Tending Liminality: Consciousness, Body, and Earth

Midwinter asks something different of us than the rest of the year. Between the turning of the calendar new year and the arrival of the lunar new year, there is a held breath, a season of reflection, gestation, and non-doing. This spiritual retreat at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, invites you to meet that threshold with your whole being rather than rush through it.

Tending Liminality: Consciousness, Body, and Earth is led by Jeanine M. Canty and Jun Wang. Canty is a professor of ecopsychology and justice at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Wang is a qigong and taijiquan master with over 25 years of university teaching. Together they weave meditation, embodied movement, time in nature, and contemplative writing into a five-day journey toward greater harmony between mind, body, and the natural world.

If you sense that modern Western life has left you disconnected from the cycles and seasons that shaped us, this retreat offers a way back. It draws on Taoist philosophy and the energetics of water and earth, tending to our fragmented worldviews and practices while preparing to welcome the Year of the Fire Sheep.

What to Expect

This is a retreat with real practice at its center. Participants should come prepared for substantial embodied work and a rhythm that alternates between stillness, movement, listening, and sharing.

- Extensive sitting, standing, and walking meditation
- Taijiquan and qigong as substantial embodied practices
- Short talks that introduce key ideas and themes
- Interactive experiential exercises in pairs and small groups
- Time in nature
- Contemplative journal reflections

The group works within a spirit of respectful, compassionate community. The retreat brings the balance of the feminine energies of water and earth, supporting you in synchronizing with the phenomenal world rather than pushing against it. The aim is to bring our earth-based origins and our often problematic contemporary Western psyches into greater harmony.

The retreat opens with a line from the Tao Te Ching, verse 65, by Laozi: "The simplest pattern is the clearest. Content with an ordinary life, you can show all people the way back to their own true nature." That spirit of simplicity runs through the days.

For those who wish to read ahead, the facilitators recommend Cultivating Qi: An Introduction to Chinese Body-Mind Energetics by Jun Wang, Returning the Self to Nature: Undoing Our Collective Narcissism and Healing Our Planet by Jeanine M. Canty, and the Tao Te Ching in any version, with Stephen Mitchell's New English Version suggested.

Venue & Logistics

The retreat takes place at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA, and is held in person over five days. Registration options include a workshop with an on-site stay, a workshop with an off-site stay, or an individual day pass. Scholarships are available through an application on the Esalen page.

Please bring clothing layers for comfort both indoors and outdoors, comfortable flat walking shoes, and a waterproof jacket in case of rain. A journal and pen are also recommended. Because Highway 1 access around Big Sur has been affected by road closures and travel advisories, check Esalen's current travel advisory before planning your journey.