didn’t know — wrote, “I took it upon myself to get to know ‘my’ myth, and I regarded this as the task of tasks.” “That’s what a […]
Ordinary Mysticism: Reclaiming the Landscape of Your Life as Sacred Ground
With Mirabai Starr
As organized religion begins to lose its relevance, a fast-growing community of the spiritual but not religious rises to take its place. We are thirsty for the sacred and long to experience it within the heart of our everyday lives. In this experiential workshop, we will cultivate a mystical way of seeing to reclaim awe […]
Learning Tarot: Awakening the Magic of Your Own Inner Guidance
With Brenda Rose
Enjoy a rising tide of empowerment and end your daily guessing game about life. Find the guidance you seek when you say “Yes!” to the Beauty of Tarot. Join renowned teacher Brenda Rose for this playful and magical journey through the sacred stories of tarot. You'll gain a meaningful connection with the cards and learn […]
Cancelled | Paint It Large!
With Lou Rainbow
Have you ever dreamed of painting big—really big—but felt held back by hesitation, uncertainty, or intimidation? This immersive course is your invitation to break free. To breathe deeper. To expand beyond the edges of your comfort zone. This is more than a painting class—it’s a dynamic, hands-on exploration of scale, movement, and the raw energy […]
Cancelled | Embodied Energy Through Drawing
With Lou Rainbow
Push the boundaries of your drawing practice, go deeper, and develop your mark-making, surface development, form, and composition using still life and nature as inspiration. In this experimental drawing course, you will be encouraged to explore playful techniques alongside more focused observational skills, all while considering scale and composition. You will be guided to work […]
Designing for Warmth: Creating Transcendent User Experiences
With Daniel Gloyd
What I mean by good design is helping people find their natural, proper place in the cosmos. —Richard Buchanan Warmth is an essential principle of human connection, prioritized by the biological brain and spiritual heart alike. In order to thrive, we humans need to experience the interconnectedness between ourselves and the world around us. Yet […]
Embracing the Divine Feminine: A Mystical Approach
With Elizabeth Philipose
Imagine reconnecting with a part of you – the Divine Feminine – that brings you back into balance and harmony with yourself and all your relations. This transformative workshop combines social and political knowledge, energy- and earth-based practices, and embodiment exercises to help you release fears, resentment, and pain while inviting intuition, surrender, and flow […]
Embodied Voice
With The Brothers Koren
Come home to your whole body instrument and discover your unique sound! Isaac and Thorald Koren have been guiding people home to their voices for over 20 years, through their original embodied approach. They both believe singing and speaking are radical acts of self-expression and that exploring your instrument with full freedom takes tremendous courage. […]
Designing the Life We Want: Self Renewal at the Solstice
With Mark Nicolson
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 […]
The Akashic Records: Diminishing Isolation, Loneliness, and Disconnection
With Roksana Badruddoja
How might you think about grief, and what are the lessons to be learned about restoring your life? This precise, honest, and heart-centered workshop, led by cultural sociologist and Gomti River ceremonialist Roksana Badruddoja, focuses on exploring grief in a life-affirming way through the sacred wisdom of the Akashic Records and the qualitative feminist writing […]
SoulCollage®: An Enchanting Path to Inner Wisdom
With Kimberly Lee
Embark on an enlightening journey of self-discovery, guided by the power of intuition and creativity! In this immersive workshop, you’ll uncover your own inner wisdom through the inspiring SoulCollage® method. Developed by the late Seena Frost, this enchanting personal practice harnesses the magic of images, imagination, and intuition as a way to excavate insight and […]
Renewing Purpose: Modern Rituals to Navigate Life Transitions
With Day Schildkret
As life changes, we also must change — yet this isn't guaranteed. Too many of us get stuck at our thresholds. Ritual can help us cultivate discernment, recognize gains and losses, and conjure possibility. Join us for a transformative workshop designed to provide the skills and understanding needed to create your own modern rituals. Learn […]
Gratitude for Our Ancestors: Healing Ourselves and Our Lineage
With Erika Gagnon
Join ceremonial leader and wisdom keeper Erika Gagnon on a sacred journey as we gather to look at our ancestral lineage and how our ancestors continue to influence and affect our lives today. Gratitude for our ancestors! We are the reality of their dreaming, and we are the tip of the arrow of our entire […]
Connecting With Nature: Discovering the Gifts of Botanical Inks
With Janne Larsen
Creating a profound connection to nature begins with observing and understanding the plants surrounding us, awakening to our symbiotic relationship with them. This workshop offers an opportunity to cultivate an intimate bond with a diverse selection of plants thriving in the Esalen landscape, learning their unique characteristics, stories, and the wisdom they impart. Together, we […]
Prophecy of The Eagle and The Condor: Ancient Healing Ways for Modern Times
With Erika Gagnon and Claudia Cuentas
The Prophecy of the Eagle and the Condor is an ancient Indigenous prophecy from the people of the “Americas,” that spoke of a time when the Eagle and the Condor — representing the indigenous peoples of the North and the South — would reunite once again with their original knowledge, strength, diversity and connection to […]
Thinking Like a Multiverse: Embracing a Diverse World
With Ramzi Fawaz
One of life’s great paradoxes is that we all inhabit the same world, yet no single person, living being, or object within it is exactly like anything else. Thus, difference — the sheer diversity of the world’s countless inhabitants — is arguably the most immediate fact of our shared reality. This seminar style workshop asks: […]
Maps to Ecstasy: A 5Rhythms® Mindfulness & Art Celebration
With Lucia Horan and Douglas Drummond
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. […]
Chakra Rituals: Heal, Transform, and Reignite the Spark of Life
With Cristi Christensen
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, […]
Gratefulness as a Pathway to Resilience Through the Mindful Viewing of Films
With Francis Lu
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 […]
Writing for Shame Resilience: Turning Shame Into Your Superpower
With Melissa Petro
What if your greatest vulnerability could become your greatest strength? This transformative language arts workshop is designed for anyone ready to level up by unlocking their authenticity. The curriculum draws from the wisdom in the instructor’s critically acclaimed book, Shame on You: How to Be a Woman in the Age of Mortification, which explores how […]
Encountering the Beauty of Being in Tao Through the Mindful Viewing of Films
With Francis Lu
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 […]
Generative Resourcing for Wonder and Wisdom: Caretaking the Next Generation
With Jasmine Star Horan
Step into a sanctuary of renewal and self-inquiry, a space where caregivers can resource and reconnect with the heart of their service. This is an opportunity to slow down, breathe, and nurture yourself through transformative practices that will replenish your soul and deepen your work with children. Open to a more embodied and authentic way […]
Freedom Dreaming: How Daydreaming and Imagination Open a Portal for a Liberated Life
With Tricia Hersey
Daydreaming is not passive; it is an embodied, living practice—a gateway to knowledge, interconnectedness, and liberation. It is where we access deep creativity, ancestral memory, and the unseen forces shaping our lives. Across time and tradition, rest, reverie, and imagination have been essential tools for visionaries, artists, and revolutionaries. Yet in a culture that prioritizes […]
Healing Through Creativity: Merging Art and Psychology for Personal Growth and Change
With Pamela Hayes Malkoff
This workshop is more than a learning experience — it’s an invitation to connect deeply with yourself and others in a supportive and creative space. Together, we’ll explore the profound potential for healing and growth that arises when art and psychology converge. No artistic experience is necessary; this workshop is about creative expression, not perfection. […]
Empowering Creativity
With Daria Halprin
Since time immemorial, movement, dance, and the expressive arts have provided individuals and communities with a sense of soulful expression, healing, inspiration, spirit, and connection. We now need to reconnect with these ways more than ever. The Life/Art Process®, developed by Anna Halprin and Daria Halprin, bridges body awareness, art expression, and psychological processes, providing […]
Clown Church: Mindfulness, Healing, and Your Deepest Self
With Jet Eveleth
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 […]
Ifá Divination: The Cultivation and Embodiment of Cosmic Harmony
With Ayodeji Ogunnaike
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 […]
Unlock Your Intuitive Mind: Tap into Your Higher Consciousness
With William Donius
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 […]
The Plants Who Know Us: Traditions of Botanical Kinship
With Fletcher Tucker
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 […]
Community of Selves
With Andrea Juhan and Kathy Altman
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 […]
Source to Screen: Accessing, Manifesting, and Transmitting Great Ideas
With Paola di Florio and Peter Rader
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.” […]
Gateways: A 5Rhythms® Movement & Mindfulness Retreat
With Lucia Horan and Douglas Drummond
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 […]