November 2019
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
Paul Hedderman ~ Beyond “Selfing”
Paul’s unpretentious, humorous and energetic style of street-level non-duality is honed by his years of involvement with 12-step programs and the recovery community, as well as his background in Zen, Advaita and A Course in Miracles. In colorful and direct language, he points to the many ways we reinforce what he calls “selfing”, urging his listeners to honestly consider the facts of their daily experience, and look beyond the pull of the past and future, and the self-reinforcing self-importance of ego-identity. His direct, uncompromising pointing doesn’t provide a refuge for entrenched conditioning and the sense of separateness, no matter how convincing that experience may be. Paul is the author of The Escape to Everywhere and his latest, On Having Never Left, and the subject of the DVD Traveling Lighter.
"We are saddled with the proscribed way of looking called self-centeredness. Everything is perceived as to how it pertains to me. The thing to do is to turn the light on it to see that all there is, is subject; there is no object called me as a subject. There's just subjectivity. That's the truth. Then enlightenment and all these goals become non-goals, because you realize there is nothing to seek.”
Suggested Donation $15-25
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Find out more »December 2019
Jeannie Zandi ~ Listening from Presence
Join Jeannie and friends to learn the art of listening from presence, a useful relational skill as well as a form of meditation. Learn how grounding in one’s sovereignty and felt sense of being serves the warm and clear lending of one’s heart to another.
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 »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.
Loch Kelly ~ Effortless Mindfulness: Awakening Embodied
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."
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.
Loch Kelly is a recognized leader in the field of non-dual meditation and awakening, the founder of the non-profit, Open-Hearted Awareness Institute., and the author of the award winning book The Way of Effortless Mindfulnes.
“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
Tilicho ~ On Spiritual Concepts and Paradoxes
Tilicho offers a series of four satsangs "Seeing Through the Mist of Spiritual Concepts and Paradoxes" to help having a clear vision of the ocean of Consciousness.
Spiritual teachings generally focus on Self-knowledge (finding who we really are) or on the mind (self-integration). Yet, is the ocean of consciousness separate from the waves (the movements of the mind as thoughts and emotions)?
Depending on angles of perception, spiritual vocabulary and concepts vary. This often creates confusion in the mind of spiritual seekers. This serie of satsangs is an invitation to inquire and gain clarity. When the veils of illusion are removed, the ever present jewel of the Heart is revealed
Tilicho satsangs start with 15mns of silence, followed by Q&A. Her teaching unfolds according to your questions.
Satsang 1: On Spiritual Concepts and Paradoxes - December 7th
What is really meant by non-doing, surrender, silence, stillness? Is the path efforless or does it require vigilance? What is Reality? What is time? Can worldly life and sexuality co-exist with spirituality? You are invited to explore and clarify all sorts of concepts and ideas.
Satsang 2: On Truth (date coming soon)
Satsang 3: On Non-duality (date coming soon)
Satsang 4: On Sat-Chit-Ananda: the Trinity (date coming soon)
Who are you? What is wholeness? What is the Real meaning of the Trinity? What are the obstacles to realise it? What is the source of harmony, within and without? You are invited to have clarity on the most ancient and unconscious knot of human mind and history.
Tilicho will also offer a comprehensive teaching "From Self-knowledge to self-integration: Initiation into Love and Freedom". In order to register to this serie of "Initiation Retreats", previous participation in all four satsangs as well as in the workshop "Setting the Fondation" is requested.
About Tilicho
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.
“May all beings realize who they truly are! Om Sat Chit Ananda.”
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
Find out more »Prajna Ginty ~ Embodied Living!
Explore a fresh start with Prajna, in this exceptional day of transformation. Prajna is the Queen of transformation! Bring forth your deep knowing. Live a life driven of curiosity rather than fear. Separate the real from the unreal, the past from present. Heal from trauma, suffering, scars, and psychological uncertainty, so you can travel lighter, and flow. Through caring guidance, deep listening, embodiment and meditation, Prajna will empower you to live from your deep knowing.
Prajna Ginty, MA. Mystic, Shaman, Hakomi Therapist, Spiritual Mentor and author Edge of Grace, A Fierce Awakening to Love. Prajna’s journey raising her twin daughters with disabilities continues to illuminate life’s spiritual and deeply human dimensions. She offers a rare fusion of non-dual mysticism, somatic therapy, and plant medicine. Prajna’s popular retreats catalyze the healing and integration of traumatic experiences empowering you to live as love. Prajna was an early student of Adyashanti and lives with her family in Santa Cruz, CA.
Prajna's website: www.awakeningprajna.com
Her Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/AwakeningPrajna
Sliding Scale: $45-$105, no one turned away. Email tommy@sonic to reserve a seat or scholarship.
Location: 8476 Sonoma Ave, Sebastopol, CA. Park on Sonoma Ave. Walk down short driveway to house with carport. Please arrive 10-15 minutes early for the best seat.
Find out more »Amoda Maa ~ Standing as Openness in the Face of Brokenness and Loss
Join Amoda in an intimate dialogue that invites you to reject nothing, welcome everything, and surrender into the deepest falling of the open heart. Includes a silent and/or guided meditation, discourse, and ample time for questions and answers.
“Listen to the visitors who knock on your heart … knocking from the inside. Shame, pain, loneliness, grief and more … all these are your allies not your foes. They yearn to come in, to be acknowledged, accepted, loved. For what is broken is the doorway to gold, what is shattered is the entrance to inconceivable love, what brings you to your knees is not a punishment but God’s invitation. Your brokenness is holy.”
Amoda is a contemporary spiritual teacher, offering meetings and retreats to support and deepen the living of an awakened life. She has been sharing her teachings since 2012, initially at small gatherings in the UK. Today, she lives in the US and her teachings are followed by a growing number of seekers world-wide. She is the author of Embodied Enlightenment, as well as Radical Awakening and Change Your Life, Change Your World. While often referred to as a ‘nondual teacher,’ she prefers to emphasize the full embracement of the human experience as a path to liberation. She brings to her teachings a depth and breadth of understanding of the human journey, born out her own immersion in the furnace of personal transformation.
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
Find out more »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 »