Summer Seminar

The 2026 Summer Seminar, June 19-28

Camp Caravan 2026 Residential Summer Seminar

“I AM”

June 19-28, 2026 in Royalston, Massachusetts USA

“Being awake in this finer energy is like being in the shower. ‘In it’ feels completely different. Everything else—the ‘I’ that thinks, believes, feels this or that—all identification. There is no you. Either one is identified with the body, or one is in the flow—the true Self.”—Michel de Salzmann

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We gather for dinner on Friday, June 19 at 7 p.m. The seminar starts Saturday, June 20 at 7:30 a.m. and ends noon on Sunday, June 28.

All are welcome—no previous experience is required. Work with inner exercises, meditation, Gurdjieff Movements, guided sittings, practical work, art and music, shared meals, theme discussions and community activities. Reserve your place at registrar@campcaravan.org.

Please consider paying more than you can comfortably afford to help sustain Camp Caravan.

Scholarships are available. Do not let cost be a barrier. 

Adults—$625

Young adults(flexible) $300

All inclusive

$250 deposit by June 1 to:

Treasurer, MREC, Camp Caravan, 255 South Royalston Road, Royalston, MA 01368

www.campcaravan.org

Camp Caravan 2025 Residential Summer Seminar

“Entering the Unknown”

Practicing the Sacred Art of Living and Dying

“At each moment one dies, one lives, one loves, one is. Free of fear and illusion, moment after moment, we die to the known in order to enter the unknown.”—Mme. De Salzmann, Reality of Being

“And if at the moment of the approach of the final process of the sacred Rascooarno these cosmic arisings had not yet attained the required gradation of the sacred scale of Reason, then this higher being-part had to exist in the said sphere until it had perfected its Reason to the required degree.”

—G.I. Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson

Camp Caravan 2024 Residential Summer Seminar

“Opening”

I Wish, I Hope, I Believe, I Accept, I Love

We wish to try to open without fear, to open not once or twice

but constantly, until we become conscious of the power of the

ego which separates us from life. —Mme. de Salzmann, Reality of Being

Camp Caravan Residential Summer Seminar 2023 25^th Anniversary

“Longing”

 “Man remains a mystery to himself. He has a nostalgia for Being, a longing for duration, for permanence, for absoluteness—a longing to be.”—Mme. de Salzmann

Come! Come for the first time as a “beginner.” Come for the hundredth time as a “beginner.” All are welcome.

“The sun coming up brings clear wine-air.

Being sober is not living.

Listen to the longing of a stringless harp.

Stand watch over this burning.”—Rumi

Camp Caravan 2021 Residential Summer Seminar

“Separation & Unity”

“I think that the real mystery of ‘I’ is the secret of separation and union. This cannot be brought within the grasp of our reason. ‘I am I.’ Therefore alone, and yet I am not alone…” –J.G. Bennett, A Spiritual Psychology

Camp Caravan Residential Summer Seminar 2019

“Coming Home”

Have you ever had the experience of stopping so completely,

of being in your body so completely,

of being in your life so completely….

it would be a moment of complete presence,

beyond striving, beyond mere acceptance….

a moment of pure being, no longer in time,

a moment of pure seeing, pure feeling,

a moment in which life simply is…

and that ‘is-ness’…

welcomes you home.  –Jon Kabat Zinn

Camp Caravan Residential Summer Seminar 2018

 “Finding Community”

“A community identifies itself by an understood mutuality of interests. But it lives and acts by the common virtues of trust, goodwill, forbearance, self-restraint, compassion, and forgiveness.” –Wendell Berry

How can our thirst for belonging guide us to the wellspring of community?

“At a certain point, there are no leaders and no followers, only those who both question and listen. A moment comes when exchange is indispensable, when we need to nourish one another with the fruits of our efforts.”

–Jeanne de Salzmann

Camp Caravan Residential Summer Seminar 2017

“Wish”

How can we find the sacred impulse of Wish within ourselves?

How can we learn to feed its fire?

Who sends the mind to wander afar?

Who first drives life to start on its journey?

Who impels us to utter these words?

–Upanishads

In man it is the mind that is opposed to the body. The

neutralizing force is the wish that unites them, connects

them. Everything comes from the wish, the will…

We can ask for help, to come to this in ourselves.

–Mme. de Salzmann

Listen to the reed flute and the tale it tells,

how it sings of separation:

“Ever since cut from the reed bed,

my wail has caused men and women to weep.”

I want a heart that is torn open with longing

so that I might share the pain of this love.

Whoever has been parted from his source

longs to return to that state of union. –Rumi

Camp Caravan Residential Summer Seminar 2016

Why are we here?

When we begin to question, especially ourselves, we challenge the prison of comfort and habit that keeps us asleep, that keeps us from seeing the predicament we are in. Bring questions, questions that arise from your search.

Camp Caravan Residential Summer Seminar 2015

“The Magic of Becoming”

What do we mean by magic and how is it connected with “becoming?”

How can I let go and open to what is present?

How can we allow playfulness to enter our work?

Camp Caravan Residential Summer Seminar 2014

“Listening”

The first requirement of a living organization is to come together, to unite. Without impatience, without intellectuality, without sentimentality, an event must take place. I need to be called and I need to call. I need to listen and hear the call, and I need to bring the call in a way that it will be received. What is needed is a conscious relation sustained by vigilance and the giving up of my ordinary will in order to work together. At a certain point there are no leaders and no followers, only those who both question and listen.    — Jeanne de Salzmann

Camp Caravan Residential Summer Seminar 2013

“Preparing the Future”

Early in G.I. Gurdjieff’s book, Beelzebub’s Tales to his Grandson, Hassein, the grandson, suddenly becomes aware that everything that exists in the present moment was prepared for him by people in the past:

And all of this they did, either consciously or unconsciously, just for us, that is to say, for beings unknown and quite indifferent to them.

So, it is for us. Just as our present moment was prepared by those who came before, it falls to us to prepare the future—that is to say, the present moment of those who will come after us.

How is this to be done? Although we must do so, it is clearly not enough to simply prepare the future by building, preserving, and improving the material world. Something more is required of us, but how are we to see this? How are we to accomplish this?

We can work to replace all negative attitudes towards the existing world by a feeling of confidence and love towards the new world which is being born, towards the still unborn child that is the future mankind. —J.G. Bennett

The summer seminar immediately follows the Movements Seminar at Camp Caravan.

Camp Caravan Summer Seminar 2012

“Our True Nature”

In seeking real transformation, we can discover our own true nature, through working with other people who are also seeking. How do we come to the “sense of the meeting”? How can my exploration of who I really am fit into a deeper understanding of my place with others and within a larger purpose?

“We have to be at peace with ourselves, we have to accept ourselves very deeply; accept this nature of ours such as it is, neither revolting against the fact that we are imperfect beings, nor hiding or disguising from ourselves any imperfections which we do not want to find. The confusion comes when we wish to change what cannot be changed and do not trouble to change what can be changed.”–J. G. Bennett

“Reciprocal Maintenance”

The doctrine of Reciprocal Maintenance is that everything that exists in this world depends on other things for its maintenance and must in its turn maintain the existence of something else.

When we look at Gurdjieff’s message, we can see that it is indeed a message of hope. The unexpected answer to the question: “On what are we to build?” is that we shall not find it in matter or spirit, but in the creative work of Reciprocal Maintenance.

The points of responsibility: the earth’s crust and its minerals, the soil, the vegetable kingdom on land and in the seas, the invertebrates and animals and man himself, are just those very situations that \are causing great anxiety on the score of depletion of resources, over soil impoverishment, disease, over-population, famine and war. When Gurdjieff propounded his scheme sixty years ago, these anxieties seemed remote. Now they are urgent. Today we can look at Gurdjieff’s Reciprocal Maintenance and see in it a final warning and also a supreme hope.

As we look at these portents of disaster, we can see how they all come under the heading of aberration from the principle of Reciprocal Maintenance.

The key to understanding human life is given in the doctrine of Reciprocal Maintenance. This alone breaks down the barrier that man has erected between himself and his mother Nature.–J.G. Bennett, Gurdjieff: Making a New World, Chapter 12

The 2011 Camp Caravan Summer Seminar described below was conducted using a new approach. All participants formed a small group of three. In turn, each small group directed our work together. The result was a tremendously varied and creative schedule that still had a coherence and structure focused on a clear aim.

It was an experiment in finding new ways of working together which we continue to this day.

Camp Caravan Residential Summer Seminar 2011

“Working Differently”

‘My dear now deceased grandmother placed her dying left hand on my head and in a whisper, yet very distinctly said: ‘Eldest of my grandsons! Listen and always remember my strict injunction to you: In life never do as others do… either do nothing—just go to school—or do something nobody else does.’

G.I. Gurdjieff, Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson

“You must realize that each man has a definite repertoire of roles which he plays in ordinary circumstances…and at different times the man is fully identified with one of them and is unable to separate himself from it. To see the roles, to know one’s repertoire, particularly to know its limitedness, is to know a great deal. But the point is that, outside his repertoire, a man feels very uncomfortable should something push him if only temporarily out of his rut, and he tries his hardest to return to any one of his usual roles. Directly he falls back into the rut everything at once goes smoothly again and the feeling of awkwardness and tension disappears. This is how it is in life; but in the work, in order to observe oneself, one must become reconciled to this awkwardness and tension and to the feeling of discomfort and helplessness. Only by experiencing this discomfort can a man really observe himself.” –P.D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous

This year, we invite you to come and Work differently. What does that mean for each of us and for all of us?

We find ourselves sharing our stories. Whether they are traditional fairy tales, folk tales, personal stories read or told aloud, bring some with you to share during this event.