War Side of Mask Sculpture photo by Nanette Simmons
Walter Byck, owner of the sculpture garden at Paradise Ridge Winery, gave the OLLI Art Club a tour, followed by a lunch hosted by Connie Codding.
This bus-shelter shaped sculpture has a WAR side holding ceramic masks of horror and loss. Stepping inside, one can see the inside of each mask, painted with the emotions of rage, revenge, domination and all that leads to war. On the other side of the “bus-shelter” are the PEACE masks: both the inside feelings and the outside manifestations of peace, joy, connection, safety, friendship and community.
Walter, in his 90s, walked us around, pointing with his cane at the kinetic sculpture by Ned Kahn and other electronic, motion-sensor, sound-emitting works. He unlocked “The Shoe” and Steering Committee Member Nanette went all the way up, taking photos of the top floor. More than twenty people joined us for the tour and talk.
I made a number of incorrect assumptions about Esalen. Because they have no cell service, I thought it was east of the two-lane Highway One, up in the mountains overlooking the ocean. It’s not. It overhangs the ocean.
Esalen Baths – Not My Photo
I had been following the authors of The Radiance Sutras online for a couple of years and wanted an in-person experience. I knew they had been teaching at Esalen since the previous century. Here is a photo of them with the original, self-published version of the book, of which I have a copy. When they announced a September class, I signed up quickly because I wanted the low-cost, communal, sleeping-bag-on-the-floor room. On their Zoom calls, nearly all the participants are women, and most are 50+ so I assumed I would be sharing a room with older ladies. Error. I also did not realize there would be more than one program going on at the same time.
Lorin and Camille at Esalen with First Edition Book – Not My Photo
There were five in the communal room, two of whom were in my group and two in the dance group. All four were 30-ish. The Esalen demographics were dumbell-shaped. Young people without kids who were just out of their twenties who had some time and money to work on theselves, and people 50-ish whose kids had left home for college and were turning their attention toward themselves. With gasoline prices hovering at $6/gallon, my trip cost about $1000 including the stay at Moss Landing. Others, who decided at the last minute that an Esalen experience was what they needed, had much more invested in the five-day/four-night Radiant Sutras seminar. One professional woman with a daughter in a California college flew in from Ontario, Canada and a 30-ish lawyer from NYC who had hit the stress wall so hard she was on medical leave had to accept the most expensive lodging along with last-minute air fares so their investments were north of $5,000. We all got partial refunds. One member got a complete refund. Here’s what happened.
Encounter Groups
I first heard about Esalen back in the 1970s when I was in graduate school. We did our Massachusetts-version with a mash-up of students in the graduate school of Education (where Bill Cosby was a doctoral student) and students in graduate business school. We rented a seminar/business-conference place and spent the days sitting on a circle on the floor, interspersed with talks from instructors (usually post-docs teaching at the graduate level). The goal was to break through your inner barriers and the cliché was to shout, “I hate my mother!.” This is what I expected at Esalen.
Yet another incorrect assumption. Even though people were naked in the baths (pictured above) and the warm-water swimming pool on the lawn in front of the dining hall, complete decorum was expected at all times. Cannabis is not allowed on the site, and alcohol is served only from 6-7:30 p.m. and is low-quality and costs extra.
Dining Hall on Left – Warm Water Pool on Right
In an effort to solidify my streed-cred as “woke,” I wore my new $30 baseball cap embroidered “Stacey Abrams, Governor” the first morning as I stretched on the deck in the early morning light, waiting for the 6:30 a.m. orientation class by JJ. To my dismay, a beautiful young black woman walked up beside me. About 30, she introduced herself as Nicole, a massage therapist from Los Angeles. In an effort not to appear pandering, I swept the hat off my head and tried to unobtrusively turn it inside out as we chatted. I was struck by her elegant posture and friendly, accessible manner. The orientation class was outstanding, combining a chakra talk with the economics and history of Esalen. I was surprised to hear that they were $7 million in debt. The surprise diminished as I discovered the expansive concrete earthquake stabilization/handicap access work that had been done. The students at 6:30 a.m. were mostly young and about 60% female.
The sutras class started at 8 a.m. but I slipped out to go next door for the 10:15 “Inhabiting the Body” yoga class with Liz which helped me feel safe and protected. When I slipped back in to the sutras class, members were thanking Nicole for her share which I missed. The following afternoon (Wednesday) the trainer played a video a lot like this two-minute version of Reginald D. Hunter’s act, twice. The trainer played it twice.
The version the white male trainer played did not have the final joke about Reginald’s conversation with his father. I understand this concept well — insult humor and the feeling of oppression, and I laughed saying, “I speak Irish.” At the end of the Wednesday afternoon session, Nicole walked past me as she exited the room and it seemed she was so angry that steam was coming out of her ears. As I left the meeting room, the lightbulb went on about the language in the video clip. I realized the trainer was in big trouble.
Fallout
At dinner, the professional woman from Canada was sitting at a table with Nicole and others. I joined them as the meal was winding down, and the training couple stopped by. The Canadian woman engaged the male trainer in a discussion about the video, saying that “it hurt my heart.” The trainer completely missed her point and replied with something about soothing a hurting heart. Nicole, fuming, left the table.
The couple led the Wednesday night session starting at 7:30 p.m. and he kept giggling and seemed disorganized. I wondered if he was stoned. He told the story about how his wife danced each of his translations and helped him select the best one. A few people read aloud sutras from his book. Later on, someone not in our sessions told me that several women objected to the wife’s name not appearing on the book even though she was integral to the work.
Esalen Eggs are Pale and Tasteless. Vegetarian Options are Better. Bottle from Earlier Vacation.
Thursday morning before breakfast I danced my brains out at Jovina’s “Soul Movement Sanctuary” dance fest. The sutras session started after breakfast with the female co-trainer weeping for about five minutes before she apologized for the “hurtful language” in the previous day’s video. The male trainer just sat next to her making notes. Finally, Nicole got up and gave the damp 70-year-old white woman a hug and the emotionally/socially/attunement-deaf husband took a photo of them hugging. [He was later forced to delete the photo.]
Far up the canyon, in the Ventana Wilderness, Porter Springs bubbles to the surface to provide about 75% of Esalen’s Water
He then started the class with no reference to the video. A different white woman raised her hand and politely asked for an apology, saying that everyone makes mistakes but that it was not sufficient for his wife to apologize, she was asking him to apologize. He insisted that he was using the video for training and it was unfortunate that she missed his point. Other class members raised their hands and politely requested an apology. When the trainer accused the First-Amendment-Rights attorney of “projecting” her issues onto him, the other 30 year old attorney from New York left the room because it brought up her suffering from the dominating language used by the man she had been with for seven years.
The trainer challenged Nicole to “coach” him. She declined saying it wasn’t her job. By this time I was sitting next to her and I volunteered to coach him. I stood chest-to-chest with him and, in an effort to build connection before attacking, I acknowledged that I got the point and that Ireland has no history of black enslavement. This got Nicole to say her piece directly to the trainer. I went back to sitting next to her as she finished. His response continued to deflect and dissemble and Nicole left after several minutes of it. He continued with his denial and I quietly left too, joining the New York lawyer on the lawn by the swimming pool. Things were crumbling.
Around lunchtime we were told that Esalen was intervening and there would be a 3 p.m. meeting with an Esalen mediator prior to the 4 p.m. regular session. I skipped both, instead going to the yoga class scheduled for 2:15 where the teacher did not show up, so classmate Anthea taught it instead. I went to the baths and learned that our explosion was the talk of the Institute.
The Baths in Afternoon Light
When the bar opened at 6 p.m., I bought a beer and sat down with the British producer who attended the 3 p.m. and 4 p.m. sessions and who had been very polite yet very insistent that the trainer apologize. The Brit told me that the Queen had died. I offered my condolences and smirked, “England’s difficult is Ireland’s opportunity.” “Don’t say Ireland!” he replied in mock horror. I cracked up, then asked if the trainer’s apology was sincere or theater. He considered this for a beat, then said sadly, “theater.” A little later on, we asked a nearby daytime soap actress the same question. She thought about this, then her face looked sad. “Theater.”
The Canadian professional woman came by and offered to refill my beer. I followed her in to the bar, but while we were waiting I started talking with Marjan. By the time we finished and I returned to my waiting beer, I had missed dinner. I spent the rest of the evening talking to Marjan’s husband, Robert, who plays the hand-pan which is a Swiss-made refinement of the steel drum.
My Roommates
The moon was almost full on my final day, and I watched it set into the Pacific Ocean from the deck in front of the communal room where I slept with four others. Somewhat dehydrated from two beers and no dinner, I went to the dining hall for some tar-black leftover coffee diluted with hot water. The male trainer came in and sat where I could see him. I greeted him but did not engage him. My roommate Adam came in and sat with three friends from the dance group. Lorin button-holed Adam and walked him out to the deck where I could not listen to their conversation.
Deck Outside Dining Room – Not My Photo
When it was finally daylight, I went back to the room to pack my gear, silently, because Maggie was still sleeping. Geoff came in with a loud greeting and I absent-mindedly greeted him back and we both woke up Maggie who forgave us and engaged in the conversation. Geoff launched into the most interesting riff of the stay.
Why tell the truth? Bad people don’t tell the truth — why give them the advantage? When you lie, it just evens the playing-ground. You don’t have to make it a big lie, just say you were late because your dishwasher overflowed and you didn’t want it to leak into the ceiling of your downstairs neighbors so you had to mop it up right away. Make it easy for them to forgive you.
It had never occurred to me that other people, like men or those with English accents, thought it was okay to lie. I had always thought that they knew it was wrong and did it anyway. What if they don’t even think it’s wrong? “All’s fair in love and war.” Maybe Lorin thinks it is okay to stonewall, gaslight, obfuscate, deflect, and deny.
When Adam returned, he told us what happened when Lorin walked him outside. Lorin was trying to elicit his support against the “conspiracy.” Then Adam said, “I learned the value of a simple apology, so, Anet, I apologize for waking you up with the air mattress inflator.” I was surprised and said, “Thank you for that.”
Another hot day was forecast (it was 115° in Santa Rosa two days earlier) and I wanted to get on the road early enough to beat East Bay traffic because I was planning to go through San Leandro, Oakland, and take and Richmond-San Rafael bridge home. I talked to the front desk and requested my refund and left about 10:15 a.m., got home by 3 p.m.
The Canadian professional woman got a substantial refund, and Nicole got all her money back. She had the good grace to attend the 3 p.m. apology session, I don’t know if she went to the sessions after that. She gave me a hug and a kiss on Friday morning when I said good-bye.
It was already getting very hot on the Sunday in Labor Day weekend, and temperatures of 115° were predicted for Monday and Wednesday in Santa Rosa.
Excessive Heat Warning – Santa Rosa got to 115° on two days
I did not want to attempt the 5 hour drive on Labor Day on two-lane Highway One, so I left a day earlier and on Sunday morning I drove through San Francisco and took the 17 through Los Gatos to Moss Landing which was hotter and slower than I hoped. A lot of San Franciscans were heading to the beach. I stayed at the Inn at Moss Landing Point, on the third floor overlooking Hwy 1. the double-pained glass tamed the road noise and the corner room was light and airy. Terrific comfortable king-size bed, $154 for the night.
Arrived at about 1 p.m., too early to check in, so parked in the shade and stowed my bags behind the reception desk and walked across the street to the Moss Landing Cafe for a delicious fish meal for about $25. It was so good I went back the next day for a sensational breakfast.
Before my yummy breakfast, I was treated to this beautiful sunrise over Elkhorn Slough, an estuarine wetland that I have paddled at king tide.
Moss Landing Sunrise over Elkhorn Slough
The drive to Esalen from Moss Landing was estimated at 90 minutes, but it was Labor Day and very hot, even for the beach. I stopped for a hike at Soberanes Canyon in Garrapata State Park.
Finding the turnoff was tricky and I made a dangerous left turn when I found it. The hike was hot at the start, but there was a wonderful cool redwood grove at the top, surrounding a creek.
“In Praise of Imperfection” is the memoir of Rita Levi-Montalcini who won the 1986 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering Nerve Growth Factor in cancer cells. She was the fourth woman to ever receive a Nobel prize. The book details the research, including a 1952 visit to a longtime friend’s cell culture laboratory in Rio de Janeiro. Together, they discovered critical chemical tools that the body uses to direct cell growth and worked out its biochemistry. Dr. Levi-Montalcini recalls her work in Rio as “one of the most intense periods of my life in which moments of enthusiasm and despair alternated with the regularity of a biological cycle.”
Although she was highly focused and single-minded in her research, she also saw life and research as a series of cycles, not linear events. “It is imperfection — not perfection — that is the end result of the program written into that formidably complex engine that is the human brain, and of the influences exerted upon us by the environment and whoever takes care of us during the long years of our physical, psychological, and intellectual development.”
Although she worked in the U.S. at Washington University in St. Louis for 30 years (from 1947-1977), she returned to Italy in the to continue her research there. She became more outgoing over the years and loved to host dinner parties, even though she was not herself interested in food. Always beautifully coiffed, and designing her own clothes in later years, she lived exuberantly until 103. Here are some quotes and a two-minute video from Nobel.org.
The final chapter in her memoir deals with the death of her brother at the hands of the Nazis.
She laments how people are driven by greed and the desire for power and territory. She observes that the body’s limbic system has remained essentially unchanged for thousands of years while the neocortex has enjoyed explosive growth. Unfortunately, we are mostly blind to the drives from the deepest part of our nervous system. As a biologist, this uneven development of human brainpower has caused much suffering and loss. The limbic system manages functions like breathing as well as instinctive behaviors like survival and mating. I realized that maybe the reason the yogis tell us to “return to the breath” is a way to connect consciously with this important but often forgotten layer of the nervous system.
Delora (mugging, at right in photo) treated Kathleen and me to a live performance of “Sister Act” at the newly-renovated Burbank Theater at SRJC. We had a fun evening, walking around the campus in the fading summer light: all of us spent lots of time here. The performance was enthusiastic and uplifting. Thanks, Delora!
Visited the fabulous Guo Pei Exhibit at the Legion of Honor — it is as astonishing as my friends described!
This dress looks like a tabernacle to me.
I got a ride to San Francisco with hiking buddy Laura because the lease on her electric car is coming to an end and she needs to use up the miles. My membership in the Fine Arts Museum allows two tickets, so it worked out for both of us!
The photographs do not capture the architecture or dazzling use of materials by Guo Pei. It is truly something that needs to be seen in person to be appreciated. I’m so glad that the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco art show more work by people who aren’t straight, Christian, able-bodied white males.
The 21st of July is the birthday of my friend Linda so we celebrated by checking out the new Mitote (a kind of folk dance) Food Park on Sebastopol Rd. right in front of El Mercadito. She bought some little bracelets for her granddaughter (three for $10) and we shopped at a Joyeria. Tacos were yummy and we walked to a deluxe ice cream place across the street for birthday ice cream. Happy birthday, Linda!
Dianne led an OLLI Art Group Tour of the Black Artists’ Collectives show at the Sonoma County Museum in downtown Santa Rosa. Four of us had lunch afterwards and Bird n’ Bottle for an invigorating discussion of how the Press Democrat was rapacious in its attack on Judy Sakaki. What a joy to spend time with women who read, think and take part in the community!
The Collectives are not the only thing that is arising — our leader, Linda Loveland Reid could not join us because Covid is on the rise again and she caught it while traveling. We all were asked to wear masks inside the museum.
Nancy took this photo from her Oru foldable kayak. Lori organized a Girls Paddle for the Fourth of July with Brigette, Greer, and Robin whom I met for the first time. She is a songwriter who uses GarageBand. I learned that Brigette is three years younger than I am and was born in Austria. She and Lori each spent about $800 on gasoline to drive their Travatos to Seattle and back. A Travato gets about 16 mpg, a little more if they travel “dry” and fill their water tanks when they arrive at a site with “hookups.”
Quick and yummy breakfast because the quinoa is precooked with Japanese yam, turmeric, ginger, green onions and fresh kale from my garden. To add texture and crunchiness, I add slivered almonds or pistachio nutmeats or walnut pieces, toasted sesame, chopped red onion or green onion. A hard boiled egg or thin-sliced porcini to add some protein. Peach mango salsa adds zest and tang. Sliced fresh peaches are the best!
To cook: saute onion, ginger, yam, kale, turmeric, then add washed quinoa to toast slightly before adding 1.5 as much stock as quinoa. Cook 12-15 minutes.
The drive to Esalen from Moss Landing was estimated at 90 minutes, but it was Labor Day and very hot, even for the beach. I stopped for a hike at Soberanes Canyon in Garrapata State Park.
“In Praise of Imperfection” is the memoir of Rita Levi-Montalcini who won the 1986 Nobel Prize in Medicine for discovering Nerve Growth Factor in cancer cells. She was the fourth woman to ever receive a Nobel prize. The book details the research, including a 1952 visit to a longtime friend’s cell culture laboratory in Rio de Janeiro. Together, they discovered critical chemical tools that the body uses to direct cell growth and worked out its biochemistry. Dr. Levi-Montalcini recalls her work in Rio as “one of the most intense periods of my life in which moments of enthusiasm and despair alternated with the regularity of a biological cycle.”
