Inspired by 20th-century French writer Marcel Proust, we here at Esalen have created our own version of his favorite parlor game to dig just a little deeper — and differently — into our incredible faculty and staff.
Somatic and bodywork practitioner, educator, and Gestalt facilitator Kate Flore opens up about admiring the Cowardly Lion, aspiring to fall in love daily, and why she wishes she could have met Esalen’s Dick Price. The co-founder of TensegrityU, who will be on campus to lead The Space Between: Where Tensegrity Meets the Subtle Body next month, talks about “sculpting the human form” with her hands and why she’d like to come back as both a bird and an anatomy skeleton model: “Looking inside the body has changed my visceral connection to myself and my work.”
What is Esalen to you?
Esalen is a place of origin for me. There is a certain thing that started here, part of my becoming. I received an education in touch, movement, and relational process from the teachers here, and then my teachers’ teachers taught here. It is a place I come to be inspired, to teach, to share in the ideas and conversations that happen here, and to connect with the land. Many of my most enduring connections have come from the people I’ve met at Esalen. People who I continue to practice and spend time with. Esalen is a vibe, a spirit, a way of encountering self and other that gets dispersed by each one of us who pass through.
What do you do/are you doing at Esalen?
I am a workshop leader and Gestalt facilitator and offer Gestalt bodywork sessions. In April, I will be teaching The Space Between: Where Tensegrity Meets the Subtle Body with Kevin Dockery. The workshop is an exploration of tension and ease in our bodies via Feldenkrais Method movement lessons, contact, and Gestalt relational practice.
Which living or dead person do you most admire in your field?
I would have liked to have known Dick Price, co-founder of Esalen. Dick was motivated by his experience of a psychotic break, an awakening that was interrupted and treated abusively. He ran Esalen as a center for healing and experimentation. A place where those who felt misunderstood by our systems could come and drop into themselves through direct experience and relational contact. He brought forward a non-hierarchical approach to working with Gestalt process, taking it out of the therapist's chair. Instead of maintaining distance from a person and treating a symptom, Gestalt directly encounters and guides the person from the place of their direct experience, “in the here and now.” Dick helped make Gestalt a practice — a relational process to develop self-awareness and self-responsibility to increase our ability to grow our capacity.
What is the quality you most like in a human?
I really admire courage. I know how hard it can be to be brave, to take a step into the unknown. The art is to take those steps from a place of support, of resource. I think of the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz and how courage isn’t the absence of fear but the vulnerability of acting in the face of fear while staying in contact with what the heart is saying: “Go for it!” And it helps to have the encouragement of others.
Who or what is the greatest love of your life?
I aspire to fall in love every day with some aspect of life — music, a touch, a taste, a view, a person, a conversation. I have a card with the phrase “I fall in love with you every day” taped to my bathroom mirror as a nudge toward the loving and intimate practice of nurturing my relationship with myself. We are the protagonist in our lives.
What about your work brings you the most happiness?
Witnessing and participating in growth. The privilege of being up close and personal to life's unfolding, as witness to another’s becoming. I am motivated by being a part of a culture where we engage in growth that challenges us to be better, do better, feel better through self-awareness and self-lessness.
If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
A bird, to feel flight. I would also like to live on through my bones as a skeletal model for a classroom — that would be great! I’ve made this request with a friend, anatomy and dissection teacher and somanut extraordinaire Gil Hedley. I was inspired in his lab as a student dissecting the human form in a relational, connected, guided way. Looking inside the body has changed my visceral connection to myself and my work.
What is your favorite component of your work?
Working with raw material of the body. When I am working with my hands, I access the sense of sculpting with the human form.
What is your most marked characteristic?
Curiosity. Effervescence.
What do you value most in your work/practice?
I value my colleagues and experience from working in public health research, critical care settings, and with diverse populations. They have prepared me well to run a school, lead groups and work with challenging material in my clinical practice. I am also blessed to have access to beautiful spaces where we invite, hold, and create educational experiences for others. When not at Esalen, I am home on a piece of land in Nevada City, where I live, teach, and work in community. We invite elders from Esalen, including Dorothy Charles, Beverly Silverman, and others, to visit and share their teachings with our community and somatic sciences school, TensegrityU.
“Remembering to be as self compassionate as I can and praying to the divine that we're all a part of.”
–Aaron
“Prayer, reading, meditation, walking.”
–Karen
“Erratically — which is an ongoing stream of practice to find peace.”
–Charles
“Try on a daily basis to be kind to myself and to realize that making mistakes is a part of the human condition. Learning from our mistakes is a journey. But it starts with compassion and caring. First for oneself.”
–Steve
“Physically: aerobic exercise, volleyball, ice hockey, cycling, sailing. Emotionally: unfortunately I have to work to ‘not care’ about people or situations which may end painfully. Along the lines of ‘attachment is the source of suffering’, so best to avoid it or limit its scope. Sad though because it could also be the source of great joy. Is it worth the risk?“
–Rainer
“It's time for my heart to be nurtured on one level yet contained on another. To go easy on me and to allow my feelings to be validated, not judged harshly. On the other hand, to let the heart rule with equanimity and not lead the mind and body around like a master.”
–Suzanne
“I spend time thinking of everything I am grateful for, and I try to develop my ability to express compassion for myself and others without reservation. I take time to do the things I need to do to keep myself healthy and happy. This includes taking experiential workshops, fostering relationships, and participating within groups which have a similar interest to become a more compassionate and fulfilled being.“
–Peter
“Self-forgiveness for my own judgments. And oh yeah, coming to Esalen.”
–David B.
“Hmm, this is a tough one! I guess I take care of my heart through fostering relationships with people I feel connected to. Spending quality time with them (whether we're on the phone, through messages/letters, on Zoom, or in-person). Being there for them, listening to them, sharing what's going on with me, my struggles and my successes... like we do in the Esalen weekly Friends of Esalen Zoom sessions!”
–Lori
“I remind myself in many ways of the fact that " Love is all there is!" LOVE is the prize and this one precious life is the stage we get to learn our lessons. I get out into nature, hike, camp, river kayak, fly fish, garden, I create, I dance (not enough!), and I remain grateful for each day, each breath, each moment. Being in the moment, awake, and remembering the gift of life and my feeling of gratitude for all of creation.”
–Steven
“My physical heart by limiting stress and eating a heart-healthy diet. My emotional heart by staying in love with the world and by knowing that all disappointment and loss will pass.“
–David Z.
Today, September 29, is World Heart Day. Strike up a conversation with your own heart and as you feel comfortable, encourage others to do the same. As part of our own transformations and self-care, we sometimes ask for others to illuminate and enliven our hearts or speak our love language.
What if we could do this for ourselves too, even if just for today… or to start a heart practice, forever?
Inspired by 20th-century French writer Marcel Proust, we here at Esalen have created our own version of his favorite parlor game to dig just a little deeper — and differently — into our incredible faculty and staff.
Somatic and bodywork practitioner, educator, and Gestalt facilitator Kate Flore opens up about admiring the Cowardly Lion, aspiring to fall in love daily, and why she wishes she could have met Esalen’s Dick Price. The co-founder of TensegrityU, who will be on campus to lead The Space Between: Where Tensegrity Meets the Subtle Body next month, talks about “sculpting the human form” with her hands and why she’d like to come back as both a bird and an anatomy skeleton model: “Looking inside the body has changed my visceral connection to myself and my work.”
What is Esalen to you?
Esalen is a place of origin for me. There is a certain thing that started here, part of my becoming. I received an education in touch, movement, and relational process from the teachers here, and then my teachers’ teachers taught here. It is a place I come to be inspired, to teach, to share in the ideas and conversations that happen here, and to connect with the land. Many of my most enduring connections have come from the people I’ve met at Esalen. People who I continue to practice and spend time with. Esalen is a vibe, a spirit, a way of encountering self and other that gets dispersed by each one of us who pass through.
What do you do/are you doing at Esalen?
I am a workshop leader and Gestalt facilitator and offer Gestalt bodywork sessions. In April, I will be teaching The Space Between: Where Tensegrity Meets the Subtle Body with Kevin Dockery. The workshop is an exploration of tension and ease in our bodies via Feldenkrais Method movement lessons, contact, and Gestalt relational practice.
Which living or dead person do you most admire in your field?
I would have liked to have known Dick Price, co-founder of Esalen. Dick was motivated by his experience of a psychotic break, an awakening that was interrupted and treated abusively. He ran Esalen as a center for healing and experimentation. A place where those who felt misunderstood by our systems could come and drop into themselves through direct experience and relational contact. He brought forward a non-hierarchical approach to working with Gestalt process, taking it out of the therapist's chair. Instead of maintaining distance from a person and treating a symptom, Gestalt directly encounters and guides the person from the place of their direct experience, “in the here and now.” Dick helped make Gestalt a practice — a relational process to develop self-awareness and self-responsibility to increase our ability to grow our capacity.
What is the quality you most like in a human?
I really admire courage. I know how hard it can be to be brave, to take a step into the unknown. The art is to take those steps from a place of support, of resource. I think of the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz and how courage isn’t the absence of fear but the vulnerability of acting in the face of fear while staying in contact with what the heart is saying: “Go for it!” And it helps to have the encouragement of others.
Who or what is the greatest love of your life?
I aspire to fall in love every day with some aspect of life — music, a touch, a taste, a view, a person, a conversation. I have a card with the phrase “I fall in love with you every day” taped to my bathroom mirror as a nudge toward the loving and intimate practice of nurturing my relationship with myself. We are the protagonist in our lives.
What about your work brings you the most happiness?
Witnessing and participating in growth. The privilege of being up close and personal to life's unfolding, as witness to another’s becoming. I am motivated by being a part of a culture where we engage in growth that challenges us to be better, do better, feel better through self-awareness and self-lessness.
If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
A bird, to feel flight. I would also like to live on through my bones as a skeletal model for a classroom — that would be great! I’ve made this request with a friend, anatomy and dissection teacher and somanut extraordinaire Gil Hedley. I was inspired in his lab as a student dissecting the human form in a relational, connected, guided way. Looking inside the body has changed my visceral connection to myself and my work.
What is your favorite component of your work?
Working with raw material of the body. When I am working with my hands, I access the sense of sculpting with the human form.
What is your most marked characteristic?
Curiosity. Effervescence.
What do you value most in your work/practice?
I value my colleagues and experience from working in public health research, critical care settings, and with diverse populations. They have prepared me well to run a school, lead groups and work with challenging material in my clinical practice. I am also blessed to have access to beautiful spaces where we invite, hold, and create educational experiences for others. When not at Esalen, I am home on a piece of land in Nevada City, where I live, teach, and work in community. We invite elders from Esalen, including Dorothy Charles, Beverly Silverman, and others, to visit and share their teachings with our community and somatic sciences school, TensegrityU.
“Remembering to be as self compassionate as I can and praying to the divine that we're all a part of.”
–Aaron
“Prayer, reading, meditation, walking.”
–Karen
“Erratically — which is an ongoing stream of practice to find peace.”
–Charles
“Try on a daily basis to be kind to myself and to realize that making mistakes is a part of the human condition. Learning from our mistakes is a journey. But it starts with compassion and caring. First for oneself.”
–Steve
“Physically: aerobic exercise, volleyball, ice hockey, cycling, sailing. Emotionally: unfortunately I have to work to ‘not care’ about people or situations which may end painfully. Along the lines of ‘attachment is the source of suffering’, so best to avoid it or limit its scope. Sad though because it could also be the source of great joy. Is it worth the risk?“
–Rainer
“It's time for my heart to be nurtured on one level yet contained on another. To go easy on me and to allow my feelings to be validated, not judged harshly. On the other hand, to let the heart rule with equanimity and not lead the mind and body around like a master.”
–Suzanne
“I spend time thinking of everything I am grateful for, and I try to develop my ability to express compassion for myself and others without reservation. I take time to do the things I need to do to keep myself healthy and happy. This includes taking experiential workshops, fostering relationships, and participating within groups which have a similar interest to become a more compassionate and fulfilled being.“
–Peter
“Self-forgiveness for my own judgments. And oh yeah, coming to Esalen.”
–David B.
“Hmm, this is a tough one! I guess I take care of my heart through fostering relationships with people I feel connected to. Spending quality time with them (whether we're on the phone, through messages/letters, on Zoom, or in-person). Being there for them, listening to them, sharing what's going on with me, my struggles and my successes... like we do in the Esalen weekly Friends of Esalen Zoom sessions!”
–Lori
“I remind myself in many ways of the fact that " Love is all there is!" LOVE is the prize and this one precious life is the stage we get to learn our lessons. I get out into nature, hike, camp, river kayak, fly fish, garden, I create, I dance (not enough!), and I remain grateful for each day, each breath, each moment. Being in the moment, awake, and remembering the gift of life and my feeling of gratitude for all of creation.”
–Steven
“My physical heart by limiting stress and eating a heart-healthy diet. My emotional heart by staying in love with the world and by knowing that all disappointment and loss will pass.“
–David Z.
Today, September 29, is World Heart Day. Strike up a conversation with your own heart and as you feel comfortable, encourage others to do the same. As part of our own transformations and self-care, we sometimes ask for others to illuminate and enliven our hearts or speak our love language.
What if we could do this for ourselves too, even if just for today… or to start a heart practice, forever?
Inspired by 20th-century French writer Marcel Proust, we here at Esalen have created our own version of his favorite parlor game to dig just a little deeper — and differently — into our incredible faculty and staff.
Somatic and bodywork practitioner, educator, and Gestalt facilitator Kate Flore opens up about admiring the Cowardly Lion, aspiring to fall in love daily, and why she wishes she could have met Esalen’s Dick Price. The co-founder of TensegrityU, who will be on campus to lead The Space Between: Where Tensegrity Meets the Subtle Body next month, talks about “sculpting the human form” with her hands and why she’d like to come back as both a bird and an anatomy skeleton model: “Looking inside the body has changed my visceral connection to myself and my work.”
What is Esalen to you?
Esalen is a place of origin for me. There is a certain thing that started here, part of my becoming. I received an education in touch, movement, and relational process from the teachers here, and then my teachers’ teachers taught here. It is a place I come to be inspired, to teach, to share in the ideas and conversations that happen here, and to connect with the land. Many of my most enduring connections have come from the people I’ve met at Esalen. People who I continue to practice and spend time with. Esalen is a vibe, a spirit, a way of encountering self and other that gets dispersed by each one of us who pass through.
What do you do/are you doing at Esalen?
I am a workshop leader and Gestalt facilitator and offer Gestalt bodywork sessions. In April, I will be teaching The Space Between: Where Tensegrity Meets the Subtle Body with Kevin Dockery. The workshop is an exploration of tension and ease in our bodies via Feldenkrais Method movement lessons, contact, and Gestalt relational practice.
Which living or dead person do you most admire in your field?
I would have liked to have known Dick Price, co-founder of Esalen. Dick was motivated by his experience of a psychotic break, an awakening that was interrupted and treated abusively. He ran Esalen as a center for healing and experimentation. A place where those who felt misunderstood by our systems could come and drop into themselves through direct experience and relational contact. He brought forward a non-hierarchical approach to working with Gestalt process, taking it out of the therapist's chair. Instead of maintaining distance from a person and treating a symptom, Gestalt directly encounters and guides the person from the place of their direct experience, “in the here and now.” Dick helped make Gestalt a practice — a relational process to develop self-awareness and self-responsibility to increase our ability to grow our capacity.
What is the quality you most like in a human?
I really admire courage. I know how hard it can be to be brave, to take a step into the unknown. The art is to take those steps from a place of support, of resource. I think of the Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz and how courage isn’t the absence of fear but the vulnerability of acting in the face of fear while staying in contact with what the heart is saying: “Go for it!” And it helps to have the encouragement of others.
Who or what is the greatest love of your life?
I aspire to fall in love every day with some aspect of life — music, a touch, a taste, a view, a person, a conversation. I have a card with the phrase “I fall in love with you every day” taped to my bathroom mirror as a nudge toward the loving and intimate practice of nurturing my relationship with myself. We are the protagonist in our lives.
What about your work brings you the most happiness?
Witnessing and participating in growth. The privilege of being up close and personal to life's unfolding, as witness to another’s becoming. I am motivated by being a part of a culture where we engage in growth that challenges us to be better, do better, feel better through self-awareness and self-lessness.
If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what would it be?
A bird, to feel flight. I would also like to live on through my bones as a skeletal model for a classroom — that would be great! I’ve made this request with a friend, anatomy and dissection teacher and somanut extraordinaire Gil Hedley. I was inspired in his lab as a student dissecting the human form in a relational, connected, guided way. Looking inside the body has changed my visceral connection to myself and my work.
What is your favorite component of your work?
Working with raw material of the body. When I am working with my hands, I access the sense of sculpting with the human form.
What is your most marked characteristic?
Curiosity. Effervescence.
What do you value most in your work/practice?
I value my colleagues and experience from working in public health research, critical care settings, and with diverse populations. They have prepared me well to run a school, lead groups and work with challenging material in my clinical practice. I am also blessed to have access to beautiful spaces where we invite, hold, and create educational experiences for others. When not at Esalen, I am home on a piece of land in Nevada City, where I live, teach, and work in community. We invite elders from Esalen, including Dorothy Charles, Beverly Silverman, and others, to visit and share their teachings with our community and somatic sciences school, TensegrityU.
“Remembering to be as self compassionate as I can and praying to the divine that we're all a part of.”
–Aaron
“Prayer, reading, meditation, walking.”
–Karen
“Erratically — which is an ongoing stream of practice to find peace.”
–Charles
“Try on a daily basis to be kind to myself and to realize that making mistakes is a part of the human condition. Learning from our mistakes is a journey. But it starts with compassion and caring. First for oneself.”
–Steve
“Physically: aerobic exercise, volleyball, ice hockey, cycling, sailing. Emotionally: unfortunately I have to work to ‘not care’ about people or situations which may end painfully. Along the lines of ‘attachment is the source of suffering’, so best to avoid it or limit its scope. Sad though because it could also be the source of great joy. Is it worth the risk?“
–Rainer
“It's time for my heart to be nurtured on one level yet contained on another. To go easy on me and to allow my feelings to be validated, not judged harshly. On the other hand, to let the heart rule with equanimity and not lead the mind and body around like a master.”
–Suzanne
“I spend time thinking of everything I am grateful for, and I try to develop my ability to express compassion for myself and others without reservation. I take time to do the things I need to do to keep myself healthy and happy. This includes taking experiential workshops, fostering relationships, and participating within groups which have a similar interest to become a more compassionate and fulfilled being.“
–Peter
“Self-forgiveness for my own judgments. And oh yeah, coming to Esalen.”
–David B.
“Hmm, this is a tough one! I guess I take care of my heart through fostering relationships with people I feel connected to. Spending quality time with them (whether we're on the phone, through messages/letters, on Zoom, or in-person). Being there for them, listening to them, sharing what's going on with me, my struggles and my successes... like we do in the Esalen weekly Friends of Esalen Zoom sessions!”
–Lori
“I remind myself in many ways of the fact that " Love is all there is!" LOVE is the prize and this one precious life is the stage we get to learn our lessons. I get out into nature, hike, camp, river kayak, fly fish, garden, I create, I dance (not enough!), and I remain grateful for each day, each breath, each moment. Being in the moment, awake, and remembering the gift of life and my feeling of gratitude for all of creation.”
–Steven
“My physical heart by limiting stress and eating a heart-healthy diet. My emotional heart by staying in love with the world and by knowing that all disappointment and loss will pass.“
–David Z.
Today, September 29, is World Heart Day. Strike up a conversation with your own heart and as you feel comfortable, encourage others to do the same. As part of our own transformations and self-care, we sometimes ask for others to illuminate and enliven our hearts or speak our love language.
What if we could do this for ourselves too, even if just for today… or to start a heart practice, forever?
Esalen Institute
55000 Highway 1
Big Sur, CA 93920
US: 1-831-667-3000
info@esalen.org
