Tag archives: spirituality

Bountiful Buddha Courses
By Steven Libowitz   |   May 13, 2025

The Santa Barbara Bodhi Path Buddhist Center has been offering a high-quality curriculum of instruction in Buddhist meditation practice and philosophy ever since its founding in 1997 at the direction of Shamar Rinpoche. Generations of students have come to learn and practice in a modern, non-sectarian environment focused on authentic Buddhist teachings taught and practiced […]

Collis and Her Mindful Dinosaurs Come to Tecolote
By Steven Libowitz   |   April 29, 2025

Third-generation Montecito resident Taran Collis’ passion for wellness and spiritual education runs deep in her family. Her grandmother, June Christensen, taught “Moving Consciously” at Adult Ed and Santa Barbara High School. Her grandfather, Mervin Lane, was an English professor who taught yoga and tai chi at SBCC. Before 2018, Collis, a certified Yoga Therapist and […]

Singing, Dancing, Laughing or Journaling Through the Chaos
By Steven Libowitz   |   April 22, 2025

Meditation is marvelous and yoga is yummy, but a new method of coping and connecting can be welcome during particularly challenging times.  “Singing the Bones” features a musical collaboration with the audience that weaves together diasporic traditions through story and song from the three song leaders. Lydia Violet Harutoonian, a Persian American Bay Area violinist […]

Diving into Deep Resilience
By Steven Libowitz   |   April 1, 2025

Veteran Santa Barbara meditation leader Radhule Weininger’s Mindful Heart Programs has launched a new series for those who want to build their inner resilience via lecture, discussion, and connections with others and the natural world.  The seven-step Deep Resilience program was catalyzed by the turbulent times we are living in, when many of us need […]

Nineteen Years in the Soup with Eddie Ellner
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 18, 2025

Eddie Ellner didn’t realize he was building what would become a local institution when – 20 years ago – he had the idea to create his own yoga studio just off State Street and a few blocks from the beach. But he knew that yoga would be the foundation.  He’d discovered the practice years before […]

Go West, or East, for Silent Retreats
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 4, 2025

Stop, hey, what’s that sound?  Oh wait, there aren’t any.  Save maybe for the gentle whoosh of air going in and out of your lungs, or the chirping of birds in the trees, everything is pretty much quiet.  Hopefully, your mind, too.  The outer silence is what allows us to come to inner quiet, a […]

Sounding Off: Baths Abound
By Steven Libowitz   |   February 18, 2025

Dive into a unique Reiki-infused sound bath with guided hypnosis in Yoga Soup’s ongoing Sunday Soundscape series every third Sunday of the month (February 16; $35). The 75-minute journey with Danielle Elese focuses on harmonizing our internal waters, the element that comprises most of our bodies. Sound has a profound impact on water, affecting its […]

All Saints Sponsors Sacred Earth-Sacred Soul
By Steven Libowitz   |   February 4, 2025

Dr. John Philip Newell is considered one of the world’s foremost authorities on Celtic spirituality, a self-described “wandering teacher” who follows the ancient path of many lone teachers before him in the Celtic world, seeking the well-being of the world. Newell’s teaching is known for combining the head and the heart, the intellectual and the […]

Alexis Slutzky leads a “Land Listening & Earth Circle” on January 18
By Steven Libowitz   |   January 21, 2025

In the wake of the devastating L.A. fires, it seems an especially poignant moment to pause and take time to reflect on our relationship with the land. For Alexis Slutzky, MA, MFT, a longtime local who works as a mentor, facilitator and educator in a wide variety of depth-oriented practices with a focus on cultivating […]

Can Kirtan Cure Our Conflicted Culture?
By Steven Libowitz   |   January 7, 2025

The call-and-response singing of devotional music known as Kirtan can be a joyous experience, but it’s also a healing one that can break down barriers between people. So suggests Darren Marc, the devotional Kirtan artist and singer-songwriter whose eclectic musical career includes more than 30 original songs featured in film and television shows.  For Marc […]

Light & Renewal at Sunburst
By Steven Libowitz   |   January 7, 2025

Sunburst Sanctuary and Organic Farm, the longtime center for holistic learning, healing and conscious living created and overseen by a cooperative community, jumps right into the new year with a meditation retreat from Thursday-Sunday, January 9-12, at the Lompoc center. The retreat offers an immersive opportunity to learn scientific meditation practices in the lineage of […]

Jensen Lands in New Science Chair
By Scott Craig   |   November 12, 2024

Daniel Jensen will be officially installed as the James R. and Eleanor S. Allder professor of science and technology in a formal, public ceremony Friday, Nov. 8th at 10:30 am in Murchison Gym. Jensen has directed Westmont’s burgeoning engineering program since it began in fall 2021. Jensen will speak at a panel discussion, “Considering Technology, […]

Exploring the Afterlife: A Journey of the Soul With Rabbi Chaim Loschak
By Rachael Quisel   |   August 22, 2023

This summer, Chabad of Montecito will offer a course designed to demystify the concept of life after death. The course, titled “Journey of the Soul,” was developed by Rohr Jewish Learning Institute (JLI) and will be taught by Rabbi Chaim Loschak. The six-session series began on Tuesday, August 15, at 7 pm, inviting attendees to […]

Talk Examines Christian Spiritual Formation
By Scott Craig   |   May 2, 2023

Steve L. Porter, the new senior research fellow and Executive Director of Westmont’s Martin Institute for Christianity and Culture, offers his inaugural lecture Friday, April 28, at 3:30 pm in the Global Leadership Center. The talk, “Knowing Christ Today: The Shape of Christian Spiritual Formation in the Academy and Church for the Sake of the […]

Porter to Direct the Martin Institute
By Scott Craig   |   September 27, 2022

Steve L. Porter, a longtime professor of spiritual formation, theology, and philosophy, is the new senior research fellow and executive director of Westmont’s Martin Institute for Christianity and Culture.  The institute seeks to support a new generation of leaders in the area of Christian spiritual formation and to establish this discipline as a domain of […]

Art, Science, Spirituality Collide in Exhibit
By Scott Craig   |   September 13, 2022

Adam Belt explores the point where art, science, and spirituality converge in an exhibition, “Adam Belt: Wish You Were Here,” September 1 through November 5 at the Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art. Belt, who was born in Seattle and grew up in Albuquerque, began his career as a landscape painter before shifting his interests to […]

Utopia
By Hattie Beresford   |   June 21, 2022

The quest for the right way to live, the right way to be, and the search for a satisfying and happy life has spanned millennia; just ask Socrates. Between 1663 and 1820 in the United States, besides being a stimulus for emigration from the “old world,” this quest led to the establishment of over 32 […]

Art Exhibition is ‘Amplifying the Between’
By Scott Craig   |   January 25, 2022

Santa Barbara artist Marie Schoeff explores a profound yet unpretentious relationship with nature and spirituality in a new exhibition, “Marie Schoeff: Amplifying the Between” at the Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art from through March 26.  Schoeff’s imagery, rooted in drawing, explores the ethereal, a transcendent space in a spiritual realm. Her strong sense of physical […]

Loving Your ‘Lurps’: New Book Offers Breakthrough
By Steven Libowitz   |   December 7, 2021

Radhule Weininger’s new book, Heart Medicine: How to Stop Painful Patterns and Find Peace and Freedom — at Last, features a brief forward by the Dalai Lama and another longer, more personal one from colleague Joanna Macy, the prolific author, environmental activist, and half-century-plus scholar of Buddhism. Additional pre-publication praise has come from locally beloved […]

Post-Pandemic Spiritual Guidance from Shaman Jon
By Michelle Ebbin   |   July 15, 2021

As summer arrives and many of us are emerging as “walking wounded” from the isolation and multi-layered toll of the coronavirus, I think it’s safe to say that we could all use a little spiritual guidance to help transition back into the post-pandemic world. Post-Isolation Syndrome is a real thing and reintegrating into society after […]