April 2023
Ellen Emmet ~ The Awakening Body ~ In-Person Local Event
Satsang: 2-4 pm
Refreshments: until 5
Suggested Donation: $10- $20, no one turned away.
Location: 8476 Sonoma Ave, Sebastopol, CA. Park on Sonoma Ave.
Note: The address sign says 8474/8476. Park on the street, and walk down the short driveway to the house with the carport. Please arrive 10-15 minutes early.
In our daily lives, the body is seldom tasted as it is. We rarely listen to its tactile and energetic language or allow it to simply unfold and blossom in its natural original intelligence.
In fact we have deeply disconnected from this level of experience and even when we turn back towards the body, we come with agendas and ideas that we project upon it, forcing the body into a new mode, only to perpetuate a felt identification with a body, that may seem improved, but in fact remains a mere projection for the separate self that seems to live in its center.
With silence as our main shrine, we will share a guided tactile meditation. In this contemplation, resistances and chains of bodily contractions, the habits that create the illusion that our identity is limited, located and separate are revealed and free to unfold as they are: feelings and sensations that come and go in Awareness. We com to feel that our true identity is an open field of vibrating openness, limitless and ever-present.
Gently and effortlessly, in deepening waves, the body is slowly realigned with this felt understanding. It flows as a living substance with more and more ease and transparency and reflects and expresses the ever-present freedom and silence that is its invisible source.
For Ellen, "the experience we call the body has always been central to all of her experiences and recognitions. It is the place of pain and expression, the channel for raw and tactile intelligence, the mirror of the totality of creation and the pathway to healing.
She participated in gatherings with the Jungian analyst Marion Woodman, and dove into body and soul through dreamwork, body and voice explorations, mask making, ritual, and a circle of women. Today, Ellen offers meetings and retreats in The Awakened Body, a direct experience sourced in Kashmir Shivaism, Authentic Movement, and self inquiry.
Ellen has Master Degrees in Dance Movement Therapy from NYU, and Transpersonal Psychology from JFK, and a certificate in Laban Movement Analysis. She lives in Oxford.
Ellen's website: www.ellenemmet.com
Jeannie Zandi ~ Will
Join Jeannie and friends to explore the theme of will, personal will, Holy will and the right use of will.
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 $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
Pamela Wilson ~ Letting Stillness Live and Guide the Life ~ In-Person Gathering
"May all beings return to natural balance, heartfelt clear seeing, listening within and living as this courageous and unshakeable Oneness"
Join us for an in-person daylong meeting with Pamela Wilson at a private residence in the hills of Fairfax.
Pamela invites us to uncontain the field of presence, clarity and strength within by noticing the ongoing inner satsang that appears in the heart, body and mind. Bringing warmth and compassion to what is tight or troubled liberates the past from the body, allowing a rooted, clear and free flowing expansion. Life then can live itself, no role play required!
Pamela Wilson evokes through dialogue, inquiry and her very presence the qualities of unconditional love and radical acceptance. She endears herself to her audiences with her playful and light-hearted humor, combined with compassion and deep understanding of what it is to be human. She is celebrated for her ability to open the heart, call forth our own inner sage, and create a space in which long-held struggles and notions about one’s identity relax. Pamela is featured in the book Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Wisdom.
More about Pamela: www.pamelasatsang.com
The meeting will be from 10:30am to 4:00pm, and is completely by donation.
We hope you will join us!
For more information and to REGISTER:
Email Rob at robmschwartz@yahoo.com
Location:
The meeting will be held at a private home in the Fairfax hills, with views of Mount Tam and hiking trails.
Address and directions will be provided upon registration.
Please bring your own lunch, or feel free to go into town to one of the restaurants or to Good Earth Natural Foods.
Find out more »Pamela Wilson ~ Letting Stillness Live and Guide the Life ~ In-Person Gathering
Join us for an in-person daylong meeting with Pamela Wilson at a private residence in the hills of Fairfax.
Pamela invites us to uncontain the field of presence, clarity and strength within by noticing the ongoing inner satsang that appears in the heart, body and mind. Bringing warmth and compassion to what is tight or troubled liberates the past from the body, allowing a rooted, clear and free flowing expansion. Life then can live itself, no role play required!
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, call forth our own inner sage, and create a space in which long-held struggles and notions about one’s identity relax.
Find out more »Gail Brenner, Ph.D ~ Bringing Heaven to Earth: Fully Alive in Everyday Life ~ 3-Part Online Course
3-Part Online Course
Saturday, Tuesday, and Thursday - April 15, 18 & 20, 2023
9:00 am – 11:30 am, Pacific Time, each day
Starts at noon Eastern, 5pm UK, 6pm CET
Time Zone Converter
Recording will be sent out each day to all who register
You're welcome to join even if you can't attend all the live sessions.
The nondual teaching invites us to recognize the truth of who we are beyond any conditioned ideas about ourselves. And this recognition changes everything.
We no longer believe the fear-based, limited ideas we hold about ourselves and the world, and we open to everything, flowing with things as they are. Rather than needing to fix and control, we get out of our heads and rest effortlessly as the Being that we are, loving whatever appears.
This knowing radically transforms our relationships with others, how we relate to ourselves when we’re triggered, and how we meet the challenges that arise in the course of human life. Where before we felt stuck and limited, we now live in wonder, curiosity, and heart.
Let’s gather in loving community to explore living everyday life with nothing in the way…endlessly available to all that is…
This 3-session course offers you an invitation to open to a fresh way of being, fully aligned with your natural essence as whole, peaceful, primed for joy, and lacking nothing. You’ll learn to untangle the limited ways you think about yourself and find your way home to the ever present space of inner aliveness, the sacredness of all of Life.
Each session includes guided meditation, clarifying wisdom, small group sharing, Q&A, and joyful celebration together. You’ll come away with skills to feel grounded, safe, and connected within yourself and in your life. You’ll experience more space for the natural arising of intimacy, generosity, inspiration, and delight.
“This course has changed my life. Gail is able to transform through her presence and I think anyone open to healing would benefit.” ~ Erica C.
Session 1: How We Show Up for Ourselves and for Life
We’ll name and explore essential qualities of awakened awareness: openness, curiosity, humility, compassion, and devotion. How do we embody these qualities in everyday life?
Session 2: Insight Into Conditioned Patterns
We’ll understand how we contract into limiting ideas about ourselves and forget the truth of our being. We’ll practice wise and kind ways to be with emotions and the nervous system.
Session 3: Awake in Everyday Life
We’ll get practical about relationships, resentments, hurts, frustrations of daily life, and anything else you’re struggling with. How do we navigate these situations without losing our authentic Being? How can you, more and more, step into your full magnificence as you were meant to be?
“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.
Free Information Session: Please join Gail for a free information session on Thursday, April 13 at 9am Pacific, noon Eastern, 5pm BST. You’ll learn more about the course and get a taste of the safe and loving community that supports this work. Please click the link to register.
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0qdOuprj8uHdG2HNeCxXyO7jk_TP3CmzRY
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
"I feel accepted, included, safe, loved and also, as importantly, I feel that my presence in the group can offer the same qualities to others.” ~ Sue E.
"It was pure delight (and relief) to find such a healing container in this sangha group. Gail's masterful facilitation and unhurried attention to our experience of coming together, shifting into direct experience, and powerful questions were grounding and illuminating.” ~ Lisa L.
Gail Brenner, Ph.D. is your guide. As a psychologist, author, and teacher, she transmits a love of truth with a fire that burns brightly. Gail is an expert in healing from early trauma and brings to this work years of experience with individuals and groups. She is known for creating the safe space needed for deep inner exploration. Gail is the author of the award-winning The End of Self-Help and Suffering Is Optional.
Sliding Scale: $80 to $130
Some Partial Scholarships Available
Please Register Early if you can.
Amoda Maa ~ Knowing Our Essential Nature as Open Awareness ~ In-Person in Berkeley, CA
Amoda Maa offers a profound invitation to all those who wish to embody the truth of awakened consciousness in the midst of everyday life. Her meetings include silent or guided meditation, discourse, and an opportunity to ask questions from the innermost. Speaking with clarity and grace, she invites an open-hearted honesty to the exploration of what it means to recognize and live from our essential nature as open awareness.
Amoda’s teachings are free from any ideology and are not affiliated with any lineage or tradition, and yet the luminous truth is the same nondual understanding at the core of of many spiritual traditions. Arising from her own direct experience and expressed in a contemporary language, these teachings are relevant and accessible to all people from all backgrounds and cultures. She is known for her authenticity, depth, and unique expression of “masculine” clear-pointed insight and “feminine” unconditional acceptance.
Since 2016, she has been living in the US, and today her teachings are followed by a growing global community. She has been a speaker and guest teacher at a variety of conferences, featured in several magazines, interviewed for numerous broadcasts and podcasts, and is the author of several books including Embodied Enlightenment and Falling Open in a World Falling Apart. Her life and work are dedicated to supporting an "inner transformation of consciousness” and envisioning a new world of peace and enlightened living.
More info on Amoda, her teachings, and events, including Bay Area daylong gathering on April 22nd at www.amodamaa.com/events
Suggested donation: $15 to $25
No pre-registration.
No one turned away for lack of funds.
Amoda Maa ~ Knowing Our Essential Nature as Open Awareness ~ In-Person in Berkeley, CA
Amoda Maa offers a profound invitation to all those who wish to embody the truth of awakened consciousness in the midst of everyday life. Her meetings include silent or guided meditation, discourse, and an opportunity to ask questions from the innermost. Speaking with clarity and grace, she invites an open-hearted honesty to the exploration of what it means to recognize and live from our essential nature as open awareness.
Amoda’s teachings are free from any ideology, and yet the luminous truth is the same nondual understanding at the core of of many spiritual traditions. Arising from her own direct experience and expressed in a contemporary language, these teachings are relevant and accessible to all people from all backgrounds and cultures. She is known for her authenticity, depth, and unique expression of “masculine” clear-pointed insight and “feminine” unconditional acceptance.
Find out more »Lynn Marie Lumiere, MFT ~ FREEDOM FROM LOW-SELF-ESTEEM IS POSSIBLE
Do you think negatively about yourself? Are you overly critical of yourself and lack confidence?
Many people in our Western world have negative thoughts about themselves, which may stem from unhappy childhoods, and the effects of media, school systems, etc. When we identify with these thoughts, believing them to be true, they form an artificial self. Our artificial self is made up of many thoughts, beliefs and programs that we have become identified with on all levels: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual.
To be fully free from low self-esteem, we need to remember who we truly are. To do that, we connect with our Natural Self, which is not really a self, it is a vast Being. It is our Nature—pure and untouched by programming or emotional trauma/wounding.
The more we come into our Natural Self, the more we can disidentify with the artificial self. By doing this, programming related to low self-esteem naturally resolves, if we allow it to. Our Nature is the only power that can do that!
This 3-hour webinar will include guided meditation, experiential process, and dialogue. It is recommended that you attend in person to benefit from working with Lynn Marie directly. However, you are welcome to register and attend by watching the recording.
Participant feedback: “I feel inspired when I am with Lynn Marie, inspired by her presence and her own human/healing/spiritual journey. I feel naturally encouraged: I too can heal. I too can drop old false beliefs and grow into greater clarity of awareness, greater ease in my experience of being, and greater freedom.”
Lynn Marie Lumiere is a seasoned psychotherapist, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, and author. She offers a rare blend of embodied spiritual wisdom with a skilled therapeutic approach that facilitates healing of psychological trauma/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. She is a trustworthy and competent guide for both healing and freedom on all levels, with a natural empathy for the human struggle that is born of her own life process. She is also the author of Awakened Relating: A Guide to Embodying Undivided Love in Intimate Relationships.
Sliding Scale: $25 to $45
Some Partial Scholarships Available
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
CANCELED Tiger Singleton ~ The Opportunity of Being Human ~ 3-Part Online Retreat
3-Part Online Retreat
April 28, 29 & 30, 2023
9:00 am – 11:00 am, Pacific Time, each day
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.
Let’s get cozy and… real. Join Tiger Singleton for a weekend series event, where he shares practical insight and wisdom for living with more love, compassion, and freedom. His playful, yet, no nonsense approach is sure to set your heart on fire. Be warned though, this is a space for taking radical responsibility for your human experience; so, as much as it will inspire, it will also invite you to get profoundly honest with yourself. Come play!
During the event, Tiger will cover the following topics:
Friday:
Open the Eyes of Your Heart: In this session, Tiger will offer practical guidance and insights into living with more love, compassion, and freedom. He will encourage participants to look beyond their mind's fearful conditioning and make contact with a sacred opportunity of being alive.
Saturday:
Embrace Your Value & Shine: Tiger invites participants to realize that the opportunity of being human is to discover something beautiful (valuable) on the inside of themselves and then share that beauty (value) with the world. In this session, he will guide participants to step into their value and shine.
Sunday:
Courage to Thrive; Focus and Go Play: Tiger believes that life is an adventure and not a safe place to seek comfort. He will encourage participants to embrace the gift of this temporary human experience and grow rapidly. This session is for those who are tired of taking life too seriously or not allowing themselves to truly play and grow.
In addition to these topics, Tiger is also likely to offer a guided meditation during each session.
Overall, this event with Tiger Singleton promises to be an insightful and transformative experience.
About Tiger:
Meet Tiger 🐯 - with a unique blend of playfulness and compassionate guidance, he's been sharing his insight and wisdom with people all over the world for over a decade.
He encourages a deep dive into the present moment, seeing beyond the mind's conditioning, to discover what is truly real and true.
Tiger's approach is direct, sincere, and focused on helping people navigate the journey of being human, with more love, compassion, and freedom.
Find out more about Tiger: www.inlightconnect.com -- On Facebook -- On YouTube
Sliding Scale: $70 to $110
Some Partial Scholarships Available
Please Register Early if you can.
Peter Russell ~ Nonduality and the Science of Consciousness ~ In-Person in Berkeley, CA
This event will be held in the large cozy Sanctuary space.
The spiritual teaching of nonduality, which stems from the Indian philosophy of advaita, teaches that consciousness is the primary reality, the fundamental essence of the cosmos. On the other hand, the current scientific worldview holds that the physical world is primary, and that consciousness somehow, in ways that we do not yet understand, emerges from it. Both views have their challenges. If consciousness is primary, why do we not see it in all things? Conversely if the physical world is primary, how does consciousness arise from something as insentient matter?
Peter Russell, M.A., D.C.S.
Peter Russell is a leading thinker on consciousness and contemporary spirituality, he coined the term "global brain" with his 1980s’ bestseller of the same name in which he predicted the Internet and the impact it would have on humanity. Other books include Waking Up in Time, From Science to God, and his most recent, Letting Go of Nothing.
Suggested Donation: $15 to $25
No pre-registration.
No one turned away for lack of funds.