I haven't visited Esalen on this trip, although I've been there a couple of times in previous years. This picture dates from the bronze-casting workshop I attended in 2004. But for this research I've been reading Jeffrey J Kripal's book 'Esalen', and I came across this great description of the simple act of getting there, which reminds me of the travails of the journey to Big Sur:
"The forty-mile drive down from Monterey and Carmel, past Pebble Beach on a famous road whose twists and turns along an ocean mountainside could easily end your life at any moment has already slightly altered your state of consciousness and made you a bit nauseous. You feel funny, a bit disorientated. You are grateful to step out of the car and stand on land that is not moving or, worse yet, falling." (p4)
