Cultivate Connection and Presence

Join celebrated biologist and author Merlin Sheldrake and Kripalu Lead Faculty and author Micah Mortali for a rare collaborative weekend exploring how scientific insight and contemplative practice illuminate our deep interconnection with the living world.

Drawing inspiration from Merlin’s groundbreaking work Entangled Life and Kripalu’s longstanding commitment to embodied wisdom, this program is a meeting place where rigorous ecological science and contemplative inquiry support one another. On one side, Merlin brings his remarkable ability to translate complex fungal behavior, evolutionary history, and networked intelligence into clear, expansive understanding. On the other, Micah offers practices rooted in Mindful Outdoor Experiences and yogic principles that help you feel these insights in your body and in real time.

In a rapidly shifting world, many of us long for grounded ways to make sense of complexity, cultivate resilience, and reconnect with something larger than ourselves. Fungi offer a powerful lens: their networks challenge conventional ideas of individuality, communication, and relationship, inviting us to rethink our place in an interconnected web of life. This weekend offers both the intellectual clarity and the embodied tools to integrate those revelations.

Through a blend of talks, guided practices, spacious conversation, and nature-based mindfulness experiences, Merlin and Micah weave together science and somatic awareness.

In this program, you will:

• Explore how fungal networks shape ecosystems, perception, and possibility.
• Engage in guided practices that help you sense connection, presence, and relational awareness.
• Experience how scientific understanding and contemplative attention can reinforce and deepen one another.

Leave with a richer understanding of the unseen networks that sustain life, practical tools for cultivating connection and presence, and a renewed sense of belonging within the more-than-human world. You will walk away with a framework that helps integrate scientific insight with felt experience, and a deeper appreciation for your place in the living, evolving web around you.