Spring Comes to Big Sur
Old Superstitions & New Realities
Esalen President & CEO Gordon Wheeler's Blog
April 2009
In baseball there's an old superstition about never commenting on a perfect game or a no-hitter if a pitcher is in the midst of hurling one. Unless and until he or she gives up that first hit, you'll never hear an announcer make a comment about it either direct or indirect. The fear is that such a mention could jinx perfection in the making.
Something like that is how we've felt around here all this long winter, crossing our fingers and touching wood amid dire predictions from County and State about the instability of cliffs and canyons after the summer's fires. We've lived with the fear of how rain of the wrong type at just the wrong time could bring unprecedented mudslides and with them bridge and highway damage to add to that already caused across our watershed by the Basin Complex Fires—five months of smoke and flames and around a quarter of a million acres burned.
And yet the rains didn't come in just the wrong way at just the wrong time. Rather, they came sometimes light and steady, sometimes heavy and threatening, but always stopping short of the point of supersaturation, when one more day of rainfall would have brought disastrous movement of soil and stone. We held our breath and sometimes picked our way around fallen rocks. There were times we sat at roadblocks and watched as crews cleared minor slides. But Esalen, through the long months of the rain season that is now drawing to a close, has stayed open, and the people have come.
That's important, in these stressful economic times. People need Esalen, and our mission is to stay open if possible, to be here for you, and to offer the transformational learning experiences that all of us need, to stay healthy and creative in a world that sometimes seems to have gone crazy. Plus, like any business, profit or non-profit, Esalen has its "nut to crack"—roughly a million dollars a month. The bulk of those funds are needed to pay salaries and benefits for our incredible staff/community who all work here at a sacrifice of one kind or another, out of love for Esalen, commitment to the transformational mission, and commitment to their own transformative learning.
But, unlike most other "businesses," Esalen is also a living residential community—something you know firsthand, because when you come here, you become part of that community, eating in the dining hall, taking the morning classes and seminars right along with the staff and interns, sitting together in the magic baths in the sun or under the stars, oftentimes forming relationships that last far beyond your visit. So many other businesses and organizations these days seem all too ready to just lay people off and send them out to fend for themselves in harsh times. Esalen is doing it differently. Being "laid off" at Esalen would mean enormous life upheaval, not just to those directly affected but to our whole team and living community. Esalen's leadership, Board, and whole team are committed to making that a last resort that we hope we'll never come to.
How do we do that? First we tighten our belts. The budget has been shrunk by close to a million dollars for '09, without compromising program innovation, sustainability or the mission-driven programs we're committed to and subsidize to the tune of nearly a million dollars a year—Sustainability Renewal, the Center for Theory and Research, Gazebo Preschool—and we continue our pioneering internship and staff education programs. We save where we can. We all work harder. Some positions are left vacant or deferred till better times while existing teams shoulder the extra work.
Next comes new revenue support from increased marketing, a vastly improved phone system, markedly increased garden output. And we hold the line on basic workshop/room fees while offering selected specials on Personal Retreat, Massage, and more. Our new Premium and Point House accommodations help too, providing a level of comfort for those who can use and afford it. These higher-end accommodations help us to support the incredible bargain of Esalen at the sleeping bag, bunk bed, or standard room rates. If you haven't seen the upgraded Premium and Point House units, check them out. They're beautifully finished by the team here under the talented design hand of Esalen's own Pearl Bryan, much aided by contributions of design input and some handsome personal pieces from Dulce Murphy.
On a more personal note, Nancy and I are doing our part by moving out of our South Point home for six weeks, so that serious structural repairs can be made. In the process the bungalow will be upgraded for rental during the times—nearly half the nights—when we're not in it. In general we work out of our Santa Cruz home on the weekends, and are on the road for Esalen about 80 nights each year on average.
All these things help, but they still leave a projected budget deficit this year of almost a million dollars. The Board authorized this drawdown of our reserve funds to keep up our momentum in Program renewal, Sustainability, staff support, and systems investment—all areas that will pay off in the long run. But even more, this enables us to avoid the kind of wholesale layoffs that would compromise the quality of your Esalen experience, and cause deep pain and suffering to our community, who are here to support your Esalen experience.
So far, even with the uncertainties of the road—very much offset by the blessing of no major closings—we're meeting that deficit budget. With your help and participation, we hope to better those projections through the rest of the year. Still, like everyone, we're part of a world economic system, with its large forces beyond our control.
We know we won't be able to make it like this, through this year and beyond, without your increased support. Sign up, come to Esalen, recommend us to friends. If you can, please dig deep—as all of us here are—and add a contribution as well. If you would like to make a contribution online, go to our homepage and click on the yellow donate button in the right column. Believe me, it's like during the fires last year: the number of people sending in $50 or $100 or $200 when they could is as strong a tonic to the energy of the dedicated folks here, as are those wonderful larger donations from those who can reach even deeper. All of it lets us know that we're supported, appreciated (and yes, counseled and given feedback as well!) as we work together for a living Esalen, and a better world.
Meantime, spring has returned to the Big Sur coast with a flourish bringing some high winds, gorgeous crystal-blue skies, and white-capped waves. The late April rains promise another season of showy flowers in the hills through May. We think we've made it safely through the rainy season once more, and can safely comment on it now without jinxing it!—barring freak meterological events. (We do carry some trauma memory from the sudden rainshowers last June 21, long past the usual rain season.)
Those showers were brief and beautiful, but accompanying lightning accounted for over 300 fires across Central/Northern California that day, and several of those took off and joined up to become the Basin Complex catastrophe that closed Big Sur, and Esalen, for almost a month. As you know, ultimately the fires burned right onto the property here, destroying our waterline and demanding weeks of heroic service from our First Responder crew, to prevent worse damage.
So you never know.
We do know that life goes on. Up in Palo Colorado Canyon, where I wrote you in the fall about our encounter with a five-foot juvenile lion in our neighbor's chicken coop, and the lion's sad death (and our frankly happy survival…). Well, a couple of weeks ago our neighbor met up with a lion cub, checking out the very same coop. So they're still there, a whole new generation of big cats, still re-adapted to predation on domestic stock in place of their normal deer hunting, which this new lion generation most likely doesn't even know how to do. Nature is still somewhat unbalanced from the fires, yet nature goes on, still renewing herself, and us in the process.
The hills, all cleared off of brush by the cleansing flames, are incredibly soft and bright green right now. Some hiking trails are reopening. It's Spring again in Big Sur; come visit us and check it out!