Back in the Day with Theda Zawaiza

Theda Zawaiza tells us about finding Esalen in 1986 and other life-changing discoveries, including Eli Jackson-Bear and Gangaji's Enneagram workshop, Janet Zuckerman's warm energy, Babatunde Olatunji's exhilarating drums, and Gabrielle Roth's cool magnetism.

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I started questioning everything around 1986 while working on my PhD at the University of California, Santa Barbara. What am I doing in this ivory tower? I need to be doing experiential things! I was ready to drop out and wanted to figure out how to tell my parents. I was a grown woman, but they were vicariously living through me, in my achievements.

I came up to Esalen for a weekend to figure out how I was going to drop out of my PhD program. I signed up to dance with Babatunde Olatunji. My cousin used to play with him in his bands in New York, so I had known of him. I had danced with him in New York, and I knew that I needed some freeing, celebration, liberation. I wanted to be around Black people, celebration, and joy.

The experience was like an instant bonding with like-minded people who had a vision of harmony and balance and togetherness and expression. A lot of my life had been suppression, oppression — keep things in. At Esalen, there was just this exhilarating freedom. Babatunde Olatunji taught in a way that helped you to feel it in your body. I was introduced to an awareness that I hadn't before been around somatics. I'd always danced, but I'd kept it separate: My body's dancing, but my mind's up here. This was a much more holistic, integrative experience.

It was joyous. It was inclusive. “Everybody can do this,” Babatunde said. I said, “Oh, I'm not a musician,” but he had everyone do the drum, like, ta-ta-ta, and he had a way of doing it that was very accessible.

During that workshop, I got a taste of the land in Big Sur. I mean, there was something so magical about the mountains, the sky, the ocean, the river running through. And the baths! They say there's a high percentage of lithium in there. I had an injured back and it just seemed to be like miracle water.

After that, I came up from Santa Barbara as frequently as I could. I would come to workshops using the sleeping bag option so that it was affordable. My next workshop was the Enneagram with Eli Jackson-Bear and his wife at the time, Gangaji (then Toni Varner). The Enneagram is a topology of personality; it’s very mystery school, kind of deep and heavy, and I thought, Well, how am I going to really integrate this into my life? Am I a seven? Am I a four? But I didn’t really care. I just knew that there was a whole other way of perceiving myself, my family, my world, and I loved that.

That workshop was in the Big House. The energy in there was so bonding, so close — it was a family by the end of the week. And the fireplace in that front room is almost sanctified. So much contemplation happens there, reflection, meditation. I loved being in that space, and I thought, Oh, I'm never leaving this place.

I became a work scholar, first in cabins and then at the gate. Doors kept opening for me. There were so many teachers who were influential to me. I have a real soft spot in my heart for Janet Zuckerman, who introduced me to Gestalt practice. She really opened my eyes to a different way of being. I think my neural pathways shifted just being around her. She allowed you to be yourself. Janet looked like a full-figured housewife from the suburbs, kind of like Sharon Salzberg, you know, but with this incredible juice around her from being herself and embracing life.

She was easy to smile but could get so close and tender and intimate. It wasn't “open seat” like with Fritz Perls, like you're in a hot seat. You'd sit next to her and it was almost a warmth that exuded from her body to me. I felt wrapped in her energy. And she was very much a cheerleader of whatever is present now, what you're feeling now. Is it a fly on your nose? Is it your knee hurting? Even the most mundane thing. I guess she was being herself. I'd never seen anybody like that.

Gabrielle Roth was wonderful. She was cool. She was New York. She was willing to connect. Some people, when they see a black person, they look away. She would hold my eyes. I could see that she had something going on there. I actually didn't come to take her workshop; I didn't know anything about it. Then I heard the live music. I was peeking in the windows of Huxley, and she beckoned me in. She was so powerful.

The notion of human potential is something that I've always gravitated to, ever since I was young. There's an intelligence in us that goes untapped. And I think that human potential, if we are willing to dig deep and bring it out, might be what saves us.

I feel like we're letting the technology and science and all of that run light-years ahead of our human development. We need to catch up with all of that and apply it in a permaculture kind of way, so that we can think about the Earth more instead of the world.

You know, the world is the maps and the borders and the different nationalities, but the Earth is one. We're not thinking of ourselves as one. We're not thinking of ourselves compassionately. We're not thinking of ourselves in a way that could really save the Earth and help her thrive. So I think that human potential is the answer. It is the solution for us to develop as much awareness as we can.