Esalen Glow

Sunset at the Esalen Institute

This past week I was honored to lead a workshop on creativity with writer Phil Cousineau and writer/musician RB Morris.
The Esalen Institute is a non-profit organization founded in 1962 by Stanford alums Michael Murphy and Richard Price as an alternative educational center devoted to the exploration of what Aldous Huxley called the "human potential." This world of unrealized human capacities that lies beyond the imagination has brought to Esalen a steady influx of philosophers, psychologists, artists, and religious thinkers.


Late afternoon at Esalen in Big Sur. Taken during a workshop on creativity by Phil Cousineau, RB Morris, and Gregg Chadwick.

Recently Phil Cousineau's new book "Stoking the Creative Fires" has hit the shelves. It is an impassioned volume on creativity that combines myth, story and personal pilgrimages in a primer on the creative life. My painting "Fire Dream" graces the cover.
We used this book as a stepping off point for the workshop. I am hoping in the future to have time for a more thorough journey through myth and art at Esalen. Stay tuned.


Workshop participant Natasha.

More at:
Phil Cousineau
RB Morris
"Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion" by Jeffrey J. Kripal
Esalen at the Edge. From Zen and hot tubs to glasnost, the famed Big Sur retreat has changed our minds, bodies, and ways of looking at the world.
- by workshop participant Allan Hunt Badiner