Med 1 – Introduction to Mindfulness Meditation
This class is a great entry point for anyone who wants to learn how to meditate. Whether you’re battling anxiety, stress or depression, having a hard time focusing, seeking spiritual growth, or simply want to feel better and be more present, this class teaches the basics of establishing a mindfulness meditation practice that can have remarkable physical, psychological, and spiritual benefits. You’ll learn how to quiet your mind, get your ego in check, and live a more fully present life.
Mindfulness for Real Life
If you frequently feel anxious, uncertain, distressed, lonely or disconnected, you’re not alone. The suffering is real and feeling vibrantly alive is possible. Mindfulness and meditation practices can support us to get beyond just coping to a renewed sense of connection and purpose, especially when we study and practice together, grounded with a sense of community. We can find our way home by sharing the experience of interbeing. We call this course “Mindfulness for Real Life” because our focus is engagement with the tools of practice in the nitty-gritty reality of life. Whether you are a new or experienced meditator, you will learn the rationale for mindfulness and meditation, receive skillful mentoring, and experience how to cultivate your practice and keep it accessible in your daily life.
Full Day Retreat: The Brahma Viharas: Meditation to Calm the Mind & Support Mindfulness
The point of meditating, we’ve often taught at the Earth & Spirit Center, is not to become a good meditator. It’s to become a good person, a more loving person. Join us for this full day retreat and deepen your concentration
Continuing Meditation: Refresh, Sustain & Deepen Your Meditation
If you’re seeking to re-engage or deepen your meditation practice and are looking for connection with others in a guided group meditation practice, this course is for you. Gathering weekly will connect you with the community of other meditators and provide support and guidance by a skillful teacher. This new continuing meditation course is open to anyone who has previously participated in at least one meditation course. Curiosity is the only other requirement. We know the benefits of mindfulness: less reactivity to stress, embodied steadiness and emotional balance, clear decision-making, compassionate action, and much more. But it’s hard to develop a consistent practice solo; practicing with a group provides accountability and provides support when questions arise and your commitment wavers. Having access to a teacher helps you to let go of expectations you might have about linear progress and re-directs you to the heart of the matter: the purpose of meditation practice is to live our lives with mindful awareness and intention.
Beginning the Meditation Journey-Deepening our Awareness & Compassion
Foundations of Meditation and Mindfulness - This class is designed both for persons who are new to meditation as well as for those who already have a practice and wish to deepen it. In this brief five-week class on meditation, we will cultivate an intentional meditation practice of deepening our attentiveness to and care for our full selves and the world around.
Med 3 – Our Place in the Cosmos
This course is for meditators who want to probe essential spiritual questions: Who am I? What does it mean to be part of a human community? What is my relationship to an interconnected world and an interconnected universe, which is far older, vaster, and more mysterious than we ever dreamed?
Mindfulness, Healing & Wholeness
Re-membering our wholeness. If you feel disconnected, broken, or wounded, you are not alone. We are all wounded in essential and frequently secret ways, and it can be difficult to know how to begin to heal. Join us for a complete reframing of what it means to be broken, and what it means to heal. In the second part of our healing series, we will focus on re-membering ourselves into wholeness. Together we will find wisdom, strength and guidance within ourselves, our community, and in the larger natural world. Together we will discover ways to re-member ourselves into wholeness.
Continuing Meditation: Meditation in Motion
In his book Mindful Movements – Exercises for Wellbeing, the wise Thich Nhat Hanh says “Often it helps to meditate with other people. Sitting together, breathing together, we can feel very peaceful and happy. But sometimes we need to stop sitting in one place and start to move around!” Our Meditation in Motion class we will be taking Thich Nhat Hanh’s suggestion and we will “start to move around”, bringing our meditation practice from the chair to an embodied experience. As we move in a mindful & intentional manner, we can bring mind, body, & spirit into harmony.
Mindfulness & Mental Health: Cultivating Hygiene and Wellness
Mental wellness is often seen in an “all or nothing” fashion, meaning that we only go to therapy or we do nothing at all to help ourselves. As a result, we often wait until minds and emotions need emergency healing- almost like rarely brushing our teeth, then needing root canals. Instead of waiting for high stress, burnout, and mental illness begin to happen, there are much less invasive, daily practices and philosophies of wellness that actively prevent mental stress. Dr. Sawyer will simplify practices of mental wellness so that individuals wanting to improve their mental wellness have access to cutting-edge knowledge.
Introduction to Mindfulness Meditation
Turn Your Stress into Strength! Manage the stress in your life using research-based techniques including deep breathing, mindfulness, and visualization. You will leave the sessions inspired and on your way to a happier, more peaceful and fulfilling life. Trained, certified, and experienced in resiliency and wellness coaching, your facilitator Paula Kommor starts with the belief that you are whole, resourceful, and creative. As a group, we will focus on your strengths and past successes to help you build a sustainable resiliency habit. Give yourself the gift of self-care...
Becoming a Conscious Elder
Stories are important and can change people. We are now learning the New Earth story is emerging. We now know that we are one with the Earth and come from the Earth rather than act as masters of the Earth. Our troubled world is changing, dying, and is in labor. The new world is being birthed. We as Elders are called to be doulas or midwives. As with the birthing process, we need to be mindful, to breathe, and to have the vision for what is coming forth. As Elders we can be witnesses of hope to this vital process.
The Gift of Aging: Approaching the Transition
In addition to many great satisfactions, aging inevitably involves losses of various kinds. These can be invitations to grow deeper as we grow older, developing an expansive spiritual openness to whatever the future brings.
Free Workshop: Introduction to Meditation
Why are CEOs, attorneys, healthcare professionals, counselors, educators, and the military starting to pay attention to mindfulness meditation? Why has this ancient spiritual practice suddenly become so popular? Come to this free 60-minute class to see if mindfulness meditation might be for you.
Summer Meditation Series
You don’t need to take a summer break from mindfulness! This four-week series will help you deepen and maintain your meditation practice in the socially-distanced company of fellow meditators and guided by several of our senior meditation faculty. Beginner and experienced meditators welcome.