Get a massage from our Esalen friend Sam Molitas at his new place on Maui. He's the best...
Check out his Web site, here:

http://mauisbestmassage.com/

Friend his place on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/Mauisbestmassage

And notice the Yelp listing:
http://www.yelp.com/biz/mauis-best-massage-kihei

Pics thanks to BigSurKate: http://goo.gl/pmukX

This Sunday, our community received the following news: "With immense sadness...farewell Montgomery London. You served Esalen and the Big Sur Community with all your heart and soul."

It may be a good time to light a candle, as Albert suggested two years ago, in this blog:

http://www.ithou.org/node/4976

About a year ago...

Here are instructions for sitting with our friends in Japan. You will actually be sitting with people who are just like you in Japan - people who are doing this same practice.

The newly published Gestalt Practice Manual is a revision of the "Manual of Gestalt Practice in the Tradition of Dick Price." The print version is available at this link:
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/gestalt-practice-manual/15052498

The eBook version is available from my Storefront: http://stores.lulu.com/john-callahan

Many people are already aware of the history behind this project. However, those who aren't familiar with it might want to explore the Dick Price Celebration Facebook Page for background:

http://www.facebook.com/dick.price.celebration

This is a very special opportunity to work with Dorothy Charles.
Consider going to this superb Gestalt weekend at Esalen Institute, March 11-13.
See the description, and perhaps register, on the Esalen Website, here:

http://webapp.esalen.org/workshops/9618

If you want to take a Gestalt Practice workshop at Esalen Institute, now is your chance to work with one of the best! Dorothy trained with Dick Price, the co-founder of Esalen, and for many years she has been the "resident practitioner" for work study groups and staff members. She rarely does short workshops.

This weekend will immediately precede Dorothy's work study month, which begins March 13th.

http://webapp.esalen.org/workshops/8835 

The event celebrating Dick's life at Esalen will begin next Sunday, November 14th. But Dick's celebration has already begun on iThou. Feel free to add comments, or whatever, so we can all share....

Here are some useful online resources: 

Dick's Wikipedia article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Price

Excerpts from an interview with Dick by Wade Hudson 
http://www.esalen.org/air/essays/dick_price.html

Esalen Legacy: Richard Price by Christine Price
http://www.tribalground.com/Esalen_Legacy_-_Richard_Price.html

Next Sunday will be the beginning of the celebration for the life of Dick Price with a Gestalt/hiking workshop at Esalen led by Chris Price and Steve Harper. (See Dick's Facebook page in the posting below.) This might be a good time to read "Hiking, Wilderness Practice and Pilgrimage," Section 6 in the Gestalt Manual, on the Web at:

http://sites.google.com/site/gestaltlegacy/

Click this link:

http://www.facebook.com/dick.price.celebration

Take a look at Dick's new Wikipedia entry, including the memorial workshops at Esalen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Price

Sunday 3-6pm. Mill Valley Community Center.

http://beta.integraltransformativepractice-international.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=67

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=talk-therapy-off-couch-into-lab

Here is a video segment from PBS Newshour:

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/jan-june10/mentalillness_02-10.html

Also, a good background article with useful links from the NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/health/10psych.html

His obituary in the Chronicle:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/06/MNET1BEJQK.DTL

Here he is, talking at a bookstore in Marin (for about an hour):

http://fora.tv/2006/12/03/Silent_Pulse

The Manual of Gestalt Practice in the tradition of Dick Price
is now on the Web, at:

http://sites.google.com/site/gestaltlegacy/

I loaded the Manual into a Google site in order to make Dick’s legacy more visible during the coming year. The printed version of the text will continue to be available because it is much easier to read and to use as a practice aid.

Thanks to everybody who purchased a copy. You played an important role in the project, by demonstrating that there is genuine interest in Dick’s legacy. You also own what may become a collector’s item!  ;-)

A two minute podcast.

http://www.kcbs.com/pages/5883393.php?contentType=4&contentId=5217824

The Gestalt Manual is now available as an eBook. Look at the bottom of the Lulu page for an explanation of the digital format. The reader software is available from Abode, installed for free, using a link on that page.

http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/manual-of-gestalt-practice-in-the-tradition-of-dick-price/7972552

I'm actually excited by the technology. It was fun for me to load and publish the Manual as an eBook. As you probably know, Adobe provides software that supports the Flash Meeting we used for our book event. I love the way all this technology is coming together. It's a trip to think that the Manual can now be downloaded and read instantaneously, in Kabul or Key West, perhaps even as I'm typing this!  

Gobi (male) and Batu (female) last month at Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo.
So...they'll live in captivity, but they won't get poached.... A hard call!

Like the Neanderthal, for all our power, the human species could go extinct in a few decades, leaving behind the bizarre ruins of our cities and our horrible solid waste dumps.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/video.cfm?id=35620919001

Next to Mahler, Moby is my favorite composer.
I got a couple LOLs out of the last segment.

http://online.wsj.com/video/at-lincoln-center-moby-on-wait-for-me/B4387FC0-024E-4D8E-92BE-109C773BB134.html 

http://online.wsj.com/video/at-lincoln-center-impact-of-technology-on-music/96F86F87-86CC-4B90-8F97-2D9F25EEA587.html

A Wall Street Journal Video? What's next? Trump sitting in the Zendo?

http://online.wsj.com/video/hellish-conditions-may-have-fostered-life-on-earth/5968F1EC-3254-42C7-89D9-443A931559DC.html

This is a non-trivial thought experiment. You don't need to understand the mathematics of curved spacetime. If you can get an intuitive feel for how this can happen in "curved" spacetime, you will grasp the true nature of spacetime as a "connected" empty fabric, even when it is "flat." Read the article a couple of times and let the concepts "sink in" to your consciousness.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=surprises-from-general-relativity

I've actually been in Bloomington, Indiana. So I know it's a place that naturally inspires the urge to think distant thoughts. (Although I have to say that there are good library and opera programs at IU, I've never been a big opera fan.)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=an-easy-way-to-increase-c

Understand the biology of how rewards work in the brain.

 http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=rewards-dopamine-and-the-brain-coul-2009-07-27

Notice that there is an embedded link that will take you directly to the underlying PLoS Biology article.

Many psychologists have regarded the basic concept of evolutionary psychology as a "nonsense attractor."
Note the embedded podcast in the Newsweek article.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/202789

I respect Gil Fronsdal a lot because of his unique mixture of scholarship and teaching ability.
I particularly enjoy sitting at his relatively new Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City.
http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/

There is no video with this talk. But it deals with a very useful subject --
the difference between mindfulness practice and concentration practice.

p.s. There's another, low quality video presentation on Youtube
at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0wWPOUGbjg
that shows the interior of the IMC. Check it out if you're interested.

I was happy to see that the Politics of Trust and, by implication, John Vasconcellos have a Facebook page. Besides being a former state senator from Silicon Valley, John is a genuine Esalen old-timer.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/Politics-of-Trust-Network/44346317765?ref=s

A couple of our Esalen friends have become "fans" of the page just in the last day or so, since it became common knowledge. Check it out, maybe...

Similar "happenings" appear at the end. (This one put a grin on my face, which is quite a trick!)