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: 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.