True Esalen: History's Mysteries

It was the day before the new year and I had met Cara, who used to work at the Gazeebo school for several years, she was telling me all about the way things used to be at Esalen, a very common theme for conversations here, and while we were talking another group of people that had come to Esalen together from San Francisco joined in the conversation.

They wanted to know if I worked at Esalen, a question I was asked frequently, must have been the vibe I put out. Anyways I told them I did indeed work there and they were quick to befriend me, wanting to pick my brain about anything and everything they could regarding the place. They told me it had been there collective dream to come together for many years and only now had been able to make it a reality.

"You've come at the perfect time." I said, "Ohh? Why is that?" they asked. "It's always the perfect time to be at Esalen, no time is ever the same and everyone you meet, everything you experience, is meant to be." I said. And we decided to meet back up later.

A lot of people come from that city in particular, and have been since before even the institute existed, due in large part because of San Francisco's gay population, which is free to express itself at Esalen, but also because the city harbors liberal ideals, and has for a very long time. The most famous part of this attribute is when Hunter S Thompson was the gate guard for Esalen, and a group of gay men had tried seducing him into the hot springs, he refused and then they attacked him, throwing him over the side of the cliff. Mr. Thompson reportedly got his gun and shot at the group.

Another incident or perhaps the same one I'm not sure also involves a group of gay men who refused to leave the tubs when asked, this is before the institute existed, when Michael Murphy went to the state police for help the trooper told him, and I'm paraphrasing here from the story Michael told me, "I ain't sending my men down there with all you weirdos. Got any guns?" he said, "no" said Murphy, "Well if you want my advice, get yourself some guns, and run those weirdos out of there." and that's exactly what Murphy did.

Now back to the group I was with, we finally met up again and they asked me if id take them into the canyon, to be their guide. I happily accepted, Cara came too. We took off from the lodge together and I led the group down the newly paved hill next to the laundry room, through the old gate with a rock attached to a metal pully that kept it closed. We stopped a moment on the bridge that took us from one side of the property to the next, which had Tibetan prayer flags strewn across it and was actually quite narrow, with only one guardrail on the eastern side of it.

I've taken people there before since who refused to pass over it, feeling too uncomfortable with it to take the risk. It's not very high, but if you fell I guarantee it would not be a fun experience, even if you somehow managed to avoid all the rocks and hit the water, you'd certainly hit a rock immediately after that as the water pushed you down the river.

After that I took the to the side of the river to show them the pipe systems that draw water directly from the river and feed all of Esalens needs. There is a concrete reseviour system built into the side of the hill which water pools into, then a mesh sifts out any debris and pulls the water into holding tanks, above the property, where they are treated for legal reasons, the minimal level possible so I'm told, and then put into other tanks for distribution through out the entire institute.

One of the things that makes Esalen so special is the amount of fresh spring water that comes out of the ground at all times. If you read the book Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion, you'll find that it says millions of gallons come out of the ground alone daily. But what makes the river water special is that it is some of the cleanest water in California, because there are no farms or industries up river to pollute it.

Anyways, I showed them that and then we continued on the trail, passing the hobbit house to the left, a marvelous little wooden cabin that only the chosen few it calls to it may live in. It says, private residence do not disturb, or something like that, but that doesn't stop people from going in anyways. Like Pippen from lord of the rings, they just can't help but look.

After that we rounded a few corners and I stopped them at the place where Richard Price, the cocreator of the institute, was found dead, supposedly from a fall while hiking, or murdered, depending on who you talk to. Why would anyone want to murder him you ask? Well, the way I heard it, it had something to do with the way Esalen was structured, the age old questions of "who has the power, who controls the way things are run?" As I've said before Esalen is a fascinating place full of wonderful people, but also surrounded by an air of intrigue and avarice. It's a gathering place of very powerful people and organizations, even the CIA and KGB met here to discuss "world peace" during the cold war. It's also a place for people to gather in order to find themselves. And many, are willing to fight in order to keep a part of it for themselves.

While I was explaining all this to the San Franciscans, I noticed that everyone was enraptured by my every word, not just out of scholarly interest but in... more profound ways, something about it made me suspicious, but I said nothing and took them across the fallen tree that brought us to the souther side of the river again. From there we entered the large open area I had first visited on the Solstice, we hung out a short while and they wanted me to lead them further on.

"I'll go with, yeah sure, but this is the furthest I've been, so we'll be discovering it together." I said. "That's fine, lead the way." They said. And so we went 10 minutes or so further until reaching a dead end to the trail following the river, the only way forward was to go up a rather steep and treacherous path that cut back and forth up the hillside. Cara turned to me and said she was rather tired and would rather leave, but the group wanted to continue on. Having led them that far I felt responsible to them but they insisted I go with Cara, so I did.

On the walk back we talked about psychedelics and their roles in our lives, she admitted that she was curious about how they would be for her after a bad trip so many years ago. "Place and Setting, Mind and Being." I told her.

We went to the lodge and wrote out what we want to leave behind in 2018 and what we're embracing for 2019, then shared our results. setting fire to the slips of paper the moment before midnight December 31st 2018.

Later the next day the group returned to me and said they were sorry for how they were acting yesterday, "Yeah I noticed something was off." I said. "yeah... we were all high on acid. I should have told you." I laughed and shook my head, "Yeah that would have been good information to have..." And so it was, one wild year come and gone in the outside world, passing into the next within the bubble within a bubble, within a bubble, that is Esalen. And just like the year before, but even more so, I could have no idea then, what was in store for me there.

P.S. If your interested in more in depth views of Esalen, written by those who lived and worked there, you may find great interest in the following webpage http://www.esaleaks.org/ but you wont find much because the site was mysteriously hacked and shut down.

True Esalen : A Christmas Tale.

Over the Christ mas holy days, many came and went through the halls of Esalen. And as you might imagine more than a few of them were running away from their families specifically because of the traumas manifested throughout their lives on these important days. I remember being in the Lodge many times and hearing guests talk about how much they hated the holidays, thanksgiving and Christmas especially. They would talk about how their families came together every year only to hurt or get back at each other for things that happened the year or many years if not decades before, each one of them stuck in a recurring cycle of pain, and Esalen was their great escape from it all. It was a time I had never seen so many people gather to avoid their pain, instead of celebrating their freedom from it, perhaps they are one and the same. The bar was full of people and the alcohol flowed steadily. Conversations went on in ways I’m sure were the first of their kind, ones never allowed to be expressed while with their families, but were welcomed, desired even by those listening at Esalen.

Christmas is a time of mixed emotions for us all, carrying with it heavy baggage from multiple perspectives. But what is it really about? As with most things it depends on who you ask, and when you ask them. Esalen may be the place where the religion of no religion was coined, but that doesn’t stop people from expressing their views and beliefs while there. Some are very much in love with their Christian faith and share their passions with great love, others abandoned faith long ago, at least where God is concerned, choosing science as their savior and leaving Religion at the door. And too there are the many others who fall in the grey or uncelebrated areas of belief in between. But for me, Christmas is a time of release and renewal, a breaking point from the descent into the depths of shadow, rising again to meet the light.

Throughout my studies of all the major religions I have come to understand the relationships between important religious dates, and the astrological associations they coincide with. A field of study known as astrotheology. Christmas being a prime example of it. You see, the allegory of Christmas, that of Christ dying on the cross and being resurrected three days later, between the 23^rd, 24^th and 25^th coincides with the earths Sun, “dying” meaning it no longer falls in degrees as it arcs through the sky, and on the third day is “resurrected” (starts rising again) and we begin our planetary journey back to spring (rebirth). Out of the stages of winter, (the darkness, death, subconscious, underworld, etc...) There are many scholars I greatly admire who have written extensively on this subject, such as Manly P Hall, Michael Tsarion and Jordan Maxwell, and I highly recommend their work.

At Esalen such deaths and rebirths happen daily, especially for those new to the land, the community, and the institute that Stewarts it. For myself these deaths and rebirths happened most frequently during the first few months there, but all told added up to some of the most profound and transformational experiences of my life. All of which were compounded by the fact that I was constantly surrounded by people sharing such revelations with me.

I remember being in the Big yurt below the Kindergarten (gazeebo school) during an ecstatic dance session a few days before Christmas, the dj asked us to imagine a world awakening to its own light, and to concentrate on that light growing within us and nothing else. To dance with all our might until we could no longer breath. During this exercise I had a mystical experience induced by physical movement and music alone, it was the first time I can remember going to that level of experience without Psychedelics or extreme dehydration and exhaustion mixed with oxygen deprivation, which is what happened the time I had climbed mount Shasta and seen thousands of tents that weren’t really there. During this dancing I remember meeting myself at several levels of awareness, reaching down to my hurt and scared self from a higher plane and pulling that version of me up to meet me in the clouds.

After this experience I walked away from the yurt in a trance, neither in my body nor out of it, but somewhere in between. The people I passed along the trail were like ghosts of myself, wearing the mantle of their lives like clothes I had yet to own, or those I had lost along roads long overgrown. The expressions of their pain and joy, hope and fear, written as swirling hieroglyphs within their auric fields, those usually hidden from sight, but in that moment, plain as day. It was during this release and renewal, the strongest thus far in my Esalen journey, that I was to glimpse the path I had set out to travel. It was there, on that holy land, during those holy days, I would first uncover my religious belief in my own story, and how I might escape it, to live free from those tales rooted in pain and anger…

True Esalen : The Kitchen Crew

No experience can quite match the one we have our first time, regardless of what it is were talking about. Esalen typifies this reality like no other place can. And just like all the other experiences we have that only exist once in a moment of time, never to be relived no matter what we do, we still try. The phrase, "chasing the dragon" comes to mind, not just in its original context, as in trying to get the same high you had your first time doing a drug, but also trying to recreate the magic you felt when first arriving there. I distinctly remember being in a state of constant wonder and bewilderment the first few months I was there. Something that was just as easily seen and understood by the long time staff members, as though it was written on my face like a traffic sign. They would tell me this effect wears off and the True Esalen would reveal itself to me soon enough. Of course I was so under its spell I couldn't believe it, I didn't want to believe it.

One thing however stayed with me through out my entire 15 months at Esalen, and that was the Original Crew that I lived and worked with. To me these people represented the whose who of the Institute, not only because they taught me everything they could about the place and the job, but because they became my family, and like all families there are branches that stem off from the main line closest to your experience. And there are a few branches that tend to stick together, these are the Massage crew, maintenance, house keeping, kitchen, and lastly management, HR being its own universe entirely. For me the main line of the Esalen family was the kitchen staff, because that's where I worked everyday, and was filled with the people I spent the most time with "outside of work" a strange concept considering we live and work on property, a fact made even more complicated considering Esalen is a place for people to face their shadows, drop their baggage and heal, and get naked too. All of these factors made the work/life environment one that is totally unique, not just for the staff, but also the guests we interacted with.

The whole time I was there Michael Larouch was the Executive Chef, he had come to Esalen reluctantly just wanting to do his art and travel, but fate had other plans for him. Through his expert skills and contacts with other highly competent cooks and chefs who he'd worked with before, the Kitchen finally worked through a whole slew of problems that had nearly caused many people to lose their minds. I wont go into specifics, but basically Hells Kitchen would be a light way of putting it. The crew that he brought in was Michael Bonham, a young and passionate chef, who we all called Bonham because there can't be two people with the same name in the kitchen, especially not the two chefs, he loved to make his own beer and pizza too, and everyone loved him for it. Then there was Corey, who is by all intents and purposes straight out of Lord of The rings, he was famous for having second breakfast once a week and playing the lord of the rings soundtrack the whole day. I've never met anyone who so embodied a loving forest dwelling spirit. He loves lord of the rings and lived in one of the most reclusive houses on property, lost in the woods. I owe him a great thanks for his kindness and humor in the face of all the trails and tribulations we faced working together, and for turning me on to the series and other works by Tolkien such as the Silmarillion.

There was Emily who was the kitchen manager I believe, and was always good with asking us what we needed. Sarah who worked tirelessly to make the best deserts and to keep the spirit light when it got heavy, which it did, constantly. Johnny Blunt was one of the guys who I vibed with the most, he could do everything in the kitchen because he had worked there for almost 30 years and was a wealth of knowledge about the history of Esalen. A subject that he brought up almost everyday in the light of, it used to be this way or that. Johnny was fearless in the face of anyone trampling on his home and life's work, of which there were many. He was the source of endless inspiration and boon to me and the other staff members, often leading us in some new exercise or way of having a check in. Plus we would constantly quote star wars together and start screaming like monkeys, something that I'm sure both confused, intrigued and scared those caught unaware of kitchen antics. Edson was probably the youngest person on the crew, a flamboyant man with a flare for laughing out loud and entertaining himself and others with his intricate stories and plans for the future. He had studied with the CIA and no I don't mean the Central Intelligence Agency, I'm talking about the Culinary Institute of America, and like to make many artistic foods.

Gilberto Senior is the master Mariachi player who I spoke of earlier, the one that played me "My way." he along with his son Gil and nephew Aldo trained me on the night crew, which works 4pm to midnight cleaning the whole kitchen top to bottom every night. I fell in love with them first because I only saw the other crew for 2-3 hours before they were off, and we spent long hours cleaning an empty kitchen, with only the blaring radio and our own broken English conversations to keep us company.

Then there is an auxiliary to the kitchen staff known as the juice bar, which almost seemed like the black sheep of the family because there were plenty of territorial fights and struggles for power and privelage that went on between us. Lisa ran the juice bar, a lovely woman who has a heart of gold and worked tirelessly to make it a reality. The people who worked with her was Dominique, a man who basically lived in his Toyota Prius the entire time he worked there and who would become a fixture of the Esalen music scene around the campfire, filling thousands of hearts and minds with his enchanting music. (more on this later) Olivia a tall Amazonian type woman who went by Liv, and had a very strong independent vibe. And Rosemary, a woman with great flare and tact in conversation who only worked a few days a week and actually lived way up north, commuting back and forth each time.

Lastly there was Eddie, a temp night worker the same as me who, despite his wonderful music played around the firepit, was stuck in a negative mind set which bled over to other members of the crew. It was his departure which secured my full time position on the day time kitchen crew and also my first lesson in how precarious and fleeting ones position really was at Esalen. Luckily I was not attached to Eddie, but there would be others let go that I loved dearly and whose departures left definite marks upon me and the other staff members.

These people made up the original Kitchen crew, and although the majority of them would remain, many came and went. Including the Month long students that worked with us everyday, who would also leave. It was a revolving door of souls whose lives we touched and histories we learned. And I don't mean just in passing conversations, for thanks to the policy of "check ins" a process by once a day we stop everything were doing and check in with where we are, what were feeling, hoping, or just thinking in general, we got to know each other in ways I had never before experienced, and I know it was the same for practically everyone there as well. And so you have it, a glimpse into the Esalen Kitchen crew December of 2018, a moment in time I shall cherish forever.

True Esalen: Tragedy and Hope

I entered into the Esalen fold during a very strange time, not only for myself but also for the Big Sur community at large. The Bridge collapse and subsequent Land slide, the largest in use history equaling 6 million cubic yards of material and costing 54 million dollars and a whole year to fix, had devastated Big Sur after a series of fires that had already taken much from the people there. If that wasn't enough Esalen had just renovated its lodge right before it happened, spending around 7 million dollars to complete it. so they spent all that time and money closing Esalen before the bridge collapse and the mud slide, and as soon as they opened the roads were shut down for almost a year. The community was shattered, many people being laid off or leaving and finding lives elsewhere, and Esalen went into a large amount of debt staying afloat. After the roads opened and Esalen started hiring again this is where I come in.

But it wasn't just that series of tragedies which made up the back drop of my arrival. There was a tragic death of one of the beloved staff members which also filled the air in a heavy aura of grief. I remember walking past the gardens and seeing a wake for the woman that had died. I didn't know what was going on and moved to observe, but my friend B shot me a glance, one that made very clear this was a private affair, so I nodded to him and kept walking on in respect.

Esalen is no stranger to Tragedy, this I would learn soon enough in my own experiences there, but also from the many stories I would hear from new friends that had lived and worked there many years. One of my friends told me of the four suicides he knew of that had taken place in its history, some of which quite tragic, even for such an already terrible occurrence.

The paradoxical thing about Esalen is that the same energy and freedom it brings to people, allowing them to feel and experience ways of being they had long been denied, also brought them terrible grief and anxiety about the lives they would soon return to. I saw it many times, heard and felt it in their voices and body language. They had found something primal and pure within Esalen's "container" the word used by the institute to describe the safe place that the land and its community represented, and tried hard to nurture. But once the newcomers had found this peace, and tasted its forbidden fruit, the reality of having to leave quickly knocked the wind out of their sails, sending them adrift at sea. Many of the suicides I imagine had much to do with this same facet of Esalen. One of the phrases I heard once from my friend Diem, was that Esalen was like mount Olympus, a place to have all of your desires fulfilled, but just like Prometheus, who dared to share the secret of knowledge (the fire of the Gods) with the other humans, both he and the other people who taste the fruit, are cast out into the wilds of societies from which they came.

Now, the truth is Esalen has gone through many different incarnations, and the idea of there being an Esalen tribe different than the original Indians for which the Institute is named, or group of people consisting of certain energies, which was often spoken of by the staff and guests, lives on in strange ways that must be recognized for the level of complexity involved, for not only is it cast in a positive light, but also an extremely negative one, considering the terrible history of colonialism and the systematic extermination of the Indians by all the forces of empire and corporate greed coming from the rest of the world.

In California's case especially since the gold rush made the hunting down and scalping of Indians a State policy, in which the government paid people $5 for each native Indian scalp. To put this terrible crime in perspective, one must realize that the average pay at this time was in the cents per hour for grueling work, and given that the white settlers had long since completely dehumanized the native people, murdering them for what was then huge sums of money, was far preferable than tedious, hard work. This holocaust was made an even greater tragedy given that the Federal government repaid the state of California in 1950, for every bounty it paid out for hunting down the native people.

These aspects as well as others make up the many tragedies of Esalen, but whats important to understand is these tragedies mostly come from wonderful and freeing experiences felt on the land once managed by the Esselen tribe, who had imparted upon the land extraordinary healing powers, and for the vast majority of people brings alive in them the powers to continue to grow and change themselves and thus the world for the better. This happened for me and for so many of the people I met there. The fascinating thing about places of great transformational energy like Esalen, is that it attracts people of like spirit from all over the globe. Whether they are already well tuned to such energies or need time to calibrate themselves to it, as in my case, makes little difference, we are all attracted to these places, and those who have committed themselves to the path of healing, find themselves there more often than not.

In the face of such Tragedy and Hope flowing in and out and all around the Esalen Institute, I find that regardless of what the institute becomes moving forward, as long as there are people on the land who hold the sacred relationship with the land, and with the divine, there will be plenty of energy to transform the people who are drawn there from all walks of life, from every corner of the planet. I only hope that people will continue to bare the sacred flame, and commit themselves to it no matter the cost.

True Esalen : What was it Really like?

Yes D, tell us, what "really" happens at Esalen? You'd be surprised how often I got this question, both from those who came to visit and those who had dreamed about it for ages but never got the chance, or had the resources to make it here. Being someone with a flare for the dramatic, my answer is usually one shrouded in mystery, in half answers, or most commonly, with a question of my own. "What do you think it's really like?" was one of my favorite responses. More often than not this would reveal much of their preconceived notions, a fascinating study in and of itself. But no matter how many different answers I got, it seemed to me that there we're bits and pieces of my own experience found within them.

Early on in my experience I found that the underlying mythos of Esalen was freedom of expression, and the ability to drop the façade of society to be what we truly are, divine beings, on a divine world, this I was to experience for myself, on the day I met people for the first time out at the cliffs edge, eating my breakfast, when a family of people eating beside me started talking about things I was interested in, and feeling a good vibe all around I jumped into the conversation. We immediately got along and they invited me for a hike through the canyon that splits the Esalen grounds into two parts.

We hiked in for about 20 minutes and stopped in a large open grove beside the river. Little did I know it was actually the solstice, or would be in only a few short minutes. The family and I huddled together on a mound, our heads all touching, and prayed together, looking up into the sun in the exact moment of the solstice, and embracing once more. The next thing I knew we were all naked, bathing in a small waterfall of the river. All this and with people I had only met an hour ago! I titled this moment Solstice Surrender in my journal, and for me it typifies much of my Esalen Experience. An almost seamless stream of surrender to the moment, to new and unknown things. I suppose If I boiled it all down that would be the best way to answer people when the ask what it was really like there, but even if I had the perfect words to explain, they would be hallow to those who had never experienced it, so why try? It's just something you had to have experienced on your own.

The very act of explaining my experience to guests often brought it to life in them. My solstice experience is a perfect example, for the next day I went to JJ's dance awake class and started up a conversation with a girl who was there for the month long student program. She was curious about what I had done for Solstice and I told her about the people I had met and how we went naked into the freezing cold river. She loved the idea and asked If I would show her the place. I did and we ended up reliving the experience on our own. It's almost like there is a doubling effect for every person that comes to Esalen in search of new and profound releases from the ways they had lived before. They come with an expectation somewhat rooted in the stories they hear and are eager to have them too. For people like me who enjoy guiding people its a natural progression. After we returned to the lodge she took her other friends there the next day, and so it goes, day after day, year after year.

But it's not just the everyday experiences available to the guests that people are curious about, many if not most want to know what its like to live and work at Esalen. This, much like the first answer, is not something one can explain without having lived it yourself. But a good example of what it was like living and working at Esalen is the following tale.

During my first few months working the night shift in the kitchen, I got to know the Mexican night crew who trained me, showed me the ropes. They were dedicated, highly skilled men who loved to sing as they worked, always telling jokes and showing me pictures of their families and friends, of their lives away from work. The oldest among them was the father and uncle to the two youngest, he was very open and loving, so gracious and kind. Going out of his way to offer you food and comfort. After a short time I found out he had been in a mariachi band for over 20 years, playing all over Monterey county, and even having several of his own records, one of which had Big Sur in the title, but I forget the specifics. He loved to play guitar on his off hours, coming to the fireplace outside the lodge and singing Mexican songs while playing them on the guitar. He looked very much like my father, and I took a liking to him quickly. The memory I will never forget is when he brought me into the office at midnight, when our shift had ended, and he played me, "My way." By Frank Sinatra, in his broken English. I was actually in tears, much in part because he reminded me so much of my deceased father, but also because it anchored me into the new reality I had been spirited away to from the hell I had created for myself. Apparently redemption is a thing.

These two stories as well as many more make up the intricate web of experiences that both the guests and the staff have access to. Of course there are many tiers of influence, ranging from the lowest day pass guests, to the week longers and then the month long resident students. After that you get into murky waters taking into consideration the almost if not actual religious adoration and following that many of the workshop teachers have, some of which have been having classes at Esalen for decades and have long standing relationships with the staff, enjoying access to what I was eventually told were, the hidden perks of the Esalen old guard.

You see Esalen is a very complicated situation, not just in its history but also in its organizational and financial structure. If I were in possession of facts instead of a literal plethora of rumors and slanders I would be more apt to speak on the subject. Needless to say there are, or were, many embattled groups within the Hierarchy, the three main factions, going from bottom to top are, 1: The regular staff and the guests, which can be anything from a year long employee, to work study individuals who attend so often they are practically staff. 2: The old guard, those who have lived and breathed Esalen for decades. and are the most radical as well as the most True to the old ways of Esalen, those now nearly extinct to do a variety of factors, not the least of which is the near bankruptcy of the institute. and 3: The General Manager and the Board those who reign supreme over everyone below them. There are two more groups worth mentioning, which is 4: Human Resources, the enforcement arm of the institute, not exactly everyone's favorite no matter which company your working in, but in a place like Esalen where the rules are so wildly different than anywhere else on Earth, its impossible to manage without hurt feelings and bitterness, and 5: the money donors, the story goes they cannot gain any favors from the institute no matter how much money they give, I'm in no position to confirm or deny the validity of that though.

All in all the list of experiences each member of the Esalen family could share would take up endless volumes, having a thrill for every kind of person, many of which would be beyond belief, for I can hardly believe my own. As for me I will endeavor to share some of the experiences I had while living and working at Esalen, something I felt I could not do while there, but now, after almost a year after my last day in that magical land, I feel called to share. I hope you are as excited to hear it, as I am to write it.

Chapter 2 : Identity Crisis - Fear and Love at the Forge of Fate.

“I know who I am, I’m a dude playing a dude pretending to be a dude.” Kirk Lazarus, Tropic ThunderBefore I arrived at Esalen I was a different person than the one I took possession of upon arrival, Daniel Maddox became Sunlaw D, and all the things that defined Daniel during the last few years died with his name, or at least that’s what I hoped to accomplish long enough to gain some clarity and perspective on my life and the world I lived with day to day.Daniel had become a fanatical anti-establishment anarchist whose aims were awakening people with knowledge he had gathered from an eclectic array of sources in books, personal experiences and of course the ever convoluted web of data we call the internet.Of course I couldn’t simply share these sources of data In hopes that others would dig through them in the same way I had, no, my principle methodology was that of terrorizing and dominating others anyway I could. Living in terror every day for many years can twist the fabric of our being in ways few other circumstances can bring about, I was no different, and many suffered because of it.That Daniel still lives within me now, but the force of fear that created him is but a whisper now, overshadowed by the Love flowing through me, the Love that took the efforts of so many hearts of gold and the agonizing moments of strenuous conversation with them to nourish it within me.It’s not a stretch to say almost everyone gets attached to and identifies heavily with an idea, object or circumstance, but what does one do when they’ve moved on in life from something that, “once was they’re life,” something they felt so totally committed to at one point that it seemed there was no turning back, but then something changed, something so big it altered the way they thought, felt and acted in the world?The things that drive us as individuals and even as a collective, often require us to mold ourselves into patterns that will effectively meet those drives for use in the real world, these patterns of behavior become the personality or character we put on, like a tuxedo at a wedding, or a spacesuit for a high orbit flight in order to complete the tasks we set out to accomplish. They are modes of being set apart from our core selves, like the many settings of a garden hose spray gun, each one a limitation and modification of the pure unhindered water flowing behind it.While in the pure soul consciousness there is no need for modification of self and we exist as a totality free from any notion of separateness. While in the physical domain the need for modification and taking up of character/s can be high, some excel at this, others not so much, and it is the ability or lack thereof, coupled with the circumstances of our daily lives, that make up the meat of what we call our lives.My life has been filled with an array of characters, not only those whom I’ve met along the way but also those characters I’ve taken on for myself when I found my own personality lacking in certain qualities and traits needed to fill the gaps of my knowledge, ability and completeness as a responsible being. These characters also served as the means by which I avoided the pains of childhood and navigated life with to suit my own ends. You could say each personality was unique and thus real, but in effect they were only facades to cover up my own fear.In the beginning of my stay here it took nearly every bit of my will power to be able to exist in harmony at Esalen without going back to the Daniel of old, there was not a day that went by where I was within earshot of conversations concerning things I would have interjected myself into and taken over with raw determination and absolute conviction, seeking only to dominate all aspects of the conversation in my favor. I had every intention of shaming, dominating and humiliating others into “seeing things my way” after all it was for their own good, and the ends (saving the planet and the human species) always justified the means.I had become the fanatic that I was through a variety of means, first, it was already a part of my nature, or at least the part of my pain protection mechanisms left over from my own families near total lack of communication skills and the drama plays we each employed to deal with that dysfunction.Second, I listened to one fringe source after the next day after day for years on end, such as the transhumanist Ray Kurzweil (who believes humanities only chance for survival is to merge with machines and upload our consciousnesses into the AI hive mind and live forever, who now works for Google I might add)Radical radio hosts such as Alex Jones (whose had Trump on his show before and after the election and claims he got him elected, is most infamous for his epic out of control rants and denouncing 9/11 and most of the mass shootings in the USA and around the world as nothing but False Flags “false narratives, created events” to steer the general consciousness of the populace into fear and thus willing to abandon their rights to the government and thus the dark forces who created the attacks can mold society to their needs, which is that of total global hegemony, a global super state, and the end of Freedom for the masses)Mark Passio (a former priest in the Church of Satan who is now an anarchist “An = without arch = ruler, = no rulers and no slaves” and Natural Law (Golden rule, gravity, cause and effect) advocate whose message boils down to Government is Slavery) and many others whose radicalism is well known to the general public and even coveted by their own followers, including me at the time.Through each intense experience of devoting myself to these cults of personalities I learned a great deal about the dark side of our world, but no matter what I learned it brought me no closer to understanding myself or to reaching others in any meaningful way and all I gained was a great darkness within me that I could do nothing but share with others, spreading it like wildfire to all I encountered. I remember so many moments with family and friends, the most uncomfortable kind, where tears filled the faces of those I loved, and all I could see was cowardice in them, I felt nothing, or so I let myself believe, of course I felt the weight of my actions bringing down everyone around me, but in that state of being all I could do was lash out at a world I had grown to hate and loath, I had become the very instrument of destruction I had sworn to defend the world against.All of this madness culminated in the dropping out of society completely, abandoning a beer business I had started with a childhood friend, refusing to pay taxes, emptying and closing bank accounts, quitting social media, throwing away friendships and preparing for the end times, rifle and rations at the ready.This was a short lived but altogether meaningful experience for me that brought me once more to the doorstep of fate, falling in love with a Goddess and her son who loved me for who I was at the soul level, and not the character I wore like a suit of thorned armor to protect me and attack others. That beautiful relationship has continued to this day but has ended and began anew like the mythical phoenix from its own ashes a few times already, for I was far from cured of my madness upon meeting them, and have further still to go.It was those moments of breaking away from them that I found myself on the Run For Salmon in 2018, walking, running, boating, cycling, horseback riding and canoeing all the way from Oakland to Shasta mountain, it is a ceremonial and political activist movement to restore the salmon population in the Shasta river by creating a ladder for them to ascend the Shasta dam and thus spawn there as they have for millennia, or at least did before the dam went up.On this journey I learned many valuable lessons but the most important of all was when I was kicked off the run by the Native leader who I had spent the most time with and gotten closest with. He did so because during the last days of the journey I was sitting at the campfire with the group explaining how the Dark occult (Those who hide knowledge and mislead others for their own gain, ie luceferians and Satanists) use numbers and symbol to do their work on the masses.I went into Satanism and its role in this agenda and the native leader came to the fire at this moment, asked me what purpose it served for the Salmon run, wanted me to stop, but I didn’t. He then circled the whole camp chanting and cleansing the area. While I was sleeping a group of men came into camp with swastikas on their heads and stole some things from the group.The next day, just before getting on the boat to finish the run, I was pulled aside by two white helpers and escorted back to my car, I was told that the elders agreed I was a bad influence and must leave. In total shock, and heartbroken for the first time in a long time, I could barely utter the only words I said to them before leaving, “Blessings” I got out of the car and drove away.My sister Michelle called me soon after to see if I was ok, apparently the helpers were quite worried about me since I had only said one word and left, I was not the first to be booted from the run, and others had taken to violence in response. I told her I was ok and just needed time to think.I returned to some of the places we camped on the run and sat for a good while staring into the river, thinking about all that had happened, and everything I had intended, but failed to accomplish as usual via my own radical energies and lack of Love and healthy connection to myself.Soon after the Run for Salmon I was asked If I would be willing to assist a family friend’s business partner transition from life to death, as he was dying of diabetes and had no one else to look after him I spent three weeks with him as a hospice care giver. Through this experience I was able to break free of my self-imposed exile from society, and once Henry passed on I was offered a Temporary full time position to cover one of the night time dishwashers at Esalen over the course of 30 days. It took all but 3 seconds for me to accept the offer, even though I thought, rather naively that it could somehow be an untaxed job, I found out it was taxed and accepted it anyways. I had reached the point of surrender to the new life I was to live and the synchronicities that had lead me to this point, all signs led to Esalen, it was there I was to find the just how deep my own identity crisis was, and also the means to overcome them.   

TRUE ESALEN WEEK 8 - The Enigma

Long ago, well before my descent into despair and depression that marked over 7 years of my life, I saw myself as the mystic teacher of the world, and I acted out that role in a varity of ways for many years, pulling in seekers with my enigmatic magnetism and overactive charm, taking them under my wing and doing what I could to reach passed their inhibitions to the heart of those things troubling them most.This was a doomed effort on my part of course, I could'nt hope to heal anyone while still being so broken myself, but at the time I didnt see myself as broken, quite the opposite in fact, for I was "perfect" better than everyone, and the only one capable of leading humanity out of its wickedness and into the light of "my reason." This should sound pretty familiar, It sounds like I thought I was God, doesn't it? Or the victim of a messiah complex at any rate.This point of view afforded me success in many of the trials and tribulations of childhood. Usually these endeavors, however folly, taught me the value of tenatious and unyielding confidence, but it always came at a price, one I paid but couldn't allow myself to see for what it was.Its a tremendous feeling to be so filled with confidence that you can convince yourself you're the center of the universe, people are drawn to such charisma like moths to the flame, a fitting analogy in many ways, not just for me but for all would be gurus or teachers, ego driven or otherwise.You are always a beacon of light for those in darkness, if you're light is filled with love and care, it cannot so easily burn those following you, but if you're heart is filled with hatred, fear, ego and lust, the light you emit is a poisonous flame, that will inevitably bring further pain and darkess to all about you.My time here at Esalen has brought me closer than I've ever been to a position one might call teacher, or guru, and yet now that It's happening at such a scale and intensity I'm almost afraid to engage in it, my past is behind me, but its shadows still comfort the part of me that yearns for self importance and recognition.I must remember that Im here to serve, not be the focus of the service. In this way, the highest virtues are made manifest and love pours forth easily and without resistence. Towards this end I practice detachment, present awareness and vibrant smiles.

TRUE ESALEN - WEEK 5 - VUJA DE

D, you skipped a week, what happened? Um, Staff Week happened, and as usual, that which happens outside of the public eye, stays out of the public eye, and I shall honor that tradition. Suffice it to say, the accumulated stress of a chaotic years work for the Esalen crew was released, relieved and exorcised in various ways, friendships and working relationships were forged and or strengthened, beef was squashed and minds temporarily lost in the process. I enjoyed myself very much and learned who was who in the company, who was where, and for some, why they were who they were. Staff week is a very special time for the Esalen employees, having only worked here a few weeks and still being in the honeymoon phase, I can hardly imagine just how special, and how needed of a release it is for the veterans among us. Seeing as I plan on spending at least a year here, I can look forward to understanding that need better upon my next Staff Week.Now that we’ve covered the missing week, I’d like to talk about an experience I’ve had ever since I first set foot on Esalen as a member of its crew. At some point in our lives we get the feeling that we've been where we’re at before, done exactly what we’re doing at that moment in a dream or in another dimension. We know this phenomenon as Deja Vu, but that fancy name doesn't answer the big questions that go along with it, such as where do these thoughts come from, How do we make sense of simultaneously remembering and experiencing the same thing happening in the now?I could list off a number of theories, but I won't because that's not what I'm talking about here. What I'm talking about is Vuja De, the intense feeling that you've definitely never been to or done what you're doing, but is exactly where you are supposed to be. The sensation is just like it's much more famous cousin, but more rare, because people are far less likely to know they are in the right place, doing exactly what they should be doing, than they are capable of remembering their futures via the usual astral projection done during sleep. It sounds crazy, because it is, but I remember a ton of people talking about Deja Vu moments but hardly if ever talking about the same feeling associated with where they should be but never were before.Some kinds of Deja Vu aren't at all pleasant, just the other day during my 6am dish washing shift, the OG kitchen hand Eric, who has been at Esalen much longer than me and knows the job so well he can do it blindfolded said, rather lamentingly, that no matter what day it was, or what he's doing is in the kitchen, its Déjà vu six ways to Monday, “The dishes are endless bro, fucking endless. Soon as you think you’re done, you go take a piss, and when you come back it’s another heap of dirty dishes staring you down with more coming in, 900 plates of food a day man! You learn to be Zen real quick in the pong bro, that or you don’t make it”Eric’s words were prolific, my first two weeks here I was one of two temporary full time shoe inns, the other guy just couldn’t hang, pond had him surrounded on all sides by his insecurities and negative self-talk, he was gone before anyone got to know him, not that anyone really wanted to, sadly. Esalen is a wondrous place, but it’s a cruel mistress to those that have yet to fully commit to their shadows and to serve the light, especially when you’re trying to work here, being a student is one thing, but living and working here is another bag of marbles entirely. The Kitchen is ground zero for the whole community and if you’re not jiving with the rest of the crew in the pond, then you get axed and that’s a wrap for your Esalen journey. Call it harsh, yeah, but that’s the way of things here, and personally I think it serves a greater purpose than just keeping people fed.You might be wondering why they call my part of the kitchen the pond, well I can tell you it’s not just for shits and giggles, or because were getting wet most of the day, or even because there are over 20 rubber ducky’s of unique design there with which we can choose to represent ourselves while we work, no, they call it the pond, and we, the ducks who work in it, because some lost soul who had an epiphany a few years back while doing the dishes received instructions from on high and wrote up a manifesto, laying out the whole great mission of the pond and its ducklings. Being the inspired piece that it was, it came with its own gave bad ass acronym as well, “Dishwashers United Cleansing Karma Syndicate.”Pretty cool huh? You should see this manifesto too, it’s a real piece of work, it would even give Karl Marx a run for his daily government dole. Here at Esalen we may work like socialists, for the good of the community and all, but we get paid in more than just monopoly money (federal reserve notes), we get karma cleansing tokens from the beyond, staking racks in our astral bank accounts for use in later experiences in the timeless continuum, and that kind of reward is worth more than you can know.#Esalen #BigSur #spiritpath #VujaDe