Community
Because of Esalen’s isolated location, its operational staff members have been residential from the beginning, and collectively they have shaped the character of the institute. The community has been steeped in a form of Gestalt that pervades all aspects of daily life, including meeting structures, workplace practices, and individual language styles. In 1966, Esalen began year-long residential educational programs, which were subsequently replaced by month-long work-study programs and year-long work-oriented extended student programs. There is a preschool on site called the Gazebo, serving the children of staff, some program participants, and affiliated local residents. Given the intensity of community involvement in all these process related activities, many staff members have developed their own forms of practice, and some of them have become well known teachers.
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Famous quotes containing the word community:
“It never was in the power of any man or any community to call the arts into being. They come to serve his actual wants, never to please his fancy.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Human life in common is only made possible when a majority comes together which is stronger than any separate individual and which remains united against all separate individuals. The power of this community is then set up as “right” in opposition to the power of the individual, which is condemned as “brute force.””
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)
“Who ever hears of fat men heading a riot, or herding together in turbulent mobs?—No—no, ‘tis your lean, hungry men who are continually worrying society, and setting the whole community by the ears.”
—Washington Irving (1783–1859)