Back in the Day with Perry Holloman

Darnell Lamont Walker leading Rituals Writing Workshop

Perry Holloman, a practitioner of Esalen massage, deep bodywork, and body-oriented approaches to relational Gestalt process work for more than 30 years, takes us back to the early 1980s, when the Ivy League undergrad held court as Esalen’s resident dishwasher, chess player, dancer, and preschool teacher.


“I got to Esalen in March of 1979. I had been going to school on the East Coast and preparing myself for a professional life, most likely as a lawyer. But my soul was screaming: This is not my path in this life. And so I talked with my parents and told them I would like to take some time off to sort of figure out what my direction was going to be.

They said, “Well, how would you like to start out with a five-day stay with David Schiffman at the Esalen Institute?” 

I said, “That sounds good to me.”  I came to Esalen, and my mind was so blown by what I experienced.

Becoming Aware

David Schiffman introduced me to the world of Gestalt. The idea in Gestalt is, the more aware we are, the greater the potential to learn and grow and develop through our experience. Awareness is the factor which illuminates experience in such a way that we can see things and experience things from different perspectives. Like Esalen massage, if you watch ten different Gestalt practitioners work, it will seem like they're doing ten very different things. However, what one will notice looking more deeply is all of the approaches have a focus upon the development of awareness in common.

Dick Price, for example, was the purest. He called himself a “reflector.” He liked to describe himself as something like a Native American tracker who would follow in the footprints of the person he was facilitating — to the point where their awareness combined with his support would have an illuminating effect on their ability to gather information about their experience.

Somatics & Spirituality

Soon I started studying deep tissue work with a man named Al Drucker who came to Esalen himself in a healing crisis. He had been working for the Pentagon, designing weapons and bombs. He was a high-level, very talented engineer, and in the course of his work for the Pentagon, he developed liver cancer. He came to Esalen in 1968, looking to heal himself. He healed himself in the roundhouse, what's now called the Meditation Hut, down by Hot Springs Creek. He had an insight that if he took any pain medication to deal with his cancer, it was going to interfere with the process of healing. He described a process of about two weeks where he was going through a healing crisis, where he said it felt like someone had his liver in a vice and was slowly turning it each minute tighter and tighter. Suddenly, he realized he was on the ceiling of the roundhouse, looking down at his body writhing in pain, and he knew that it was over. At a certain point, he dropped back into his body and the pain went away. The cancer went away. And that was in 1969.

In any case, Al was a brilliant teacher, and he used the somatic discipline of deep tissue work to basically give spiritual teachings about non-dual reality. These were the types of things when I first got here that were available — just the most fantastic teachers, including Dick and Stanislav Grof and the anthropologist Gregory Bateson. My mother, who was a college professor, an anthropologist, came and visited, and when she saw Gregory Bateson sitting out on the deck, she asked, “Do you know who that is?”

And I said, “Yeah, that's Gregory Bateson. He and I play chess sometimes. He’s kind of the old grandpa of the place.”

“No, do you know who that is?” she said. She proceeded to let me know that he was one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century and that his work in cybernetics had been very influential in many different disciplines, from sociology to anthropology and various branches of psychology.

It was similar with Stan Grof. I really had no idea who he was. Yet I had the benefit with 14 other people of having this man for a full weekend just beginning to do his holotropic breathwork. It wasn't even called holotropic breathwork at that point in time. We just laid down on mats and he played this music, and we started breathing heavily, and we talked about our experiences afterward. And I just thought, “Well, this is interesting stuff …”

Dancing & Drumming

It felt like Esalen, the Esalen community, was tribal in nature at the time. Nobody worked more than four days a week, and a lot of people tried to get away with three and a half. And so what that led to was a great deal of unstructured time for their own self-exploration and hanging out together. There was a great deal of music back in the day. On warm, sunny summer days, it was very rare not to hear really good drumming happening. There were world-class musicians and drummers living in Big Sur, like Charles Lloyd, the great jazz musician. He had a place up on Partington Ridge, and he would often come down to Esalen and play the saxophone. There was a kind of pulsing, visceral quality to the place that still does live on. I have a feeling it's waiting to reemerge in some way, shape, or form. I can still feel the pulse of it present here.

Teaching Children

I worked as a “duck,” as a dishwasher, for two years. After my “baptism” in the duck pond, Janet Lederman hired me to be a teacher at the Gazebo preschool, which is what I did for the next three years, from 1981 to 1984. That was an extremely rich experience. I think Janet Lederman remains an underappreciated contributor to the importance of Gestalt awareness practice.

Janet told me this story about her first meeting with Fritz, that she watched Fritz's work and immediately recognized that what Fritz was doing with adults, she wanted to be doing with children. She said, “I have no patience with adults. I'm not interested in that. I'll let Fritz do that part. I want to work with the kids.” And so, she set up an environment based upon the principles of Gestalt awareness practice.

There is a great deal of potential in children: If we give them an environment through which they can make real contact with each other relationally as well as with the environment, there is a potential acceleration of the development and actualization that can happen, particularly if we create an environment that's both challenging yet safe.  

Teaching children turned out to be challenging in a much different way than dishwashing. But I discovered that I had a very natural ability to do it. Being with kids in that way required me to learn and grow and develop as an individual because of the impact of my behavior — the stakes were so much higher. If I break a dish, that's one thing, but if I do something that acts as a source of confusion in some way for a kid, that's a lot more complex to unwind.

We would have weekly meetings with Janet and we would talk about the challenges of having such an open environment and keeping it safely structured. She was just an incredible source of information and wisdom about the nature of young developing human organisms. I will treasure those three years that I was able to spend in the Gazebo School and directly with Janet Lederman for the rest of my life. She is a master teacher in the history of this place.

“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?


Perry leads Integrative Gestalt Practice™ with Johanna Holloman both as a five-day workshop May 22–26, 2023, and as part of our month-long Live Extended Education Program from July 1 – July 29, 2023.


About

Sam Stern

Sam Stern is the host of the Voices of Esalen podcast. He lives in Big Sur with his wife, Candice, and a magnificent three-year-old, Roxy.

< Back to all Journal posts

Darnell Lamont Walker leading Rituals Writing Workshop
Back in the Day with Perry Holloman

Perry Holloman, a practitioner of Esalen massage, deep bodywork, and body-oriented approaches to relational Gestalt process work for more than 30 years, takes us back to the early 1980s, when the Ivy League undergrad held court as Esalen’s resident dishwasher, chess player, dancer, and preschool teacher.


“I got to Esalen in March of 1979. I had been going to school on the East Coast and preparing myself for a professional life, most likely as a lawyer. But my soul was screaming: This is not my path in this life. And so I talked with my parents and told them I would like to take some time off to sort of figure out what my direction was going to be.

They said, “Well, how would you like to start out with a five-day stay with David Schiffman at the Esalen Institute?” 

I said, “That sounds good to me.”  I came to Esalen, and my mind was so blown by what I experienced.

Becoming Aware

David Schiffman introduced me to the world of Gestalt. The idea in Gestalt is, the more aware we are, the greater the potential to learn and grow and develop through our experience. Awareness is the factor which illuminates experience in such a way that we can see things and experience things from different perspectives. Like Esalen massage, if you watch ten different Gestalt practitioners work, it will seem like they're doing ten very different things. However, what one will notice looking more deeply is all of the approaches have a focus upon the development of awareness in common.

Dick Price, for example, was the purest. He called himself a “reflector.” He liked to describe himself as something like a Native American tracker who would follow in the footprints of the person he was facilitating — to the point where their awareness combined with his support would have an illuminating effect on their ability to gather information about their experience.

Somatics & Spirituality

Soon I started studying deep tissue work with a man named Al Drucker who came to Esalen himself in a healing crisis. He had been working for the Pentagon, designing weapons and bombs. He was a high-level, very talented engineer, and in the course of his work for the Pentagon, he developed liver cancer. He came to Esalen in 1968, looking to heal himself. He healed himself in the roundhouse, what's now called the Meditation Hut, down by Hot Springs Creek. He had an insight that if he took any pain medication to deal with his cancer, it was going to interfere with the process of healing. He described a process of about two weeks where he was going through a healing crisis, where he said it felt like someone had his liver in a vice and was slowly turning it each minute tighter and tighter. Suddenly, he realized he was on the ceiling of the roundhouse, looking down at his body writhing in pain, and he knew that it was over. At a certain point, he dropped back into his body and the pain went away. The cancer went away. And that was in 1969.

In any case, Al was a brilliant teacher, and he used the somatic discipline of deep tissue work to basically give spiritual teachings about non-dual reality. These were the types of things when I first got here that were available — just the most fantastic teachers, including Dick and Stanislav Grof and the anthropologist Gregory Bateson. My mother, who was a college professor, an anthropologist, came and visited, and when she saw Gregory Bateson sitting out on the deck, she asked, “Do you know who that is?”

And I said, “Yeah, that's Gregory Bateson. He and I play chess sometimes. He’s kind of the old grandpa of the place.”

“No, do you know who that is?” she said. She proceeded to let me know that he was one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century and that his work in cybernetics had been very influential in many different disciplines, from sociology to anthropology and various branches of psychology.

It was similar with Stan Grof. I really had no idea who he was. Yet I had the benefit with 14 other people of having this man for a full weekend just beginning to do his holotropic breathwork. It wasn't even called holotropic breathwork at that point in time. We just laid down on mats and he played this music, and we started breathing heavily, and we talked about our experiences afterward. And I just thought, “Well, this is interesting stuff …”

Dancing & Drumming

It felt like Esalen, the Esalen community, was tribal in nature at the time. Nobody worked more than four days a week, and a lot of people tried to get away with three and a half. And so what that led to was a great deal of unstructured time for their own self-exploration and hanging out together. There was a great deal of music back in the day. On warm, sunny summer days, it was very rare not to hear really good drumming happening. There were world-class musicians and drummers living in Big Sur, like Charles Lloyd, the great jazz musician. He had a place up on Partington Ridge, and he would often come down to Esalen and play the saxophone. There was a kind of pulsing, visceral quality to the place that still does live on. I have a feeling it's waiting to reemerge in some way, shape, or form. I can still feel the pulse of it present here.

Teaching Children

I worked as a “duck,” as a dishwasher, for two years. After my “baptism” in the duck pond, Janet Lederman hired me to be a teacher at the Gazebo preschool, which is what I did for the next three years, from 1981 to 1984. That was an extremely rich experience. I think Janet Lederman remains an underappreciated contributor to the importance of Gestalt awareness practice.

Janet told me this story about her first meeting with Fritz, that she watched Fritz's work and immediately recognized that what Fritz was doing with adults, she wanted to be doing with children. She said, “I have no patience with adults. I'm not interested in that. I'll let Fritz do that part. I want to work with the kids.” And so, she set up an environment based upon the principles of Gestalt awareness practice.

There is a great deal of potential in children: If we give them an environment through which they can make real contact with each other relationally as well as with the environment, there is a potential acceleration of the development and actualization that can happen, particularly if we create an environment that's both challenging yet safe.  

Teaching children turned out to be challenging in a much different way than dishwashing. But I discovered that I had a very natural ability to do it. Being with kids in that way required me to learn and grow and develop as an individual because of the impact of my behavior — the stakes were so much higher. If I break a dish, that's one thing, but if I do something that acts as a source of confusion in some way for a kid, that's a lot more complex to unwind.

We would have weekly meetings with Janet and we would talk about the challenges of having such an open environment and keeping it safely structured. She was just an incredible source of information and wisdom about the nature of young developing human organisms. I will treasure those three years that I was able to spend in the Gazebo School and directly with Janet Lederman for the rest of my life. She is a master teacher in the history of this place.

“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?


Perry leads Integrative Gestalt Practice™ with Johanna Holloman both as a five-day workshop May 22–26, 2023, and as part of our month-long Live Extended Education Program from July 1 – July 29, 2023.


About

Sam Stern

Sam Stern is the host of the Voices of Esalen podcast. He lives in Big Sur with his wife, Candice, and a magnificent three-year-old, Roxy.

Back in the Day with Perry Holloman

About

Sam Stern

Sam Stern is the host of the Voices of Esalen podcast. He lives in Big Sur with his wife, Candice, and a magnificent three-year-old, Roxy.

< Back to all articles

Darnell Lamont Walker leading Rituals Writing Workshop

Perry Holloman, a practitioner of Esalen massage, deep bodywork, and body-oriented approaches to relational Gestalt process work for more than 30 years, takes us back to the early 1980s, when the Ivy League undergrad held court as Esalen’s resident dishwasher, chess player, dancer, and preschool teacher.


“I got to Esalen in March of 1979. I had been going to school on the East Coast and preparing myself for a professional life, most likely as a lawyer. But my soul was screaming: This is not my path in this life. And so I talked with my parents and told them I would like to take some time off to sort of figure out what my direction was going to be.

They said, “Well, how would you like to start out with a five-day stay with David Schiffman at the Esalen Institute?” 

I said, “That sounds good to me.”  I came to Esalen, and my mind was so blown by what I experienced.

Becoming Aware

David Schiffman introduced me to the world of Gestalt. The idea in Gestalt is, the more aware we are, the greater the potential to learn and grow and develop through our experience. Awareness is the factor which illuminates experience in such a way that we can see things and experience things from different perspectives. Like Esalen massage, if you watch ten different Gestalt practitioners work, it will seem like they're doing ten very different things. However, what one will notice looking more deeply is all of the approaches have a focus upon the development of awareness in common.

Dick Price, for example, was the purest. He called himself a “reflector.” He liked to describe himself as something like a Native American tracker who would follow in the footprints of the person he was facilitating — to the point where their awareness combined with his support would have an illuminating effect on their ability to gather information about their experience.

Somatics & Spirituality

Soon I started studying deep tissue work with a man named Al Drucker who came to Esalen himself in a healing crisis. He had been working for the Pentagon, designing weapons and bombs. He was a high-level, very talented engineer, and in the course of his work for the Pentagon, he developed liver cancer. He came to Esalen in 1968, looking to heal himself. He healed himself in the roundhouse, what's now called the Meditation Hut, down by Hot Springs Creek. He had an insight that if he took any pain medication to deal with his cancer, it was going to interfere with the process of healing. He described a process of about two weeks where he was going through a healing crisis, where he said it felt like someone had his liver in a vice and was slowly turning it each minute tighter and tighter. Suddenly, he realized he was on the ceiling of the roundhouse, looking down at his body writhing in pain, and he knew that it was over. At a certain point, he dropped back into his body and the pain went away. The cancer went away. And that was in 1969.

In any case, Al was a brilliant teacher, and he used the somatic discipline of deep tissue work to basically give spiritual teachings about non-dual reality. These were the types of things when I first got here that were available — just the most fantastic teachers, including Dick and Stanislav Grof and the anthropologist Gregory Bateson. My mother, who was a college professor, an anthropologist, came and visited, and when she saw Gregory Bateson sitting out on the deck, she asked, “Do you know who that is?”

And I said, “Yeah, that's Gregory Bateson. He and I play chess sometimes. He’s kind of the old grandpa of the place.”

“No, do you know who that is?” she said. She proceeded to let me know that he was one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century and that his work in cybernetics had been very influential in many different disciplines, from sociology to anthropology and various branches of psychology.

It was similar with Stan Grof. I really had no idea who he was. Yet I had the benefit with 14 other people of having this man for a full weekend just beginning to do his holotropic breathwork. It wasn't even called holotropic breathwork at that point in time. We just laid down on mats and he played this music, and we started breathing heavily, and we talked about our experiences afterward. And I just thought, “Well, this is interesting stuff …”

Dancing & Drumming

It felt like Esalen, the Esalen community, was tribal in nature at the time. Nobody worked more than four days a week, and a lot of people tried to get away with three and a half. And so what that led to was a great deal of unstructured time for their own self-exploration and hanging out together. There was a great deal of music back in the day. On warm, sunny summer days, it was very rare not to hear really good drumming happening. There were world-class musicians and drummers living in Big Sur, like Charles Lloyd, the great jazz musician. He had a place up on Partington Ridge, and he would often come down to Esalen and play the saxophone. There was a kind of pulsing, visceral quality to the place that still does live on. I have a feeling it's waiting to reemerge in some way, shape, or form. I can still feel the pulse of it present here.

Teaching Children

I worked as a “duck,” as a dishwasher, for two years. After my “baptism” in the duck pond, Janet Lederman hired me to be a teacher at the Gazebo preschool, which is what I did for the next three years, from 1981 to 1984. That was an extremely rich experience. I think Janet Lederman remains an underappreciated contributor to the importance of Gestalt awareness practice.

Janet told me this story about her first meeting with Fritz, that she watched Fritz's work and immediately recognized that what Fritz was doing with adults, she wanted to be doing with children. She said, “I have no patience with adults. I'm not interested in that. I'll let Fritz do that part. I want to work with the kids.” And so, she set up an environment based upon the principles of Gestalt awareness practice.

There is a great deal of potential in children: If we give them an environment through which they can make real contact with each other relationally as well as with the environment, there is a potential acceleration of the development and actualization that can happen, particularly if we create an environment that's both challenging yet safe.  

Teaching children turned out to be challenging in a much different way than dishwashing. But I discovered that I had a very natural ability to do it. Being with kids in that way required me to learn and grow and develop as an individual because of the impact of my behavior — the stakes were so much higher. If I break a dish, that's one thing, but if I do something that acts as a source of confusion in some way for a kid, that's a lot more complex to unwind.

We would have weekly meetings with Janet and we would talk about the challenges of having such an open environment and keeping it safely structured. She was just an incredible source of information and wisdom about the nature of young developing human organisms. I will treasure those three years that I was able to spend in the Gazebo School and directly with Janet Lederman for the rest of my life. She is a master teacher in the history of this place.

“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?


Perry leads Integrative Gestalt Practice™ with Johanna Holloman both as a five-day workshop May 22–26, 2023, and as part of our month-long Live Extended Education Program from July 1 – July 29, 2023.


About

Sam Stern

Sam Stern is the host of the Voices of Esalen podcast. He lives in Big Sur with his wife, Candice, and a magnificent three-year-old, Roxy.

< Back to all Journal posts

Darnell Lamont Walker leading Rituals Writing Workshop
Back in the Day with Perry Holloman

Perry Holloman, a practitioner of Esalen massage, deep bodywork, and body-oriented approaches to relational Gestalt process work for more than 30 years, takes us back to the early 1980s, when the Ivy League undergrad held court as Esalen’s resident dishwasher, chess player, dancer, and preschool teacher.


“I got to Esalen in March of 1979. I had been going to school on the East Coast and preparing myself for a professional life, most likely as a lawyer. But my soul was screaming: This is not my path in this life. And so I talked with my parents and told them I would like to take some time off to sort of figure out what my direction was going to be.

They said, “Well, how would you like to start out with a five-day stay with David Schiffman at the Esalen Institute?” 

I said, “That sounds good to me.”  I came to Esalen, and my mind was so blown by what I experienced.

Becoming Aware

David Schiffman introduced me to the world of Gestalt. The idea in Gestalt is, the more aware we are, the greater the potential to learn and grow and develop through our experience. Awareness is the factor which illuminates experience in such a way that we can see things and experience things from different perspectives. Like Esalen massage, if you watch ten different Gestalt practitioners work, it will seem like they're doing ten very different things. However, what one will notice looking more deeply is all of the approaches have a focus upon the development of awareness in common.

Dick Price, for example, was the purest. He called himself a “reflector.” He liked to describe himself as something like a Native American tracker who would follow in the footprints of the person he was facilitating — to the point where their awareness combined with his support would have an illuminating effect on their ability to gather information about their experience.

Somatics & Spirituality

Soon I started studying deep tissue work with a man named Al Drucker who came to Esalen himself in a healing crisis. He had been working for the Pentagon, designing weapons and bombs. He was a high-level, very talented engineer, and in the course of his work for the Pentagon, he developed liver cancer. He came to Esalen in 1968, looking to heal himself. He healed himself in the roundhouse, what's now called the Meditation Hut, down by Hot Springs Creek. He had an insight that if he took any pain medication to deal with his cancer, it was going to interfere with the process of healing. He described a process of about two weeks where he was going through a healing crisis, where he said it felt like someone had his liver in a vice and was slowly turning it each minute tighter and tighter. Suddenly, he realized he was on the ceiling of the roundhouse, looking down at his body writhing in pain, and he knew that it was over. At a certain point, he dropped back into his body and the pain went away. The cancer went away. And that was in 1969.

In any case, Al was a brilliant teacher, and he used the somatic discipline of deep tissue work to basically give spiritual teachings about non-dual reality. These were the types of things when I first got here that were available — just the most fantastic teachers, including Dick and Stanislav Grof and the anthropologist Gregory Bateson. My mother, who was a college professor, an anthropologist, came and visited, and when she saw Gregory Bateson sitting out on the deck, she asked, “Do you know who that is?”

And I said, “Yeah, that's Gregory Bateson. He and I play chess sometimes. He’s kind of the old grandpa of the place.”

“No, do you know who that is?” she said. She proceeded to let me know that he was one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century and that his work in cybernetics had been very influential in many different disciplines, from sociology to anthropology and various branches of psychology.

It was similar with Stan Grof. I really had no idea who he was. Yet I had the benefit with 14 other people of having this man for a full weekend just beginning to do his holotropic breathwork. It wasn't even called holotropic breathwork at that point in time. We just laid down on mats and he played this music, and we started breathing heavily, and we talked about our experiences afterward. And I just thought, “Well, this is interesting stuff …”

Dancing & Drumming

It felt like Esalen, the Esalen community, was tribal in nature at the time. Nobody worked more than four days a week, and a lot of people tried to get away with three and a half. And so what that led to was a great deal of unstructured time for their own self-exploration and hanging out together. There was a great deal of music back in the day. On warm, sunny summer days, it was very rare not to hear really good drumming happening. There were world-class musicians and drummers living in Big Sur, like Charles Lloyd, the great jazz musician. He had a place up on Partington Ridge, and he would often come down to Esalen and play the saxophone. There was a kind of pulsing, visceral quality to the place that still does live on. I have a feeling it's waiting to reemerge in some way, shape, or form. I can still feel the pulse of it present here.

Teaching Children

I worked as a “duck,” as a dishwasher, for two years. After my “baptism” in the duck pond, Janet Lederman hired me to be a teacher at the Gazebo preschool, which is what I did for the next three years, from 1981 to 1984. That was an extremely rich experience. I think Janet Lederman remains an underappreciated contributor to the importance of Gestalt awareness practice.

Janet told me this story about her first meeting with Fritz, that she watched Fritz's work and immediately recognized that what Fritz was doing with adults, she wanted to be doing with children. She said, “I have no patience with adults. I'm not interested in that. I'll let Fritz do that part. I want to work with the kids.” And so, she set up an environment based upon the principles of Gestalt awareness practice.

There is a great deal of potential in children: If we give them an environment through which they can make real contact with each other relationally as well as with the environment, there is a potential acceleration of the development and actualization that can happen, particularly if we create an environment that's both challenging yet safe.  

Teaching children turned out to be challenging in a much different way than dishwashing. But I discovered that I had a very natural ability to do it. Being with kids in that way required me to learn and grow and develop as an individual because of the impact of my behavior — the stakes were so much higher. If I break a dish, that's one thing, but if I do something that acts as a source of confusion in some way for a kid, that's a lot more complex to unwind.

We would have weekly meetings with Janet and we would talk about the challenges of having such an open environment and keeping it safely structured. She was just an incredible source of information and wisdom about the nature of young developing human organisms. I will treasure those three years that I was able to spend in the Gazebo School and directly with Janet Lederman for the rest of my life. She is a master teacher in the history of this place.

“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?


Perry leads Integrative Gestalt Practice™ with Johanna Holloman both as a five-day workshop May 22–26, 2023, and as part of our month-long Live Extended Education Program from July 1 – July 29, 2023.


About

Sam Stern

Sam Stern is the host of the Voices of Esalen podcast. He lives in Big Sur with his wife, Candice, and a magnificent three-year-old, Roxy.

Back in the Day with Perry Holloman

About

Sam Stern

Sam Stern is the host of the Voices of Esalen podcast. He lives in Big Sur with his wife, Candice, and a magnificent three-year-old, Roxy.

< Back to all articles

Darnell Lamont Walker leading Rituals Writing Workshop

Perry Holloman, a practitioner of Esalen massage, deep bodywork, and body-oriented approaches to relational Gestalt process work for more than 30 years, takes us back to the early 1980s, when the Ivy League undergrad held court as Esalen’s resident dishwasher, chess player, dancer, and preschool teacher.


“I got to Esalen in March of 1979. I had been going to school on the East Coast and preparing myself for a professional life, most likely as a lawyer. But my soul was screaming: This is not my path in this life. And so I talked with my parents and told them I would like to take some time off to sort of figure out what my direction was going to be.

They said, “Well, how would you like to start out with a five-day stay with David Schiffman at the Esalen Institute?” 

I said, “That sounds good to me.”  I came to Esalen, and my mind was so blown by what I experienced.

Becoming Aware

David Schiffman introduced me to the world of Gestalt. The idea in Gestalt is, the more aware we are, the greater the potential to learn and grow and develop through our experience. Awareness is the factor which illuminates experience in such a way that we can see things and experience things from different perspectives. Like Esalen massage, if you watch ten different Gestalt practitioners work, it will seem like they're doing ten very different things. However, what one will notice looking more deeply is all of the approaches have a focus upon the development of awareness in common.

Dick Price, for example, was the purest. He called himself a “reflector.” He liked to describe himself as something like a Native American tracker who would follow in the footprints of the person he was facilitating — to the point where their awareness combined with his support would have an illuminating effect on their ability to gather information about their experience.

Somatics & Spirituality

Soon I started studying deep tissue work with a man named Al Drucker who came to Esalen himself in a healing crisis. He had been working for the Pentagon, designing weapons and bombs. He was a high-level, very talented engineer, and in the course of his work for the Pentagon, he developed liver cancer. He came to Esalen in 1968, looking to heal himself. He healed himself in the roundhouse, what's now called the Meditation Hut, down by Hot Springs Creek. He had an insight that if he took any pain medication to deal with his cancer, it was going to interfere with the process of healing. He described a process of about two weeks where he was going through a healing crisis, where he said it felt like someone had his liver in a vice and was slowly turning it each minute tighter and tighter. Suddenly, he realized he was on the ceiling of the roundhouse, looking down at his body writhing in pain, and he knew that it was over. At a certain point, he dropped back into his body and the pain went away. The cancer went away. And that was in 1969.

In any case, Al was a brilliant teacher, and he used the somatic discipline of deep tissue work to basically give spiritual teachings about non-dual reality. These were the types of things when I first got here that were available — just the most fantastic teachers, including Dick and Stanislav Grof and the anthropologist Gregory Bateson. My mother, who was a college professor, an anthropologist, came and visited, and when she saw Gregory Bateson sitting out on the deck, she asked, “Do you know who that is?”

And I said, “Yeah, that's Gregory Bateson. He and I play chess sometimes. He’s kind of the old grandpa of the place.”

“No, do you know who that is?” she said. She proceeded to let me know that he was one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century and that his work in cybernetics had been very influential in many different disciplines, from sociology to anthropology and various branches of psychology.

It was similar with Stan Grof. I really had no idea who he was. Yet I had the benefit with 14 other people of having this man for a full weekend just beginning to do his holotropic breathwork. It wasn't even called holotropic breathwork at that point in time. We just laid down on mats and he played this music, and we started breathing heavily, and we talked about our experiences afterward. And I just thought, “Well, this is interesting stuff …”

Dancing & Drumming

It felt like Esalen, the Esalen community, was tribal in nature at the time. Nobody worked more than four days a week, and a lot of people tried to get away with three and a half. And so what that led to was a great deal of unstructured time for their own self-exploration and hanging out together. There was a great deal of music back in the day. On warm, sunny summer days, it was very rare not to hear really good drumming happening. There were world-class musicians and drummers living in Big Sur, like Charles Lloyd, the great jazz musician. He had a place up on Partington Ridge, and he would often come down to Esalen and play the saxophone. There was a kind of pulsing, visceral quality to the place that still does live on. I have a feeling it's waiting to reemerge in some way, shape, or form. I can still feel the pulse of it present here.

Teaching Children

I worked as a “duck,” as a dishwasher, for two years. After my “baptism” in the duck pond, Janet Lederman hired me to be a teacher at the Gazebo preschool, which is what I did for the next three years, from 1981 to 1984. That was an extremely rich experience. I think Janet Lederman remains an underappreciated contributor to the importance of Gestalt awareness practice.

Janet told me this story about her first meeting with Fritz, that she watched Fritz's work and immediately recognized that what Fritz was doing with adults, she wanted to be doing with children. She said, “I have no patience with adults. I'm not interested in that. I'll let Fritz do that part. I want to work with the kids.” And so, she set up an environment based upon the principles of Gestalt awareness practice.

There is a great deal of potential in children: If we give them an environment through which they can make real contact with each other relationally as well as with the environment, there is a potential acceleration of the development and actualization that can happen, particularly if we create an environment that's both challenging yet safe.  

Teaching children turned out to be challenging in a much different way than dishwashing. But I discovered that I had a very natural ability to do it. Being with kids in that way required me to learn and grow and develop as an individual because of the impact of my behavior — the stakes were so much higher. If I break a dish, that's one thing, but if I do something that acts as a source of confusion in some way for a kid, that's a lot more complex to unwind.

We would have weekly meetings with Janet and we would talk about the challenges of having such an open environment and keeping it safely structured. She was just an incredible source of information and wisdom about the nature of young developing human organisms. I will treasure those three years that I was able to spend in the Gazebo School and directly with Janet Lederman for the rest of my life. She is a master teacher in the history of this place.

“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?


Perry leads Integrative Gestalt Practice™ with Johanna Holloman both as a five-day workshop May 22–26, 2023, and as part of our month-long Live Extended Education Program from July 1 – July 29, 2023.


About

Sam Stern

Sam Stern is the host of the Voices of Esalen podcast. He lives in Big Sur with his wife, Candice, and a magnificent three-year-old, Roxy.