Workshops

The workshops below all take place on Friday July 10th They are in the same order as on the program schedule page.

Many of us learned to be givers who focus on pleasing those around us. In this relationship pattern, naming what we desire and receiving from others can feel unfamiliar or unsafe.

This playful workshop invites you to listen inward, name what you want, and let others provide touch for you in an authentic way. Together we will enjoy the profound pleasure that true consent can create for us and our partners.

Designed as a gentle entry into the weekend, you can participate as an observer or with a partner in each activity. Expect simple non-genital touch-based games and opportunities to practice receiving and giving in a supportive, consent-focused container. You may participate fully clothed or wear only shorts/pants. Bring a yoga mat (optional), along with your playful curiosity.

All bodies are welcome.

Society offers us such a fractured connection paradigm that says, ‘within the successful relationship equation, I must sacrifice authentic expression in order to ensure the security of the attachment,’ which is often learned in childhood and solidified through our adult lives.

If you’re ready to shift away from that paradigm, then Authentic Relating is for you.

Authentic Relating is an opportunity to practice bringing your most authentic self to interactions to build deeper, more meaningful connections by focusing on honouring your authentic expression at the perceived expense of the security of the attachment.

This workshop consists of a breath and movement meditation to root ourselves in our body followed by a connection practice centred around interacting with partners as authentically as we can through responding and actively listening to question prompts. At the end, we’ll have time to share our experiences with the group and document via journaling.

Paper and pens will be provided; feel free to bring your own personal journal.

Today's session focuses on a total system-Mind/Body/Spirit reset through a dynamic approach. The goal is to counteract the constant stimulation and stress caused by our hyper-connected lives, which overload our nervous systems and lead to feelings of overwhelm and more stress. Many of us fail to unplug and reconnect with ourselves, despite the popularity of practices like breathwork. This session, however, is designed to be a fast track to resetting your system. Rather than a traditional relaxation practice, it involves rapid, intense breathing to give your nervous system a controlled shock. This approach aims to quickly bring you to a calm, centered state. The session combines conscious connected breathing, curated music, and personal coaching to help you achieve a fresh start and reset your mental, physical, and spiritual state.

Heads up: this session includes breathwork, music, and coaching. It can be intense. If you have heart issues or prefer a lighter experience, it might not be the best fit right now. Bring a yoga mat, water, and possibly have a small pillow or cushion.

TBD

Almost everyone arrives at Ignite on Day 1 carrying some version of anxiety — and this workshop is designed to meet them there. Using tools from mindfulness, cognitive therapy, and somatic practice, participants will learn to befriend anxiety rather than fight it, discover their most common self-critical thoughts are widely shared, and leave with practical skills they can use for the rest of the weekend and beyond. Expect a playful icebreaker, some honest Post-It notes, a movement break, and a lying-down meditation to close. Bring a yoga mat. No nudity expected — though not unwelcome.

Let's explore the belly as a place of tenderness, a centre of deep emotion, and a sensual bridge between our sex and our love. With reverence and playfulness, participants will be guided into offering gentle loving attention to one another's bellies, offering space for emotions to flow down into our erotic energy and back up into the coherence of the heart. Healing, relaxing, activating, and body-affirming.

Come ready to get shirtless and accepting of our own and other's bodies. Bring a yoga mat or something to cushion yourself as you kneel down to worship the big joyful belly god waiting inside.

Our Life Force Energy (eros or sexual energy) is dynamic. To encourage it to grow and move throughout the body, we can look to the elements. In this workshop, we will explore the 5 elements of earth, fire, water, air and ether. Finding them within our own bodies through movement and sound and then expressing them through our hands as we touch one another.

Life Force energy is alive with constant change. Each element has a distinct quality and healing function. Learning how to move our erotic energy with the 5 elements gives us new insight into our own arousal, our erotic need for change while giving us new ways to assist others in growing their erotic aliveness.

Expect nudity. Full body and genital touch. Please bring yoga mats, personal lube, a small and a large towel.

Caucuses are containers for an organization, network or movement to meet in order to do our different work.

Our QTBIPOC caucus will have a cuddle space, chill vibes, and space for people to share what’s on their heart.

This is your space and we invite you to use it how you see fit: find some rest, share an experience, laugh, cry, breathe, be. Observe both the inner voice and the witness.

This circle is for you if you are QTBIPOC (Queer/Trans/Two Spirit folks who are also Black/Indigenous/People of Colour) only.

What does it really mean to connect with another person? This workshop invites you into a journey of discovery — where touch, presence, and play become portals to something deeper. Through consent-focused, energising exercises, we dissolve the walls that keep us guarded and replace them with curiosity, laughter, and genuine human warmth. Intimacy is not about sexuality — it's about being truly seen. Whether you're deepening bonds with people you already know or opening fresh connections with those you haven't yet met, Playful Intimacy creates a charged, safe space where something real can happen between people. Come ready to surprise yourself.

The workshops below all take place on Saturday July 11th. They are in the same order as on the program schedule page.

Come and co-create ritual space in which we view queer experience and identity through the lenses of history, tradition, spirituality, and culture. We will contemplate how our queerness is passed down through a lineage of human and nonhuman ancestors, taking time to honour our ancestors’ courage and resilience, and to notice how we are influenced, inspired, wounded and resourced. This ritual is a group contemplation and enactment of a queer cosmology, exploring age-old questions such as: “what is queerness?”, “why does queerness exist?”, and “where does queerness come from?” This ritual is based on the work of Daan Van Kampenhout, facilitated with permission, and incorporates inspiration from archetypal psychology, science and biology, social history, queer ecology, and transformative justice.

Sound is a multi-functional erotic engine. When we engage eros with sound, we dislodge shame and reconnect to the primitive intelligence buried beneath our modern mental dominance. Most of us have emerged into our sexual adulthood in a secretive silence. Consequently, our eros and our silence have been seared together. It is time to undo the need to hide our sound as it gives us access to a part of our pleasure spectrum that many of us never knew was missing.

In this workshop, we will engage sound in a variety of erotic ways. Sound as a transformer of our sensations. Sound as an amplifier of our pleasure. Sound as touch. As vibration. As a way to remain in connection with our partners.

With a focus on the somatic body, noticing shifts in energy and sensations at transition points, we will become aware of the gift sound makes in ability to feel and express our erotic power.

Power is never one-sided. In this experiential workshop, we explore the rich energetic landscape of conscious kink — moving beyond roles and rules to examine what really happens when two people enter a power exchange. We'll look at surrender not as submission, but as an act of profound trust available to all parties, and explore how the one holding power carries as much vulnerability as the one who yields it. Through various practices, somatic awareness, and practical frameworks, you'll leave with tools to build power relationships rooted in presence, care, and deep intentionality.

Poetry is a playful way in to the body/mind/spirit. Eros is our life force. To be erotic is to be involved in our senses-from wind on the skin to sex and back. In our time together we will listen to poetry, write/create poetry (there will be prompts and formats, no need to worry about being a writer), engage in negotiated sensual experiments inspired by poetry, watch poetry, move as poetry, taste poetry. Come play!

What is your body currently experiencing?  What parts of your erotic life are craving to be more compassionately witnessed? What self-negating stories might be ready to be surrendered? In a world bent over with grief, how do we look to the horizon of community to reclaim our erotic joy? 

A lot happens during the Festival: desires rub up against anxieties and fears; self-judgements reveal themselves through projections; excitement turns to bliss; willingness and resistance wrestle for discernment. New experiences of self-discovery emerge through fruitful connections — all needing and deserving quality care and attention.

A Heart Circle is a mutually supportive space to share what is most alive for us. Authentically sharing is a communal act of intimacy. We give each other permission to bear witness to collective courage unfolding. The opportunity to practice deep listening is precious; often as rare as the chance to (re)claim our dignity, to demonstrate our vulnerabilities in tandem with our strengths.

At some point in our lives, each of us has found and lost our beloved, Eros. Our theme for this Heart Circle is Erotic Grief: from the loss of a first best friend to other missed connections; dating and relationships challenges; a young heart living in an aging body; digitally distracted minds; era-troubled souls, all these and more impact our erotic journey. Mutual empathy and understanding have the power to lubricate and re-story our erotic lives. Our circle will also welcome whatever experiences you are having in the present moment, including your erotic navigations with self and others at Ignite.

In this intimacy ritual, we will co-create a space of agreement within which to explore fantasies, heal inner wounds, find our fledgling voices, define our masculinity, and claim our sexuality.

The first portion will include a discussion about your childhood experiences of sexual awakening - whether they were private and secret, or shared with others - so that we can learn about the unique ways your sexuality has been shaped and formed. The purpose of this discussion is to remember who you were: what do you remember wanting as a child? What sort of companionship and friendship served you? What did you notice feeling around the older men around you? Perhaps a father, a big brother, an older cousin, a camp counsellor, a teacher? What kinds of touch were wanted? What was unwanted? Was trust abused?

The remaining time we will explore a roleplay and stay guided by erotic pleasure, in all its numerous forms. Maybe there is a wound to heal. Maybe there is a window into a new world. Maybe we surrender to a deeper level of trust. But we stay committed to the question: how does my inner child want to be touched? How does he want to touch and explore? What helps me feel close and connected? Can I voice my Yeses and Nos?

Due to the sensitive nature of this topic, this experience might be too edgy for those of us with significant unresolved childhood sexual experiences. This space is not therapy. We will practice safety and consent through a green-yellow-red system.

TBD

Good Boy: Guided Pup Play Ritual. Come put on a collar, turn off your thoughts, and wag your tail in this guided Puppy Play experience!

Whether you’re a senior pup, fresh to the scene, cautiously curious, or just want to roll around and play, this workshop is low barrier, and supports all entry points. We will work step by step to remove the thoughts, responsibilities, and weight of being human, and embody what it is like to be a pup: simple minded, carefree, and more than a little hedonistic.

Starting with guided exercises and container building, we will build a ritual in which participants become pups at the same time, and then have the opportunity to interact and play: cuddle puddles, licking, dry humping, play fighting etc. As part of your training as a pup, we will establish how pups communicate, ensuring that interactions are consensual AND non-verbal. Facilitators and volunteers will be on the sidelines, giving belly rubs, throwing balls for games of fetch, and making sure all pups are playing safely.

Bring your hood or collar, but don’t worry if you don’t have either: they are completely optional for the workshop, and there will be extras available, should you want to use one.

The workshops below all take place on Sunday July 12th. They are in the same order as on the program schedule page.

Something electric comes alive in our bodies when we embrace our differences and feel the way opposites attract. In this playful, high-energy workshop, we will explore our dynamic with different partners through guided movement, dance, sensual touch, and stretch. Let's play with the yin-yang. Breaking free from the traditional masculine-feminine polarity of neotantra, we'll explore a series of queer, earth-based polarities that allow us to discover new aspects of self, our chemistry with others, and the innocent, joyful aliveness that springs up when we embrace new, fun polarities inside us: the flower and the bee, the vessel and the liquid, the ogre and the nymph. Come play, have fun, be silly, feel your erotic current, and bring each other more alive through liberated movement.

Get ready to move, sweat, and groove. This upbeat class blends yoga-inspired flow with dance grooves from around the world to help you unlock rhythm, coordination, and confidence.

Through drills, repetition, and freestyle exploration, participants learn foundations from Hip-Hop, Afro, Latin, Vogue, Disco, Dancehall, and Party Dance while developing their own movement style.

With solo movement, partner exercises, and group dance moments, this class creates a playful space to explore rhythm, culture, and expression.

No experience needed — just bring your energy and love of music.

Building on Friday’s workshop Befriending Anxiety, this session goes deeper into the shame and self-critical thoughts that show up specifically around sex and intimacy — and reveals the surprising connection between mindfulness and erotic presence. Through a guided meditation, a group exercise to name and normalize the anxious thoughts most queer men carry into sexual encounters, and a closing movement break, participants leave with a simple four-step practice they can use anywhere — before sex, after rejection, or in the middle of a spiral.

Bring a yoga mat.

TBD

How does Eros mature? What needs to put to rest, discern and flourish as we prepare toward or move into our Senex years? How does erotic wisdom and grace feel in our bodies and souls? Through gentle touch, ritual and heart circle we will further seed and spread our queer Elderhood into our communities. All and experiences ages welcome.

What happens when sex is completely anonymous? So often, the motivation to do so is secrecy, shame and fear. The people drawn to gloryholes often don’t want their desires and actions tied to their identity. As such, they live compartmentalized.

What if our motivation was to experience sex removed from identity - without all the usual stories of: What does this mean? Does he like me? Do I like him? If I do this once, must I do it again? If I say no, will it sever the connection? As such, anonymity is also a kind of freedom, freedom from being judged, or judging. What new pleasures could be unlocked? What agency could I step into? What insecurities might I shed?

In this ritual, you’ll be split up into two groups with a cloth barrier between. We’ll discuss the non-verbal language of consent that we can use to negotiate our encounters. You’ll only participate as much as you feel called to.

We will create a ritual container in which to witness, explore, and share desire. The contemplation throughout will be, “What do I want? How can I create an experience that will fulfill me?” The free-format experience allows for different ways of interacting with others using the power of witnessing, consent, movement and touch, in which you will create your own journey. This can be a charged container as you’ll be tasked to find your own partners, and negotiate your own boundaries. Please bring your yoga mats.

The River of Love is a moving meditation. One that invites us to see ourselves. Not as individuals but as part of the same flowing source of Life Force energy that creates everyone and everything. When we see ourselves in this way, we are changed by the beauty we see and feel in every pair of eyes.

As a meditation, it is simple. In pairs, we step into The River of Love path. Look into one another’s eyes, take a deep breath together and slowly walk together. The key power of the River of Love is maintaining eye contact with each partner.

Over time, the river dissolves our separateness. After one or two trips down the river, we get used to the flow. Our centers of intelligence shift from our heads to our hearts. Ideally done in the nude in nature to beautiful meditative music, the River of Love is powerful reminder that we are all One.

In our post-modern and tech forward world, physical touch is so important, now more than ever. And yet here we are: withering on the vine, touch starved.

Studies have found that physical touch calms our nervous system and slows down our heartbeat. It lowers cortisol, our stress hormone and releases oxytocin, our cuddle hormone.

Sink into your body, relax your mind, open your heart and join us in co-creating a positive touch container to envelop yourself in a nourishing embrace.

This workshop is a touch-centred workshop. There will be a short movement practice to start, followed with a large time window filled with an explorative touch practice centred around longer, sensuous touches and embraces. Dress down to your preferred level.