Zen Qigong | Robert Rosenbaum

Robert Rosenbaum, Ph.D. has 30 years of experience in the integration of body and mind, combining the discipline of Zen practice with the joyful flow of qigong. He is a senior teacher of Dayan ("Wild Goose") qigong certified by Master Hui Liu, and a teacher at the Berkeley Zen Center. As a clinical psychologist and neuropsychologist, he has designed programs for patients with chronic pain and neurological illness, as well as innovative approaches to brief psychotherapy.

Nine years ago, he introduced the first qigong classes to Kaiser Permanente Medical Center as part of their mind-body medicine department; these classes have now spread throughout northern California. The author of numerous articles and the book, "Zen and the Heart of Psychotherapy," Bob has given presentations and workshops throughout the United States and around the world. On the web: www.zenqigong.com.

Zen Qigong Week: Dayan Qigong is a 2000-year old Taoist tradition consisting of a series of 64 movements designed to open up and promote healthy functioning of the acupuncture meridians. In addition to the movements, Dayan Qigong includes warm-up exercises, acupressure massage, and meditation. Dayan Qigong forms an integral part of both traditional and modern Chinese medicine. It is now increasingly being offered as an adjunct to standard Western medical treatments, and can be helpful for pain management, strengthening the immune system, and a variety of medical illnesses such as headaches, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s, arthritis, GI problems, and fibromyalgia.

Culinary Experiences at La Cocina Que Canta | Visiting Teacher Greg Patent

Greg Patent is an award-winning cookbook author, food journalist, cooking teacher, and radio host. His cookbook, “Baking in America,” a historical look at how America's baking traditions were shaped during the past 200 years, won the 2003 James Beard Award. His next cookbook, “A Baker’s Odyssey: Celebrating Time-Honored Recipes from America’s Rich Immigrant Heritage,” was a 2008 James Beard Award nominee and has won the 2009 Cordon d’Or Academy Award. Greg has written articles on food for many national magazines, including Saveur, Fine Cooking, Food & Wine, Woman's Day, Family Circle, Real Simple, Gastronomica, Bon Appétit, Cooking Pleasures, and Cooking Light. In addition to his two baking books, Greg has written seven other cookbooks. His most recent title is “Montana Cooking” (Globe Pequot Press, 2008). In 1990 he published a memoir of his childhood in wartime China called “Shanghai Passage” (Clarion Books). Greg lives with his fabulous wife, Dorothy, in Missoula, Montana.

Please visit Greg at his website: www.gregpatent.com.

Greg offers three hands-on culinary experiences, 3.5 hours each, on Tuesday at 11 am and 4 pm and Thursday at 4 pm, during which you will enjoy preparing your own meal along with fellow cooks. Classes take place at La Cocina Que Canta, our new culinary center.

For more information and registration, please click here.

Seeing the Possibilities – Bring Your Camera | Pat Harrison

Pat Harrison, Master Photographer and Photographic Craftsman has been consistently inspiring Rancho La Puerta guests for over twenty years with her photography workshops. She will open your eyes to Seeing the Possibilities by noticing the world around you. You will enjoy a visual feast viewing the world through her lens. Pat will show you how to make your own delightful images by paying attention to very easy, non-technical guidelines. Learn how to share your best images from your travels. Her beautiful photographs from the Kremlin, the Yukon, Down Under and places in between serve as examples. Pat also shares her secrets behind creating people pictures with ease.

During the week, Pat invites you to view Rancho La Puerta from close up to wide angle. Sunday's evening program appeals to people with all levels of experience. It is entertaining, fun and informative. If you want more details - attend the Monday afternoon class. You can choose to participate in an assignment. Digital and film cameras will be discussed. There will be a presentation of the guests' images during Thursday's class. It will be important to attend Sunday's program to participate in the following sessions.

Learn how to “make a photograph” rather than “take a photograph.”

Award - winning professional photographer, Pat Harrison is an artist of great sensitivity and experience. She has been published in many magazines and her photographs are in the Loan Collection of the Professional Photographers of America. She has been invited to lecture to audiences of professional and amateur photographers in the United States and Mexico.

On the Web : www.patharrison.com

An Evening with Capote, Ginsberg, Mailer, Huston, Winters, Reynolds, and Miles Davis | Lawrence Grobel

Spend an evening with Truman Capote, Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, John Huston, Shelly Winters, Debbie Reynolds, and Miles Davis, as writer Lawrence Grobel shows video interviews he did with these icons and discusses how they became subjects for some of his books.

Autobiography & Memoir: Understanding oneself and others by looking inward. A seminar in self-analysis. Uncovering the highlights and the traumas of one’s life; shaping and structuring it into a narrative. “A memoir,” Gore Vidal wrote in the introduction to his, “is how one remembers one’s own life, while an autobiography is history, requiring research, dates, facts double-checked.” How have writers, scientists, statesmen, soldiers, adventurers, politicians, businessmen, singers, artists looked at their own lives, reflected on the choices they made, the paths taken? And can learning about their decisions influence one’s own? That is the idea behind this seminar. To be introduced to the memoirs and autobiographies of accomplished people, to discuss what they did and did not do in their lives, and then to try and understand one’s own life by writing about specific incidents and broader philosophical thoughts. This will be a one hour, three day reading and writing seminar. Books that will be discussed will cover the first autobiography (Benvenuto Cellini) to recent graphic memoirs like Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” and Alison Bechdel’s “Fun Home.” Handouts will include excerpts from contemporary writers. There will be writing assignments of a personal nature, which we will workshop.

Playboy magazine dubbed Lawrence Grobel "the Interviewer's Interviewer" after his interviews with Barbra Streisand, Dolly Parton, Marlon Brando, and Al Pacino demonstrated how far one could take the Q&A. Joyce Carol Oates dubbed him "the Mozart of Interviewers" and J.P. Donleavy wrote that he was "the most intelligent interviewer in the United States." Grobel's interviews and profiles have appeared in Playboy, Rolling Stone, the New York Times, Newsday, Entertainment
Weekly , Details, Reader's Digest, Penthouse, Redbook, Ladies Home Journal, Cosmopolitan, TV Guide, Premiere, Movieline, Architectural Digest, Parade, African Arts, True, Film Quarterly, Writer's Digest, Modern Maturity, Diversion, Cigar Aficionado, Autograph, and American Way. He has published Conversation books with Truman Capote, Marlon Brando, James A. Michener, Robert Evans, and Al Pacino; along with two collections of his magazine pieces (Above the Line and Endangered Species). He's written a definitive biography, "The Hustons," and co-authored Montel Williams' memoir, "Climbing Higher." His book "The Art of the Interview: Lessons from a Master of the Craft" is used as a text in numerous universities. He teaches the subject at UCLA.

Natural Capitalism | Amory B. Lovins

Natural Capitalism: How to do business as if nature and people were properly valued, and thereby make more money, do more good, have more fun, and gain stunning competitive advantage.

Grand Canyon Beauty: A raft trek through a billion-odd years, through the lens of two fine-arts landscape photographers, with Judy Hill Lovins and Amory B. Lovins.

Amory B. Lovins, a consultant physicist and innovator in energy and its links with resources, security, development, and environment, has advised the energy and other industries for four decades as well as the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense. His work in 50+ countries has been recognized by the "Alternative Nobel," Blue Planet, Volvo, Zayed, Onassis, Nissan, Shingo, and Mitchell Prizes, MacArthur and Ashoka Fellowships, the Benjamin Franklin and Happold Medals, 11 honorary doctorates, and the Heinz, Lindbergh, Jean Mayer, Time Hero for the Planet, National Design, and World Technology Awards.

A Harvard and Oxford dropout, former Oxford don, honorary architect, and Swedish engineering academician, he has briefed 21 heads of state and written 31 books and over 450 papers. Cofounder of Rocky Mountain Institute (www.rmi.org), his work as its Chairman and Chief Scientist has lately included leading the superefficient redesigns of numerous buildings, several vehicles, and $30+ billion worth of industrial facilities in 29 sectors. He led the creation of two of RMI's five for-profit spinoffs: E source, www.esource.com, and Fiberforge, www.fiberforge.com, of which he is Chairman Emeritus. His latest books include Natural Capitalism (www.natcap.org, with P. Hawken & L.H. Lovins), Small Is Profitable (www.smallisprofitable.org), Winning the Oil Endgame (move.rmi.org/oilendgame), The Essential Amory Lovins, and Reinventing Fire (www.reinventingfire.com).

The most recent of his visiting posts in ten universities were as 2007 MAP/Ming Professor in Stanford University's School of Engineering (www.rmi.org/stanford) and currently as Professor of Practice at the Naval Postgraduate School. He is a member of the National Petroleum Council. In 2009, Time named him one of the world's 100 most influential people, and Foreign Policy, one of the 100 top global thinkers.

Probiotics - Are They for Everyone? | Elliot Heller, M.D.

Elliot Heller, M.D. has been a practicing gastroenterologist for 35 years in Pomona, NY. He is a faculty member at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in NY City and has served for the past three years as the chairman of the Medical Advisory Committee of the Fairfield-Westchester chapter of the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of America.

He is a contributor to "Young for Life" (2004) and has lectured on various GI topics to both the medical professional community as well as civic groups on topics including Colon Cancer prevention, IBS, GERD and Non-alcoholic Fatty Liver disease. He looks forward to the opportunity to share his knowledge and answer your "Gut" related questions.