CEC Meditate – Celebrate – Activate Retreat

Location: Camp NeeKauNis, Waubashene, Ontario
Dates: August 24-28, 2017

Join the CEC for a 4 day meditation retreat at Camp NeeKauNis in Waubashene, Ontario. The CEC Meditate – Celebrate – Activate retreat is unique for the way it builds on meditation, taking insights from the cushion and applying them in community via fun interactive and celebratory practices.

This retreat includes:

  • Lovely location off Georgian Bay
  • Shared cabin accommodations
  • 3 tasty meals plus snacks each day
  • Daily “meditate” guided and silent sits and instruction
  • Afternoon “activate” exercises to explore how to apply meditative insights to everyday life
  • Evening “celebration” program of creative art and music exercises
  • Morning and afternoon movement practices (dependent on volunteer leaders)
  • One-on-one meetings with teachers for practice support

Retreats are where most meditation practitioners experience breakthroughs in their practice.

Camp out with us this August (but stay in cozy-rustic cabins) at Camp Neekaunis!

Register here

 

We strive to be an open and inclusive community, accepting and supporting diversity in age, race, physical and mental abilities, as well as sexual orientation and gender identity. We welcome requests regarding accommodation.

 

What to Expect:

Not a retreat. This is an ADVANCE

Meditation

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We sit in MEDITATION throughout the day, a mix of solo and guided excursions into feeling, sound, energy, openness, silence, rest, surrender, as well as more dynamic movement and nature and friendliness meditations. Each of these is an adventure into a different corner of human experience, a fresh inquiry into who and how we are, a unique  exploration of consciousness.

the-officeActivation

In the late afternoons we build on these insights by playing with them live, in relationship and in community. Standing, moving, sharing, creating, bumping, interacting. These are the energizing ACTIVATION pieces – how to find and hold our centre, how to work with challenge, how to identify where in our life and experience there is energy and direction, and finally how to trust the natural intelligence – though not, perhaps, coordination – on tap when we embrace our own ridiculousness.

Celebration

we wish to make a human party
we wish to make a human party

Then, in the evenings, we party. Not a mindless beer-chugging hits-from-the-bong party, however important these may have been in our formative Canadian years. Rather, the CELEBRATION that emerges naturally when there is trust and relaxation and the right proportion of Trickster-irreverence. So: we DJ different tempos of music and eyes-closed movement, we recreate our most embarrassing moments with unusual theatre props, we explore the deranged richness of our imaginations in an evening drum-journey and art practice, and then we all hold hands and sing love songs around the campfire while select participants fire paintball pellets at us from a nearby wooded glade.

Basically we have a good time. And why shouldn’t we? What else is meditation for if it can’t deliver on basic human happiness?

Meditate, Celebrate, Activate

Sit to find the freedom, move to warm it up ’til its so hot you got to let it out, spread it out, which takes you back to a Consciousness Explorers first principles: Meditate, Celebrate, Activate. Repeat.

 

What to bring

  • Loose-fitting, comfortable clothing for meditation and movement practices.
  • Inside shoes or slippers
  • Toiletries and towel
  • Flashlight
  • Pillow, sleeping bag or bedding (sheets and a duvet)
  • Your own meditation cushion or bench (recommended; we will have a limited amount of the CEC’s meditation gear on hand.)
  • Journal, books
  • Please do not bring alcohol or illegal drugs

 

 

 

Example Schedule (subject to small changes)

 

Arrival Day – Aug 24

3:00-5:00pm – Arrive, Check in, Settle

6:00-7:00pm – DINNER

7:15pm – Welcome/Orientation, Questions

8 – 10 pm – Meditation Instruction and Guidance

10-10:30pm – Goodnight and sleep

 

Full Days – Aug 25 – 27

6:30am – Wake up

7:15-8am – Silent meditation

8:00-8:45am – Silent breakfast

9-10:30am – Guided meditation and Instruction

10:45-11:30am – Walking nature meditation

11:45am-12:30pm – Silent meditation

12:30-1:30pm – Silent lunch

1:30 – 3:45pm – Silent free time – meditate, read, write, walk, rest

4-4:45pm – Silent meditation

4:45-5:45 – Activation Exercises

6-7pm – Social Dinner

7-7:30pm – Silent meditation

8-9:30pm – Celebration Exercises

9:30pm – Goodnight

 

Departure Day – August 28

6:30am – Wake up

7:15-8am – Silent meditation

8:00-8:45am – Silent breakfast

9-10:30am – Guided Meditation and Instruction

10:30-11:00am – Pack

11:15-12:30pm – Closing Ceremony

12:30-1:30pm – Loud and raucous lunch

1:30pm – Departure

Location & Dates

Camp Neekaunis, Waubashene, Ontario

Instructors

Jeff Warren

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

__JeffWarren – headshot

Avi Craimer

Director, Teacher, and Website Development

Avi is a meditation teacher, spiritual guide, and founding CEC director. After graduate study in philosophy at the University of British Columbia and Georgetown University, Avi experienced a profound shift in consciousness led to him toward hard-core contemplative practice and training as a spiritual director (a spiritual director is a professional who accompanies and supports … Continued

Avi

Caitlin Colson

Teacher

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

Caitlin-thumb

Testimonials

“The CEC retreat was a great experience, unlike any other. More of a conscious community coming together to share in a smorgasbord of activities, all centered around, well, centering. Can’t recommend it enough, and can’t wait for the next one!” – Steven

“I expect most meditation retreats to involve a whole lot of sitting in silence to find what it means to be truly present.  Now here’s the magic of a CEC retreat: it calls on you to walk (or dance) that state of presence off the cushion, testing ‘out there’ with your fellow practitioners. It takes guts to inject crazy dance moves, lucid dreams, and laughter into a retreat. But guts is something the CEC has loads of and the results are remarkable – presence goes from passive to active, making it something I can realistically try to attain while yelling at a car on my roller blades.” – Katrina

“This was my first overnight retreat focused on meditation and it was amazing. For me, the silence was hard but important… helpful to realize that my head is filled with voices that behave like a frat party… and so good to learn, practice, and gain more strength at being with and making space around my inner world.  The blend of open-hearted sitting, focused learning, community, celebration, and activation was the perfect bouquet of experiences to create some important “turns” in my inner journey and start September with a renewed, deeper practice and more open engagement.” – Cate

 

Fees & Registration

$475 total. Accommodations are shared cabins.

The registration fee is the cost of administration and food and lodging for the retreat and includes a modest payment for CEC teachers.

A limited number of sliding scale spots are available for people who are not able to pay the full cost of the retreat. Please be in touch with us directly – info[at]consciousnessexplorersclub.com to discuss payment options.

Accommodations are shared cabins. Some have washrooms located inside, others can make use of the camp’s newly built wash house.

Register here