EVENTS

“Coming into community and supporting each other as we cultivate intimacy with our deepest experience is what our retreat is about!” -Mary Stancavage

In this workshop, we will talk about how the body responds to stress and challenging environments, as well as how bring about an embodied feeling of calm through mindfulness meditation. We will explore beginner’s meditation techniques with gentle movement and a guided meditation, that includes a loving-kindness and self-compassion practice. Sará will also discuss how to start an at home mindfulness practice, as well as there will be a brief discussion about the value of creating inner peace during challenging social and political times.

How can we address the suffering on the planet? How can we move from despair into action?

We are at a pivotal moment in our collective history in which the human mind and the sense of self that emerges from it have the power to change the face of our world. Insights into our mental life and how to cultivate it by getting to know and empower our consciousness, emotions, beliefs, identity, relationships, and behavior can determine how life on this planet unfolds now and for generations to come. Through a combination of deep experiential immersions with conceptual discussions and practical skill-building based upon wisdom practices from a range of cultures, this integrative conference will nurture personal, professional, and public resilience, cultivate well-being, and inspire ingenuity through strengthening the mind and integrating the experience of “self” as we develop effective and timely means for action in the world. Join our gathering of clinicians, contemplative practitioners, educators, ecological activists, and scientists engaging in conversations exploring fundamental ideas about how to harness the human capacity for wise action and the mind skills needed for an awakening of awareness to a larger belonging.

This three day event has been created as a continuum that links the practical skills of the pre-conference workshop on Friday with the unfolding of reflective practice and conceptual knowledge through the flow of Friday night’s sessions to the fullness of Saturday and Sunday. A continuity across the sessions has been intentionally planned to build practices and knowledge about the interconnections among personal reflection, our relationships with one another and nature, and the need for public action in our contemporary world. If you can join us on the journey, for the pre-conference workshop, for the conference, or for both, an exciting and immersive learning experience is on the horizon! Welcome!

Come join us and enjoy the natural beauty of the Marriott Hotel, Marina del Rey Hotel, adjacent to Mother’s Beach, and the Pacific Ocean on April 26-28, 2019