Tag Archives: Esalen

Sacred Places: Esalen Institute

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Esalen Institute, Big Sur, California.

For me this is a sacred place that I viscerally feel and know everytime I am there. My photograph is at sunset. People meditate, listening to the sounds of the crashing sea, fully, amazingly, peaceful.

The Big Sur area is incredibly beautiful, with mountains crashing directly into the sea, and waves roaring into the shore.

Carbon dating of artifacts found on Esalen date from 2600 BC. Esalen played a key role in the human potentials movement in the 60’s and provides week long and weekend workshops and focuses on humanistic alternative education. I took 2 workshops there on mindfulness. I believe that the place itself is holy and healing, not to mention the wonderful hot spring hot tubs next to the crash in sea!

 

Esalen: If Buddha was sitting in the Hot Tub with you

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If Buddha was sitting in the Hot Tub with you

“latest” version 032415
by Dan Windisch

If Buddha was  sitting
in the hot tub
with you.

Would you?
Could You?
Be still enough…
to Know?

And being there …
What would you learn,
from her?

And, If it was night,
and a billion stars were
bright,
and waves were crashing endlessly to the shore,
and the cool breeze caressed your face,
and chatter flowed all around.

Would you?
Could You?
Be still enough…
to Know?

And, just a thought …

Would it be?
Could it be?
WIll it be?
That Buddha is you?

 

earlier version
If Buddha was sitting in the Esalen Hot Tub with you

If Buddha was sitting
in the hot tub, with you.

Could you?
Would You?
Be still enough…
to Know?

And being there …
What would you learn
from her.

Dan Windisch 2015

original version:

 

Esalen Flowers after Rain

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Esalen Flowers after Rain

It has been a long time since my last post. 4 eye surgeries (cataract surgery with new lenses for both eyes! Laser surgery for 6 bleeds in my left eye, then emergency retinal detachment surgery that involved 2 weeks for me to regain sight in that eye) make me appreciate my vision even more. Visual beauty is so precious to me.

I am now back at Esalen Institute for a Mindfulness and Loving Kindness Workshop that I plan to teach my students when I get back.

Yesterday it rained. Below are photos of the beautiful flowers here after the rain in early morning light. Hope you enjoy! All photos were taken with my iphone 5 and edited with Lightroom.

 

Manifestations of Beauty: Orange Flower and Filters

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Manifestations of Beauty: Orange Flower and Filters

The top photo is the original color photograph The middle is the same photograph using a spia filter, and the last is the original with a red filter.  Each provides a different shade and perspective of beauty.

General Information on my manifestations of beauty blog posts:

Beauty dances in many forms,  in many manifestations, for example, over time a caterpillar becomes a larvae  becomes a butterfly.  This is beauty observed through time.
Yet  Beauty can also be a single moment, a single photograph. Single moment beauty can viewed through many different filters.  The same beauty, the same moment, seen differently,  With each filter bringing out a different aspect  of the unspeakable and multilayered  beauty in each object.

I have been red green colorblind all my life, I see the world differently than those who are not colorblind. I often wonder how they see. Perhaps because of this, I love taking the same photograph and looking at it through different filters using programs like aperture, Lightroom, and Photoshop.

Manifestations of Beauty: Plant bending back to earth

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Manifestations of Beauty: Plant bending back to earth

There are several things I love about this photo. First in the black-and-white  there is less distraction from the importance of the curves and shapes and shadows. I love the symbolism of the plant reaching for the sky, and then reaching back to the earth, almost touching. I also love the shape of the shadow and the curving of the hillside in the background.

The color photo brings out that beautiful color of the plant itself.

General Information on my manifestations of beauty blog posts:

Beauty dances in many forms,  in many manifestations, for example, over time a caterpillar becomes a larvae  becomes a butterfly.  This is beauty observed through time.
Yet  Beauty can also be a single moment, a single photograph. Single moment beauty can viewed through many different filters.  The same beauty, the same moment, seen differently,  With each filter bringing out a different aspect  of the unspeakable and multilayered  beauty in each object.

I have been red green colorblind all my life, I see the world differently than those who are not colorblind. I often wonder how they see. Perhaps because of this, I love taking the same photograph and looking at it through different filters using programs like aperture, Lightroom, and Photoshop.

Manifestations of beauty: Trees, Seas, Sunset

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Manifestations of beauty: Esalen Trees, Seas, Sunset

To see the full sized image on any photo click on that photo. To close the full sized image click the x at the top of the photo.

General Information on my manifestations of beauty blog posts:

Beauty dances in many forms,  in many manifestations, for example, over time a caterpillar becomes a larvae  becomes a butterfly.  This is beauty observed through time.
Yet  Beauty can also be a single moment, a single photograph. Single moment beauty can viewed through many different filters.  The same beauty, the same moment, seen differently,  With each filter bringing out a different aspect  of the unspeakable and multilayered  beauty in each object.

I have been red green colorblind all my life, I see the world differently than those who are not colorblind. I often wonder how they see. Perhaps because of this, I love taking the same photograph and looking at it through different filters using programs like aperture, Lightroom, and Photoshop.

Photos of Beauty from my Esalen Institute visit in March 2014.

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Photos of Beauty from my Esalen Institute visit in March 2014.