As we approach the end of another transformative year, we reflect on a remarkable journey with you. 2023 was a year steeped in unity here at Esalen. We launched several campus-wide programs that are returning in 2024. Stay tuned for the opportunity to register for Come Together, Altered States, and our seasonal series, Summer Groove. Until then, sign up for the upcoming winterized Go Within. 

These annual festivals are designed to rekindle the spirit of Esalen's mission — to sponsor pioneering initiatives and offer personal, spiritual, and socially transformative programming — aiming then to reflect the soul of Esalen’s vision: to be a major catalyst in the transformation of humankind — integrating body, mind, heart, spirit, and community. 

Speaking of community, on November 13, 2023, Esalen Institute hosted a Yenep ceremony honoring the Esselen Tribe of Monterey County and the ongoing co-stewardship of the land the Institute resides on. This gathering revisited last year’s land acknowledgement ceremony, sage planting, and traditional dinner shared between communities. 

2024 already holds great promise for continuing to build partnerships and community. The LA-based program Spirit Awakening, led by Akuyoe Graham, is slated to return with a cohort of 12 teens this summer. The students will spend a week here and immersed in the embrace of Mother Nature. Learn a little about the program from our Farm & Garden Growth! video.

In the meantime, join us in pursuing a brighter future as we continue our mission-driven commitment to seeking collective potential. Together, we write the next chapter of this inspiring journey.

Do you know about Esalen’s historic and geopolitical connection to peace building through backchannel diplomacy between the Soviet Union and the United States? That today's work is deeply committed to peace for Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Gaza, China and the Pacific Rim? 

In 1980, a diverse group of concerned American leaders convened at Esalen Institute to address an impasse reached in Soviet-American relations. Those gathered agreed that action — beyond traditional diplomatic efforts — must be taken to transform the strained relationship. In the years since, Track Two: An Institute for Citizen Diplomacy helped to improve the relationship by convening influencers from both countries in immersive workshops and conferences to stimulate discussions, forge relationships, and activate networks. These networks have established formal partnerships in healthcare, peacebuilding, space exploration, literature, journalism, and the visual and performing arts. 

Through Track Two, Esalen has provided its remote location as a gentle, non-political space for what the LA Times dubbed “hot tub diplomacy” — to foster dialog between political adversaries in a setting outside of rigid and limiting government structures.

Track Two’s work continues, opening new channels of diplomacy for Russia and Ukraine. Check out their new page within the Esalen site.

The profound reality that we are more than our physical body, that we hold an energy that might survive bodily death, is the kind of thinking that sparked a 1950s-era Michael Murphy and inspired him to found Esalen with Dick Price. He envisioned his family property in Big Sur as a laboratory for asking big questions and incubating bigger ideas. 

At the tender age of 93, Michael is bringing this still uncharted frontier to the forefront through Esalen’s Center for Theory & Research — an enormous and life-fulfilling chapter to which his energy is greatly devoted to. Check out this essay penned by scholar and kung fu master, Simon Cox about the phenomena of subtle bodies with an introduction from Michael himself.

As the 2023 year comes to an end, we appeal to your generosity for the new year and thank you for your gifts this past year. One of the most impactful ways your giving reverberates is through scholarship. Your generosity has contributed to a scholarship fund that doubled this year and has provided an additional 50 scholarships, so do apply or donate! Your individual impact has rippling effects! Exploration of one’s human potential should be a pursuit accessible to humans of all economic and cultural backgrounds and identifications. We invite you to meet some recipients of our scholarship program on our new page of testimonials.

The holiday season is marked by generosity and gratitude. With mindful intention, we selected ten items from the bookstore to support your fluency in gift giving. Embrace community with fellow dreamers and seekers through thoughtful presents that embody the spirit of Esalen.

You may have noticed some new art hanging around the bar, Lodge, and bookstore. We feature a different artist each quarter. Meet poet, artist, printer, weaver, and community educator Melody Joy Overstreet and artist and craftsman Vince James Waring. Melody’s current work is a collection of place-based poems and gestural ink washes that explore themes of memory, being, reciprocity, and place. Vincent’s charcoal and cyanotype pieces reflect his interest in the ecology of wild and intentional spaces, explored through imagery reflecting parts of the whole. He uses a variety of mediums, including printmaking, painting, and drawing. Their work is on display at Esalen and for sale from November 1 to January 31.

Holotropic Breathwork made a significant return to Esalen through faculty such as Stacia Butterfield, a former student of Stan Grof, and transpersonal breathwork practitioners Mac Murphy, Ellen Watson, and Perry Holloman. This return to consciousness-altering breathwork was captured in podcast form during season two of Audible’s Maejor Frequency. 2023 was also a banner year for the Voices of Esalen podcast. Host Sam Stern reports that the 8-year-old show hit one million downloads early this fall, so thank you always for tuning in.

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This longtime Esalen student and teacher remembers the Esalen of the early ’80s and discovering her spiritual practice, Gestalt therapy, through co-founder Dick Price. Dorothy speaks of staying open to possibility, working with adults and the children of Gazebo, and the innate wisdom we all hold inside: “Dick always said, ‘Trust process, allow process, and get out of the way.’”

Perry and Johanna Holloman, intimate partners and friends for over three decades, open up about their current state of being and what it’s like to teach at "the most beautiful retreat center on earth." In anticipation of their upcoming workshop, we asked the pair to share a few thoughts on love, work, life, and fictional heroes. 

Soon after starting work at Esalen, Mary O'Brien immersed herself entirely in the magic on campus — and as a guest. "I took my professional 'hat' off," she says. Two classes in ten days helped the director of development shed "decades of emotional detritus in a pile of tear-filled tissues and lightened [me] up tremendously!"

As the year closes and we take some time to consider all that has passed, we also imagine what can come next — all there is to learn, to understand, and to become. To offer guidance, new passions, and hopes, we’re turning to new works from six brilliant Esalen faculty, each with a valuable gift to share.

I came back with a deeper sense of self and confidence in who I am and knowing that there was no mistake in that … it was a really transformative experience.

—Woodrow C., an Esalen workshop attendee and scholarship recipient.

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