Awakening Spring Within: Somatic Herbalism, Plant Spirit Meditation, and Nature Connection

A healing retreat at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, Awakening Spring Within is a weekend of somatic herbalism, plant spirit meditation and nature connection. It is led by herbalist, medicine woman and plant spirit teacher Marysia Miernowska, and it suits anyone who wants to learn from the plants growing around them, drink and make herbal medicine, and rest the body and nervous system in a spring landscape.

What to Expect

The weekend is built around shamanic tea meditations, in which you drink herbal infusions, journal, and meet plant spirits in a safe and sacred container. The intention is to create safety in the body and nervous system, and to receive insight, inspiration, energy and replenishment for a personal awakening that mirrors the energy of spring.

Along the way you are guided in:

- Drinking herbs for the spring
- Restorative states of embodied meditation
- Connecting to the land and the elements
- Identifying nourishing medicinal herbs, many likely growing around you
- Wildcrafting and gardening
- Making flower essences
- Making herbal medicine from the land and the Esalen gardens to take home
- Earth-based rituals and journal prompts

The schedule begins on Friday with a How to Drop into Esalen orientation from 5:00 to 5:45 pm, and the workshop opens that evening from 7:15 to 9:30 pm with arrival and opening. Saturday has a morning session from 9:30 am to 12:45 pm and an afternoon session from 3:00 to 6:15 pm, focused on core practice. The final session on Sunday runs from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm, for integration and closure.

The teaching rests on a hope of restoring the ancient knowledge of folk healing and plant medicine, healing the separation between ourselves and nature, and awakening a shared passion to protect the Earth.

About Marysia Miernowska

Marysia Miernowska is a medicine woman, teacher, author, gardener, green witch, formulator, earth activist and herbalist rooted in the Wise Woman tradition of healing. She is the director of the School of the Sacred Wild, an online healing journey and course in herbal medicine, plant shamanism, regenerative farming and Earth magick.

The Setting

Esalen Institute sits in northern Big Sur on the California coast. The gardens and surrounding land are part of the work, as the weekend draws on what grows there. Guests have access to the hot springs and other campus features, and meals, coffee, tea and snacks are provided.

Rooms range from a sleeping bag space in a shared room and bunk beds to standard private rooms, premium rooms with ocean or forest views, yurts, and named suites such as the Price House Suite and the Point House Suite. You can also take part in the workshop while staying off-site, or with an individual day pass.

Highway 1 access to northern Big Sur has been managed by Caltrans convoys, which run only at 7:00 am and 5:00 pm each day. These are the only times to travel into and out of Big Sur, so plan your arrival and departure around them.

Before You Go

No prior herbal experience is mentioned as a requirement. The workshop includes a materials fee. Staying on-site includes housing, breakfast, lunch and dinner, coffee, tea and snacks, hot springs access, and the classes on Esalen's open schedule.

Not included are Healing Arts sessions such as Esalen massage or other holistic services, specialty coffee and tea or alcohol from the bar, and bookstore purchases.