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. […]
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 […]
Unmute: Your Story Matters
With Ann Randolph
What would happen if you stopped editing yourself before you began? This embodied writing workshop is designed to get you out of your head and into your body — where the stories that refuse to stay quiet live. Through writing, movement, and deep listening, participants access material often buried beneath politeness and perfection. This is […]
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. […]
Free the Resonant Voice: A Vocal Embodiment Journey to Remember the Soul of Your Sound
With Odeya Nini
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 […]
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 […]
Permission: The New Memoirist and the Courage to Create
With Elissa Altman
Who are we to tell our stories? How can we grant ourselves permission to write the truths we’re compelled after being told we shouldn’t? Designed for creatives of every stripe and at every level, this workshop is a generative and inspiring experience that empowers participants to unpack their right to tell the stories that make […]
Creative Catalyst: The Transformative Power of Making Art
With Dana Albany and Michael "Flash" Hopkins
The Artist lives within everyone! Art can be made out of just about anything! It’s a time to leave the critic behind and allow oneself to play, nourish, and replenish the creative spirit. It’s also a time to enjoy the company and camaraderie of like-minded peers. Now is your time to discover the joys of […]
Crafting the Sacred Trilogy of Native American Instruments: Flute, Drum, and Rattle
With Guillermo Martinez
Join master craftsman and musician Guillermo Martinez for an unforgettable journey into the sacred traditions of Native American instrument making and music. This immersive, hands-on workshop invites you to reconnect with the spirit of sound by crafting three profound instruments: a Native American bamboo flute, a 16" elk-hide medicine drum, and a gourd crystal rattle. […]
The Future We Choose: Human Empowerment in the AI Age
With Sam Stern and Cecilia Callas
What does it mean to remain human in the new age of artificial intelligence? In this immersive weekend workshop, we’ll explore this profound question together, journeying from awareness to empowerment to integration as we discover how to shape our relationship with AI while preserving what matters most. Through hands-on AI demonstrations, creative labs, and experiential […]
Breakbeats, Breath, and Becoming
With Didier Sylvain
In the world through which I travel, I am endlessly creating myself. — Frantz Fanon Most people are not stuck because they lack insight. They are stuck because inherited rhythms still live in the body. Rhythms of culture, survival, and belonging that have shaped what felt safe, possible, or forbidden. Join this transformative weekend workshop […]
While the Veil Is Thin: Autumn Ritual With Land, Ancestry, and Spirit
With Fletcher Tucker and Micha Merrick
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 […]
The Novel Writers’ Workshop: A Wholistic Approach to Your Book-Length Project
With Janis Cooke Newman
Haruki Murakami wrote that writing a novel is like running a marathon — it requires endurance, consistency, and mental discipline over a long stretch. In this workshop, we will look at all the ways writers, both beginning and experienced, can support themselves both creatively and physically during the novel-writing process. Using a combination of generative […]
Wild Color: A Week of Natural Dye and Creative Renewal
With Kristin Arzt
Discover the art of creating color sourced directly from the land. In this immersive workshop, participants explore plant-based dyeing through mindful foraging, wildcrafting, and creative practice inspired by Esalen’s gardens and landscape. Each day begins with a grounding meditation to connect with the earth and awaken creative flow. Through hands-on exploration of resist techniques, surface […]
The Healing Voice: Exploring the Sonic Anatomy
With The Brothers Koren and Eileen McKusick
What if you could use your voice to feel alive and present in your body? What would it look like to discover your own voice and fulfill its unique potential? This November, join sound therapy pioneer Eileen McKusick and transformational voice leaders and international recording artists Isaac and Thorald Koren of the Brothers Koren in […]
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 […]
Imagine That: Transform How You Think, Feel, and Live with the Science of Imagination
With Cassandra Vieten
The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them to the impossible. — Arthur C. Clarke Imagination is the foundational ingredient in problem solving – the ones in your own life as well as problems in society. Yet how many courses in imagination did you take […]
The Seven Flames: Winter Solstice Ritual Retreat
With Cristi Christensen
Winter Solstice marks a sacred turning point — the threshold where darkness begins to yield to the returning light. As nature grows quiet and the earth turns inward, we are invited to slow down, listen deeply, and tend the inner flame. Guided by the wisdom of the chakra system, this immersive retreat explores the seven […]
The Power in Your Hands: Turning from Screens to Souls
With Shannon Algeo
Who will you become when you put down your phone and pick up your 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 frack our attention while human empathy has steadily […]
Solstice Hearthfire: Celebrate the Rebirth of Your Inner Light
With Micha Merrick
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 […]
Imagine, Explore, Envision: An Enchanting Weekend of SoulCollage® and Self-Discovery
With Kimberly Lee
The hands will often solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain. — Carl Jung Sometimes the wisest part of you speaks through images. Inspired by the work of Carl Jung, SoulCollage® is a powerful expressive arts method that invites your authentic inner voice to come forward. Through this accessible yet profound […]
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. During this unique seven day retreat, we will dance into and through the gateway of […]
Sacred Clown: Presence in Play
With Jet Eveleth
In play we can discover a curious version of ourselves, while balancing our light and shadow and laughing at our attachments. This workshop invites us to be soft, brave, and available to the moment. This is an immersive practice that explores our most vulnerable and creative self. Using tools found in improvisation, meditation, altered states, […]
The Thrill of Groundlessness: Flowing Through Life Without Absolutes
With Ramzi Fawaz
When the ground falls out from underneath us, our instinct is usually to cling tightly to the beliefs, stories, relationships, and identities that give us the greatest sense of stability and comfort. But what if we viewed these moments as wondrous opportunities instead of terrifying threats? Could the experience of groundlessness offer an unexpected freedom […]
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 […]
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. […]
Entering Your Creative Universe
With Paul Heussenstamm
This workshop invites you to explore the creative spirit that resides within each of us. Whether you are an experienced artist or simply seeking to uncover your potential, this meditative experience promises to be enriching. We will begin with colored pencils to open our hearts and let creativity flow naturally. Then, with acrylic paints, participants […]
Awaken The Artist Within: Evolution
With Erin Gafill and Tom Birmingham
When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. —Rumi Embark on a five-day journey of creative discovery in a space that nurtures playful practice and community above all. This art immersion is an invitation to explore an array of techniques and mediums, including: Torn paper collage Color […]
Reawaken Your Creative Process: Reclaim Your Voice and Remember Your Creative Power
With The Brothers Koren
Explore your unique creative process and express your human potential in a weekend deep dive with The Brothers Koren. Discover your distinct creative personality and how to find harmony and coherence in your own creative process. The brothers specialize in facilitating a safe space for you to move beyond the inhibitions and align to your […]
Planets and Poetry: Embodying Astrology through the Expressive Arts
With Heidi Rose Robbins
Join Heidi Rose Robbins and her team for an enlivening exploration of your astrological chart. Through poetry, movement, writing, and group counsel, we’ll bring our astrological map to life — and in so doing, we will practice loving, act courageously, and fully embrace our next life steps. In this workshop, we will come together in […]
Mindful Improv: Presence, Play and the Joy of Being Here
With Nikki Mirghafori
What if play could become a path of presence? Mindful improv brings together the liveliness of improvisational theater with the steadiness of mindfulness practice. Improv is spontaneous, expressive, and often funny; mindfulness is quiet, attentive, and still. Though they may seem like opposites at first, both invite us into openness, curiosity, acceptance, and the freedom […]
A Black History Month Celebration: Exploring and Restoring Our Path to Healing through Empathy and Music
With LaVerne McLeod and Melanie DeMore
Join LaVerne McLeod and Melanie DeMore for a weekend of exploration and celebration of Black History Month as we express ourselves, connect, play, and honor humanity. Together, we will explore what it is like to walk in another person’s shoes to understand and empathize with viewpoints that might differ from our own. We will build […]
Make Peace with your Judging Mind: How Mindfulness and Compassion Can Help Free You from the Inner Critic
With Mark Coleman
Have you noticed the painful effects of self-judgment? Do you feel tormented by negative critical self-talk and the harsh words of the inner critic? Are you prone to judging everything you do as not good enough, not quite right, or not up to some impossibly high standard? Do you find yourself harshly judging your meditation, […]
Unmute: Your Story Matters
With Ann Randolph
What would happen if you stopped editing yourself before you began? This embodied writing workshop is designed to get you out of your head and into your body — where the stories that refuse to stay quiet live. Through writing, movement, and deep listening, participants access material often buried beneath politeness and perfection. This is […]