Relationship & Communication

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

Package Dates

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

Package Dates

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. […]

Role Mate to Soul Mate: The Art and Discipline of Love

With Warren Farrell

October 10 - 13, 2025

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 […]

CANCELLED | The Embodied Teacher: Purpose, Practice, Presence, Power

With Sadia Bruce

October 13 - 17, 2025

In a world aching for wisdom, clarity, and connection, the art of true teaching has never been more vital— nor more rare. Designed for yoga and embodiment teachers who feel the ache of fragmentation, stagnancy, or disconnection in their teaching, this five-day immersion invites you to sit in and ultimately teach from what philosopher Bayo […]

​​Write Your Deepest Story: Memoir, Autobiography, and the Personal Essay

With Janis Cooke Newman

October 13 - 17, 2025

We all have a story to tell. But turning your life into an engaging and meaningful narrative requires both keen self-awareness and a working knowledge of basic storytelling. This experiential workshop invites writers at all levels, from personal journalers to published authors, to cultivate the skills needed to tell the most compelling — and truest […]

Capacity Building Through Healing-Centered Learning Environments

With Angel Acosta and Yolanda Ruiz

October 17 - 19, 2025

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 […]

CANCELLED | Beyond the “Revolving Door”: Gestalt Relational Constellations

With Nancy Lunney-Wheeler and Gordon Wheeler

October 20 - 24, 2025

Gestalt Relational Constellations (GRC) takes an in-depth look at the hidden dynamics of any human system we belong to and care about. Using Gestalt themes of embodied experience, desire, experimentation, and “right-brain” image-based learning, we can move beyond the familiar stories we are carrying about our issues to find new supports and options in our […]

Erotic Ecology: Awakening the Senses and Healing through Nature

With Lindsay Branham

October 24 - 26, 2025

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 […]

Autumn Enchantment: Ritual Connection with Land and Spirit

With Fletcher Tucker and Micha Merrick

October 27 - 31, 2025

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 […]

Relational Gestalt Practice: Presence, Contact and Communication

With Dorothy Charles

November 3 - 7, 2025

In 1938, researchers at Harvard University began a 75-year study that addressed life’s fundamental question: What makes a good life? The Grant Study, also known as the Harvard Study of Adult Development, found strong relationships to be the clearest predictor of life satisfaction. In Relational Gestalt practice, direct and response-able communication is essential for creating […]

The Beauty of Simplicity

With Jovinna Chan

November 10 - 14, 2025

Breathe. Move. Pay Attention. These three simple actions, natural and always available to us, provide potency to our vitality. They are the legs and wings that carry us into the three worlds within us — the physical, the subtle, and the mystical. Join Jovinna on the sacred land Esalen Institute resides upon to slow down, […]

Healing Waters: Return to One

With Douglas Drummond and Little Bear Tom Nason

November 10 - 14, 2025

We invite you to step into a powerful, immersive experience weaving the dynamic energy of 5Rhythms® movement with the deep wisdom of Indigenous traditions. Rooted in the teachings of the Esselen people, this workshop is an invitation to reconnect — with yourself, your community, and the natural world. For millennia, rites of passage and sacred […]

The Spirit Bridge: A Portal Between Realms

With Aja Daashuur

November 17 - 21, 2025

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 […]

Gestalt Practice and Principles: Cultivating Embodied Wholeness in Daily Life

With Steven Harper

November 24 - 28, 2025

Gestalt Practice at its core is an awareness practice in which we cultivate embodied, present-moment awareness of the unfolding experience of the here and now on a journey toward authentic growth, wholeness, and aliveness. Drawing from the foundations of Gestalt Practice, wisdom traditions, and contemporary approaches that cultivate awareness, we’ll learn to become increasingly aware […]

Healing Wisdom for Modern Times: You Are Your Greatest Healer

With Erika Gagnon

December 1 - 5, 2025

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 […]

The Practice of Slowing Down

With Ayana Young and Brontë Velez

December 12 - 14, 2025

In a time of constant noise and urgency, this is an invitation to slow down and enter into a deep and quiet rhythm with the more-than-human world. Through silence, movement, prayer, and time on the land, this workshop is a space to listen to our bodies, to the Earth, and to what arises when we […]

The Luminous Darkness: Imagination, Possibility, and Conscious Intentions for 2025

With Deborah Eden Tull

December 22 - 26, 2025

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 […]

The Shared Heart New Year's Couples Retreat

With Barry Vissell and Joyce Vissell

January 9 - 11, 2026

Imagine your relationship expressing the true depths of your love and commitment. If you are in love, this retreat is an opportunity to rise even higher in love. If you are in crisis, it is an opportunity for healing on the deepest level.  We all carry some degree of negative programming from our past, and […]

The Body of Belonging: An Exploration of Community and Connection

With Rahshaana Green

January 16 - 18, 2026

The Body of Belonging invites you to explore feelings of kinship, acceptance, and community on a somatic level, identifying the elements most significant to you. Through gentle yoga-inspired movement, breathwork, sound, and meditation, we will engage in self-inquiry practices within a group setting. Together, we will create a safe and brave space to experiment with […]

Nurturing Connections Through the Art of REPAIR

With Hazel-Grace Yates

January 19 - 23, 2026

An apology will shut a conversation down. A good repair opens one up. — Dr. Becky Kennedy Conflict is inevitable. The health of a relationship depends not on whether conflict happens but on how skillfully we repair. The Art of REPAIR is a practical, embodied, and deeply relational process that transforms rupture into connection, clarity, […]

Personal Empowerment Through the Wheel of Consent®

With Betty Martin and Marcia Baczynski

February 2 - 6, 2026

When you engage with another — whether a lover, friend, or colleague — are you doing what they want you to do or what they allow you to do? What is the difference, and why does it matter? Betty Martin's Wheel of Consent is a groundbreaking model of relating that brings greater clarity and authenticity […]

Love, Sex, and Intimacy for Individuals and Couples

With Linda Bloom and Charlie Bloom

February 13 - 15, 2026

For one human being to love another, that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. — Rainer Maria Rilke Explore intimacy, love, and sensual pleasure — and learn to connect and successfully fulfill your desires. Nothing […]

A Black History Month Celebration: Exploring and Restoring Our Path to Healing through Empathy and Music

With LaVerne McLeod and Melanie DeMore

February 20 - 22, 2026

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 […]

The Ecology of Being: Gestalt Practice, Somatic Intelligence, and Embodied Awareness

With Steven Harper

March 30 - April 3, 2026

At the heart of Gestalt Practice lies the understanding that we can grow into greater wholeness and interconnectedness, both inside and out. Gestalt is an awareness practice that invites us to focus on the present moment as a path toward authentic growth, resilience, embodiment, and aliveness. Its core principles are: Cultivating embodied presence and awareness […]

Role Mate to Soul Mate: The Art and Discipline of Love

With Warren Farrell

April 10 - 13, 2026

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 […]