YOGA: AN ART OF LOVE
Facilitated by Bob Pileggi and Michael Grohall
Friday, November 12 - Sunday, November 14, 2010

Yoga: An Art of Love combines powerful, deeply moving and playful experiences to deepen your capacity for self-awareness, acceptance and love.

As a path of union, yoga brings together the consciousness in body, mind and heart to experience spiritual union (a state of presence we often call “love.”) This retreat is designed specifically to cultivate unconditional love in each area of your life.

Gentle yoga, Vinyassa flow and Yin Yoga will be our guiding physical experiences, with the support of shared intentional touch, journaling, pairs and group work. We allow these to be gateways for dissolving resistance to the love that always exists in and through us.

You are welcome at this retreat whatever your level of yoga experience. The only prerequisite is your willingness to connect authentically with yourself, other men and your innate love within.

What's Different About this Yoga Retreat?

Take a look at other retreats, like those at Esalen and Kripalu. You will find in Yoga - an Art of Love:

• A combination of love consciousness with yoga/kinesthetic presence that is not usually the primary or verbalized intention of other yoga classes.
• A focus on acceptance as the mid-point to love.
• The use of shared touch to support your process of self-acceptance and love.
• The sharing of practice in a community of gay men.
• Clothing optional yoga sessions, per Easton's principles.

Suggestions:

• Bring a journal (preferably ring-bound so you can have it open on your mat).
• Bring your favorite yoga mat to infuse it with the weekend’s experiences of self-acceptance and love. (Mats are also available for free use and for sale at the retreat center gift shop.)

About the Facilitators

Bob Pileggi loves to facilitate connection to the this moment – and the unconditional acceptance, joy and heart-empowering presence we find there. His specialty is transformation – guiding people and organizations through major transitions – physical, emotional, mental and spiritual – to leap into our dreams and express ourselves more authentically.

After 12 years of working for local and national non-profits related to spirituality and civil rights, Bob delved into spiritual practice and became an Interfaith minister. Now Bob produces and facilitates workshops, retreats and individual healing sessions with life coaching; spiritual counseling; and body, energy and breath work. He also helps people custom-create ceremonies that are meaningful and poignant moments of transformation.

Bob is a 200-hour certified yoga instructor, internationally certified breathwork practitioner, certified bodyworker, and ordained Interfaith minister.

Michael Grohall believes in the transforming practice of saying “yes” to life without condition. His lifelong focus has been on helping people to integrate spiritual awareness into every area of their lives through yoga, massage, meditation, and recovery. He and his husband are also dedicated to combining art and activism.

Michael is a writer, licensed massage therapist, holistic healer and spiritual life coach. His eclectic background includes training in a martial arts dojo (Dayton, OH), living for three years as a yogi and resident staff member of the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health (Lenox, MA), and spending five years living in Provincetown, MA where he established BodyMind Massage. Currently, he is writing a book about spirituality in the 21st century.

Michael holds a Bachelor of Science from Lesley University and is pursuing a PhD in Transpersonal Psychology.

Interested in social transformation, he believes that “based on inertia, nothing is given to changing on its own, such as perceptions of same-sex marriage. At some point we need to step up to the plate and declare what we value while working toward raising consciousness.”