November 2024
Shakti Caterina Maggi ~ Embodied Non-duality
The teaching will be a dive into the heart of nonduality. An open and direct sharing about how our spiritual essence embodies in human experience to wake up to itself.
We will explore how suffering is the way through which we can recognize our self-imposed limitations. With courage and radical honesty we can use suffering as a trampoline to consciously connect to an unshakeable inner peace.
Shakti will offer a talk followed by Q&A.
Shakti Caterina Maggi is a spiritual guide, meditation teacher and author widely recognized as one of the most authentic and profound voices of contemporary spirituality. Combining the vision of Advaita and non-dual Tantra with a contemporary approach, Shakti offers with humanity, compassion and great clarity an inner technology to dissolve that contraction of suffering that accompanies our lives, and access a space of peace and unconditional love towards life.
www.shakticaterinamaggi.com
Suggested donation: $15 to $40
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Please register early if you can.
The event will be recorded and emailed to participants within a week.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter
Ishita Sharma ~ Embodiment Lab – Experiments in Embodying Presence
We are not thinking beings who sense; we are sensing beings who think. And re-setting that balance is key to joy, to vibrance, and true liberation!
Join us for Embodiment Lab, an experiential exploration of the body as a doorway to presence and aliveness, returning to the ground of being through our own direct experience.
We will use the fullness of our experience to tune and attune to our bodies, illuminating our deepest healing and freedom. Engaging and transcending our senses, awareness, breath, movement and sound and more, we will use our body's signals to return to sensate presence.
TOGETHER ON OUR CALL WE WILL:
- Explore states of inner coherence in our own experience.
- Engage simple yet profound somatic and energetic practices.
- Experience the healing power of inner and group coherence.
- Have space to share, ask questions and learn from within and together.
- Learn about ways to deepen our access to embodied presence.
All levels of experience are welcom.
BIO
Ishita Sharma serves as a spiritual teacher, healing mirror, embodiment guide, and Core Energetics Practitioner of body-based psychotherapy. Teaching Universal principles of healing and mysticism, she is devoted to supporting healing and awakening in all those committed to living a bright and connected life, sharing their gifts for the good of the Whole.
Growing up in India, asking big questions, Ishita's curiosities about the nature of All Things fueled a series of profound openings. Having her relationship to Self, Life and others re-calibrated, while learning to honor her own body's signals as the ultimate path to God, led her to study various spiritual, neurological, relational, somatic and shamanic modalities, through the Grace of her teachers and the Book of her Life.
Ishita has coached visionaries and leaders from Google, Harvard, MIT, Silicon Valley, Broadway artists, and renowned scientists, coaches, teachers, artists and activists. Clients come to her to grow through their deepest longings and challenges, held and mirrored in their perfect wholeness. She points every one of them back to center.
Ishita’s teachings, like her learnings, support self-study through direct realization. They marry western mind and eastern spirit through the human body and heart to facilitate embodied awakening and authentic connection, the balm for our tumultuous times.
Care for our sacred shared world informs all her endeavors. Ishita now uses her skills to help clients connect with their inner signals so they can find rest in minds, ease in their bodies, joy in their hearts, and embody their True Nature in right relation with Life. She brings 15 years of advanced facilitation, a refined meditation practice, and a fierce devotion to her own healing to serve. She looks forward to meeting and supporting you!
Suggested donation: $15 to $40
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Please register early if you can.
The event will be recorded and emailed to participants within a week.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter
Silent Group Meditation (Free, No Guidance)
Join us for a silent group meditation. Do your own practice quietly in the company of others. Let’s be present, together. .... more details
Mon.: 8:00am – 8:30am (PT) and Wed.: 9:00am – 9:30am (PT)
Ongoing drop-in group – attend as often as you like.
Weekly, with rare exceptions. Verify dates on Full Calendar.
December 2024
Ishtar ~ Flowing Wholeness – Melting into the Heart of Life
When the mind settles into Silence, the heart opens to the great mystery hidden everywhere in plain sight. The formless takes the form of Love, melting the barrier between self and world, reconnecting us to primordial Wholeness. This Wholeness is like a song that is already playing within. Every moment of life- sublime or awful- can be experienced as a flowing wholeness.
We’ll walk into a few powerful ways of melting into wholeness: effortless mantra practice, heart-engaging appreciation, tuning directly into Silence, and opening to the flow of Shakti. These are all different words for the singular practice of letting Presence move through us like a song. This is the way of praying until we become the prayer. Woven into shared practice will be time for questions, answers, and conversation.
Ishtar is a meditation teacher, monk, gardener, and head teacher of the School for Awakened Living. At age 13, he experienced an NDE, and fell into a Samadhi. The desire to return to Samadhi propelled him on a spiritual path. His first teacher was a shaman, who taught primarily through the magic of Presence. A meditation practice known as the Ishayas’ Ascension brought him to an Ashram at age 18 in the early 2000’s. Since then, he has worked as a guide, teaching effortless meditation, and helping people relax into Wholeness.
For those wanting to learn more about Ishtar’s work, his interviews can be found on Buddha at the Gas Pump, Conscious TV, Guru Viking, and Next Level Soul.
His websites are: www.ascension-meditation.com and www.awakenedlightastrology.com
Suggested donation: $15 to $30
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Pre-registration for In-Person attandance closes at Midnight on Nov. 30 (the night before event)
Pre-registration is encouraged, but you can also just show up & pay at door. Come & join us!
OR
If you register for Recording access by event date, link to access it will be sent to you within a week.
If you register for Recording access AFTER event date, please forward your confirmation email to web@opencirclecenter.org to notify us that you registered after event date.
PARKING: There is some street parking in the neighborhood, free and without time limit.
For inquiries contact LocalEvents@opencirclecenter.org
If you have symptoms of a respiratory infection, or have had a recent
Covid exposure or positive test, please stay home out of consideration for others.
Silent Group Meditation (Free, No Guidance)
Join us for a silent group meditation. Do your own practice quietly in the company of others. Let’s be present, together. .... more details
Mon.: 8:00am – 8:30am (PT) and Wed.: 9:00am – 9:30am (PT)
Ongoing drop-in group – attend as often as you like.
Weekly, with rare exceptions. Verify dates on Full Calendar.
Stephan Bodian ~ Awakening Day Mini Retreat
In Japanese Zen, December 8 is celebrated as Bodhi Day, the anniversary of the Buddha’s awakening, and monasteries hold a special retreat that extends through the night of the seventh and culminates at dawn on the eight, when the Buddha saw the morning star and attained enlightenment. This December 8th is also the 50th anniversary of my ordination as a Zen monk, and I want to express my gratitude to my teachers and students by sitting with you in awakened awareness. The emphasis will be on silent sitting accompanied by teachings and reflections on the nature of awakening and direct pointers to our natural state of inherent wakefulness.
Stephan Bodian is a teacher in the nondual wisdom tradition of Zen, Dzogchen, and Advaita Vedanta. He's been offering the School for Awakening, an annual multi-month intensive program in spiritual unfolding and awakened living, since 2007. As a licensed psychotherapist, he brings a deep understanding of the impact of trauma and early conditioning on the process of spiritual realization and offers individual counseling and mentoring in psychospiritual integration. Stephan studied for many years with Advaita master Jean Klein and received Dharma transmission from Adyashanti in 2001. His books include Wake Up Now and Beyond Mindfulness. For more information, visit : www.stephanbodian.org
Suggested donation: $40 to $80
No one turned away for lack of funds. Any amount welcome.
Stephan Bodian has offered that all donations for this event will go
to support Open Circle in continuing this work of offering teachings.
Please register early if you can.
The event will be recorded and emailed to participants within a week.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter
Silent Group Meditation (Free, No Guidance)
Join us for a silent group meditation. Do your own practice quietly in the company of others. Let’s be present, together. .... more details
Mon.: 8:00am – 8:30am (PT) and Wed.: 9:00am – 9:30am (PT)
Ongoing drop-in group – attend as often as you like.
Weekly, with rare exceptions. Verify dates on Full Calendar.
Pamela Wilson ~ Dark Love: Being the Potent Unwavering Strength of Love ~ 4 Part Online Retreat
Dec. 9, 12, 16 & 19, 2024
10:00 am – 12:00 pm, Pacific Daylight Time (PT)
Time Zone Converter
Recording will be emailed to participants after each meeting.
You're welcome to join even if you can't attend all the live sessions.
When our inner ocean is stormy, we can follow the waves deep into the serene solace of Stillness. This ancient presence is already within you, holding you and giving life.
Reactions, distractions and busyness keep us on the surface, thus limiting the flow of our transmission. Most of us have noticed when we stop, unwinding happens and peace unfolds. We are, of course, active sages supporting our families, friends and communities.
Yet, the resource that holds everyone longs for us to include ourselves, to shine awareness into the dark all giving Love that lays beneath.
Join Pamela Wilson for this four session retreat, which invites you to include the profound unseen mountain of your being. The strength that animates, blesses and which is intimate with all beings.
Pamela will guide us to honor and nourish this dark love within, allowing us to live from the ancient heart of everything. To be the Ancient Heart!
Pamela Wilson evokes through dialogue, inquiry and her very presence the qualities of unconditional love and radical acceptance. She is celebrated for her ability to open the heart and create a space in which long-cherished struggles and notions about one’s identity relax. Featured in the book Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom, Pamela is at her best in heart-felt dialogue, so please bring your questions!
More about Pamela: www.pamelasatsang.com
Sliding Scale: $80 to $120
Some Partial Scholarships Available
Please Register Early if you can.
Lynn Marie Lumiere, MFT ~ EMBODIED LOVE: Exploring Awakened Relating
Relationships, especially close intimate ones, can be our greatest challenge when it comes to embodied awakening. They seem to get particularly challenging during the holiday season when we are more in touch with family members. Awakened relating offers a way to be with our relationship triggers in a way that can both heal our deeper relational wounding and allow us to stay connected with others when it is triggered.
You are welcome to bring whatever issues you are struggling with, in relationship with others, or yourself. Together, we will explore how to meet the issues in the loving presence of our being, while also meeting and understanding our projections and reactivity. Lynn Marie brings extensive skills and experience with awakened relating on somatic, emotional, and spiritual levels.
You are encouraged to attend this event live so you can benefit from working directly with Lynn Marie, and you are welcome to attend by recording.
Lynn Marie Lumiere, is a seasoned psychotherapist, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, spiritual mentor, and author. She offers a rare blend of embodied spiritual wisdom with a skilled therapeutic approach that facilitates healing of psychological trauma and wounding and the embodiment of awakening. Her depth of experience, rooted in her own healing and awakening journey, spans decades of expertly guiding individuals in the resolution of their trauma and into connection with their true nature. Lynn Marie is the author of Awakened Relating: A Guide to Embodying More Love in Relationships.
Suggested donation: $15 to $40
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Please register early if you can.
The event will be recorded and emailed to participants within a week.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter
Jeannie Zandi ~ Giving & Receiving
Join Jeannie to explore the generosity of giving and the humility of receiving.
Jeannie’s gift for inviting people to join her in resting and rooted presence evokes a deep meeting with oneself and reality. Within that, Jeannie’s humor and iconoclasm serve to bring people into an understanding that is beyond the intellectual. Through silent and guided meditation, spontaneous talks and exchange with participants, Jeannie will host a space of clarity and warmth where the richness of relating can be explored safely and your innermost questions met fully.
Jeannie Zandi is the director of Living as Love, a nonprofit organization dedicated to seeding a culture of the Heart on the planet, inspiring, teaching and supporting people to live from their essence as Love. A year before the birth of her daughter, Jeannie was plunged into a dark night of the soul that culminated in a radical shift of consciousness. She is known for her fearless clarity, tender mercy toward humanness, and a juicy, poetic and often humorous style that draws from Advaita Vedanta, Sufism, Christian mysticism and the ongoing revelation of fully engaged living.
Suggested donation: $15 to $40
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Please register early if you can.
The event will be recorded and emailed to participants within a week.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter