Generational Healing: The Horan Family’s Growing Legacy

Among the families who have emerged from Esalen’s six decade-strong history, the Horans stand out. Peggy and her daughters, Lucia and Jasmine (who are leading workshops this summer), have lived and learned here for decades. Currently, all three Horan women are leading and conducting experiences here. (Husband and father Dick Horan worked in the Farm & Garden and Art Barn in Esalen’s early years as well.) This family innately understands the healing, community, and self-expression the land can rattle out of us. In honor of Mother’s Day, we spoke with the Horan matriarchy about their family history — firmly rooted and still blooming within Esalen.

For Peggy, the journey to Esalen was one of personal reinvention and co-creation. Here, she found her voice, family, and ever-unfolding self-actualization and purpose. In the late ’60s, Peggy, freshly divorced and seeking a new life chapter, made the bold decision to leave New York behind and travel across the country to Esalen Institute. 

Peggy: It was what I was looking for. I don’t think I could have actually verbalized that at the time. It was step by step. I had come to Esalen originally in ’67 and moved there in ’69 — and then I didn't start a family until ’71, so I had those years in between to explore and adapt. It was so what I wanted that I didn't miss New York. I didn't want to go back. I was loving life, the new life that I found, and trying to figure out in the midst of it who I was and what I wanted.  That, of course, is an ongoing process. The transition was all very organic. 

At Esalen, Peggy began exploring holistic approaches with the early visionaries of the human potential movement. She discovered purpose by both studying and shaping Esalen® Massage. The modality, which blends long, flowing strokes with deep tissue work, became Peggy’s life work and is a pivotal part of her healing journey. 

Peggy: I got a job in the kitchen, but I didn't know anything about cooking, so I started to study massage, and I had a real feeling for it. In those days, there were only three or four people doing massage so it was quite easy to get on the crew. Massages cost $15 at the time, of which we got $12.50. The Esalen Massage style was influenced by the location — next to the water, flowing movements and the sensory awareness taught by Charlotte Selver and Bernie Gunther. It was slower and more sensual than it is now. We were exploring touch, exploring that it's okay to be touched. It's okay to have a body. This was a pretty new concept after the ’50s. That was a tight time in our culture. Women were wearing girdles and bras then. We were divorced from the body: The body was a dead end. But sensory awareness and the movement and massage brought a sense of embodiment.

Peggy soon met Dick Horan, who would become her husband and the father of her children. An artist working in Esalen’s iconic Art Barn, Dick had a son, Jonathan, from a previous relationship with renowned 5Rhythms® creator Gabrielle Roth.

Peggy: Soon after Dick and I got together, Gabrielle decided to go to the Eureka training in New York, and she needed us to take care of Jonathan. He was about a year and a half, and so all of a sudden, we had a family. It wasn't in my plan to be jumping into a family, I was madly in love with Dick and so I wanted to do this and Jonathan was adorable. So I thought, Okay, let's do this! So that was how the family started. Then, I decided that I wanted to get pregnant. I was 35 at the time, and so I was reaching the age, so I really called it in. I was given a beautiful piece of pre-Columbian art, a figure that depicted motherhood and fertility. I was very involved in belly dancing, which is all about opening the pathways, the feminine pathways, opening the chakras and really embodying the spirit of the feminine spirit and childbirth.The dance itself depicts childbirth in certain movements. I feel that it physically opened me and allowed me really to conceive at that time. I also had this cat that I was very attached to, Lucy. And one day Lucy was gone and I knew at that moment I was pregnant. 

Jasmine: She actually first met Dad when he gave her a massage before she moved there. She thought he was cute, but they were both in relationships. It wasn't until she moved there that the spark turned into a flame.

Dick and Peggy welcomed their first child together in 1976, a daughter named Lucia. A few years later, they had Jasmine. The sisters were born, raised, and early educated within the open gates of Esalen, a unique childhood experience, surrounded by the natural beauty of Big Sur. 

Lucia:  If there's one sweeping word, it would be free because we grew up so free. I was born in the seventies, so still in the era of wildness and freedom. Growing up at Esalen, there was trust for the people around us. We would go to the pool, the hot springs, and run through the garden. There was no TV, no internet, and no cell phones, of course — a completely different era than my child is growing up in now. The more that I've traveled and seen the world, the more that I've realized how unique of an experience growing up at Esalen and actually being born on the land — it has shaped me into who I am today.

Jasmine: Growing up there, we had access to all these amazing teachers and massage therapists. They became my aunties and uncles. These amazing people have been part of my life ever since. As I got older, they would allow me to come as an assistant in their workshops so I could learn. I developed long-standing relationships with people, especially my Gazebo teachers. 

Just across the pavement from the Jade House where the Horans were living stood the Gazebo School, a small, intimate educational setting — a reflection of Esalen’s philosophy — nurturing and creative. Lucia and Jasmine, along with other young children of Esalen staff, came of age in an environment that encouraged curiosity, independence, and agency. This holistic approach to education shaped their intellectual and emotional growth while cultivating their spiritual development early on.

Peggy: Janet [Lederman] had just started Gazebo. Jenny Price [Esalen Co-founder Dick Price’s daughter] was about maybe a year older than Lucia. Immediately, I had all this support as there were several other women who were having children at the same time. We had a little group of us who were new mothers, and then we had Gazebo. There was so much support from the community at that time for us as new mothers and for the children with the school. We started taking them there and staying ourselves, but after a while, Janet didn't want us there anymore. She wanted the kids to be independent, so little by little, we would begin to leave them for the day.

Lucia: I believe it was myself, Jenny Price, Rosie Chapman, and Ivy Mayer who were the first students. We were this little pack of friends. We grew up comfortable with our bodies, comfortable with other people's bodies … This was a place where our boundaries were respected. It was full circle when my daughter came home from the Park School [formerly Gazebo] and was like, “You need to respect my boundaries.” It’s necessary. Because a lot of people I work with in the world need help establishing boundaries because their boundaries were never respected as children. And so, as adults, they ended up getting themselves into a lot of difficult, challenging, hurtful, and even harmful situations because they weren't taught that early on.

Today, Jasmine and Lucia carry the learnings they were raised with into their own professional work. Lucia, who was trained and mentored by Gabrielle Roth, will lead Maps to Ecstasy: A 5Rhythms® Mindfulness & Art Celebration with her husband, Douglas Drummond. Jasmine, who became an Gazebo School teacher and the author of the definitive book on the school’s legacy, will lead Generative Resourcing for Wonder and Wisdom: Caretaking the Next Generation for parents, educators, or any caregivers of children to “renew, reflect, heal, reset, and experience alternative ways of working with children.”