CEC Spring Awakenings Virtual Meditation Weekend Retreat

a weekend of meditation, movement and personal growth practices to awaken the mind, body and soul!

Spring has finally sprung! Join the Consciousness Explorers Club teaching team as we get into the springtime spirit, sharing the practices that awaken and enliven us! There will be meditation, mindful movement, music, creative exercises, community discussions and lots more!!

Here’s a tentative schedule (times in EDT) with our working themes:

Friday, April 16

3-3:45pm Welcome with Erin Oke “What do we want to awaken?”

4- 5:30pm meditation with James Maskalyk “The teachings of the present moment”

5:30-7:30pm dinner break

7:30-8:00pm:Silent sit

8:00-8:15pm: breakout group check-ins

8:30-10pm: meditation with Jeff Warren “Simple Good Things”

Saturday, April 17

9-10:30am meditation with Caitlin Colson “Queerness in Nature”

11am- 12:30pm meditation with Luke Anderson “Nurturing the seed of potential”

12:30 – 2pm lunch break

2-3:30pm meditation with Jude Star “Coping with challenges”

4-5:30pm meditation and movement with Stephanie DeBou “The energy and elements of Springtime”

5:30-7:30pm dinner break

7:30-8:00pm silent sit

8:00-8:15pm breakout group check-ins

8:30-10pm “Conscious Dance Journey” with dj Mark Greenspan

Sunday, April 18th

9-10:30am meditation with Oliver Rabba “Patience”

11am – 12:30pm meditation with Kevin Lacroix “Feeling love as/at the ‘source’ of experience” 

12:30 – 2pm lunch break

2-3:30pm meditation and movement with Tasha Schumann “Balance and Invigoration” 

4-5:30pm “Appreciations” meditation and Closing Circle with Erin Oke

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Participants are encouraged to attend as many sessions as possible, but we understand if time zone or life calls you away sometimes! Please design a retreat experience for yourself as best suits your life and practice.

This weekend retreat is being offered on a “pay what you’re able to” model, with a wide sliding scale to accomodate all income ranges. The funds will go toward supporting the CEC and helping to expand programming and extend the benefits of practice to more people.The CEC is a registered not-for-profit with the mission of making meditation and personal growth practices fun and accessible to all.

Zoom link for the workshop will be provided upon registration.

Instructors

Founder, Chief Exploration Officer, Teacher

Jeff Warren is a writer and a meditation teacher. He is the co-author, along with Dan Harris and Carlye Adler, of Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics, and author of The Head Trip, a travel guide to sleeping, dreaming and waking consciousness. Jeff’s specialties as a meditation guide – i.e., those things he has the most personal experience with – … Continued

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Co-Founder, Director of Conjubilation, Teacher

James is a physician and author, both of the international bestseller “Six Months in Sudan” and more recently, “Life on the Ground Floor“. He practices emergency medicine and trauma at St. Michael’s, Toronto’s inner-city hospital and is an award winning teacher at the University of Toronto. He directs a program that works with Ethiopian partners at … Continued

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Executive Director, Teacher

Erin teaches meditation and Executively Directs the Consciousness Explorers Club. Her focus is on meditation for self-care and emotional well being and she has taught mindfulness skills in health care, education, corporate and non-profit settings. She has guided meditating teenagers on iBme’s Teen Retreats and taught mindfulness in high schools for KidEvolve. She also does mindfulness coaching … Continued

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Caitlin is a perpetual student and a mindful activist. Currently studying counselling psychology with a focus on ecopsychology, she also has a background in existential philosophy and depth psychotherapy. She is interested in how reciprocal and generative relationships seed personal, systems-level and social changes. As an activist, she is humbly committed to dismantling the patriarchy, colonialism, racism … Continued

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Teacher

Jude is an integrative therapist and meditation teacher.  He became obsessed with consciousness and eastern philosophy in his late teens and has been exploring ever since.  He’s studied Buddhism and growth practices with a variety of teachers and mentors (Vipassana, Zen, and Tibetan Buddhism), and spent over 6 years in experiential psychotherapy training programs (Gestalt, … Continued

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I started meditating in 2010, seeking to work with a disquieting insight: I felt like, if I stopped being busy I would disappear. I needed to be busy to validate my existence. My daily grind of endless to-do lists and deadlines had been driven by – and distracting me from – the deep-seated feeling that … Continued

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Luke (he/him/his) has a background in engineering which helped him foster a respect for the importance of quantitative science in our external world and it’s part in helping create an environmentally and socially healthy planet. In 2015 he left his structural engineering gig and took on the role of Executive Director of Toronto’s StopGap Foundation, … Continued

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Teacher

Oliver began studying Buddhism and practicing mindfulness meditation in 2005. In 2007, he attended his first silent ten-day meditation retreat at Suan Mokh Buddhist Monastery in Thailand. Daily meditation practice, Buddhist study, and silent retreats have been a major part of his life ever since. He’s a member of the Toronto groups Satipañña Insight Meditation … Continued

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After spending 15 years in the corporate world, Stephanie started begrudgingly meditating in 2014 as a mandatory requirement of her Yoga Teacher Training. Little did she know 3 years later she would come to love sitting in meditation, as much and maybe even more, than moving on her yoga mat. Stephanie practices and teaches many forms of … Continued

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Teacher, CEC Podcast co-host

Tasha Schumann is a creator, community-builder, and explorer of the mind. A Juno-nominated recording artist (Tasha the Amazon), her work has been featured widely from HBO to Netflix, Comedy Central to video games, and she’s been profiled in places like Billboard Magazine, New York Magazine, and VICE. She’s practiced and taught in the Indo-Tibetan traditions … Continued

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Fees & Registration

Sliding Scale tickets:
general admission $150/ subsidized admission $50/ pay-it-forward $250/ pay-what-you-can $any amount!
Register via Eventbrite