November 2019
Jeannie Zandi ~ Connected – Daylong for Men
Join Jeannie and friends for a gathering of men to explore connectedness with self, with the Divine, with other. Explore the role of softening and of sturdiness, self-caring boundaries and open heartfulness. Be held in a tender, safe, spacious and transformational container by a capable, strong and respectful man-loving woman to speak what’s in your heart and explore new territory and expression.
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 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. Residing in Colorado, she travels widely in the US, bringing a down-to-earth embodied teaching of living as love.
Sunday Daylong for Men will apply most to anyone who grew up with men’s conditioning
Sliding Scale: $65-$125
No pre-registration. Pay at door.
Caverly Morgan ~ Liberation Now: From the Progressive Path to Direct Experience
In a progressive path approach to practice, we sometimes fall for the idea that liberation is in the future. We are conditioned to believe that we must end thinking, master practices, meditate for years, and purify our minds. Without realizing it, our beliefs can maintain the conditioning that stands in the way of our direct realization.
Turning our attention outward to various objects in practice can be deeply helpful. And, what changes when we cultivate our effortless capacity to rest the attention in awareness itself? What changes as we practice inquiry into the nature of consciousness? And what tends to get in the way?
Caverly Morgan is a meditation teacher, nonprofit leader, and visionary. She is the founder and guiding teacher of Presence Collective, dedicated to igniting personal transformation and collective awakening. She is also the founder and guiding teacher of Peace in Schools — a nonprofit which created the nation’s first for-credit mindfulness class in public high schools. Peace in Schools is pioneering new depths in mindfulness education, through teaching youth as well as training educators.
Caverly blends the original spirit of Zen with a modern nondual approach. Her practice began in 1995 and has included eight years of training in a silent Zen monastery. She has been teaching contemplative practice since 2001.
Prior to her pioneering efforts with Peace in Schools, Caverly formerly worked for nonprofits serving people with special needs. An artist and educator, she brings insight, passion, warmth and humor to her transformative work with students of all ages and experience levels.
www.caverlymorgan.org
facebook.com/caverlymorgan
Suggested Donation: $15 - $25
Find out more »Ajaya Sommers ~ Beyond the trap of Spiritual Bypassing ~ Core Embodiment Practices® For resting as Awareness while Honoring your Fully Human Life
Within a field of unconditionally loving presence, Ajaya facilitates a unique discovery process called Core Embodiment®, an integrated system of embodiment practices, principles and perceptual orientations to awaken and align with the power of your human potential. She is a Biodynamic Craniosacral Integration Teacher, Authorized Continuum Teacher, gifted healer, writer and creative catalyst in the field of embodied awakening and trauma resolution for the last 26 years. All of her programs are grounded in science, expanded through devotional practice, and made real through direct experience.
Due to early developmental trauma, ancestral trauma and our cultural context at large, there is a prevailing unconscious nervous system habit of using spirituality and particularly the non-dual orientations to hide, bypass or otherwise disassociate from the intelligence of your core human needs and feelings. As if your needs and feelings are problems to be ashamed of; to fix or get rid of on your way to spiritual realization.
This is not a sustainable, humane or truly integrative path. We long for the tangible felt sense of our wholeness. We long to passionately embody all that is present within our very human, holy and messy majesty of being alive. It is time that we compassionately discover how to allow everything in our immediate experience to be lived and loved within the intimate embrace of the Heart.
In this introductory evening, we will melt below our habit patterns of the default nervous system and connect directly with this core intelligence. Discovering our own intimate, ever fresh, self- healing, oxytocin replenishing, cell-renewing inspired embodiment practice.
Utilizing conscious breath, sound vibration, subtle intrinsic movement, embryological anatomy and provocative inquiry we enter into the inner alchemy that allows a dissolve of any out dated structures that may be obstructing our path. A psycho-spiritual somatic reorganization and higher order of self-regulation arises as our cells surrender into the all-pervasive holding ground of nature that is always present, when we are seated in the Core.
We will re-emerge renewed, resourced and ready to re-engage our senses such that they become thresholds where the divine, the natural world, our culture and the mystery of being human coalesce as the dynamic dance of Life.
Please arrive at least a few minutes early
Suggested Donation: $15-$25 per person
December 2019
Loch Kelly ~ Effortless Mindfulness: Awakening Embodied
“Loch Kelly is one of the clearest expressions of authentic awakened freedom and love that I know. He offers wise, loving medicine and direct, practical guidance which evolved from Loch’s vast experience and deep commitment to help others awaken to spiritual freedom.” ~ Adyashanti
Join Loch Kelly to learn effortless mindfulness as a way to shift out of your chattering thoughts and live from your awake heart-mind. We will explore ways of supporting living an awakened life. It is not enough to simply wake up out of everyday ego mind to pure awareness. In order to live with your eyes open, in relationships and work, we need to familiarize ourselves with new ways of "doing from Being."
Effortless Mindfulness is done through small glimpses of your True Nature, with eyes open in the midst of everyday life. Effortless mindfulness is ideal for our contemporary times in that it makes embodied awakening possible for all of us, without having to join a monastery or be an Olympic athlete of meditation. Awakening can become the next, natural stage of our human development.
Loch will draw from the ancient wisdom traditions, psychology, and current neuroscientific research to point us beyond our small, separate sense of self to help us live from our already awake heart-mind.
It is recommended to read Loch Kelly’s new book The Way of Effortless Mindfulness: A Revolutionary Guide for Living an Awakened Life before the daylong, available HERE.
Loch Kelly, M.Div., LCSW is an author of the award winning book The Way of Effortless Mindfulness. He is a licensed psychotherapist and recognized leader in the field of non-dual meditation and awakening. Loch is the founder of the non-profit, Open-Hearted Awareness Institute and has worked in community mental health, established homeless shelters and counseled family members of 9/11. Loch graduated from Columbia University where he received a traveling fellowship to study in Sri Lanka, India and Nepal. Loch collaborates with neuroscientists at Yale, UPenn and NYU in the study of how awareness training can enhance compassion and wellbeing.
Sliding Scale: $65 - $125
Pre-registration suggested, but not required.
Note that registration closes at 7:00 pm on Wednesday, December 4th.
However, there will be plenty of spaces available at the door on Friday.
Please bring cash or a check if you plan on paying at the door.
Jeannie Zandi ~ The Dance of Yin and Yang
When the divine energies of yin and yang are balanced, harmony and beauty result. When these energies are imbalanced, disharmony and ugliness ensue. In our current imbalanced climate of devalued yin and “toxic” yang, it is easy to overlook the divine nature of both of these principles. Join Jeannie for an inquiry into the holy energies of yin and yang, how they dance together, and how we can support the call back to balance that is needed for harmony in ourselves and the world.
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. Come join us!
Jeannie 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. Residing in Colorado, she travels widely in the US, bringing a down-to-earth embodied teaching of living as love.
Suggested donation: $15-$25
Find out more »
John Prendergast ~ The Deep Heart: Our Portal to Presence
The great human quest is to discover who we really are—a discovery that changes our lives and the lives of those around us. With The Deep Heart, John Prendergast invites you on a pilgrimage within, using the heart as a portal to your deepest psychological and spiritual nature. The Deep Heart is John’s term for the subtle center of emotional and energetic sensitivity, relational intimacy, profound inner knowing, and wholeness found within our hearts.
In this experiential guide, John offers precise and potent meditative inquiries to help you open your heart, see through your core limiting beliefs, and discover the true nature of your being. He brings a depth of experience, insight, warmth, and compassion to his teaching work, and is especially skillful in guided meditative inquiries and one-on-one dialogues.
John J. Prendergast is a spiritual teacher, psychotherapist and retired adjunct professor of psychology at CIIS, known for his pioneering work in integrating nondual wisdom and psychotherapy. A long-time student of both Jean Klein and Adyashanti, he was asked to share the dharma by Dorothy Hunt. He is the author of the forthcoming The Deep Heart: Our Portal to Presence, as well as In Touch: How to Tune in to the Inner Guidance of Your Body and Trust Yourself.
Suggested Donation: $15-25
No one turned away for lack of funds.
January 2020
Adam Chacksfield ~ Falling Open Together
Described by Pamela Wilson as “a great messenger of truth a unique transmission that does wonderful things for my spirit,” Adam invites us to share the direct experience of the heart, mind, and life falling open. In this effortless opening, the suffering involved in resisting feelings and believing our thoughts spontaneously releases. This allows our natural abundance of joy, peace, wisdom and love to become apparent and available. Heart-centered but direct, Adam offers a path straight into the truth of who you are. Adam Chacksfield offers retreats worldwide exploring the depths that reveal themselves as we become intimate with our embodied experience and vibrantly alive field of relating. He also offers private sessions online and in the San Francisco Bay Area.
“We are invited to receive the ultimate gift, for which there is no substitute , worth infinitely more than all our dreams and fantasies. We accept this gift by simply falling open. When the heart and mind fall open, we find ourselves intimately present and completely available to what is here. Our struggle with reality dissolves into harmony.”
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
Find out more »Marlies Myoku Cocheret ~ Settling In and Shining as Silence
We are so lucky to know of this most precious place inside of us. Do you visit frequently to connect, taste, steep in, and be taken? When we rest as the bliss of Being, we allow ourselves to shine as That. Naturally, any form of mind will disarm and soften into Being.
Please know we cannot bring anything with us into this most precious place that we are. It’s like melting into the arms of the Great Mother. We can only open ourselves to be touched, and taken more deeply into Her. She holds all of us. We are so helped and supported beyond what we can imagine. Be nourished by Her!
Come and join this day of abiding and deepening in and as the True Nature that we are, and be completely nourished. There will be periods of meditation, talk, sharing, dialog and movement.
Marlies Myoku Cocheret has devoted her life to the Beloved. She brings a potent invitation into the deep Silence that we are. The kindness of her gentle and direct teaching guides us home like a lighthouse. She helps people to see that freedom and peace lie not in escaping from difficulties, but rather in completely welcoming and receiving all that the Mystery presents.
She has been offering satsang and retreat since 2000 when Adyashanti asked her to teach. Marlies is trained as a psychologist in The Netherlands, a Hakomi therapist, and a Tantric educator. For over 25 years she has been ushering seekers into living the Divine in the body. She has a passion and a gift for bringing together the Sensual Body and the Silence of our Being.
She lives in Santa Cruz; California, but works internationally. Marlies is interviewed in the book Awakened Relating. A Guide to Embodying Undivided love in Intimate Relationships by Lynn Marie Lumiere, and in the book Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom by R.M. Robinson.
Sliding Scale: $65-125
Find out more »February 2020
Jeannie Zandi ~ The Sacrament of Love
Realization allows us to know ourselves as a force of love and the embodiment of that realization results in living love in our daily lives. Join Jeannie for an exploration of realization, love and the joys and challenges of living that knowing.
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. Come join us!
Jeannie 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. Residing in Colorado, she travels widely in the US, bringing a down-to-earth embodied teaching of living as love.
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
Find out more »Shakti Caterina Maggi ~ Oneness, Living from Non-Separation
Our everyday life calls us to integrate in daily living the message of non-separation. Embodying our understanding becomes the way to blossom into our unique individuality. Living the human experience is at that point the playground for living oneness in the dual game.
Shakti Caterina Maggi has been sharing a message of awakening to our true nature as One Consciousness since 2003. Her approach to Self-Realization is very contemporary and accessible, and is profoundly in tune with Advaita and the non-dual Tantric traditions. She reveals the real possibility of seeing what we truly are, and embodying it in our everyday lives with clarity, wisdom, and humor.
She was recently asked to contribute to the anthology On the Mystery of Being: Contemporary Insights into the Convergence of Science and Spirituality edited by Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo, the founders of the Science and Non-Duality (SAND) Conference. She teaches in Europe, Canada and the USA, offering satsang, seminars and retreats.
“The true Heart is the space in which we can deeply meet ourselves and the entire world. The way to the Heart is an embodied Consciousness, in which we are divinely human.”
Firday, Feb. 21st, 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Suggested Donation: $15-$25 (cash or check)
Also see our East Bay events listings for details on other events in this series with Shakti...
Sat. Feb. 22nd evening & Sun. Feb. 23rd Daylong,