Kicking Off the 50th Anniversary Season at Esalen at the November 11-13 Benefit Event
Esalen President Gordon Wheeler's Blog
October, 2011
As Esalen rounds out our fifth decade of pioneering workshops, training programs, and other initiatives and heads into our yea-rlong 50th Anniversary events, we're also marking the 10th anniversary of our annual fall Benefit Weekend. This celebration - November 11-1, 2011 - is a time each year when Esalen's supporters gather, reflect, and exchange views "up close and personal" with a star lineup of provocative and inspiring cultural leaders.
This year's lineup includes environmental leader Van Jones, visionary physician and writer Abraham Verghese, women's leadership maven Maddy Dychtwald, bestselling novelist and memoirist Dani Shapiro, and much more - all of them offering their leadership contributions pro bono in support of this magic place and its transformational mission of healing and cultural change. Topping off the lineup as always will be Esalen's legendary co-founder Michael Murphy and our presiding host, internationally known "Agewave" pioneer, author, and speaker Ken Dychtwald.
This remarkable convocation of pioneering thinkers and artists also marks the kickoff of our 50th Anniversary season, celebrating a half century of the adventure that is Esalen. And what a half century it has been! We've witnessed such evolutions in every field of study.
- From the first experiments in East-West citizen diplomacy back in the Cold War to today's world of cross-cultural networking and "NGO's";
- From early forays into experiential education and life-long learning to hands-on trainings in Integral Leadership for tomorrow's world;
- From "personal growth" (a brand-new concept in 1962) to an integrated mission of personal and social transformation;
- From early mind-body research to the current revolution in neuroscience and Interpersonal Neurobiology;
- From explorations of east/ west and indigenous spiritual traditions to integrated spiritual practices with education, psychotherapy, and social action;
- and so much more!
Over and over, a cross-disciplinary conversation first sparked, nurtured and applied at Esalen has evolved into new methods, changed our consciousness and gone out to change our culture.
These ideas and methodologies and others like them have produced the toolbox we use to negotiate today's world of unprecedented complexity and change - and tomorrow's world of challenge and opportunity. Each workshop, each internship program and research or social initiative at Esalen is meant as an exploration of these new connective practices in the world around us. We find adventures, opportunities for healing or an expansion of the world within us and between us. We connect hearts with minds, our spirits with bodies, our own experience with the relationships and opportunities for learning and service all around us. In the end, that is the evergreen message of Esalen: that our "inner" and "outer" worlds, our personal and our social transformation, are two sides of the same coin, and cannot be meaningfully separated.
This November, going into our 50th Anniversary season, we honor and celebrate this magical, legendary tradition - our shining legacy and our ever-expanding future together. Adventure, healing, and the tools for transformational change, in our lives and in our worlds: that's Esalen.
Join us in celebration, inspiration, and exchange with these amazing thought leaders, in the intimate, conversational format you expect at Esalen - and also with each other, our remarkable supporters who are drawn again and again to the experiences, the presenters, and the healing environment that we find together here.
Stimulation, restoration, and new learnings, here in one of the most breathtaking and at the same time nurturant environments in the world. As I travel around the world, speaking and presenting for Esalen and sharing our transformational message, people on every continent tell me again and again that they hold Esalen in their hearts as a talisman, that they look to Esalen as a beacon in troubling times, or that they regard this enchanted coast as their "spiritual home." If you've been here, you'll know why. If you haven't been to Esalen yet, come find out what the energy and the healing of this blessed place is all about.
Be with us at Esalen this month, be part of the conversation, and then take the experience out with you as a change leader in your own life and world. There are still a few places left for our upcoming gathering on that auspicious "day of peace," 11/11. See you soon at Esalen!
Gordon Wheeler, President