Looking Back, Looking Forward, Looking Out - Esalen Turning 50!
Esalen President Gordon Wheeler's Blog
June, 2011
Still back and forth on rounds of Institute-related travel, and everywhere I go, people have stories they want to share about their time at Esalen. Here's one reaching back almost 50 years to Esalen's earliest years, which were also Fritz Perls's legendary years of magic and showmanship at Esalen - a potent combination which played a large role in putting both Esalen and Gestalt Psychology at the center of the new-culture map of the 60's and beyond. The occasion of this trip was the memorial service of a longtime mentor of mine and a dear friend, Edwin Nevis - who also served as a key Esalen partner/pioneer in taking holistic and human potential psychology beyond the bounds of the "new age," and into corporations and communities and other organizations around the country and around the world.
This story comes from Edwin's widow and partner for over 60 years, Sonia March Nevis, a grateful student of Fritz's as Edwin was, and herself the most important pioneer in taking the Gestalt model of full human development into the world of couples and families. The year was 1965, and Fritz was in his glory, leading groups at Esalen mornings and late afternoons with the best and the brightest of the young leaders of the day, from academia, from the corporate world, and from other fields only then beginning to be defined (we'd call many of them NGO's or social entrepreneurship today). The work was going brilliantly; the only trouble was, what to do with the partners of the young leaders, who were here in residence as well, but had no program to go to (and by "partners," remember that this meant almost exclusively "wives," as today's followers of "Mad Men" and other tales of those times well know - as do those of us who were there!).
So Fritz decided to bring Sonia out from Cleveland, to work with the wives - which she did, having a great and lively time at one of her favorite activities, which was building up and empowering a generation of women and giving them the tools to come into their own - as they were just then on the verge of doing. Even by 1965, Sonia had seen far too much of the "me, myself, and I" brand of "liberation" psychology of the day, which skipped over the crucial context of relationship, sharing, commitment and meaning - and left a trail of damaged marriages, children, and supposedly "liberated" partners themselves (who often woke up depressed and lonely, a common hangover of those times). Not surprisingly, it wasn't long at all till both groups - Fritz's trainees and their partners - began to ask for an additional afternoon couple's group, to share and process what they were all learning, and put those learnings to work, in the vastly more challenging (and rewarding) task of building a satisfying social system (eg, a marriage) that has room for more than one person in it!
Of course it wasn't long either till Fritz got wind of what was up. Gestalt work with couples, he asked, rather suspiciously? Never heard of it. Must come over one afternoon and see how it goes. It seems he said something like this to Sonia at regular intervals, all through that long summer program, day after day. "And you know what?" Sonia's eyes twinkle, telling this. "The whole summer passed, and he never came."
Instead, Fritz brought in George Brown from UCSB, another key Gestalt pioneer and Esalen partner over many years. "Fritz brought in George to work with the same partners," Sonia goes on, "you know, to cause trouble between us." And what did you do, I asked? "Oh, George and I just split the groups, and traded back and forth, and had a great time all summer," Sonia laughed it off. "That was just Fritz, stirring things up."
Fritz Perls left an indelible mark on Esalen - and on the culture at large. But in the end, Esalen was larger than Fritz - larger indeed than any single one of the constant stream of pioneers and cultural creators who have come through and partnered in shaping Esalen and our legacy, have been shaped by Esalen in their turn, then taking the new creation out to the larger world. Frustrated in his desire to dedicate the whole campus to his one-person-at-a-time brand of liberating work, Fritz soon moved on, opening his own center in Canada in his late 70's, only to die shortly thereafter (remember, late 70's was old, just half a century ago!)
George Brown then went on to found the "Confluent Education" movement, at UCSB and behone, influencing several generations of educators and the education field at large - with the support of an Esalen Ford Foundation Grant -- to include emotional development and emotional factors in learning and holistic child development. This work has since entered the mainstream to influence cognitive and learning psychology down through Damasio and others, as well as the work of pioneering applied neuroscientists like Allan Schor and Dan Siegel (who presents at Esalen today). At 85, Sonia Nevis continues train practitioners widely today in using the Gestalt model with family and other small systems - work which she has developed over the years along with a number of other Esalen faculty, and other colleagues. Edwin Nevis was the pioneering voice in creating the whole field of Gestalt-based coaching and organizational consulting, which is the fastest-growing wing of Gestalt work in the US today (in these days of waning payment support for individual/clinical work, which continues to lead Gestalt growth in other countries worldwide).
And so the work goes out - and out, and out, and out. Today I have an email from a young man from The Relational Center, an active Esalen partner in Los Angeles, taking integral human development work into some of the most marginalized, most underserved populations of Los Angeles County, offering no-fee social and psychological services to over 5000 clients a month, and training many scores of others, to take the work even further. Just back from a workshop at Esalen in NonViolent Communications, he writes (following community service hours in the Esalen kitchen):
"It was a great workshop. But even more exciting, and what I did not expect-- is the Esalen community. It is so interesting how gestalt and other practices are integrated into the work environment and community at large. I am so excited to experiment with how gestalt can be integrated into community organizing practices... Being at Esalen was very helpful in thinking through some of this stuff, and seeing some experimentation in how it works in an entire community, and work-- not just in support or process groups. But I feel called to bring some of these practices to impoverished and low resourced communities. Thanks for the opportunity."
No need to say that this is the kind of message that keeps us going, and shows every staff member, every intern, every donor and teacher and volunteer at Esalen the reason for all we are laboring to do.
And now we're turning 50 (which strikes me as a young, vibrant age, from my vantage point at the far side of 60, in a time now when 50-year-olds can fairly consider themselves at the midpoint of their lifespan - and not even yet the midpoint of their creative working lives of contribution and service!
What does it mean for all of us in the worldwide Esalen family, to enter our second half century next year, and celebrate the amazing achievements that have rippled out from this one small creative node over the past 50 years, into the wider world and back again, then out once more and beyond, over and over again? What is our legacy - and even more important, what does that legacy mean, for today's and tomorrow's world? What is the forward, creative edge of all the initiatives, all the new tools and insights and methods Esalen has sent out into the world, for continuing development through an ever-growing world of partner innovators and enterprises?
"A beacon in a darkening world," as another emailer wrote me recently. I have to say - at Esalen we don't see it quite that starkly. Our world today is both brightening and darkening. As many and as dire as the threats and challenges that loom over our shared world, at least that many and that strong are the new possibilities, the opportunities on offer as never before in world history, for the realization of that sacred goal which is itself a fairly new creation of recent centuries: the vision of a just, humane, and sustainable world, dedicated to the continuing evolution of the human potential and the human spirit.
That's the vision we dedicate ourselves to, in our Mission, Vision and Values statements and commitments at Esalen. That's the vision you and the world call forth from us, and are working toward along with us -- and the world image all of us are invited to join in creating.
In the Catalog, the blogs and enews and Friends of Esalen bulletins ahead, on the website and in mailings and postings you'll be seeing on our exciting upcoming Benefit Weekend (November 11-13, 2011, the kickoff to our 50th Celebration Year), we'll be telling you much more detail about the Esalen story of "Legacy and Beyond," focusing on how Esalen is taking our legacy contribution areas into new explorations, tools, and methods for choosing and creating our shared future - individually, collectively, and in the emergent world culture. The forward edge is always moving, by definition, and thus Esalen is always moving as well, always pushing that frontier. That's what we're here for, and what we're all about.
I've said it before and I know I will again: the only limits on what we can create, are the limits we may place on what we can imagine, together.
Stay tuned. And meantime, let us know what you're doing, in your own living and your own creative service, taking ideas from here out (and bringing back the road-tested and improved versions for us learn and grow from here, and cycle them out again). We love to hear about them - and I love to write about them: gordon.wheeler@esalen.org .
See you soon at Esalen!
Gordon Wheeler, Big Sur, June 2011