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:
“When a language creates—as it does—a community within the present, it does so only by courtesy of a community between the present and the past.”
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“I do not think I could myself, be brought to support a man for office, whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at, religion. Leaving the higher matter of eternal consequences, between him and his Maker, I still do not think any man has the right thus to insult the feelings, and injure the morals, of the community in which he may live.”
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“Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it.”
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