Seminar Spotlight: A Closer Look
In our efforts to expand our programming in new directions, we continue to present leaders whose names may not be as familiar to you as others in our catalog. In this section we highlight a few of these offerings by providing a bit more information than you’ll find in the Workshops section.
Vernon Bush
“If you can speak, you can sing” is a proverb that Vernon Bush often shares with people. “Regardless of what others (including the voices in your head) have told you, I don’t believe people are tone deaf, and there is no such thing as someone who cannot sing. If you listen closely, there is a distinctive melody and rhythm even in plain speaking. Each of us has a voice, which is truly a unique instrument, and we should approach it as such. I’m here to encourage my students to learn to joyfully discover and explore their own distinctive instrument, just as babies revel in making their first sounds.”
Vernon Bush has been singing gospel from the time he could walk. He grew up in the Baptist church community as the son of a prominent minister in New York City, and directed his first choir at the age of sixteen. He now teaches aspiring singers of all ages from around the world. He lives in San Francisco where he is musical director at Glide Memorial Church. He teaches at elementary schools and high schools, as well as at the innovative Jazz School in Berkeley. He spent 2008 in Europe, touring and promoting his CD, Go For The Ride, and writing and finishing music for his upcoming recording, Wake Up Singing.
His workshop at Esalen will focus on unblocking the voice and freeing it from judgmental censors. His goal is to foster a sense of inner connection, well-being, and self-expression through music. “Singing is truly an expression of happiness. Just notice when you catch yourself humming a tune under your breath without thinking: nine times out of ten you’re probably in a good mood and space.”
Upcoming Workshop: January 16-18, 2009
Spirit Songs: Freeing Your Voice through the Power of
Gospel
Jay Ogilvy & Sam Yau
How does the human potential movement point to greater potential for business and a deeper meaning of success for ourselves and for our companies?
Jay Ogilvy and Sam Yau will join forces in April to lead a workshop on business and human potential. Jay and Sam, who met in 2007 at the Esalen Center for Theory and Research’s Global Potentials Program, bring an extraordinarily broad range of expertise that spans two areas not always considered connected: executive-level business strategy and personal growth.
“I refuse to believe that we’ve exhausted our opportunities for progress,” writes Jay in his book, Creating Better Futures: Scenario Planning as a Tool for a Better Tomorrow (Oxford University Press, 2002). “We have what it takes to make better choices about some of the vast systems that shape our lives. Certain tools, when placed in the hands of relatively small groups of individuals, can bend the course of very large organizations.” Jay is a philosopher, author, and former researcher on the effects that human motivations and values have on various aspects of global business at the Stanford Research Institute. Cofounder of Global Business Network, he also has taught at the University of Texas, Williams College, and Yale University.
Sam Yau is a business strategist known for delivering rapid value creation and strategic repositioning in turnaround situations. His career has spanned many industries, from semiconductor and computer hardware to education. When Sam embarked on a journey of self-discovery for personal and spiritual growth, he frequently attended Esalen workshops and in June 2008, Sam was elected board chairman at Esalen.
“Leadership is authentic expression of one’s inner life that creates value through collective efforts,” says Sam. “The traditional leadership view focuses on the external attributes of leadership, but the qualities of the person are the single most important determining factor in the creation of the unique culture of an organization. Leadership and culture determine the performance of the company.”
Jay and Sam’s workshop will explore how self-realization can be a model for new meanings of business success.
Upcoming Workshop: April 17-19, 2009
Business and Human Potential
Robert Hartman & Shirley Ward
A kitchen garden is a way to eat locally, connect with the land, and enjoy the freshest food possible. At Esalen, the bountiful five acres that comprise the Farm and Garden produce vegetables and fruit for the Esalen kitchen. In addition to food, the Farm provides a beautiful space for reflection and community building.
During Shirley Wards and Robert Hartman’s workshop, the Farm and Garden will become a teacher that invites you to explore the practical and spiritual dimensions of gardening as a means of personal growth.
Robert Hartman, an organic gardening advocate, and Shirley Ward, the Esalen Farm and Garden Manager, met in the Garden. “With her experience as a landscape designer, organic gardener, and consultant, I would have been intimidated if she had not been so very nice,” says Robert. “She immediately asked me what I thought about the condition of the soil on the Farm and was genuinely interested in my perspective.”
“We both knew that plants rely on microorganisms in the soil to release the nutrients they need, and that if soil conditions can sustain a vibrant microbial culture, plants will thrive. Her simple question was both the most basic and the most profound that a gardener can ask.
“It turned out that we shared the same vision of the Esalen Farm and Garden as an unforgettable place where seminarians could receive hands-on, high-quality training. Whether someone plans to transform her or his yard into an edible landscape, become more self reliant as energy costs increase, or cultivate a new awareness of gardening within the community, the Esalen Farm and Garden is an ideal location for teaching and learning. We decided to help bring that vision about by creating this workshop.”
Upcoming Workshop: April 26 - May 1, 2009
The Heart of Organic Gardening: Sowing the Seeds of
Abundance
Sheila Ramsey & Gordon Watanabe
How do we feel about difference? Do we prefer to close off and pull away, trying to persuade those who are different from us to be more like us? Or do we find differences attractive, thus having friends of different ethnicities, marrying our polar opposite, and looking for challenging projects at work?
“There is an inherently creative possibility in situations of difference,” Sheila Ramsey, Gordon Watanabe, and coauthor Barbara Schaetti write in Making a World of Difference. Personal Leadership: A Methodology of Two Principles and Six Practices. As founding partners, with Barbara, of Personal Leadership Seminars, LLC, Sheila and Gordon and their community of practitioners have developed a methodology that grew from an interest in the interface between the creative use of difference and their shared meditation practice. This approach helps people stay connected to wisdom and inspiration even when faced with the new and unfamiliar. One of the more amazing aspects of the work, they say, is how Personal Leadership speaks so clearly to people from a wide range of cultures and professional interests, inviting them easily into leading from the inside out.
Sheila and Gordon (and Barbara) have been colleagues for more than fifteen years, having first met through their work at the Summer Institute for Intercultural Communication (SIIC). Together, Sheila and Gordon have fifty years of experience in intercultural education, leadership development and facilitation. Sheila has led seminars with the US Department of State, US Peace Corps, Smithsonian Institution, United Nations, and Daimler-Benz. Gordon is professor emeritus at Whitworth University and has facilitated diversity initiatives with educational institutions, corporate entities, and communities. Their work at Esalen is founded on the basic principle that using self as instrument is critical for effectiveness across difference and for leading others.
Upcoming Workshop: May 3-8, 2009
Personal Leadership: A Methodology for Making a World of Difference
Sidney M. Baker
“When I was little, my father’s job as a minister and then a dean put me frequently with grownups, some of whom really saw me as an individual, sentient being,” writes Dr. Sidney Baker. “Others seemed to overlook me as just a bump in the undifferentiated landscape of childhood. From those who really saw me, I received the blessing of being able to see myself, and so fully become myself.
“Access to that mirror in the eyes of adults is not easy for children who belong to a group we call autistic. The blindness goes in both directions and becomes one of the many vicious cycles that abound in the landscape of autism. Teachers, therapists, and family members who do see the person inside can with reciprocal vision leverage nature’s strong impulse toward healing. Being wholly seen and thus imagining oneself whole is a step toward re-membering individuals who have been dismembered biochemically, immunologically, and perceptually.
“The key word is individual, with its double meaning of indivisible and unique. Each creature that has ever or will ever live is a unique being. The way toward healing that I have found rejects the lingo that depicts diseases as entities that attack people whose defense is managed by naming and blaming the disease and taming it with pharmaceuticals. I have learned the value of approaching the chronically ill individual with a simple question: Does this person have a special unmet need for something beneficial (nutrient, love, light, rhythmic integration) or to avoid something toxic or allergenic? That question has been my way of helping individuals achieve balance and participation and control over a therapeutic journey in which nature does the healing. That path has led to an understanding of the key options for those individuals caught in the current epidemic of developmental problems. Those options illuminate not only the choices of parents and practitioners but also those charged with the formation of an adaptive public policy in a changing world.”
Upcoming Workshop: May 15-17, 2009
Treating the Unique Child: Private Options, Public Policy, and the
Autism Spectrum
Marc Gopin
Marc Gopin’s reconciliation work has tremendous breadth, taking him across the globe and deep into the human heart. As an international peacemaker, he works with religious, political, and military figures on both sides of conflicts, especially in the Arab/Israeli conflict. In his most recent book, Healing the Heart of Conflict, Marc explores a different kind of reconciliation: how self-examination can free people from harmful struggles that go on within themselves and between community groups.
Marc is the James H. Laue Professor of Religion, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution, and the director of the Center on Religion, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University’s Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. He has trained thousands of people worldwide in peacemaking strategies for complex conflicts in which religion and culture play a role. Marc is also an ordained rabbi.
In Marc’s words: “What I have learned—working for peace in difficult world trouble spots such as the Middle East, training people who experienced genocide in Africa and Europe, or helping my congregants through serious personal conflicts—is that many conflicts, rooted in the deepest, most primal emotions, cannot be solved by rational discussion and negotiation alone. Instead the answer lies along a path of self-examination, as well as emotional and spiritual growth, which set the stage for lasting change in relationships.”
Healing The Heart of Conflict forms the basis for his workshop at Esalen. In both, Marc turns his attention to self transformation, interpersonal healing, and community conflict resolution. This process, writes Marc, “will help people free themselves from the soul-poisoning effects of destructive conflict and teach us how to examine our inner lives so that our character becomes a true ally of healing and we can take powerful action that completely transforms hopeless situations.” Workshop participants will explore Marc’s eight steps toward healing that lead from the inner life to one’s actions in the world.
Upcoming Workshop: June 21-26, 2009
Healing the Heart of Conflict