Awe and Wonder: An Exploration Through Science, Contemplation, and Narrative

With Dacher Keltner and Mollie McNeil

April 1 - 3, 2022

Workshop Schedule

Fri 8:30 pm – 10:00 pm
Sat 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
Sat 4:15 pm – 6:15 pm
Sat 7:30 pm – 10:00 pm
Sun 10:00 am – 12:00 pm

See general schedule information including arrival, departure and meal times.

  • Sleeping Bag Space – $540.00
  • Standard Room Two Beds – $1,920.00
  • Premium Plus King Room – $2,040.00
  • Point House – $3,900.00
  • Point House Plus - Old Do Not Use – $4,800.00
  • (Exp) Standard Single Room – $1,015.00
  • (Exp) Standard Couple Room – $1,340.00
  • (Exp) Premium Single Room – $1,340.00
  • (Exp) Premium Couple Room – $2,160.00

Awe is the feeling of encountering vast mysteries that transcend our current knowledge and understanding of the world. It is the feeling and the practice in appreciating the moral beauty of others, nature, the arts, and it is rooted in a spiritual understanding of life.  

In this new, paradigm-shifting workshop, we will uncover the latest scientific understandings of awe. By engaging in evolutionary and neuroscientific approaches to the mind, and using narrative and cultural approaches to the meanings of awe, we will begin to tease out where awe lives in our own minds and hearts, and how to cultivate it more deeply in our lives.

Together, we will discover a number of practices to cultivate awe in our own lives and how to deepen one’s relationship to it. We’ll travel by way of reflective writing, using expressive writing principles and models from Contemplative Studies.

During our time together, we will:

  • Learn the latest science and scholarship on awe and wonder
  • Engage in contemplative practices related to awe
  • Learn about literary, poetic, and aesthetic approaches to awe
  • Learn to cultivate an awe-related writing and reflective practice
  • Cultivate an awareness of more everyday awe

Join us for this incredible opportunity to refresh your heart and mind in the incredible natural setting of Esalen and Big Sur.

About the Leaders

Dacher Keltner

Dacher Keltner is a professor of Psychology at UC Berkeley and faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center. His research focuses on the biological and evolutionary origins of compassion, awe, love, beauty, and humility, as well as power, social class, and inequality. Dacher is the author of several hundred scientific articles and several books, […]

Learn more about Dacher Keltner

Mollie McNeil

Mollie McNeil has lectured in the English departments of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Mills College, and De Anza College. In her PhD work, she studied the history of women's writing. She is an award-winning teacher and has published many short stories. She currently teaches a variety of creative writing classes at the Modern Elder […]

Learn more about Mollie McNeil

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