Thread: Expen$ive & Flaky New Age Retreats

Where have all the Hippies gone? Apparently, they've gone into retreats, and they're spending (and making) plenty of cashola in the process.

Here on the west coast of Canada, aka Lotus Land, lost, aging, boomers in Birkenstocks are concerned about organic vegetables and managing their stock portfolios. But what to do with all that unspent play money?

Check out these excerpts from the current catalogue of "Hollyhock," a New Age retreat center on Cortez Island, between Vancouver Island and the mainland. To my mind, these seem like dubious, pseudo-scientific hogwash, but what do I know? They are certainly expensive, in the $500-600 per workshop (meals and accommodation not included, of course).

Horses & Authentic Leadership


Johnston Marshall

Presented by: Frances Guthrie, Oriane Lee Johnston, Deborah Marshall

• Leadership
• Nature & Outdoors
• Training

Observing horse behaviour reveals powerful parallels to human interactions. Instinct, energy, communication, power, leadership and harmony – it’s all there in the herd. Observation and understanding of horse behavior bring powerful insights and parallels to human relationships and interactions.

Explore energetic boundaries, thresholds, and intention; their effect on communication and power in both personal and professional relationships. Horses can mirror our strengths and our vulnerabilities; understanding their body language increases our capacity to be authentic effective human leaders. Natural horsemanship sessions include sensitive demonstrations of horse/human dynamics, reflective time with the herd, and gentle leadership experiences working directly with horses. Find out how these sessions apply to your life. Share responses and insights that illuminate new possibilities and integrate wisdom and powerful learning from the horses. No previous horse experience is necessary, and there is much to be learned for horse folks too!



Mind Rover: Explorations In Remote Viewing
Presented by: Stephan Schwartz

• New Science

Open your mind to viewing places, objects and events that may be separated from you by time or space. Remote Viewing is best thought of as a form of mental yoga, or a mental martial art. Like moments of genius, near death experiences, or religious epiphanies, Remote Viewing is opening oneself to nonlocal awareness; the aspect of the self that exists outside of time-space; the aspect which constitutes the linkage with all life, and the earth itself. It is a technique for obtaining both sense impressions, and "knowingness" concerning persons, places, or events about which you could have no knowledge of due to shielding by time or space.

Stephan’s teachings are built on 35 years of laboratory and field research. The techniques he presents have been repeatedly tested and have shown themselves capable of allowing almost everyone to open themselves to the experience of nonlocal awareness. Explore intuitive diagnosis, self-healing, healing for others, looking into the future, using nonlocal awareness in business, as a problem solving technique, as well as many other applications. By the end of the workshop you will be thoroughly familiar with all aspects of this extraordinary human ability. These experiences may forever change your view of the world and what you imagine you are capable of achieving.

Shapeshifting Consciousness: Personal & Global Transformation



Perkins Presented by: John Perkins

• Indigenous Wisdom

Transform your life to become what you want to be. Learn to alter the energy around you to affect positive change. Many myths and legends reveal how Polynesian shamans shapeshifted across oceans, Amazon warriors morphed into anacondas and Tibetan monks moved across mountains. It is this constant life force that enables shapeshifting. Delve deep into cellular, personal and institutional shapeshifting. This skill can be applied to help heal chronic disease, shed weight, let go of addiction and transform society. Learn how to:

• Connect with nature, sacred guides, animal and plant spirits
• Release limitations and materialize dreams
• Engage life-changing fire ceremonies
• "Walk without feet" into new shapes
• Soar to astral planes
• Shapeshift into forms that bring positive personal and communal change

Journey out of the physical plane, view your life from a timeless perspective, honor yourself and realize your mission.

Animal Communication



Presented by: Amelia Kinkade

• Personal Development

Ever wondered what your animal was thinking when he looks up at you with shining eyes? Get amazing insights about what animals really think, feel, and need. Access your innate psychic senses to communicate with other species and discover that telepathy is a learned skill available to everyone. Explore and develop a wide range of intuitive abilities including:

• Clairvoyance (clear-seeing): The ability to exchange mental pictures & moving sequences of events to and from animals.
• Clairsentience (clear-feeling): Send and receive emotion to and from animals
• Clairaudience (clear-hearing): Hear telepathic information in whatever language you speak
• X-ray Vision (medical gestalt): Use your body as an instrument to determine if and where your animals are in pain
• Starlight Vision (mediumship): Send and receive messages from animals that have passed away
• Photo Talk (remote viewing): Connect to distant animals using nothing but a photograph of the animal

Whether you're a veterinarian or just someone who shares your heart and home with a four-legged loved one, this course will help you develop a strong rapport and better understanding of the animals you love.

Please note that Hollyhock will provide animal teachers for the workshop. Please do not bring your animals from home. All participants are invited to bring a photograph of one of your beloved animals to practice reading & swapping with other participants.

The Old Trout Puppetry Intensive



Presented by: Peter Balkwill

• Visual Arts

Tell enchanting stories through the eyes of masks and puppets. Delight audiences with laughter and playful insight. Immerse yourself in a world of magic techniques to enliven figurines with emotion and character. This is a physical approach for the visual storyteller. Elements of improvised and structured movement provide a strong foundation to bring animation and clarity to these inanimate objects. The influence of Tadashi Suzuki, Tomaszewski’s Mime Theatre, and the surroundings of Hollyhock will create harmony in the art of puppetry.

Discover:

• Clarity within the articulation of the silent narrative
• New approaches to creation theatre
• A strong sense of working within an ensemble
• Physical truth to character
• Renewed connections to the performer’s body
• Abstract directions in the design of puppets and puppet theatre

This intensive is designed for puppeteers, actors, dancers, theatre designers, playwrights and directors— anyone with a curious and willing spirit is welcome. Puppets and masks provided.

Anxious to Please: 7 Practices for the Chronically Nice



Presented by: Craig English, James Rapson, Monica Sweet

• Personal Development

Stifled by always pleasing others first? Transform this inner conflict into a creative force.

Do you…

• Apologize frequently, or for things you are not responsible for?
• Get preoccupied with what other people think of you?
• Take what you're given instead of asking for what you want?
• Always find yourself longing for something (or someone)?

Chronic niceness affects millions. It can cause severe anxiety, undermine careers, cripple self-esteem, and damage relationships. This workshop teaches seven powerful practices for transformation. It incorporates group process, journaling, reflection, and a variety of techniques for releasing anxiety from the body. Learn how to go after what you want without compromising your values, envision passionate romance without rose-coloured glasses, and apply proven techniques for releasing anxiety.

Art of Spiritual Guidance: A Two Year Training Program



Presented by: Thomas Atum O’Kane

• Spiritual Development & Meditation

Spiritual Guidance is an art, a gift and a calling that has been long practiced in contemplative traditions to support spiritual development and personal transformation. The practice can encourage the soul's quest for expression, authenticity and the growth of intimacy with the Divine within oneself, one's relationships, and the world. Develop skills for serving as a spiritual guide to others, and deepen your own spiritual foundation. This interfaith approach incorporates the insights of transpersonal psychology with special emphasis on Jungian psychology.

Themes addressed in the curriculum:

• The Call
• The Teacher Within and Without
• Dreams
• Creating a Personal Mythology
• States and Stages in the Journey
• Soul
• Typology and Guidance
• Contemplation, Meditation and Prayer
• Shadow
• Deep Structure of Ritual
• The Retreat Process
• The God Ideal and Image

This is a gathering place for those who have experienced considerable inner work, and who value sharing the journey of the soul within a community of other mature seekers.

Each year of this two year training includes a fall retreat at Hollyhock, followed by four weekends in Vancouver between January and June. By application - please contact our registration office for an information package.

TUITION: For each year $2476 CDN, $2292 US. Includes fall Hollyhock retreat and four Vancouver weekends in 2008. (meals & accommodation extra), 5 nights

Core Zero Balancing

Presented by: Jim McCormick

• Professional Development
• Training
• Yoga & Body Disciplines

Balance the body’s energy and structure with a profound set of healing concepts. Zero Balancing is a simple, yet powerful system on the cutting edge of transformational bodywork. This training provides the introductory protocol required for the discipline. It is designed to align the energy body with the physical body in an elegant, efficient manner. This whole mind-body system addresses specific health concerns, helps maintain optimal health, and facilitates self-actualization. Learn how to work with energy as a specific tool, how to read the body's signs of energy movement and how to work with states of expanded consciousness. Find out how to feel and balance where energy is held at the bone level, and develop a vocabulary of touch. Leave with the ability to practice Zero Balancing and incorporate the protocol into other bodywork.

Lucid Dreaming & Dream Yoga


Presented by: Bruce Alan Wallace

• Personal Development

Unlock the mysteries of your life with lucid dreaming and dream yoga. The ancient Buddhist contemplative tradition of dream yoga shows deep similarities between the waking state and the dream state, and it encourages us to become lucid at all times. To fully awaken to the nature of experience is to be a Buddha, an “Awakened One” and that is the ultimate aim of dream yoga. This workshop will introduce fascinating and practical methods for inducing lucidity, helping you become more mindfully engaged with both nighttime and daytime experiences. Complimenting this will be an exploration of the ancient Tibetan Buddhist tradition of dream yoga. Dream yoga provides an opportunity to explore the nature of dream reality by transforming the contents of the dream and progressing to even more advanced stages of realization. Later stages of this practice lead to a fearlessness in the dream state and the experiential exploration of the “substrate consciousness,” out of which all dreams emerge. During this retreat, explore the relation between lucid dreaming and dream yoga, including areas of complementarity and divergence.

Heart of The Shaman: An Initiation Intensive


Presented by: Donna Dryer, Richard Yensen Perez-Venero

• Indigenous Wisdom

Go on a mythical journey of spiritual initiation. Reach the essence where the Great Mystery resides in all things. We'll travel together through deep states of altered consciousness. A bond of trust will be developed through age-old rituals. In this experiential intensive, we use both ancient and modern techniques including portrayals of the transformative journey. We’ll rely on breath and bodywork, music, and gong to enter a shamanic trance. Experience deep catharsis and find the path with heart. Come prepared to use this shamanic environment as a sacred vessel for profound personal exploration and spiritual growth. This workshop is physically demanding and includes an all night ceremony.

Apples, Pi & High Heels: Harmony in Nature



Presented by: Issa

• New Science

Is the Uni-Verse just one long song? What is the sound of one world clapping?

Take part in a magical and scientific investigation of beauty and balance in nature. What are the principles underlying order in the universe? How would our personal lives and world look if we operated closer to natural harmony? What is the connection between atoms, planets, music, and living simply? The springboard for this exploration will be a whirlwind review of the basic sciences, language and numbers. Fascinate in the connection between living simply, atoms, cells, planets, the number of flower petals, music, accountability, the golden proportion, being ‘present’, alchemy, positive thinking, people who feel ‘sweet’, apples, pi, integrity, periodic table, kitchen parties, electricity, high heels, geometry, the ‘new world’, Donald Duck, ‘core’ living, poetry and God. What music does this make?

Classes are poetic, interactive, intense, stimulating and fun. Concepts will be criss-crossed through many surprising aspects of our lives. Pull many 'foggy' understandings forward into clarity, create your own personal energy formula for living ‘full-force'; draw cathedrals and monograms with compasses; and extrapolate the fundamental design tools of this wondrous universe into a vision for yourself and the world ahead.

For all ages and backgrounds. No science expertise necessary, just a love of nature and language. Issa performs in concert during this program; all program participants receive complimentary admission.

Cosmos & Psyche



Presented by: Richard Tarnas

• New Science

“Do we live in a mechanistic, purposeless universe, or do we participate in a living cosmos of unfolding meaning and purpose?” ~ Richard Tarnas

Delve into the unfolding archetypal patterns of human experience and the cosmos.Join Richard Tarnas to explore the remarkable body of evidence that suggests the existence of a systematic correspondence between planetary movements and the archetypal patterns of human experience. Based on thirty years of research, Cosmos and Psyche is a revolutionary perspective that challenges the basic assumptions of the modern world-view and points towards a profound new understanding of the human role in the cosmos. Explore the planetary archetypes and examine how their forces can help us more intelligently participate in the unfolding of the universe. This rich archetypal perception will be developed through an awareness of emotions, imagination, aesthetic intuition, the body and the whole being. This emerging cosmological perspective sheds new light on the human psyche and the drama of history. Discover how we are surrounded by a living cosmos of unfolding meaning and purpose that holds insights for individuals and for entire civilization.

The Healing Voice: Chanting, Ritual & Resonance


Presented by: Jill Purce

• Health & Healing
• Music

Experience the nature of the radiant body with breathing, chanting, mantra, meditation, trance, and shamanic ritual. Work with ancient vocal purification practices and learn to cleanse and tune the chakras. Discover the power your voice has to liberate you from negative patterns, habits and anxieties. Develop breath and sound that set parts of the body and mind into resonance while discovering the healing capacity of sonic massage. Enter subtle dimensions of reality through magical voice techniques, and Mongolian and Tibetan overtone chanting. Work with powerful sonorous ritual and safely reveal and transform distorting patterns of our ancestral lines to enjoy their blessings.

more here: Educational workshops alternative health Hollyhock retreat

In fairness, I picked out the flakiest-sounding programs (I wonder what was rejected!). Having read through so many of them, I've realised I must be truly out of balance; at the very least I certainly need to "retune and cleanse my chakras" (because an unqualifed "instructor" tells me so).