For the Love of Life

A more fulfilling life. A more loving world. Here. Now.

Consciousness. Community. Creativity. Contribution. For the love of life, and for the brief time we have here together.

What this actually is

A small field for a different kind of life.

C.Lab is a nonprofit running retreats, monthly circles, and local gatherings. We work with people who are tired of performing their lives and ready to practice something else.

What we're up to underneath all of that is mending splits. Between mind and body. Between self and other. Between humans and the living world. The splits that don't usually get named, but everyone feels.

And re-enchantment, which isn't a marketing word. It's what starts to happen when the world goes from flat back to alive.

Four words we keep coming back to: consciousness, community, creativity, contribution. They tend to come online together, in the right container, with the right people.

We aren't here to help you optimize your life so you can go back to business as usual. We call what we're up to business as unusual. You'll know if it's yours.

Sacred Dissatisfaction

If the old promises have stopped holding.

If the spiritual marketplace feels hollow, and the wellness aisle feels like a lie.

If something in you is pulling toward what's real.

Joanna Macy calls what we're collectively living through the Great Unraveling. We call the feeling it leaves in us sacred dissatisfaction. Either way, it's not the end of something. It's the beginning.

We aren't here to optimize you. We aren't going to help you perform a better life. We'd rather sit with you while you remember what you already know.

From Alumni

Lasting shifts in how people live, love, and lead.

I've been to a lot of retreats. This is one of the few that kept working on me after I left. Six months on, the shifts are still here.
Leadership Coach · Retreat Alumni, 2024
I expected a peak experience. I got something quieter and harder to explain, and much more useful. My marriage is different. My work is different. I'm different.
Licensed Psychotherapist · Retreat Alumni, 2023
Ways to Come In

There's no wrong door.

The Sunday circle is the easiest place to start. The retreat is the deepest. The local circles are where the work keeps living, in between. Come however you want. Stay however long is useful.

Sunday Circle90 min · free

First Sunday of the Month

Ninety minutes on Zoom. A short teaching, a practice, small-group time. Open to anyone. You don't need to know anything coming in.

Come to the next one
Retreat6 days · Costa Rica

Autumn Retreat, Costa Rica

Six days at a small retreat center offered to us by an alum. Group of ten. The full arc of the work. By application, with scholarships.

Start a conversation
C.Lab LocalForming now

Local Circles — France, Quebec, Northern California

Alumni are hosting small circles in their towns. If one's forming near you, or you're imagining starting one, we'll help you find each other.

Tell us where you are
Stay in Touch

Letters from the work.

A short note every few weeks. Reflections from retreats. Poems we're sitting with. Invitations to the next circle. No open-rate chasing, no sales funnels, no performance subject lines. It's closer to a letter than a newsletter.

We don't sell your email. We don't send often. Unsubscribe any time.