Mindfulness & Spirituality
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. […]
Altered States: Pathways to Expansion | Day Pass
With Sravana Borkataky-Varma, Lucia Horan, Xochitl Ashe, East Forest and Marisa Radha Weppner
You are an explorer, and you represent our species, and the greatest good you can do is to bring back a new idea, because our world is endangered by the absence of good ideas. Our world is in crisis because of the absence of consciousness. —Terence McKenna Since time immemorial, we humans have been curious […]
Healing Wisdom for Modern Times: You Are Your Greatest Healer
With Erika Gagnon
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 […]
Hardwire Happiness: Rewire Your Mind for Calm, Clarity, and Joy
With Shauna Shapiro
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 […]
Cancelled | Healing, Rest, & Embodied Liberation for Men of Color
With Danny Fluker and Darnell Lamont Walker
Immerse yourself in a restorative workshop designed specifically for male-identifying people of color. This unique experience offers a sanctuary for growth and self-discovery, fostering a supportive community where participants can connect and build meaningful relationships. Black boys and men of color have limited opportunities to engage in mind-body healing practices, and there are not nearly […]
Esalen® Massage and Meditation
With Dean Marson and Brita Ostrom
Esalen Massage is a moving meditation, a practice in presence and mindfulness, and a sensory healing art. When practiced with focused attention, massage comes from a deep, quiet place that resides inside each of us. This practice of meditation also helps access our parasympathetic nervous system, where healing originates. As we give a massage, this […]
The Art of Non-Sleep Deep Rest
With Kelly Boys
Rejuvenate the body and the mind with the deep relaxation that can be found through non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) and yoga nidra. Whether you need a break from constant pressure, are navigating a life transition, or wish to delve deeper into your mindfulness and meditation practice, this retreat will provide space and time for contemplation […]
Being Natural: A Meditation Retreat
With Chandra Easton
During this retreat, you’ll be invited to immerse yourself in your own innate wisdom to rediscover your freedom. Through Buddhist meditation, mindful movement, and time in nature, you’ll explore the spontaneous creative essence within you. Surrounded by the beauty of the natural world, this guided retreat is an opportunity to slow down, listen deeply, and […]
The Depths of Vision: Jung, Psychedelics, and the Practice of Integration
With John W. Price
Peak experiences and personal revelations can be dazzling, but the deeper work of transformation is often overlooked. Many have touched something sacred through psychedelics, mystical states, grief, love, or profound life transitions, yet are left with an unfinished question: How do I live in service to what I’ve seen? Rooted in Jungian psychology, contemplative practice, […]
Natural Healing: A Spiritual Journey of Return
With Michael Ventura and Margaret Harrsen
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 […]
The Power of Three: Tantra and the Energetic Body
With Sravana Borkataky-Varma
Do we possess only the physical body we see, or are there multiple layers to our existence? In the Tantric tradition, it is said we are not just one body but three: the physical body (what we see and touch), the subtle or energetic body (where thoughts, emotions, and prāṇa flow), and the causal body […]
A Solstice Ritual: Alchemy Singing Bowls and the Living Pattern of Light
With Deva Munay
Join us for a celebration of sound and light at the onset of summer, when sunlight stretches to its fullest. By honoring light in its many forms — sunlight, soul light, and vibrational light — this experiential retreat invites you to align with the light found within and through seven alchemy sound journeys, designed to […]
Channel Your Creative Life: From Flights to Perchings
With Erin Prophet
The artist is essentially a channel. — Piet Mondrian Explore the nature of creativity — what fuels it, where it comes from, and how we live with it. Is inspiration something we receive from beyond or something we shape from within? Do artists create, channel, or both? In this workshop, we will consider the creative […]
Nature and Contemplation: Cultivating Wild Mindfulness
With Steven Harper and Gary Marcoccia
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 invited humans to pause, reflect, and reconnect with life’s essence. This workshop offers an opportunity to […]
Biological Gods: Evolution and the Coming Superhumans
With Jeffrey J. Kripal and John Allison
Humanity is a transitional species, poised on a tightrope between the primate past on the one end and the coming, future “superhumans” on the other. What is right about this image? What is wrong with it? Who, historically, has been excluded from it? Can we, should we, speak of human exceptionalism or not? And perhaps […]
Maps to Ecstasy: A 5Rhythms® Mindfulness Celebration
With Douglas Drummond and Lucia Horan
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. […]
Cancelled | 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, […]
The Spirit Bridge: A Portal Between Realms
With Aja Daashuur
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 […]
Your Brain on Breath: Ancestral Technology for Healing and Transformation
With Sadia Bruce and Josh Brahinsky
Breath matters. It is one of the few human capacities that is at once biological, cultural, and sacred. Every breath connects physiology with perception — and with our shared search for meaning. It is a physiological necessity, a regulator of attention and awareness, and a primary medium through which humans have explored consciousness across time. […]
Cancelled | Meditation for Purpose, Joy, and Confidence
With Justin Michael Williams
Many people sense a quiet but persistent inner call — a longing toward a life that feels more true, more alive, more aligned. Yet fear, doubt, and long-held habits often keep us from trusting and acting on what we know inside. This workshop offers meditation as a practical, embodied pathway for reconnecting with purpose — […]
Designing The Life We Want: Self Renewal in the Summer
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 […]
Yoga Nidra Retreat: Rest, Restore, and Remember Who You Are
With John Vosler
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," […]
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 […]
Exploring the Mind Through Liminal Dreaming
With Jennifer Dumpert and Adam Haar Horowitz
We’re all natural liminal dreamers. Every 24 hours, in the spaces between waking and sleep, we pass through the zones of liminal dreaming, hypnagogia and hypnopompia, where the mind meanders between daytime awareness and the depths of the dream. Every one of us possesses the ability to maintain the crisp awareness of the waking mind […]
Fluidity in Motion: Presence, Play, and Spontaneous Awareness
With Deborah Eden Tull
Like flowing water, life is constantly changing, emergent, adaptable, and interconnected. With our bodies and the living process of the earth as our sacred laboratory, we will explore the dharma of fluidity. Through stillness and movement, contemplation and play, somatic inquiry and relational mindfulness, we will reawaken our cellular remembrance of flow. While the dominant […]
Expanding the Nature of Your Being: Embodied Consciousness, Intuition, and the Remembering of Human Potential
With Diane Hennacy and Siegmar Gerken
Come with an open mind and an open heart, and allow consciousness to meet you where you are. Across cultures and throughout history, humans have reported subtle perceptual capacities — deep intuition, nonlocal connections, and heightened sensitivity to energy and emotion — that extend beyond ordinary awareness. While such experiences were once considered natural aspects […]
Deep Time: Slowing Down as a Revolutionary Act
With Deborah Eden Tull
Nature does not hurry and yet everything is completed. —Lao Tzu Anyone who has sat in deep meditation, trekked up a mountain peak, spent time immersed in play with an infant, fallen in love, or experienced the stillness of prayer has experienced time that felt limitless. The more conditioned we become, the more we develop […]
Meditation and Modern Life: A Zen Meditation Retreat
With Dan Zigmond
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. Today our days are filled with convenient distractions that promise happiness while mostly delivering busyness and frustration. Many of us live life in a […]
Graceful Exit: Preparing for a Good Death
With Andrew Holecek
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 […]
Simply Wild: Experiencing Nature as Nature
With Steven Harper
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, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done? — Mary Oliver The week […]
The Power of Mindfulness and Self-Compassion
With Shauna Shapiro
Learn how mindfulness and self-compassion can change everything about how you feel, how you relate, and how you live — for good. In this workshop, Dr. Shauna Shapiro — a leading scientist studying the effects of mindfulness and compassion on well-being — shows us that acting with compassion toward ourselves is the key. She explains […]
The Buddha, the Brain, and Bach: Exploring Practice in Mind, Music, and Life
With Barbara Bogatin, Nikki Mirghafori and Clifford Saron
You are what you practice! The Buddha’s teachings meet modern brain science in this interactive workshop exploring meditation, musical performances, and neuroplasticity. Join us to discover how these practices can harmonize with one another to offer paths for inner peace and more joyful engagement with the world. Leading deep inquiry and guided meditations, senior teacher […]
Awake in the Wild: Awareness in Nature as a Path of Belonging
With Mark Coleman and Lori Schwanbeck
What becomes possible when we slow down enough to truly listen to the living world? How might attentive presence become an expression of care and participation — a way of remembering our place within the larger community of life? On this retreat, we explore how mindfulness in nature is a deeply relational path, inviting intimacy, […]
Beyond Duality: Healing Wisdom and Ceremony for Personal Health and Well-being
With Erika Gagnon
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 […]
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 […]
Vibrant Silence: Qigong, Breath and Meditation
With Jim Gallas
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 […]
The Art of Non-Sleep Deep Rest
With Kelly Boys
Rejuvenate the body and the mind with the deep relaxation that can be found through non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) and yoga nidra. Whether you need a break from constant pressure, are navigating a life transition, or wish to delve deeper into your mindfulness and meditation practice, this retreat will provide space and time for contemplation […]
Self-Compassion as a Lifeboat Home: Remembering the Heart of Who We Are
With Caverly Morgan
What if the love you’ve been searching for is already here — waiting to be remembered? In this retreat, you’ll explore self-compassion as a lifeboat home — a steady refuge when self-criticism, striving, or overwhelm take hold. Rather than trying to “fix” yourself, you’ll be invited to gently shift your relationship to experience, discovering the […]
Stages of Tranquility and Insight
With Dustin DiPerna
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 […]
Earth-Body: An Eco-Somatic Backpacking Journey & Retreat
With Noël Vietor and Ariel Johnson
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 […]
Designing The Life We Want: Self Renewal in the Fall
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 […]
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 […]
Your Brain on Sound: Rewiring Through Resonance, Mantra and Alchemy Singing Bowls
With Deva Munay
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 […]
Thresholds and Altars: Nature-Based Rituals for Life’s Turning Points
With Day Schildkret
Everything begins by leaving. — Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams Life invites us into change, but rarely teaches us how to move through it well. Whether it’s a relationship ending, a role dissolving, a chapter closing, or a calling emerging, you may find yourself standing at the edge of what was ... and unsure how to […]
Sleep, Dream, Death, and Liberation: Exploring the Continuity of Awareness
With Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche
In this five-day workshop, we will explore how sleep, dreams, and even the process of death can become gateways to deeper awareness and freedom. We’ll draw from the Tibetan contemplative traditions of dream and sleep practice to reveal how awareness continues through all states of experience. The retreat combines traditional teachings with insights from Western […]
When Spirit Speaks: Personal Evolution Through Spirit Connection
With Aja Daashuur
Your Spirit Guides are speaking to you. Join the conversation. This weeklong retreat is devoted to deepening your relationship with your spiritual team as a direct and reliable source of guidance, clarity, and transformation. This work centers on real-time dialogue. You bring what is present in your life, and your Guides respond. The exchange reveals […]
Hardwire Happiness: Rewire Your Mind for Calm, Clarity, and Joy
With Shauna Shapiro
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 […]
Breath: The Master Key
With Hawah Kasat
Breathing is one of the few functions in the human body that is both automatic and voluntary — happening unconsciously every moment of our lives, yet also available to conscious control. In the yogic traditions, this makes the breath profoundly significant: a bridge between body and mind, conscious and subconscious awareness, the autonomic and non-autonomic […]
Moving Men: An Embodied Inquiry
With Douglas Drummond
In a time when many men are questioning the inherited roles, social pressures, and stories that have shaped what it means to be a man, this workshop is an invitation to courageously explore masculinity. Through movement, honest self-reflection, and the profound learning that becomes possible when men gather, we’ll uncover challenges, witness one another’s vulnerability, […]
You Are Not Your Fault - Meeting ADHD with mindfulness wisdom and compassion
With Mark Coleman
Do you face challenges with focus and time management? Do you struggle with emotional hypersensitivity or frustration tolerance? Do you find it hard to follow through on tasks or commitments? Or to be reliable and consistent? If so, you are not alone. Millions of people suffer daily from conditions associated with these executive function challenges. […]
Awaken Your Extraordinary Potential with Integral Transformative Practice® (ITP)
With Pam Kramer and Max Gaenslen
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, […]
Healing Wisdom for Modern Times: You Are Your Greatest Healer
With Erika Gagnon
Join ceremonial leader and wisdom carrier Erika Gagnon on a sacred journey, as we gather together and explore traditional healing wisdom and the importance of ancestral lineage, ceremonies and rituals, sacred altars, medicinal plants, and the origins of dis-ease in our physical, mental/emotional, spiritual and soul bodies. You are your greatest healer and greatest medicine, […]
Sitting at the Feet of the Glacier: Land-Based Practices, Meditation, and Grief Work
With Ayana Young and Brontë Velez
In an economy predicated on capitalizing our attention, what if we apprenticed ourselves to ecological forces whose temporality refuses capture? How might sitting at the feet of a glacier, as our elder, liberate our presence? Enter this five-day apprenticeship with the glacier as a teacher, following the glacier’s quality of time as a grammar for […]
Spiritual Yearning
With Tanya Luhrmann and Nancy Lunney-Wheeler
How can those of us who yearn without belief or ritual find our way? Many of us have lost our connection to a mainstream faith, or maybe never had it. We long to find more, even if we are afraid that it may not be there. Some of us have experienced our worlds cracked open […]
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 […]
Pleasure Alchemy: Deepening Emotional Intelligence Through Rituals and Sensual Somatics
With Leah Diamond, Tony Holmes and shiloh burton
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 […]
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 […]