Contemplative Intimacy:
Divine Love and Human Love

April 15-22, 2023

Join a group of conscious men for a week-long exploration of the healing and awakening power of conscious presence

Focus

The focus of this retreat is to empower participants through practices of presence, surrender, and connection. Whether you’re new to tantra or have significant prior experience, this retreat will provide you with fresh insights about your relationship with yourself, your body, your partners, and life itself.

As sentient beings, we all seek love.  The love we seek is a doorway to transcendence, a feeling of unconditional completeness which allows us to connect to all of life. This presents a challenge to our personalities: to experience love at the depth we long for we have to surrender completely, something which at the personal level our egos are afraid of. Our relationships, our experiences of intimacy, very often reflect this internal tug of war.

How do we learn to safely let go of our limitations and expand into our soul nature of embodying the very love we seek? This happens by Divine Grace through spiritual awakening. We can invite the process more fully by cultivating an attitude of surrender, trust, and inquiry into who and what we are and what is real and unreal. The loving presence of another person is invaluable in this process; this retreat will focus on the co-creation of this safe relational space where we both serve and are served.

What do you really want out of touch and intimacy?

Throughout the ages, people have enjoyed the healing, soothing, spiritual power of touch as part of healthy intimacy. While very few would argue as to the healing and pleasurable effects of intimate touch, for many these subjects can be awkward due to erroneous conditioning. Many men are not touched in empowering, healthy ways, leaving them deprived of knowing what healthy intimacy and its profound healing effects on mind and body can be like. This retreat will create an environment to safely explore a presence-based, heart-centered approach to intimate touch and connection.

As we deepen in self-understanding, our ability to meet others from a place not dominated by fear and drama naturally deepens. In showing up for ourselves on this fundamental level, we are empowered to show up for others with the same loving, non-judgemental awareness. Just presence, no agenda. This connection with another – who from this place we recognize as of the same nature as ourselves – has great liberating and healing potential.

There is great joy in seeing ourselves in the mirror of another and even greater joy in being that mirror ourselves.

Together, we will explore:

• Developing deeper capacity for trust and openness

• Developing an embodied sense of healthy boundaries

• Creating deeper sensitivity to & understanding of your body’s somatic wisdom

• Tapping into your intuitive capacity for healing

• The natural sense of wholeness which comes when we connect in trust

• How the physical. emotional, and energy levels of your being interact in ways that support each other

• Deeper levels of non-attachment to circumstances – allowing people and things to be as they are

• How to identify what you really want from intimacy

• Consciously embodying and serving the greater forces underlying existence through meditation and partner work

• Recognizing your own core presence in the “other”

• Showing up as a listening presence

In our powerful group energy field we’ll drink deeply from a wellspring of prana (life energy) and recharge our batteries, supporting our inner essence to emerge in joyful embodiment.

There will be nudity and sensual touch with clearly defined boundaries, and while we encourage expansion of boundaries, no one will be pressed to go beyond their comfort zone.

About the Facilitator

Ram Charan has been exploring and practicing meditation and bodywork for many years. He has spent the greater part of 30 years in India where he gained a deep appreciation and understanding of spiritual practice and intuitive wisdom which informs his practice of transformational coaching, craniosacral biodynamics and integrative bodywork. He has taught and worked extensively internationally and is currently living between Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Aljezur, Portugal.

About the Venue

Aya House is an intentionally-designed, gay-owned retreat center located 11 km from Maspalomas in the south of Gran Canaria. They offer a peaceful, comfortable, safe and inclusive environment for events focusing on self-development and self-awareness. The facility has 13 bedrooms, a large yoga hall, enormous garden to do contemplative walking, a giant hot tub and sun deck, all located in a serene and private environment.

For more information see: www.aya.house

Cost

$1175 per person single occupancy; $995 per person double occupancy. Please note that the double occupancy option is only available for bookings made for two people who will be sharing a room. A limited number of rooms are available with 2 beds, for those who will be coming with a friend. Five rooms have an en-suite bath, most have a dedicated bathroom outside the room and a few share a bath with another room. Attached bath rooms will be offered on a first-come, first-serve basis – so book soon!

Cancellation Policy

$100 per person is non-refundable after payment is made; 30-15 days in advance of retreat start date there will be a further $100 cancellation charge per person; at 15 days or less $200 per person. For cancellations within 5 days prior to retreat, cancellation charges will total $400. In case of unavoidable circumstances such as pandemic controls or other such restrictions on travel, bookings will be refundable minus a small admin fee of $50. Service charges associated with Event Brite are non-refundable except in the case of retreat cancellation.

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