October 2002 Issue - Essay # 2
Fear
of a Gentle Planet
By Sarah
Jacobs
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Last
year, my father offered to take me with him to Esalen for my birthday.
They teach all kinds of week-long workshops there, and he was keen on
killing two birds (continuing education credit and daughter visit) with
one stone. It's beautiful there, and they have clothing-optional hot
tubs; but I had some misgivings about going due to the fact that it’s
densely populated by new age people. I have nothing in theory against
such people. Really. I think
their quest for inner peace is ... commendable, even if it often appears
to me intensely self-obsessed. The discord arises when I have to spend
time with them. The
first problem is that I'm a massage therapist, and new agers
automatically assume I share their worldview. Say that you're a real
estate agent or a hockey player, and you may espouse any number of
different philosophies. Say you're a massage therapist, however, and
it's obvious you chose that line of work because of a deep commitment to
world peace, Enya songs, and comfortable clothing. Being a white person
with an Indian name clinches the deal in their eyes, and they never
believe me when I explain it's my given name, not something I discovered
on a vision quest. Over the years, I've learned to sit quietly as a
bubbly, blonde soccer- mom-come-feng-shui-master shares their latest
discovery with me--usually something along the lines of how the world
could be cured of all its ills with hugs and high colonics--silently
feeling cynical and superior (then, later, guilty when they thoughtfully
bring me vegan cookies). My
massage school was overrun by devotees of the New Age, some of whom were
taking the course for "personal growth," rather than career
training. These were a wide-eyed, sandaled, aggressively loving people
who hugged with reckless abandon. I'm squeamish about physical contact
with strangers, so this new world built on a foundation of gratuitous
hugs kept me somewhat on edge. Especially from Ken, a man in his mid
30s, who lived in his van in the school parking lot, had horrible
hygiene habit, and who tended to giggle maniacally when partnered with a
woman during class. Ken looked upon the obligatory hug as God's way of
evening out all the times when girls in 3rd grade avoided holding his
sweaty hand, and would mash me to his moist, doughy chest under any
available pretext. I
eventually brought up at a morning circle that I planned to take a break
from hugging until further notice. When this was met with shocked
silence and bewildered head shakes, I explained that I wanted to
"conserve my personal energy field." My classmates seemed
unconvinced, but did refrain from embracing me after that. I overheard
some of them reasoning that my lack of affinity for hugs was just
because I was "quirky." These were people who made jewelry
with the ashes of dead pets and drank their own urine for health
benefits ... After a brief period of deliberation, I realized it would be stupid to miss out on a free class and a week of nude hot-tubbing. I said yes to Esalen, and opted for a Thai massage class, figuring at least this was somewhat hands-on. It couldn't possibly be as bad as "Sacred Pottery" or "Dancing with the Inner Child." I discovered, however, that the open, supportive atmosphere led my group to view the course as an extension of therapy. When our class, a group of 20 adults, was asked to share a few bits of information by way of introduction, the phrases "state of becoming," "layers of enrichment," and "feeling the moment" were offered within the first five minutes. My eyes glazed over as one woman described her "transitioning phase" in excruciating detail, starting with her visions at Red Rock and finishing up with her husband's affair. I wondered how it was that these people thought it was normal to share every detail of their lives with you from the get-go, as though you wouldn't even be able to hold a proper conversation about the weather with them if you didn't know they were the child of divorced parents. People
love to single me out at these events (to which my father has been
dragging me, sullen and pouting, since I was an adolescent) and tell me
I have an "interesting aura." I'm not sure whether they see my
defensiveness as a challenge to be overcome with affection, or are just
curious to know how I maintain my wry good humor (alcohol and a constant,
mocking inner dialogue). In addition to the usual array of
middle-aged women who read my palm and told me I was an old soul, the
Thai massage class came complete with its own version of Ken, who went
by the name Huey. My new
friend Huey had been blessed with a beautiful, childlike lack of
self-consciousness. He'd chatter loudly to me during class, interrupting
the teacher's lecture to ask if I had a boyfriend, if I liked freshly
grilled monkfish and sensual massage, and would I like both tonight--
wink, wink. For the first
time at a new-age enclave, I found myself actively trying to make
friends, if only to avoid having to sit with Huey at meals.
I
tried in earnest to make friends with a few of my less creepy
classmates, but found we didn’t have much to talk about. Silk caftans and self-help books aside, the main problem I was
having relating to my fellow Esalenites was that they didn't laugh very
much. Despite their t-shirts admonishing me to "Be Joyful" and
"Live Juicy," they seemed, for the most part, to lack a
discernible sense of humor. Being intensely earnest 24-7 didn't leave
much room for poking fun, just poking love. I
don't usually smoke, but after a few days the relentlessly organic
atmosphere at Esalen made me long for something carcinogenic, and I
bummed a cigarette off one of the groundspeople. I sat outside near the
fire that night, and gradually a small crowd of younger people gathered,
smoking pot and swapping stories (alcohol's a poison, but ganja is a
gift from Jah). One bright-eyed young man leaped up to add more wood to
the pile, and addressed the crowd, saying: "Hey,
man, wanna hear something cool?" They
turned their shining faces toward him, expectantly. "You
know what wood REALLY is? Stored sunlight." Gasps
were heard, queries murmured. "It's
like this, see, the light and heat of the sun comes into the trees and
nourishes them." The
crowd nodded in agreement--this was indisputable. "And
then we burn them, and they give off light and heat!" Fingers
were snapped beatnik style, heads bobbed at this wisdom. "Wow, man,
that's ... deep." Emboldened
by my nicotine rush, I was unable to resist saying, "You know what
else is stored sunlight?" "Witches." The
crowd was silent for a moment, then a blonde girl with dreadlocks said,
"I don't get it." I
replied, "Well, we burn them, and they give off light and
heat." She
pondered this for a moment, then her freckled face twisted up in anger.
"Whoooooaaaa, man, this is ESALEN, not I
suppose I could've pointed out that they'd kinda cooled it on the
witch-burning in I
sucked down the rest of my cigarette and calculated how long it would
take me drive the 13 winding miles to the liquor store in Nepenthe.
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Author's Biography Sarah
Jacobs lives in
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Essay
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