HAND-PICKED EXPERIENCES

Editor's Picks

Curated events selected by the BrightStar team — transformational gatherings worth your time.

15 events curated

yoga retreat

Yoga Nidra Retreat: Rest, Restore, and Remember Who You Are

This five-day retreat at Esalen Institute offers an immersion in Yoga Nidra, the practice of guided relaxation that brings practitioners to the liminal space between wakefulness and sleep. Led by John Vosler, an experienced bodyworker and meditation teacher, the program combines gentle movement, guided meditation, and the systematic release of stored physical and emotional tension. Participants work with body and mind to examine habitual patterns and unconscious programming that obscure clarity and ease. Through Yoga Nidra's precise techniques, practitioners learn to access an inner steadiness beneath thought and emotion, a ground of calm presence that persists regardless of circumstance. The retreat emphasizes the cultivation of practical tools for navigating life's challenges and recognizing one's wholeness. Set on Esalen's oceanside Big Sur campus, the program integrates the natural environment as part of the healing container, with outdoor practice opportunities and access to the institute's hot springs and broader offering of open classes.

Mon, Aug 3, 2026Esalen Institute, Big Sur

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yoga retreat

From Practice to Freedom: Let Your Inner Lion Roar

This weekend retreat at Esalen Institute invites participants to attune to the Lion's Gate Portal, an astrological alignment occurring in early August when Sirius aligns with the Sun. Led by Jovinna Chan, an experienced yoga teacher and transformational facilitator, the program weaves together meditative movement, sound work, and communal ritual to strengthen the body while cultivating deeper awareness of the heart's wisdom. The practice unfolds against the backdrop of Big Sur's dramatic coastline and Esalen's contemplative grounds, with time for journaling, reflection, and connection to the subtle dimensions of self. Participants are invited to minimize electronics during their stay and bring their own journals. Some prior yoga experience is recommended. The schedule emphasizes slowing down, witnessing consciousness through movement, and honoring the unseen forces that guide spiritual awakening.

Fri, Aug 7, 2026Esalen Institute, Big Sur

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yoga retreat

Metta and the Divine Abodes: Meditation, Yoga, and Wisdom to Live a Better Life

This five-day workshop at Esalen Institute explores the Brahmavihārās, classical Buddhist practices known as the divine abodes or four immeasurables. Rooted in both yogic and Buddhist traditions, the program uses guided meditation, movement, storytelling, breathwork, and somatic practices to cultivate loving-kindness (metta), compassion (karuna), sympathetic joy (mudita), and equanimity (upekka). Rather than aiming toward otherworldly transcendence, these practices help participants awaken to possibility within their actual, complex human lives. Days alternate between embodied practice sessions, communal meals, and access to Esalen's natural hot springs and coastal landscape. The workshop weaves together live music, poetry, shadow work, journaling, and ritual alongside formal meditation and yoga instruction. Faculty guide participants toward releasing self-doubt and resentment while reconnecting with the heart's capacity for unconditional acceptance and belonging.

Mon, Aug 17, 2026Esalen Institute, Big Sur

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yoga retreat

Love Your Body Now: A Therapeutic Yoga Approach to Joyous, Full-Body Awareness as We Age

This five-day workshop at Esalen Institute addresses the physical and emotional shifts that accompany aging, offering a contemplative approach to embodied practice. Led by yoga therapist and qigong guide Tracy Lease, the program weaves together therapeutic yoga, qigong, breath work, and meditation to cultivate ease and presence in the aging body. Rather than prescriptive sequences, participants explore poses and movements from the inside out, attending to alignment, energy flow, and what their unique bodies require. The workshop honors both the intelligence of the body and the wisdom accumulated through years of living. Sessions balance active practice—building core strength and healthy postural habits—with deeply restorative work, including restorative yoga accompanied by singing bowls. Participants also engage with meditation practices cultivating equanimity, loving kindness, and compassion. The week creates space for collective inquiry into how we understand our changing bodies, our relationship to movement, and the practical knowledge needed to sustain well-being at home.

Mon, Sep 7, 2026Esalen Institute, Big Sur

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yoga retreat

Being Whole: Ritual, Respect, and Regulation

A five-day residential workshop at Esalen Institute exploring wholeness through movement, stillness, and intentional rest. Led by Tracee Stanley and Elena Brower with guest faculty Ally Bogard and Crystal Marie Higgins, the program weaves asana practice, guided meditation, and yoga nidra with earth wisdom teachings, wild plant medicine, and contemplative nature work. Each day unfolds in layers: mornings emphasize embodied movement and breath awareness; afternoons include dharma talks, herbal medicine classes, and forest-based learning centered on plant allies and seasonal cycles. The retreat positions ritual, self-regulation, and respectful relationship with body and earth as essential tools for navigating modern life. By the final day, participants carry home a grounded vocabulary of practices for maintaining balance amid change. The setting at Big Sur's coastal cliff edge provides both literal and metaphorical ground for this work.

Mon, Sep 28, 2026Esalen Institute, Big Sur

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yoga workshop

Shake Loose: Fall Release With Yoga and Foam Rollers

This five-day workshop at Esalen Institute invites participants to explore autumn's natural rhythm of letting go through yoga, foam rolling, and somatic movement. Led by Ulrika Engman, a certified Anusara and Halprin Life/Art practitioner, the program weaves together dynamic vinyasa flows, long-held poses, and myofascial release techniques to bridge the tension between holding and releasing. The work addresses the seasonal shift toward winter by cultivating deeper sleep habits, grounding the nervous system, and reconnecting the body's natural patterns of rest and activity. Participants will practice alignment-based asana, explore stillness through savasana, and use soft foam rolling to awaken proprioceptive awareness and emotional resilience. The emphasis falls on concrete somatic techniques rather than conceptual teaching, allowing practitioners to discover their own embodied wisdom as the season changes.

Mon, Oct 5, 2026Esalen Institute, Big Sur

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yoga retreat

The Turning Season: Aligning with Autumn's Sacred Rhythms

This four-day retreat gathers participants to pause and realign with autumn's natural rhythms, honoring the season's invitation to release, reflect, and prepare for renewal. Led by yoga therapist and author Jillian Pransky, the program weaves together slow-flow yoga, somatic movement, restorative practices, and Metta meditation to meet this moment of transition with grounded presence. Each session emphasizes nervous system balance while cultivating both rootedness and openness to change. Participants engage with seasonal rituals, journaling, and practices conducted outdoors to deepen their connection with autumn's elements. Double bassist Garth Stevenson contributes acoustic support, adding resonance to the work of settling and releasing. The retreat invites practitioners to move through fall with intention and ease, creating space for deeper self-nourishment that extends outward to the wider world.

Fri, Oct 9, 2026Esalen Institute, Big Sur

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yoga workshop

Contacting the Space Between: Gestalt, Feldenkrais, and the Subtle Body

This five-day workshop at Esalen explores the relationship between habitual physical patterns and our capacity for ease, presence, and relational awareness. Drawing on the Feldenkrais Method and Gestalt process, Kate Flore and Dwight Pargee guide participants through experiential inquiry into how the body organizes itself through gravity, contact, and environment. The faculty investigate the role of fascia, early developmental patterns, and self-organization in shaping movement and sense of self. Using Esalen's natural setting as a laboratory, participants learn Awareness Through Movement lessons designed to refine functional movement and cultivate sensitivity to the subtle body, the space between self and other, and the ground beneath. The work is grounded in the premise that when bodies are given conditions for curious, attuned engagement with their surroundings, greater freedom and choice become available. This is not a physically demanding workshop but rather an invitation to slow down, notice, and refine how we meet the world through our flesh and awareness.

Mon, Oct 19, 2026Esalen Institute, Big Sur

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yoga retreat

Gratitude Retreat

A three-day gathering at Esalen Institute in Big Sur designed around returning to what nourishes the heart and spirit. Led by Vinyasa teacher Janet Stone, participants explore gratitude through the body and mind, moving from dynamic yoga asana and pranayama to seated meditation and yoga nidra. The retreat weaves together group practice with solitude, hot spring bathing with forest walking, and shared meals with moments of reflection. Guest teachers and musicians join the faculty, creating a retreat shaped equally by instruction and community presence. The weekend emphasizes the connective tissue between personal practice and collective remembrance, offering structured sessions on Saturday morning and more intimate opening and closing circles. Professional photography documents the retreat, with images shared among participants afterward.

Fri, Nov 20, 2026Esalen Institute, Big Sur

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yoga retreat

Giving Thanks: A Yoga Retreat

Held at Esalen Institute during Thanksgiving week, this retreat explores the practice of gratitude through the lens of sufficiency. Guided by instructor Janet Stone, who has practiced yoga since 1996, participants engage in a carefully sequenced progression of asana, breathwork, meditation, journaling, and yoga nidra. The retreat honors the land and the Esselen people, the indigenous stewards of Big Sur. Rather than dwelling on scarcity, the week offers a structured inquiry into recognizing and appreciating what is already present in one's life. Daily practices build toward a deeper attunement to the natural world and the life force within the body. The retreat culminates in a felt sense of wholeness and the capacity to extend gratitude and generosity into the world beyond the retreat grounds.

Mon, Nov 23, 2026Esalen Institute, Big Sur

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yoga workshop

The Stories Behind the Poses: Mythology in Motion

This three-day workshop at Esalen Institute explores the mythological foundations embedded within yoga asanas. Led by Sanskrit scholar and author Raj Balkaran, the program treats myth not as historical study but as living practice. Each posture carries an encoded psychological and spiritual significance, drawn from stories of figures like Śiva, Hanumān, and Indra. Rather than analyzing these narratives intellectually, participants engage them experientially through breath, movement, and relational presence. The weekend unfolds in thematic arcs: from the conditions that enable practice, through the tensions that deepen it, to the surrender that completes it. No prior knowledge of mythology or Sanskrit is required. What matters is a willingness to meet ancient India's wisdom traditions as a continuing source of insight, allowing the stories to inhabit the practitioner's own embodied experience.

Fri, Nov 27, 2026Esalen Institute, Big Sur

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yoga workshop

Creative Tai Ji Experience: Change, Transformation, Metamorphosis

Chungliang Al Huang, a master teacher with more than five decades of continuous instruction at Esalen, leads a five-day intensive that approaches Tai Ji as living practice rather than fixed form. The workshop weaves together ancient Tai Ji rituals, the Five Moving Forces of Nature, and traditional motifs through playful reinvention and improvisation. Grounded in the Taoist principle of Wu Wei—the art of not interfering with what is already happening—participants explore renewed ways of moving and meditating within the open structures of this classical art. Huang combines storytelling, energy cultivation, and qigong mastery to create a container where practitioners at all levels can access the deeper dimensions of movement as meditation. The workshop unfolds against the backdrop of Big Sur's dramatic coastline, where Esalen's natural hot springs and contemplative atmosphere support the slow unfolding of embodied practice.

Mon, Nov 30, 2026Esalen Institute, Big Sur

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