Natural Healing:

A Spiritual Journey of Return

ESALEN INSTITUTE - Big Sur, California

w/ Margaret Harrsen and Michael Ventura

Dates: December 19 - 21, 2025

Healing ourselves is a journey of return. During this weekend workshop, you will be invited to learn about the practice and traditions of “curanderisma” (folk medicine) to bring forth awareness and attune us to our individual healing journeys. Through meditative and contemplative practices, touch, prayer, plants, and natural elements, this work honors a lineage of centuries-old wisdom to bring a sense of well-being to those seeking renewal.

Workshop Schedule

Friday
5:00 pm – 5:45 pm *How to Drop into Esalen*
7:15 pm – 9:30 pm
Saturday
7:30 am - 8:30 am optional
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
4:15 pm – 6:15 pm
7:30 pm – 10:00 pm
Sunday
7:30 am - 8:30 am optional
10:00 am – 12:00 pm

This workshop will include:

• Optional morning movement and meditation practice.

• The Point of Origin, a session focused on the navel and abdominal massage for somatic release and greater self-connection.

• Limpia con humo (smudging) with plant and herb bundles to cleanse energies and clear ourselves.

• Empathic connection, an exploration of our intuition, revealing how to listen and connect with one another and ourselves, more deeply.

• Limpia con huevo (washing with an egg), a lesson sharing the practice of clearing and divining one’s energies with the use of an egg.

• Evening Winter Solstice meditation utilizing the elements of air and fire.

Through Margaret and Michael’s teachings, you’re invited to connect to your own innate healing potential and discover the ability to support others with love and intention.

Retreats are a spiritual pause. A quiet atmosphere. The solitude of a mountain or desert place. A seaside monastery or a palapa in the jungle. In retreat, we move away from the familiar and arrive into the unchanging calm of spiritual harmony. Through the process of withdrawing from our daily routine we enter a place of stillness. We refresh the heart with brighter, spiritual views. We revise our thoughts and more deeply feel our relationship with the Creator - in prayer, in meditation, in nature - gaining higher views of divinity. Retreat is a spiritual regeneration that revives, recharges and recuperates, illuminating the light of the soul.

Mar has experienced spiritual retreats around the world, including solitary, self-led and intimate expeditions. She co-led retreats in the Sacred Valley of Peru (2015-2018) and in Europe in Andalucía, Spain. She held long-stay healing residencies at Shou Sugi Ban House in the Hamptons, New York and The Shack Wellness Center in José Ignacio, Uruguay. Mar additionally hosted her teachers in both New York and Los Angeles, to raise funds for their community and clinic in northern Peru.