Embodied Writing and Spiritual Practice

With Sravana Borkataky-Varma and Erik Davis

April 28 - May 2, 2025

Workshop Schedule

Monday
5:00 pm – 5:45 * How to Drop into Esalen *
7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Tuesday
9:30 am – 12:30 pm
3:30 pm – 6:30 pm
Wednesday
9:30 am – 12:30 pm
3:30 pm – 6:30 pm
Thursday
9:30 am – 12:30 pm
3:30 pm – 6:30 pm
Friday
9:30 am – 11:30 am

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

  • Sleeping Bag Space – $990.00
  • Bunk Bed Space – $1,290.00
  • Standard Shared Space – $1,610.00
  • Standard Queen Room – $2,110.00
  • Standard Room Two Beds – $3,310.00
  • Premium Queen Room – $2,910.00
  • Premium King Room – $3,110.00
  • Premium Plus King Room – $3,510.00
  • Premium Wooden Yurt – $3,510.00
  • Premium Wooden Yurt Two Beds – $3,510.00
  • Rolf Suite – $6,610.00
  • Point House – $6,610.00
  • Fritz Point House – $6,610.00
  • South Point House – $8,050.00

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, developing skills and techniques that will help us creatively express our embodied experiences. 

Exercises and opportunities will include:

  • Chakra and subtle body meditations.
  • Reading short texts to understand how writing engages subtle embodied experience.
  • Using elements of writing, including metaphor, poetry, and spontaneous  language, to capture and express your own inner work.
  • Techniques to develop an ongoing writing practice that supports a deepening engagement with meditation and embodied life. 

Over the days, we will collectively cultivate a feedback loop between writing, discussion, and inner work. Through this alchemical process, participants will learn to more intimately and poetically clarify their subtle experiences, while at the same time using the power and energy of such practices to fire up and inspire their writing life.

This workshop has an additional $50 of faculty tuition.

About the Leaders

Sravana Borkataky-Varma

Sravana Borkataky-Varma, PhD, is a historian, educator, and social entrepreneur. As a historian, she studies Indian religions focusing on esoteric rituals and gender, particularly in Hindu Śākta (Goddess) Tantra traditions. As an educator, she is an instructional assistant professor at the University of Houston. At present, she is a Center for the Study of World […]

Learn more about Sravana Borkataky-Varma

Erik Davis

Erik Davis is an author, journalist, and teacher based in San Francisco. His wide-ranging work focuses on the intersection of alternative religion, media, and the popular imagination. His most recent book is High Weirdness: Drugs, Esoterica, and Visionary Experience in the Seventies.

Learn more about Erik Davis

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