“Remain true to the earth, my brethren, with the power of your virtue! Let your bestowing love and your knowledge be devoted to be the meaning of the earth! . . . Let it not fly away from the earthly and beat against eternal walls with its wings. . . . Lead, like me, the flown-away virtue back to the earth—yes, back to body and life: that it may give to the earth its meaning, a human meaning!”
[A] mood of universal destruction and renewal…has set its mark on our age. This mood makes itself felt everywhere, politically, socially, and philosophically. We are living in what the Greeks called the kairos, the right moment for a “metamorphosis of the gods,” of the fundamental principles and symbols. This peculiarity of our time, which is certainly not of our conscious choosing, is the expression of the unconscious human within us who is changing. Coming generations will have to take account of this momentous transformation if humanity is not to destroy itself through the might of its own technology and science….So much is at stake and so much depends on the psychological constitution of the modern human.
The Esalen Institute, commonly called Esalen, is a non-profit American retreat center and intentional community in Big Sur, California, which focuses on humanisticalternative education.[2] The institute played a key role in the Human Potential Movement beginning in the 1960s. Its innovative use of encounter groups, a focus on the mind-body connection, and their ongoing experimentation in personal awareness introduced many ideas that later became mainstream.[3]
Price ran the institute until he was killed in a hiking accident in 1985. In 2012, the board hired professional executives to help raise money and keep the institute profitable. Until 2016, Esalen offered over 500 workshops yearly[7] in areas including personal growth, meditation, massage, Gestalt Practice, yoga, psychology, ecology, spirituality, and organic food.[8] In 2016, about 15,000 people attended its workshops.[9]
In February 2017, the institute was cut off when Highway 1 was closed by a mud slide on either side of the hot springs. It closed its doors, evacuated guests via helicopter, and was forced to lay off 90% of its staff through at least July, when they reopened with limited workshop offerings. It also decided to revamp its offerings to include topics more relevant to a younger generation.[9]
As of July 2017, due to the limited access resulting from the road closures, the hot springs are only open to Esalen guests.[9]
The grounds of the Esalen Institute were first home to a Native American tribe known as the Esselen, from whom the institute adopted its name.[10]Carbon dating tests of artifacts found on Esalen’s property have indicated a human presence as early as 2600 BCE.[11]
The location was homesteaded by Thomas Slate on September 9, 1882, when he filed a land patent under the Homestead Act of 1862.[12] The settlement became known as Slates Hot Springs. It was the first tourist-oriented business in Big Sur, frequented by people seeking relief from physical ailments. In 1910, the land was purchased by Henry Murphy,[13] a Salinas, California, physician. The official business name was “Big Sur Hot Springs” although it was more generally referred to as “Slate’s Hot Springs”.[14]View of the building on the bluff housing the hot springs
Founding
Stanford grads meet
Richard Price in 1968
Michael Murphy and Dick Price both attended Stanford University in the late 1940s and early 1950s.[15] Both had developed an interest in human psychology and earned degrees in the subject in 1952.[16] Price was influenced by a lecture he heard Aldous Huxley give in 1960 titled “Human Potentialities”. After graduating from Stanford, Price attended Harvard University to continue studying psychology. Murphy, meanwhile, traveled to Sri Aurobindo‘s ashram in India where he resided for several months[17] before returning to San Francisco.
Price’s parents involuntarily committed him to a mental hospital for a year, ending on November 26, 1957. He hated the experience and thought he would like to create an environment where people could explore new ideas and thoughts without judgment and influence from the outside world. In May 1960, Price returned to San Francisco and lived at the East-West House with Taoist teacher Gia-Fu Feng. That year he met fellow Stanford University graduate Michael Murphy at Haridas Chaudhuri’s Cultural Integration Fellowship where Murphy was in residence. They met at the suggestion of Frederic Spiegelberg, a Stanford professor of comparative religion and Indic studies, with whom both had studied.[18]
By then they had both dropped out of their graduate programs (Price at Harvard and Murphy at Stanford), and had served time in the military.[16] Their similar experiences and interests were the basis for the partnership that created Esalen.[16] Inspired by Buddhist practices, and based on his own understanding of Taoism, Price developed his teachings. He took what Fritz Perls had taught him and created a Gestalt Awareness process that is still taught and followed today. People all over the world follow the thought and healing practice created by Price in guidance,.[19][20]
Lease property
Price and Murphy wanted to create a venue where non-traditional workshops and lecturers could present their ideas free of the dogma associated with traditional education. The two began drawing up plans for a forum that would be open to ways of thinking beyond the constraints of mainstream academia while avoiding the dogma so often seen in groups organized around a single idea promoted by a charismatic leader. They envisioned offering a wide range of philosophies, religious disciplines and psychological techniques.[21]
In 1961, they went to look at property owned by the Murphy family at Slates Hot Springs in Big Sur.[22] It included a run-down hotel occupied in part by members of a Pentecostal church.[23] The property was patrolled by gun-toting Hunter S. Thompson. Gay men from San Francisco filled the baths on the weekends.[23]
Henry Murphy’s widow and Michael’s grandmother Vinnie “Bunnie” MacDonald Murphy, who owned the property, lived 62 miles (100 km) away in Salinas. She had previously refused to lease the property to anyone, even turning down an earlier request from Michael. She was afraid her grandson was going to “give the hotel to the Hindus,” Murphy later said. Not long after, Thompson attempted to visit the baths with friends and got into a fistfight after antagonizing some of the gay men present. The men almost tossed him over the cliff. Murphy’s father, a lawyer, finally persuaded his mother to allow her grandson to take over[23] and she agreed to lease the property to them in 1962.[24][25][26] The two men used capital that Price obtained from his father, who was a vice-president at Sears.[27] They incorporated their business as a non-profit named Esalen Institute in 1963.[28][29]
Develop counterculture workshops
Murphy and Price were assisted by Spiegelberg, Watts, Huxley and his wife Laura, as well as by Gerald Heard and Gregory Bateson. They modeled the concept of Esalen partially upon Trabuco College, founded by Heard as a quasi-monastic experiment in the mountains east of Irvine, California, and later donated to the Vedanta Society.[30] Their intent was to provide “a forum to bring together a wide variety of approaches to enhancement of the human potential… including experiential sessions involving encounter groups, sensory awakening, gestalt awareness training, related disciplines.”[31][32] They stated that they did not want to be viewed as a “cult” or a new church but that it was to be a center where people could explore the concepts that Price and Murphy were passionate about. The philosophy of Esalen lies in the idea that “the cosmos, the universe itself, the whole evolutionary unfoldment is what a lot of philosophers call slumbering spirit. The divine is incarnate in the world and is present in us and is trying to manifest,” according to Murphy.[16]
Alan Watts gave the first lecture at Esalen in January 1962.[33]Gia-fu Feng joined Price and Murphy,[34] along with Bob Breckenridge, Bob Nash, Alice and Jim Sellers, as the first Esalen staff members.[26] In the middle of that same year Abraham Maslow, a prominent humanistic psychologist, just happened to drive into the grounds and soon became an important figure at the institute.[35] In the fall of 1962, they published a catalog advertising workshops with such titles as “Individual and Cultural Definitions of Rationality,” “The Expanding Vision” and “Drug-Induced Mysticism”.[33] Their first seminar series in the fall of 1962 was “The Human Potentiality,” based on a lecture by Huxley.[3]
Fritz Perls residency
In 1964, Fritz Perls began what became a five-year long residency at Esalen, leaving a lasting influence. Perls offered many Gestalt therapy seminars at the institute until he left in July 1969.[36]Jim Simkin[37] and Perls led Gestalt training courses at Esalen. Simkin started a Gestalt training center[38] on property next door that was later incorporated into Esalen’s main campus.[39]
When Perls left Esalen he considered it to be “in crisis again”. He saw young people without any training leading encounter groups. And he feared that charlatans would take the lead.[40] However, Grogan[who?] claims that Perls’ practice at Esalen had been ethically “questionable”,[41] and according to Kripal, Perls insulted Abraham Maslow.[42]
Gestalt Practice developed
Dick Price became one of Perls’ closest students. Price managed the institute and developed his own form he called Gestalt Practice,[43] which he taught at Esalen until his death in a hiking accident in 1985.[44] Michael Murphy lived in the San Francisco Bay Area and wrote non-fiction books about Esalen-related topics, as well as several novels.[45]
Leads counterculture movement
Esalen gained popularity quickly and started to regularly publish catalogs full of programs. The facility was large enough to run multiple programs simultaneously, so Esalen created numerous resident teacher positions.[46] Murphy recruited Will Schutz, the well-known encounter group leader, to take up permanent residence at Esalen.[47] All this combined to firmly position Esalen in the nexus of the counterculture of the 1960s.[48]
The institute gained increased attention in 1966 when several magazines wrote about it. George Leonard published an article in Look magazine about the California scene which mentioned Esalen and included a picture of Murphy.[49]Time magazine published an article about Esalen in September 1967.[50]The New York Times Magazine published an article by Leo E. Litwak in late December.[51]Life also published an article about the resort.[52] These articles increased the media and the public’s awareness of the institute in the U.S. and abroad. Esalen responded by holding large-scale conferences in Midwestern and East Coast cities,[53] as well as in Europe. Esalen opened a satellite center in San Francisco that offered extensive programming until it closed in the mid-1970s for financial reasons.[54]
In 1998, Esalen launched the Center for Theory and Research to initiate new areas of practice and action which foster social change and realization of the human potential.[56] It is the research and development arm of Esalen Institute.[57] As of 2016, Michael Cornwall, who previously worked in the institutes’ Schizophrenia Research Project at Agnews State Hospital, was conducting workshops titled the Alternative Views and Approaches to Psychosis Initiative at Esalen. He was inviting leaders in the field of psychosis treatment to attend the workshops.[58]
Management changes
Esalen has been making changes to respond to internal and external factors.[59][60][61] Dick Price was the key leader of the institute until his sudden death in a hiking accident in late 1985 brought about many changes in personnel and programming.[62] Steven Donovan became president of the institute,[63] and Brian Lyke served as general manager.[62] Nancy Lunney became the director of programming,[64] and Dick Price’s son David Price served as general manager of Esalen beginning in the mid-1990s.[65]
The baths were destroyed in 1998 by severe weather and were rebuilt at great expense, but this caused severe institutional stress.[66] Afterward, Andy Nusbaum developed an economic plan to stabilize Esalen’s finances.[67]
In 2011, the institute commissioned the company Beyond the Leading Edge to conduct a Leadership Culture Survey to assess the quality of its leadership culture. The results were negative. The survey measured how well the leadership “builds quality relationships, fosters teamwork, collaborates, develops people, involves people in decision making and planning, and demonstrates a high level of interpersonal skill.” In the “relating dimension” the survey returned a score of 18%, compared to a desired 88%. It also produced strongly dissonant scores in measures of community welfare, relating with interpersonal intelligence, clearly communicating vision, and building a sense of personal worth within the community. It ranked management as overly compliant and lacking authenticity. However, the survey found that Esalen closely matched its overall goal for customer focus.[68]
Gordon Wheeler dramatically restructured Esalen management.[69] These changes prompted Christine Stewart Price, the widow of Dick Price, to withdraw from the institute, and found an organization named the Tribal Ground Circle with the intention to preserve Dick Price’s legacy.[70][71]
Early leaders and programs
Aldous Huxley
In the few years after its founding, many of the seminars[72] like “The Value of Psychotic Experience” attempted to challenge the status quo. There were even Esalen programs that questioned the movement of which Esalen itself was a part—for instance, “Spiritual and Therapeutic Tyranny: The Willingness To Submit”. There were also a series of encounter groups focused on racial prejudice.[73]
Early leaders included many well-known individuals, including Ansel Adams, Gia-fu Feng, Buckminster Fuller, Timothy Leary, Robert Nadeau, Linus Pauling, Carl Rogers, Virginia Satir, B.F. Skinner, and Arnold Toynbee. Rather than merely lecturing, many leaders experimented with what Huxley called the non-verbal humanities: the education of the body, the senses, and the emotions. Their intention was to help individuals develop awareness of their present flow of experience, to express this fully and accurately, and to listen to feedback. These “experiential” workshops were particularly well attended and were influential in shaping Esalen’s future course.[74]William Schutz at Esalen, circa 1987
Staff residency
Because of Esalen’s isolated location, its operational staff members have lived on site from the beginning and for many years collectively contributed to the character of the institute.[75] The community has been steeped in a form of Gestalt that pervades all aspects of daily life, including meeting structures, workplace practices, and individual language styles.[76] There is a preschool on site called the Gazebo, serving the children of staff, some program participants, and affiliated local residents.[77]
Bodywork has always been a significant part of the Esalen experience. In the late 1990s, the “EMBA” was organized as a semi-autonomous Esalen association for the regulation of Esalen massage practitioners.[78]
“It’s absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one should read and what one shouldn’t. More than half of modern culture depends on what one shouldn’t read.”
“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”
A genuine understanding of how mental states arise from the structure and function of the brain would be, as William James declared in 1892, ”the scientific achievement before which all past achievements would pale.” Can a comprehensive biological theory of consciousness be constructed in 1990? Any attempt has to reconcile evidence garnered from such diverse fields as developmental and evolutionary biology, neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, cognitive psychology, psychiatry, and philosophy.Having laid the groundwork in his critically acclaimed books Neural Darwinism (Basic Books, 1987) and Topobiology (Basic Books, 1988), Nobel laureate Gerald M. Edelman now proposes a comprehensive theory of consciousness in The Remembered Present. Integrating findings generated by the recent explosive growth in the neurosciences with current knowledge of anatomy, cell biology, and psychology, Edelman has been able to construct a detailed model of how we become aware of our own existence.In addition to providing a scientific account of brain function and consciousness, the theory advanced in The Remembered Present will have a significant impact on a wide variety of fields. It provides a new outlook that may prompt fundamental revisions in the way linguists view language, physicians classify mental diseases, and philosophers look at the mind-body problem.
Happy To Announce 2 new pieces, “Gods of Divine Inebriation” and “Golden Gate Park January 14, 1967” (Human Be-In). Both pieces have a common theme, one ancient, one more contemporary. Details on the pieces below! (These Pieces Are Available Only In The US At This Point)
Gods of Divine Inebriation Blotter A nod to Dionysus/Bacchus and the attending divine and semi divine beings… God of the vine, grape-harvest, wine-making, wine, fertility, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, theatre… one has to remember that the Ancients used admixtures in their wines: including tropanes, opium, certainly cannabis and other substances. The use of these wines varied with the seasons. One had to mix the wine with water due to the potency. Nothing like this on the market now days!
Dionysus, the God of Divine Inebriation, whose followers were tied to the Orphic myths celebrated their deity with the mysteries, revelries, theatre, ceremony, celebration & getting thoroughly out of their heads. This piece was originally put together for The Invisible College, and will be available as a regular print soon.
Gods of Divine Inebriation Blotter
Gods of Divine Inebriation Blotter $35.00 USD
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Golden Gate Park January 14, 1967 (Human Be-In) In the heady days of late 1966, I heard about a planned gathering in San Francisco set for early January. Living in Denver at that time, I had friends who headed to California to attend. They brought back wonderous tales of that afternoon. Tim Leary, Lenore Kandel, Gary Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, Alan Watts, Dick Gregory, Richard Alpert(Ram Dass), Michael McClure, Lawrence Ferlinghettis, Jerry Rubin. Stanley Owsley provided the sacred elixir of choice…. Quicksilver, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane were among the bands that performed.
Little did we all know this was perhaps the apex event of the awakening of consciousness in the 1960’s. Not Woodstock, or any other festival event, but The Human Be In.
This piece is my homage to the event, born out of longing, and acknowledgement of the beauty of that moment. I tie it into the ancient rites, and it was certainly Dionysian, but also Apollonian in the choice of some of the speakers.
Years ago I communicated with Michael Bowen (who along with the poet Allen Cohen published the San Francisco Oracle), organized the event. Michael and Allen are gone now, but the legacy and the movement of that moment still reverberates through our emerging culture. A print version will be available soon.
Golden Gate Park January, 14 1967(Human Be-In)Blotter
Golden Gate Park January, 14 1967(Human Be-In) $35.00 USD
_______________________________ Lots of new art coming, and lots of radio shows. Let me know what you are thinking about these offerings, feedback is appreciated.
On March 28th, 2021 we have a Full Moon in Libra, one of the most intense Full Moons of the year.
The Full Moon is at 8° Libra, and Sun, Venus and Chiron are all conjunct very very tightly at 8° Aries, opposing the Moon. The Full Moon is trine Mars in Gemini and Saturn in Aquarius and forms a beautiful aspect pattern called “Kite”.
If you look at the chart of the Full Moon in Libra you will see a kite-shaped pattern with the Moon at the base, and the Sun, Venus and Chiron heading upwards.
The Moon in Libra is the propeller of this kite, guiding its moves. Sun, Venus and Chiron are at the apex – finding new avenues of creative expression.
The Moon is in Libra, and Libra is the sign of relationships. Moon in Libra is very accommodating and quickly picks on the moods and needs of others.
The Sun, Venus and Chiron are in Aries, the 1st sign of the zodiac, so they are concerned with the Self (NOT with others).
The Full Moon in Libra opposite the planets in Aries will create a conflict between our need to be in relationships and our need to be true to ourselves.
Aries And Libra – Me vs The Other
Let’s get back to basics, and talk a bit about Aries and Libra. When the Full Moon is in Libra, the Sun is always in the opposite sign, Aries, so we are dealing with Aries-Libra polarity.
Aries is the first sign of the zodiac, and it is a symbol for “Me”.
A healthy focus on “Me” is vital to our survival. You need to put your oxygen mask on first before helping others.
But too much focus on “Me”, and we never grow up. Without a partner, without a “mirror”, we get stuck in our bubble.
The fear of losing our identity can make us afraid of relationships, and even when we get involved with someone, we tend to dominate them so we can get things “our way”.
Libra is the sign of “The Other”. Having relationships with other people – any type of relationship – is a vital survival skill.
In fact, historians say that Homo Sapiens ‘won’ the evolution game thanks to their ability to establish social networks and having “good relationships skills”.
However, too much focus on our partners (Libra) and we lose ourselves, and stop trusting our instincts (Aries). When we rely too much on other people we develop codependency issues.
Of course, a healthy balance between Me and the Other is key.
How Do We Find It?
A Full Moon in Libra by itself does a pretty good job at reconciling the “Me vs. Other” conflict. But the Sun-Venus-Chiron conjunction in Aries will take this process one level deeper, by helping us get to the root of our wounding.
The concept of duality – and the reconciliation of this duality – is at the core of Chiron.
Chiron is a half-man, half-horse centaur, a symbol for our attempts to make the conflicting sides of psyche our work as an integral whole.
A centaur looks awkward: is it a human, or a horse? What kind of ‘creature’ is that? Disgusted by his appearance, Chiron’s mother abandons him at birth.
Therefore, Chiron’s primal wound is the wound of rejection. This rejection wound is a metaphor for our identity wound: when the world rejects us just because we are being ourselves.
Chiron is eventually adopted by Apollo (the Sun) and learns from him the art of healing, prophecy and astrology. These gifts, combined with Chiron’s natural animal, raw connection to nature, helped him become the greatest healer and teacher of his time.
Chiron – The Deepest Wound, The Greatest Gift
In the end, it was EXACTLY Chiron’s dual nature that allowed him to reach his full potential. It was EXACTLY his half-human, half-horse “package” his mother initially rejected, that was his greatest gift.
Chiron is a symbol of what feels awkward and unacceptable at first, but if integrated, eventually becomes our greatest gift.
It’s important to remember that Chiron was wounded when he was a newborn and his mental functions were not yet developed. If someone rejects us in our adulthood, we may feel a bit bad, but we eventually get over it.
However, in childhood, we are not equipped to handle the pain of rejection. Chiron’s wound is deeply rooted in our past and requires a lot of digging.
The good news is that if we do dig and bring this wound to the surface, we heal. As adults, we DO have the resources to transform our wound into a gift.
The primal Chironic wound keeps us broken, alienated and separated. When we finally heal it, we become “whole again”.
Chiron And The Full Moon In Libra
How does Chiron fit in the Full Moon in Libra narrative?
Chiron has a special relationship with Aries and Libra: it spends the longest time in Aries, and the shortest time in Libra, so the Aries-Libra axis is a Chiron-sensitive axis. This means that Chiron understands very well the dynamics of this polarity axis.
The path to wholeness is not a solo-journey.
In fact, we can only find out who we are when we interact with other people. We learn about ourselves and about the world through our one-on-one relationships.
Our partner (spouse, friend, therapist etc.) is a mirror for us, and we are a mirror for them. In a relationship, we bounce back words, ideas and feelings. And is this one-on-one interaction that keeps us ‘sane’ and ‘in check’ with reality.
The Full Moon In Libra – Whole Again
We are wired to find wholeness through others, and the Chiron-flavored Full Moon in Libra will give us a profound understanding of what it means to be “whole”.
Chiron conjunct Sun and Venus will expose all our vulnerabilities, asking us to “get real” and show up as we are – without masks or filters.
And the Moon in Libra will remind us that we can only find wholeness in the inherent duality of a relationship with Another.
Here are some questions for reflection for the upcoming Full Moon in Libra:
How do I find myself through my relationships?
Which personality traits do I keep attracting in my partners? Why is that?
What are the benefits of healthy conflict and being vulnerable?
How do I care about others and still show up as I truly am?
The desert landscape of California’s Coachella Valley will soon be home to the first US neighborhood comprised entirely of 3D-printed houses.
Through a partnership between two California companies – Palari, a sustainable real estate development group, and Mighty Buildings, a construction technology company – a five acre parcel of land in Rancho Mirage will be transformed into a planned community of 15 3D-printed, eco-friendly homes claiming to be the first of its kind.
“This will be the first on-the-ground actualization of our vision for the future of housing,” said Alexey Dubov, the co-founder and chief operating officer of Mighty Buildings.
In the large warehouse of its Oakland headquarters, Mighty Buildings creates homes using massive 3D printers the size of small garages. The material used by Mighty Buildings hardens almost immediately, allowing a roof, layers of insulation, and exterior features such as an overhang to be added all in one process. Up to 80% of the construction can be automated, Mighty Buildings claims, with 95% fewer labor hours and 10 times less waste than conventional construction.
A 3D printer at the Mighty Buildings headquarters. Photograph: Mighty Buildings
The company’s printers have the capacity to make a 350-sq-ft home in less than 24 hours, said Sam Ruben, the co-founder and chief sustainability officer of Mighty, during a recent tour of the headquarters. Often the printers are set to build a house overnight, while the employees are asleep.
“We are actually limited more by road transport of the buildings than the actual ability to print,” Ruben said.
The Rancho Mirage homes will each feature mid-century modern architecture and consist of a three-bedroom, two-bath primary residence of 1,450 sq ft, along with a secondary residence on the property of two bedrooms and one bath.
Each home’s 10,000-sq-ft lot will have a swimming pool in the back yard and the option to pay extra for amenities such as cabanas, hot tubs, fire pits and outdoor showers. Prices will start at $595,000 for a base 3BR/2BA model and go up to $950,000 for a two-home configuration with upgrades.
The homes will consist of multiple bedrooms, bathrooms and a pool, designed in a mid-century modern style. Photograph: Mighty Buildings/EYRC Architects
Rancho Mirage is not the first place to see 3D-printed homes in recent years. In 2019 a non-profit in Mexico announced the production of 3D-printed homes for low-income families. Meanwhile, 3D-printed homes are scheduled to be installed in Austin, Texas, later this year.
The rise of 3D-printed homes comes as California’s housing crisis continues to rage. The state needs between 1.8m and 3.5m new housing units by 2025 to address the shortage and accommodate projected population growth. In February, Mighty Buildings secured $40m in series B funding.
Ruben said that while Mighty Buildings had spoken with local governments about the potential to 3D print homes for vulnerable populations, the company was largely focused on targeting what he calls “the missing middle”.
“The missing middle is too often left out of the conversation,” he said. “These are your teachers, your firefighters, people who serve a community, but because of how insane the housing market is in California, they have never had the opportunity to buy a home.”
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