Happy 5th of July

Esalen, perhaps my favorite place on earth, is under threat from the wildfires in Big Sur. Curious to know what was going on there, I visited their web site and read the updates on their situation.

In yesterday's update, the head of Esalen ended by saying that they would still celebrate July 4th, albeit with a smaller group of people, and he described the significance of the holiday in a way that I thought was particularly enlightened:

"We know that this date marks an epochal moment in human history and evolution: the day when a group of privileged, flawed citizens of an elite male caste of property-owners, got together 232 years ago to reach beyond themselves and their narrow interest, to pledge their lives to something unique and new in human affairs. That new thing was a solemn Declaration that every one of us—each precious human individual spirit—has the individual and collective right to construct our own destiny, politically and personally, through the free exercise of our own human judgment, in dialogue with our fellow citizens.

We know how imperfect that document was, in reality at the time and still today. Where it spoke of liberty, there were several millions enslaved; where it spoke of “mankind,” women had no legal voice at all—nor was the ballot available to non property-owners at the time. Where one of the major grievances against the English monarch was the fomenting of war and strife between settlers and the Indian nations, the next century and more would see an extirpation of native rights, territory, and culture. And where the document referenced the world community—"a decent respect for the opinions of mankind"—that value of communal, mutual respect and dialogue among nations seems completely flaunted or forgotten by our government today.

And yet—and yet the power of intention, as our “third founder” George Leonard has always taught us—transcends the imperfection of the moment, the situation, or the maker. That intention was a new form, a new template in the world—and it has inspired literally scores of revolutions in aspiration toward human liberty, over nearly two and a half centuries and still today. We may have lost our way as a nation in some important ways in the years since. But we've also found the way, and continue to find the way, to the evolutionary unfolding of that human creative spark—the involution of spirit into manifestation—that Jefferson, our brilliant and flawed founder, caught sight of and conveyed in those words we still celebrate.

In the same way, each of us can be a vehicle for the evolution of spirit, the opening up of human potential which is what each of us is here on this earth for—and what Esalen is all about.

All of us here join all of you out there in renewed resolve, in challenging times, to make that spirit a reality in our shared world."

Happy Independence Day-

Bill