#myEsalen — I look to Esalen to bring people together, to inspire shifts, to cultivate real, lasting change

Whenever Director of Communications & Storytelling Shira Levine is on campus, she deliberately pauses to make sure she is completely present: "I used to start writing the stories in my head in the moment — as I was experiencing something. Now, I stop myself to get out of the way of my buzzing brain to just Be.”

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"I took a workshop with Cassandra Vieten for my birthday in 2017 and loved my experience. I connected with so many amazing people, my fellow random bunk mates and a diverse group of people in my workshop, How We Change and Why We Don’t,” Shira Levine remembers. Though she was eager to return to experience that “ease of community” and to bathe again beneath a constellation-filled night sky, the stars would not initially align. "There were either closures or workshops were full, or there was, you know, a pandemic, and I just kept missing my chance to return. Finally, in January 2022, I thought, 'If I can't go as a guest, maybe I could work at Esalen.'" 

While scrolling through the website — a challenging navigation that has gotten so much better “thanks to a talented, hard-working comms team,” she notes — the universe rotated to reveal the perfect position: a description that "literally described who I was and what I was doing in life" was there on Shira’s screen. After a brief stint as a communications specialist, she became the Institute's director of communications and storytellin. "It is very important to me to attempt to honor and give voice to all types of guests, faculty, and staff of all iterations of this storied place," she says. “I want to create storytelling that connects with the elders and the new, young seekers who may be coming to Esalen for their very first time. All it takes is a weekend here to feel your Esalen. It really doesn’t matter if it’s a weekend, a month, a year, or more. The experiences we have here inevitably make us each feel like we have our own Esalen. And that realization was the birth of this #myEsalen column.”

Before joining the staff, Shira had a long and varied media career — as a journalist, a travel writer, a small business columnist, a red carpet reporter, a documentary filmmaker, and a consultant for the United Nations — often simultaneously. "I had no spaciousness. There were times when I’d be at the UN General Assembly interviewing the president of Kiribati by day and asking Sandra Bullock what designer she was wearing that night. One week, I was telling stories of child bride survivors in Ghana, and later, I was in a submarine somewhere between Aruba and Venezuela observing lionfish — and then writing a travel piece about eating lionfish carpaccio to mitigate the invasiveness of the fish! It was a lot. Just too much going on." 

Nowadays, whenever Shira is on campus, she stops and pauses to just be present more deliberately: "I used to start writing the stories in my head in the moment — as I was experiencing something. Now, I stop myself to get out of the way of my buzzing brain. I love that I can just look up at the night sky and see the Milky Way and witness shooting stars without much effort.” She lists a few other Esalen benefits — less cosmic, perhaps, but certainly just as valuable. "I've never worked in a place with so many women in leadership roles, which is especially cool after 25 years of only experiencing male bosses.”

Certain joys have become standard self-care whenever Shira’s remote hybrid position brings her from LA up to Big Sur, primarily those Esalen® massages: "With the most recent few in particular, I have truly experienced shifts so big that I felt like I was levitating after! There is a big difference between feeling good from massage and feeling something otherworldly. Esalen massages can do that for me.”

To honor Esalen’s past while amplifying the growing expansiveness of present-day and future Esalen, Shira is collaborating with her colleagues to create a narrative retrospective of origin stories, soon to be installed on campus. She’s had fun elevating the newsletter with new content she hopes readers find engaging. The “Women of Esalen” video in this newsletter marks the ninth completed short film in a series designed to connect Esalen’s history to its present. "We are exploring a bigger narrative to link all these shorts together for a big-vision feature," she adds.

"If we are only able to accommodate 12,000 people a year, and some people like to come more than once a year, then our reach and access is limited. That is OK from a sustainability standpoint. We want to always be mindful of our footprint,” she explains. To that end, Shira recently helped co-produce a “Drop Into Esalen” event in Los Angeles at the Philosophical Research Society. She is now exploring a collaboration with Atlas Obscura to potentially bring digital Esalen offerings to the public and is building an audio journey for guests driving to and from Esalen — something to help folk drop in and orient as they make their way along Highway 1 and “keep the Esalen vibes going” to integrate their experiences.

"It really feels like all of the different skills I've built — all of the hats I've worn as a storyteller — come together in this position. My work here has been so creative, expansive, rewarding, and absolutely fun! My team and I tell stories around human potential and self-actualization that are simultaneously meaningful and utterly juicy," says Shira.

"When I read the news and look at the state of the world, there's a lot to be worried about. I don't look to Esalen as an escape. I look at Esalen as an opportunity to bring people together to inspire shifts — and cultivate real meaningful and lasting change.”