Back in the Day with Pam Portugal Walatka

Esalen elder Pam Portugal Walatka takes us back to the Summer of Love in 1967. The Institute’s very first yoga teacher talks about studying with some of the greats — including Ed Maupin, Charlotte Selver, Bernie Gunter, Jim Fadiman, Claudio Naranjo, Michael Murphy, Gai-Fu Feng, Virginia Satir, Fritz Perls, Ida Rolf, Alan Watts, and John Pierrakos — and takes credit for some our favorite Esalen traditions: “Hardly anyone from then is alive to refute me.”

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Esalen saved my life. 

In 1965, on a trek in the foothills of the Himalayas in Nepal, my Peace Corps boyfriend said, “I have been watching you sleep. I couldn’t tell whether you were breathing or not. Your body wasn’t moving at all.” 

I found his observation odd, but of no interest to me. I was an intellectual, absorbed in the life of the mind. Breathing was not important. 

I was stationed in a tiny remote village in Nepal, suffering from increasingly severe diarrhea, sometimes writhing on the floor from pain in my gut. Then they sent me to a hospital in San Francisco for a month, then back to Nepal, then back to San Francisco and another month in the hospital. For the next two years, I was in and out of the hospital. I just couldn’t get the rhythm of my guts back. 

Back in the States, I was having trouble finding work—I had no marketable skills and was still a little twitchy from all I had been through. I was a hippie in San Francisco, then in grad school (UCB), bored, broke, lonesome, and sick. 

I commuted from my classes to volunteer work at a Peace Corps Nepal training camp in Davis. Some people from Esalen came to the camp for a week to help train the volunteers. Esalen, still new, was reaching out in hopes of letting the world know of its existence. 

You can imagine my astonished delight when I met Ed Maupin, Michael Murphy, and several others. Ed said, “You should come work at Esalen!” Micheal said, “You can live in the tool shed.” They laughed. I thought, I hope they are kidding about the tool shed. 

On April 8, 1967, I drove to Esalen with my life savings in my pocket – $17. It turned out someone was already living in the tool shed. I had to live in my car.

I worked the front desk for a few months. The office was pretty quiet then–we often had only five or ten guests on the grounds. I was usually the only person in the 8x10-foot office. I washed all the towels from the baths during my shift and read novels. The challenge was calming down the guests who arrived terrified of the too-new experience they were embarking on. The first thing I did was assure them they had arrived in time for dinner. 

It was the Summer of Love. Our motto was “Sex, drugs, and rock and roll!”  We were good kids, from nice families, well-educated. By today’s standards, our behavior was pretty tame. We thought it was amazingly liberated that a nice girl was allowed to go to bed with a guy to whom she was not engaged.

In the fall of 1967, I joined the second Esalen Residential Program. We studied with every teacher who came through Esalen. Ed Maupin taught meditation and Encounter. Charlotte Selver and Bernie Gunter taught sensory awareness. Jim Fadiman and Claudio Naranjo were exploring the therapeutic uses of psychedelics. Gai-Fu Feng taught meditation and Sumi-e painting. Virginia Satir taught family psychology. Fritz Perls led Gestalt sessions. Ida Rolf did Rolfing. Alan Watts taught meditation — he was so great with words he could barely stop talking long enough for anyone to actually meditate. John Pierrakos taught bioenergetics. I got something valuable from all of these teachers. 

My Esalen boyfriend (Will Schutz) noticed one common thread in all the workshops—every single group included something about breathing. My breathing became deeper and more conscious. My symptoms went away. 

It wasn’t just the breathing. For the first time in my life, I was surrounded by people who shared my interest in expanding consciousness. I was living next to the ocean. I was learning to express my feelings —what a concept!  I had a nice, funny boyfriend. I felt free and healthy in my body. 

I was fortunate to be with Will during the three peak years of his career. His book Joy touched the bottom of the NYT bestseller list. He went on all the talk shows, including The Tonight Show three times. His workshops were so popular he formed a group to help lead them. We called ourselves the Flying Circus. There were 11 of us: Will Schutz and Pam Portugal, Betsie and Seymour Carter, John and Ann Heider, Suki and Stuart Miller, Steve Stroud and Linda Cross, and Betty Fuller. We taught mostly Encounter and also meditation, yoga, tai chi, bioenergetics, and sensory awareness. We knew we were changing the culture. We fully expected to be mentioned in the history books. We also knew we would not last as a group.

Here are some things I claim to have started at Esalen. Hardly anyone from then is alive to refute me. 

• Sitting on the floor. When I started the Residential Program, we sat in chairs in a circle, for many hours every day. I have a bony butt. Within a few days, I got tired of sitting in a chair and slid to the floor. Soon, Steve Stroud joined me on the floor. Then everyone did. I had no clue that sitting on the floor would become an Esalen thing.  
• Growing vegetables. I started an organic vegetable garden north of the Point Houses in 1968, when the now-garden was all wild grass. I had no clue there was a garden and farm to come. 
• Teaching yoga. In 1968, I was asked to teach yoga classes, the first at Esalen, because I was already bendy. Yoga was just a side show. I had no clue it would become an Esalen mainstay. 
• The word “Rolfing.” Ida called it Structural Integration until I suggested Rolfing. 

What stayed with me through the more-than-half a century since I left Esalen? The breathing. I still work on breathing more deeply and more consciously. Mindfulness meditation. I’m only just starting to get the hang of it now. The hugging and emotional honesty too. I come from a wonderful, creative, open-minded, compatible family, but we rarely hugged or expressed emotion before I lived at Esalen. Body awareness — who knew it was important? I listen now when my body sends me information. Expanded consciousness. Bodywork — I am lucky to see Beverly Silverman for gentle Rolfing every Tuesday. Gardening. How to get along with humans. I love my husband, daughter, grandkids, sister, brother, in-laws, cousins, almost-sisters, and friends. I still teach yoga at 83-years-old. 

What did not work? Following the Tao, following your bliss. I tried living that way for a few years, being unpredictable, going wherever I felt like going. That plan proved to be unsustainable.

My life since leaving Esalen the first time? Wandering hippie philosopher, author, several times Esalen staff, wife, mom, 16 years under contract to NASA Advanced Supercomputing, grandma, photographer, painter, gardener, little old yoga teacher.

Damn straight Esalen saved my life.