October 2020
Adam Chacksfield ~ Falling Open Together
Join Adam for Falling Open Together and invite more intimacy with the deeper movement of life through us and between us.
“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.”
Described by Pamela Wilson as “a great messenger of truth with a unique transmission that does wonderful things for my spirit,” Adam invites us to share the direct experience of the heart and mind 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 and direct, Adam offers a path straight into the truth of who you are. Adam Chacksfield offers retreats worldwide exploring the depths that reveal that reveal themselves as we become more intimate with our embodied experience and the vibrantly alive field of relating. He also offers private sessions online and in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Please register early if you can.
The event will be recorded and emailed to participants within 48 hours.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter
Lynn Marie Lumiere, MFT ~ SOMATIC AWAKENING: Transforming Core Beliefs
In this meeting, Lynn Marie offers a group process using the Flash Technique, a therapeutic method designed to reduce the charge on traumatic or painful memories and the grip of negative beliefs associated with them. This will then make it possible to truly transform these memories and beliefs held in the body-mind in awake awareness through a guided self-inquiry. There will be also be plenty of time for group process and sharing as well as individual assistance if needed.
This is an ongoing group that you can join anytime. It is recommended that you attend live, if possible, since it involves a deep therapeutic process. This would allow you to ask questions and receive individual guidance if needed. However, you are also welcome to register and do the process with the recording. If questions arise, you are welcome to 
contact Lynn Marie at lumieremft@gmail.com, or contact your regular therapist.
Lynn Marie Lumiere, MFT is a nondual psychotherapist, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and author. She offers knowledge and wisdom gained from over 30 years of experience as a therapist as well as with nondual teachings. She is the author of Awakened Relating: A Guide to Embodying Undivided Love in Intimate Relationships and The Awakening West: Evidence of a Spreading Enlightenment.
Suggested donation: $15 to $35
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
Tilicho ~ Deep Dive into Awakening and Healing: 5th Chakra – 4-Hour Workshop
During this series of workshops with Tilicho, we inquire about our Real Nature and bring awareness and healing to the traumas and mind patterns which prevent us from expressing our true self.
This session focuses on the 5th chakra Communication and Creativity
You are invited to dive deep within, and let all suffering emerge to the surface without identifying with your thoughts, your emotions and the suffering. The “meeting” happens in a safe atmosphere of love, compassion and understanding.
Thanks to the very interactive format of the meeting, you’ll be able to receive personal guidance and suggestions about your awakening and healing journey.
We meet from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm, with a half an hour break.
This workshop is part of a monthly series, where we explore ourselves chakra by chakra. You are welcome to attend the whole series, or join individual workshops, even if you have not attended the previous ones.
Tilicho spontaneously realized the Self in 1998 without following any teaching or practice. The absence of spiritual conditioning allowed her to see through the veils of spiritual idealism and illusions. She ended up spending thirteen years in Tiruvannamalai in south India, the seat of Ramana Maharshi and the sacred mountain, Arunachala. While recognizing the beauty of the Advaita teachings, she also observed that they can easily be misunderstood and distorted. Although the Self is eternally free from the world, it is not separate from it. Clarity does not exclude openness. Her teaching stresses the need to combine Masculine and Feminine qualities and approaches. It is an invitation to find unity within and without.
Sliding Scale: $25 to $50
Some Partial Scholarships Available
Please register early if you can.
The event will be recorded and emailed to participants within 48 hours.
You're welcome to join, even if you can't attend the live session.
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Ajaya Sommers ~ Essential Intimacy Pathways for Radiant Embodiment
Our unresolved history, traumas and fixation patterns are stored within the neuro-pathways of our tissues, frozen in time, thus clouding our direct experience. We can allow these places to thaw, unwind and be metabolized by the warmth of our loving presence. In this way, we discover how to participate in creating the safety and trust required to fully embody.
In this self-nourishing, self-love making practice, we return to the midline, the core central channel; source spring of our original innocence and wholeness. We attune through provocative inquiry, vibratory sounds, touch, intrinsic movement and loving embrace. We enter into the stream of intelligence that is imbued with the potency of our origin forces. It is within this tangible subtle core space that we can access the nourishment pathways of our essential nature. Feeding our bodies, the whole of our lives, the planet and cosmos.
Come be renewed, inspired and nourished by the wellspring of your eternal center.
Ajaya Sommers is a gifted healer, teacher and creative catalyst in the field of embodied awakening. For the last 26 years, she has been instrumental in facilitating conscious evolution in hundreds of people's lives. All of her programs are grounded in science, expanded through devotional practice and made real through direct experience.
Within a field of unconditionally loving presence, Ajaya facilitates and transmits 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 our human potential. She is a certified Biodynamic Craniosacral Integration Teacher, NARM practitioner as well as an Authorized Continuum Teacher.
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
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
Stephan Bodian ~ How Teachers Go Astray: Exploring the Core Principles of Genuine Spiritual Integrity ~ 4 week Course
Wednesdays: Oct. 14, 21, 28 & Nov. 4
9:00 – 10:30 am, Pacific Time
Time Zone Converter
Event will be recorded and emailed to participants after each meeting.
You're welcome to join even if you can't attend all the live sessions.
Those who assume the role of spiritual teacher represent a whole world of meaning to their students. When they fail to embody the truths they teach and act in unconscious, manipulative, or abusive ways, they betray their students’ trust and shake their confidence in the value and validity of spiritual awakening. Over the years I’ve worked with many people who have reported being exploited or betrayed by their teacher, and I’ve written extensively about the issue, including a recent article outlining what I consider the basic principles of teacher integrity*.
Among these principles: the teacher doesn’t need anything from you, including your love, admiration, veneration, power, or money; the teacher does not require your loyalty or allegiance to anything but the truth of your being as you understand it; the teacher’s primary purpose is to further your spiritual unfolding, not to build her organization or expand her popularity on social media; and the teacher does not attempt to organize, orchestrate, or control your personal life and does not purport to know what’s best for you on a personal level.
In this class we will explore these guideliness in detail, including why they are so important for the student’s evolution, how teachers go astray, the problem of narcissism, and how the failure to live up to these guidelines can cause lasting pain and trauma. The course is intended not only for those who have been hurt in this way who might want to share and investigate the issues it’s raised for them, but also for those who want a clear sense of what to look for in a teacher and what genuine integrity really entails.
As always, each class will include guided meditation that grounds our exploration in an awakened perspective, teachings and pointers, and ample time for dialogue and discussion.
*(The root of the word integrity is the Latin for whole or complete; when we act from our wholeness, our essential non-separateness, as a teacher is called upon to do, we’re unable to take advantage or cause harm to others.)
Stephan Bodian has been sharing the direct approach to spiritual awakening for more than 40 years. A former Buddhist monk, a licensed psychotherapist, and a longtime student of Advaita master Jean Klein, Stephan received Dharma transmission from Adyashanti in 2001. Since 2007 he has taught the annual months-long School for Awakening, which will begin again, in online form, in 2021. His books include Wake Up Now and Beyond Mindfulness.
More about Stephan Bodian: www.stephanbodian.org
Sliding Scale: $75 to $95
Some Partial Scholarships Available.
Please Register Early if you can.
Ellen Emmet ~ The Awakening Body
This is an opportunity to meet with a group of like-minded friends. We gather around the non-dual teaching with a particular focus on the realm of the body, its tactility and feelings, from the perspective of our shared listening Presence. This approach to the body is a form of ‘somatic inquiry’ that invites us to open to the totality of our felt, tactile and sensorial experience moment by moment, free of any agenda, allowing us to uncover the open Presence which is our essential identity.
Ellen will guide a gentle experiential meditation, followed by a conversation where participants may ask questions or share their experiences.
Ellen’s deepest intuition was confirmed when she met her teacher, Francis Lucille. In his presence, she recognized the eternal, limitless and universal nature of our shared reality. Over many years, her understanding deepened to touch all levels of experience. The process of aligning and stabilizing all aspects of her life to this understanding has continued to unfold since then.
Today, Ellen offers meetings and retreats in The Awakening Body, sharing a direct exploration of reality sourced in the tradition of Kashmir Shivaism and self-inquiry as transmitted through Francis Lucille and his teacher, Jean Klein. In addition, she has a private practice as a psychotherapist and facilitator of Authentic Movement. Her background of Dance Movement Therapy and Transpersonal Psychology is shaped by the non-dual understanding. Ellen lives in Oxford, England with her husband, Rupert Spira.
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
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
Stephan Bodian ~ What Does Nondual Really Mean?
Everyone seems to be using this spiritual buzzword these days, but misunderstandings and misconceptions abound. In fact, there sometimes appear to be as many versions of nondual as there are teachers espousing it. Does it mean reality is just a single undifferentiated whole, and being awake means experiencing oneness with everything all the time? What about our differences? Does the nondual view invalidate science, which is based on studying and measuring discrete phenomenon in a seemingly objective world? Is this world merely an illusion, or is it an expression of a deeper whole? And how do the major traditions of Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, and Taoism differ in their understanding of nonduality?
In this satsang, we’ll explore the concept of nonduality in the spiritual traditions of the East and ground it in direct experience of nonduality through guided meditations and contemplation. As always, there will be plenty of time for questions, dialogue, and discussion.
Stephan Bodian has been sharing the direct approach to spiritual awakening for more than 40 years. A former Buddhist monk, a licensed psychotherapist, and a longtime student of Advaita master Jean Klein, Stephan received Dharma transmission from Adyashanti in 2001. Since 2007 he has taught the annual months-long School for Awakening, which will begin again, in online form, in 2021. His books include Wake Up Now and Beyond Mindfulness.
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Please register early if you can.
The event will be recorded and emailed to participants within 48 hours.
To check your local time, use a tool such as: Time Zone Converter
Gail Brenner, Ph.D. ~ Living as Presence in Everyday Life – A Mini-Retreat
A 2 Day Mini Retreat:
Oct. 17 and 18, 2020
11:00 am – 1:00 pm, Pacific Time
Event will be recorded and emailed to participants after each meeting.
You’re welcome to join even if you can’t attend all the live sessions.
Come immerse yourself in a fresh way of being, fully aligned with your natural essence as whole, peaceful, primed for joy, and lacking nothing.
Longstanding conditioned patterns are profound invitations into liberation from the sense of separation.
Together in a safe and loving space, we’ll untangle the limited ways you think about yourself—addressing the critical mind, old stories from the past, tendencies to compare and feel inadequate. You’ll come away with skills to feel grounded within yourself and in your life, with more space to experience intimacy, generosity, and simple joy.
Our sessions will include guided meditation, small group sharing, Q&A, and joyful celebration together.
You’ll be invited to practice on your own between our sessions. Together, we lovingly embrace our humanness as we expand into overflowing appreciation, vibrant joy, and deep connection with all of Life.
If you have questions about this retreat, please email gail@gailbrenner.com.
“Gail creates, embodies and models a very safe space which is helping to create safety in myself on a day to day level which is Huge.” ~H.F.
“I’m definitely continuing to recommend this course primarily because I can feel Gail’s embodiment and pure transmission as she speaks.” ~Chantal K.
Gail Brenner, Ph.D. is your guide. She is a psychologist, author, speaker, and lover of truth with a fire that burns brightly. She is an expert in healing from early trauma and brings to this work years of experience with individuals and groups. She is known for her embodied presence and for creating the safe space needed for inner exploration. Gail is the author of the award-winning The End of Self-HelpandSuffering Is Optional.
Sliding Scale: $30 to $50
Some Partial Scholarships Available
Please Register Early if you can.
Lynn Marie Lumiere, MFT ~ SOMATIC AWAKENING: Building Resilience
In this webinar Lynn Marie will explore awakening in the body through somatic practises for balancing the nervous system and building more resilience and capacity for regulating stress and emotions. Being more regulated and resilient is very important for both healing our human wounding and our spiritual awakening. Building resilience is especially important at this time of global stress, uncertainty, and rapid change. When our nervous system is dis-regulated, it reacts to life as though we are in danger and it doesn’t feel safe to let go and relax. This interferes with our ability to be present with our moment to moment experience and access the ever-present awareness. As you relax and and quiet down with the help of somatic practises, we will deepen into self-inquiry and connect with the ultimate resilience—the Silence of Being.
It is recommended to attend live, but if you cannot, you can still register and receive the recordings. The practises are designed for you to do repeatedly on your own, or through listening to the recordings.
Lynn Marie Lumiere, MFT is a nondual psychotherapist, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner and author. She offers knowledge and wisdom gained from over 30 years of experience as a therapist as well as with nondual teachings. She is the author of Awakened Relating: A Guide to Embodying Undivided Love in Intimate Relationships and The Awakening West: Evidence of a Spreading Enlightenment.
Suggested donation: $15 to $35
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 ~ Em-body-ment
When we stop spiritually bypassing our humanity, hoping for a miracle cure, we get to look squarely at the process of embodiment. Join Jeannie and friends to explore the vital role of awareness of the body in the process of embodiment.
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
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