Name: Intention and Reflection in the New Year: Transform Challenges into Clarity
Start: 2025-01-04T13:00:00-08:00
End: 2025-01-04T17:00:00-08:00
Location: The Alembic

Intention and Reflection in the New Year: Transform Challenges into Clarity

A half-day retreat blending ancient wisdom and modern contemplative practices, with acclaimed teachers Eve Ekman and Chandra Easton
Start the year with clarity and purpose by embracing a beautiful paradox: finding freedom by turning towards life’s challenges. The new year provides a potent opportunity for reflection on how we are relating and creating stories about the inevitable emotional ups and downs of the past year. Through reflection we can recognize, relate with, and find the wisdom and energy that lie within the difficulties.
Join teachers Lopön Chandra Easton and Dr. Eve Ekman for this half day journey blending ancient wisdom traditions drawing from Vajrayana and contemporary contemplative science. The session will include Feeding Your Demons® (FYD) and practices drawn from Cultivating Emotional Balance (CEB) to turn adversity into insight and emotional resilience.
This workshop weaves guided meditation, interactive discussions, and personal reflection to help you align with your intentions, connect with your innate wisdom, and begin the new year with clarity and compassion.
Eve Ekman Ph.D, MSW is a writer, teacher and contemplative social scientist designing, delivering, and evaluating tools to support emotional awareness. Eve draws from interdisciplinary training in clinical social work, integrative medicine, social psychology, and contemplative practice. Eve is the lead trainer for the Cultivating Emotional Balance training program, wellbeing lead on the health team at Apple, and a Senior Fellow at Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley and Mind and Life Institute fellow.
Chandra Easton is a Dharma teacher and author of Embodying Tara: Twenty-One Manifestations to Awaken Your Innate Wisdom ( Shambhala , 2023). She has taught Buddhism and Hatha Yoga since 2001. She studied Buddhism and Tibetan language in Dharamsala, India, and at UCSB’s religious studies department. During her studies, she co-translated Sublime Dharma: A Compilation of Two Texts on the Great Perfection (Vimala Publishing, 2012) with B. Alan Wallace. In 2015, she was given the title of Vajra Teacher, Dorje Lopön (Varjāchārya), for Tara Mandala Retreat Center by Lama Tsultrim Allione and H.E. Gochen Tulku Sang-ngag Rinpoche. Seeking to bring forth the voice of the empowered feminine in Buddhism, Chandra regularly leads retreats and classes for various organizations, develops programs and curricula for Tara Mandala, and teaches Dharma nationally and internationally. She co-founded the 21 Taras Collective with Nina Rao and Genevieve Walker, to record music for the twenty-one Taras mantras found in her book, Embodying Tara. She teaches regularly at the Berkeley Alembic and the SF Dharma Collective. Visit www.chandraeaston.com to learn more.