Fifth-generation medicine woman Xochitl Ashe shares the practice of “ayni,” or sacred reciprocity. “Every single mystical tradition has their code of living … My elders say, You know what? Just learn one thing. If you learn one thing and you can apply it in your life, your life will be so beautiful.”
Full Story ➝Esalen scholar and teacher Marleen Thaler, who has dedicated her academic research to exploring modern interpretations of the enlightenment experience of kuṇḍalinī, shares some of the history of spiritual energy — and Esalen’s role in sharing it with Western minds and bodies.
Full Story ➝We can never get rid of the myths that have made us who we are, but we can re-vision them and imagine new possibilities? Get ready to play and gain profound insights into your journey with Bob Walter, President of the Joseph Campbell Foundation and Campbell’s editor for years.
Full Story ➝Is it true that the Esalen land is a maṇḍala unto itself? Through the lens of Tantra and her own Hindu and Buddhist studies, Sravana Borkataky-Varma (Board Member and Lecturer at Harvard Divinity School) explains why the answer is undoubtedly yes.
Full Story ➝Big Sur experienced an unexpected visitor this January: a winter wildfire. One of our Friends of Esalen witnessed it in the first few hours and took to words in a moment of inspiration and reflection. We share her poem — “The World Flipped On Its Head” — in our latest post in The Journal.
Full Story ➝One of our staff members shares the story of learning about the relationship of her community’s trauma in relation to the local, Indigenous community. Learn how you can help us be committed to this work and be contextual stewards of this land.
Full Story ➝When you say “I’m going to be present,” is this a demand of yourself, a practice, or a way to bring it into your body so you actually embody the present? Russell and Linda Delman eloquently describe both and share why it’s more important than ever to understand the difference.
Full Story ➝One family’s baby blessing, a ceremonial fire, and the ritual of connecting to the spirit world became kindling for a new collaboration with a California woman. Her artistry with nature frames a ritual to honor family, friendship, and self-nourishment.
Full Story ➝Do you have an awe practice? It can help us heal now, but beyond the pandemic, awe has huge benefits for the greater good. Dacher Keltner, Founding Director of the Greater Good Science Center at U.C. Berkeley, explains his latest research and what awe feels like, each day of your life.
Full Story ➝Did you know you start midlife in your 30s? Tackling midlife in transitions versus crisis helps us live authentically and honestly through the decades. September is National Healthy Aging Month. Learn more from Chip Conley, Esalen “elder” and founder of the Modern Elder Academy.
Full Story ➝Your story can be told in three sentences. Darnell Walker, Rituals Writing Workshop teacher, shows us how to get started. If you think you’ve lost your groove and need to realign/reconnect, grab a journal and a pen, breathe deeply, and get started.
Full Story ➝What’s your favorite way to relax? Regular, intentional relaxation helps us manage stress and supports our nervous systems. Learn more about how humans of Esalen relax in our latest Journal post for National Relaxation Day.
Full Story ➝If you intentionally practice noticing your body sensations, your thoughts, current emotions, and what’s happening around you, you may very well be practicing Gestalt. Learn more about the practice from legacy teacher Dorothy Charles in our Esalen Spotlight interview.
Full Story ➝As we emerge and adjust back to a new normal, how can we reflect more deeply on our relationship with ourselves, the outdoors, and the earth? Esalen's Christine Chen talks with Mark Coleman about his take on earth, screens, being in nature, pandemic healing, and more.
Full Story ➝To be sure, 2020 will go down as one of the most memorable times of our modern era. As COVID-19 and racial unrest affect us globally, we are receiving many opportunities to re-examine our lives—and life itself. As Esalen moves through these changes with you and beyond its temporary closure, its spirit remains intact: working with individuals and institutions to integrate heart, mind, body, spirit and community in a nurturing relationship with the environment.
Full Story ➝Esalen faculty and award-winning author of channeled texts Paul Selig has repeatedly been asked: “What comes next during these challenging times?”“I don't know what will come next during the pandemic, but I think what has begun will be going on for some time,” says Paul, who leads I Am the Word: The Energetics of Consciousness July 31 through August 2, and in a campus-wide workshop August 2-7 at Esalen.
Full Story ➝Esalen faculty, author and artist Day Schildkret believes connecting more with nature can be one of the most valuable opportunities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Internationally known for his morning altars, a stunning array of sublime mandalas he creates daily from natural materials, as well as his of book, Morning Altars: A 7-Step Practice to Nourish Your Spirit through Nature, Art and Ritual, Day has inspired people across the globe to be awed with impermanent earth art.
Full Story ➝“One of the teachings of Relational Mindfulness is turning towards rather than away,” says Esalen faculty, dharma teacher and author Deborah Eden Tull. “That principle really addresses the conditioned tendency in our world to turn away from all forms of difficulty, pain, discomfort and challenging emotion because we may not feel adequate to meet it. Instead, we can learn how to turn towards it, welcome it and everything that arises.”
Full Story ➝This month marks what would have been Joseph Campbell’s 116th birthday. A revered mythologist who spent many of his birthdays teaching at Esalen, he once said, “A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.”
Full Story ➝“Dying is the most important thing you do in your life; it’s the great frontier and love is the art of living as a preparation for dying,” says Mirabai Bush, who was a frequent collaborator with the late Ram Dass and is founder and senior fellow at the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society. “Ram Dass taught me that allowing ourselves to dissolve into the ocean of love is not just about leaving this body, it is also the route to Oneness and unity with our own inner being while we are still here. If you know how to live and to love, you know how to die.”
Full Story ➝Esalen faculty Peter Bregman got into leadership coaching in a serendipitous way. He attended a college camping trip “by mistake” and became so intrigued with the concept of outdoor leadership that he went on to form his own company. Culling from some of the wisdom he learned outdoors, Peter is now a coach, teacher and best-selling author, assisting successful people to become better leaders and build more effective teams.
Full Story ➝If mindfulness is being in love with the present moment, then play is the most fun access point to that state. In their upcoming workshop, The Power of Play and Human Connection in the Digital Age, Adam Smiley Poswolsky (pictured right) and Brady Gill (below) create a tech-free “playshop” designed to awaken our creative potential and illuminate the wisdom and grace available when we intentionally bring play and playfulness into our lives and our work. Adam, a millennial workplace expert and the best-selling author of The Quarter-Life Breakthrough and Brady, a writer/performer and camp director of Camp Anywhere, a summer camp for grown-ups, share more with Esalen News.
Full Story ➝In conversation, Marianne Williamson sparks a mix of intrigue and inspiration, often honing in on such deeper questions as: how do we become our best selves? The longtime activist, former 2020 presidential hopeful and bestselling author of A Return To Love and A Politics of Love, joins leaders in business, mindfulness and social change at this year’s Wisdom 2.0.
Full Story ➝Ron Frederick and Timothy J. Beyer are on a mission to enhance the lives of gay men who find it challenging to feel present in their lives and closer to the people they love. In their upcoming workshop, Emotional Mindfulness, Connection and Healing for Gay Men, Ron (pictured right) and Timothy (below) explore the origins of certain fears inherent in gay men, how those fears create a sense of detachment from the wisdom and power within and present guideposts toward empowerment.
Full Story ➝A new month, a new year and a new decade all converge in January. Collectively, the human race enters brand new territory (a more soul-filled Roaring Twenties, perhaps?) and many people may be seeking ways to invigorate their spirit and experience their true human potential. Questions abound: What new practices can I implement? What new actions can I take? Culling from Esalen’s lineage of teachers, we reveal five ways to truly let the spirit shine even brighter.
Full Story ➝David Kessler has spent much of his life assisting others cope and move through grief and his breadth of knowledge has made him one of the world’s foremost experts on healing and loss. In his latest book, Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief, David adds another stage (meaning) to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s five grief stages (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance), which he believes is vital after the loss of a relationship.
Full Story ➝Three-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee Scilla Elworthy is a vibrant example of what we are capable of doing when we see clearly — and take action. When Scilla was just 11 years old, her four older brothers were teaching her how to fire a shotgun at their home in Galashiels, England. In one quick moment, young Scilla did something that forever changed her life path.
Full Story ➝The quest to live an awakened life is filled with numerous discoveries that allow us to become present, mindful of our mental activity and more deeply in touch with our physical being. After reaching that initial state of awakening, another desire may emerge: sustaining it. Leaning in that direction is a lovely goal, but understanding what awakening is also vital.
Full Story ➝Mark Nicolson, an executive coach specializing in leadership and team development for visionary entrepreneurs and catalysts for social change, made it his mission to help people and systems large and small discover the concept of renewal and become re-enchanted with their place and calling in the world. As the co-founder of T12N, an innovative program for realigning self and career, he also helped create pathways for sustaining the changes individuals truly wanted to create. Mark sheds light on this rich topic in his upcoming workshop, Designing the Life We Want: Self-Renewal in the New Year, where he creates a space for us to be vulnerable, undistracted and present.
Full Story ➝How do people gather today when they are not tied to a specific religion or belief system? Esalen faculty Jeff Kripal and Dana Sawyer have long been intrigued by this subject and will explore it at length in Conversations on the Edge: America, Spiritual But Not Religious, during the weekend of December 6-8 at Esalen.
Full Story ➝Byron Katie created The Work, a simple yet powerful process of inquiry that teaches us to identify and question the thoughts that can cause suffering, as an opportunity to sink into our vast inner world, notice what we discover there and emerge from it with insights that create personal freedom.
Full Story ➝After being displaced by numerous California wildfires and landslides, naturalist/educators and longtime Esalen community members Noël Vietor and Fletcher Tucker asked themselves how they could be in service to a new paradigm in which people are a reparative and beneficial force of nature. Their answer is Wildtender, which they launched in 2017.
Full Story ➝Earlier this month, Esalen welcomed some of the most exciting voices in mindfulness today for two week-long workshops: The Art and Science of Mindfulness, Compassion and Awe and Loving Awareness. We recently spoke with Dan Siegel, author of the upcoming Aware: The Science and Practice of Mindfulness, and Dacher Keltner, founder of the Greater Good Science Center, who co-led with Shauna Shapiro the first workshop from August 5-10.
Full Story ➝Anne Watts carries the human potential movement in her DNA. As the daughter of pioneering author and philosopher Alan Watts, she grew up with people like Aldous Huxley, Charlotte Selver, and Ram Dass discussing the nature of human consciousness around the dinner table. While deeply influenced by her father, Anne forged her own path to become an educator, mediator, and counselor devoted to helping people live life from a place of authenticity and love.
Full Story ➝Against the backdrop of the Himalayan foothills, two great spiritual masters and good friends came together to celebrate a birthday. His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and Archbishop Emeritus of Southern Africa Desmond Tutu spent a week in friendship and conversation, culminating in what they now describe as a birthday gift to the world and an invitation to joy: The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World.
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