Big Death in a Small Town

Mike Breen 1953 - 2008

I can’t believe I just wrote the line above, your name and those dates. Yet every day, every moment, it becomes more real. You spent nearly 30 years in Big Sur. During this time you loved and helped your neighbors, married your beloved, and built a business. You created your dream homes, one a three story redwood wine barrel nest in the cypress trees, the other a Hobbit-style magical cabin in the forest on Palo Colorado road. People said you had nine lives—rolling cars, crashing bikes, loving wildly. To die quickly while sitting on your couch last Sunday evening feels both ironic and appropriate. Just way, way, too soon, my friend.

You gleefully embraced your honorific, "Mr. Mike" when your young nephew christened you more than two decades ago. You were a life-long member of an underground organization I’ve observed for years: The International Brotherhood of Sexy Short Guys. Just a few inches taller than me, you packed a lot of dynamic, intelligent male energy into your physical being. Members of the IBSSG support each other in many ways, primarily through their mutual understanding. They have a secret handshake, and sometimes have more than a passing interest in a certain 18th century French politician.

We spent the past work-week in the emotionally pummeling process of preparing your Irish Wake, attended by a few hundred of your friends as well as your family, at the Post Ranch Inn. All those phone calls were worth it, bringing in some of your long lost comrades out of the hills. People told stories, laughed and cried. Your altar held your ashes, photos, candles, and red roses, with your boots, motorcycle “skidlet”, and Harley-Davidson leather jacket nearby. I added the x-rated fortune cookies I bought you in Chinatown last Monday.

We got word of your death from a brain aneurysm via cell phone in a Chinese restaurant, adding to the surreal quality of the news. One of life's rogue waves, it took me under for several long moments, and I emerged into the fluorescent lights feeling like a gasping fish, about to be tossed into the cook-pot.

Your tribute was a real Irish Wake, Big Sur style. It began with the ringing of shamanic fairy bells in each of the four directions, (some of us heard erections, not directions, you must have been playing with us) included a powerful crooning rendition of Danny Boy, and a traditionally costumed bag-pipe player outside on the hill. At the end, we all sang Amazing Grace along with your talented niece, who reminded us of the song's appropriateness for your life, and for each of our lives as well.

Your beautiful wife Mary spoke eloquently and proudly of you, a miracle in itself since she’d spent the days after your sudden death in crippling grief. Fifteen years of love, learning, travels and joy. Mary had clearly passed through the initial fire of your loss, and dispensed advice, “Don’t wait to enjoy each other, to travel and be together, don’t wait!” and humor, quoting the words on a ceramic mug made especially for them: “Mr. Mike rides a bike. Mrs. Mike holds on tight.” Since we all get to experience profound loss in our lives, let’s be sure to have heaps of joy and love as well. It helps. So does a community ritual which sets the tone for healing. Facing grief with grace, if done from the heart, can put a positive spin on the whole process.

Mr. Mike, my Zen master of the workplace, your joy and kindness brightened my life for nearly a decade. Two weeks ago I admired you zipping down the hill in your asphalt gray Lotus Elise sports car, and driving home last night I burst into tears as a Harley motorcycle rider rounded a corner in the opposite lane. I teased you the last time I caught you washing your cherry red Harley, on company time.

I imagine I’ll keep expecting you to saunter past my office window at 9:10 each morning, that we’ll greet each other with our beginning-of-the-day hug, a prophylactic against the stress to come. How could I know that the last time you ticked me off at work would be the last time, ever? Your gentle face turning mulish, whether to get my goat or because you really had a point was always in question, you stinker. Even when powerfully annoyed, I would say, “Sheesh, Mr. Mike, it’s a good thing I love you!” And I did, so much.

It’s unbelievable to me that I don’t get to hug you again, or smile back into your twinkling hazel eyes. That I won’t see you read the paper in the sunshine, with your ginger cat Sasha in your lap, that you won't be building enormous boxes to ship art across the world, or hiding any more plastic snakes in my office…

Now, when we laugh together, I will see you only in my imagination. But I choose to believe that my dream of you is you, too. I’m so very, very glad I told you that I loved you, Mr. Mike. Your smiling Irish eyes are still with me, and with us all.

Somewhere out there
Is a workshop that needs some help
It’s dusty and messy
And nothing is right or in the right place
It’s beyond the help of mere mortal men
Who on earth could make it clean?
Don’t panic, don’t worry – it’ll be under control
Mr. Mike is on the way

Somewhere out there
There’s a house half-built
Timbers all strewn about
And no one knows what’s what
Beams and girders, joists, brackets
Pipes, lagbolts, and tiles
All in a hellbent pile.
Hey don’t worry
Mr. Mike is on the way

Somewhere out there
They’re shaking their heads
How in the hell do I do this?
How does that fit into that?
What’s the thingy called to make this work?
Tempers are lost, things are thrown
Look, don’t worry
Mr. Mike is on his way

Somewhere out there
There’s a fleet of old Harleys
And beat up flatbed trucks
Sports cars that need some work
Idles to be checked
Plugs to be yanked.
But fear not
Mr. Mike is on the way

Somewhere out there
Someone needs some help
They need a guiding hand
Or perhaps just a good friend
Maybe they need some advice
Without being told what to do
With his knowledge and loving care
Mr. Mike is on the way

Somewhere out there
There are gathered some folks
Irish and other eyes are smiling
Laughter abounds and love resounds
Though there’s something that’s missing
Or was until now
Haven’t you heard?
Mr. Mike is on the way

Somewhere out there
There’s a door that’s opened
Shouts of joy spill out
And right in the middle
Surrounded by new friends
And being himself, what else?
Why did you ever worry?
Mr. Mike is now here.

—Toby Rowland-Jones

Photos: Breen family collection.
Photo of Mike in Bushmills hat by Linda Sonrisa

I'm a Fan

Yes, I'm a Fan. Of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in San Francisco. We country mice do know how to live a little bit high on the hog, especially when we are celebrating our 12th wedding anniversary, and have a friend in the swanky hotel business.

My surprise began in the elevator, when Toby blindfolded me with my scarf as we zoomed up to the 43rd floor. I stepped carefully behind him down the hall, where the bellman opened the door for us and I felt the warm sun coming through the window at the edge of the room. Voilá! The scarf withdrawn I open my eyes to see the top of the Transamerica Pyramid glowing back at me, close enough to almost touch.

What to do first? I have one primary ritual for hotel rooms, which began in childhood: I jump on the bed. Though this time, following a long drive down from a birthday party at Orr Hot Springs in Mendocino, and after a few visits to Alexander Valley wineries, my jump was more of a bouncy roll across the 10,000 thread sheets.

The sheets are divine! So silky in feel they’re like cool liquid against my skin. My toes had tiny orgasms, my ankles had bigger ones, as I circled my feet in the depths of the bed.

We had dinner plans at Jardiniere, so took a quick tub that evening in the bathroom with the skyscraper view. We enjoyed another bath in the morning, complete with binoculars to take a closer look at the city’s mile-high architecture, freighters coming into port (the Maple Empress arrived early on our morning) and itty-bitty bird-life.

Thank you to General Manager Sal Abaunza, our dapper friend in the biz, who so kindly arranged our room for us. For years he ran the lovely, rustic, Ventana Inn and Spa, and we connected over our love of fine wines, old movies, and small-town community. We invited him to stay with his wife at our home, to sleep under the stars and watch the Milky Way move across the heavens.

Photos by Toby Rowland-Jones & Linda Sonrisa.
Ridge Geyserville wine Sal's thank you gift from us.

Consider the Hummingbird

Joyful little Sister,
Nectar you crave!
All the sweetness
of the flowers
is the love you gave.
—Carson/Sams

In a former lifetime, I was given a book to read in a loft bedroom. As I sat in the sun below the skylight, I spread the accompanying deck of sky blue cards out across the bed. My hand wandered tentatively to the first card I chose. I turned it over, and the lightning bolt on the reverse of the card snapped me out of my reverie: I'd drawn the card for Hummingbird.

At the time, I was living alone, and one of my favorite things to do was sit under the red blossoms of the Japanese flowering maple tree outside my front door, talking on the phone or just enjoying the view down my garden to the city and bay beyond. My view was the stuff of urban legend. I rented a tiny in-law apartment in the Oakland hills, so private I didn't even lock my door. My "front yard" was the back yard of an old home, complete with landscaped terraces and a circle of Monterey pine trees. I once saw a trophy buck pose in the clover below my bedroom, then leap gracefully over a hedgerow and glide away up the hillside.

As I sat under tree the filled with flowers like glossy lanterns, ruby-throated hummingbirds would fly right above my head and drink the nectar from the bright red blooms. I'd see them perch on the branches, listened to them make their funny whirring sounds, and watched with delight as they dive-bombed each other from great heights in their territory disputes, emitting high pitched whistles on the downward swoop. Once I rescued one from a corner of my kitchen, holding her in the palm of my hand and chatting with her for some time before she flew away. I'll never forget her bright black eye looking back at me.

So, naturally I already felt a strong affinity for Hummingbird. Pulling that card gave me a gentle shock, whether from the simple thrill of serendipity or of actual contact with another dimension is open to interpretation. I've loved these little divination systems ever since. And, while I've shared these cards with friends for almost 20 years, and have learned from many animal teachers since that afternoon, Hummingbird will always be my key, my totem creature.

Living in Big Sur, I happily have the opportunity to apply the real-life version of animal medicine. When I see a hawk on the tree in our meadow, a fox scurrying up the road, or a gray whale spouting below us in the ocean, I check the medicine cards book for the appropriate wisdom. If I hear an owl for several nights running, see a rabbit make a mad dash for its burrow, or watch a flock of wild turkeys stroll past our house, I go to the book to see what my level of awareness is bringing to me.

David Carson and Jamie Sams' wrote the best-selling book of Native American cartomancy, Medicine Cards, in 1988. Carson is a writer and healer of Choctaw descent, Sams comes from the Seneca / Cherokee tradition. After a lifetime of preparation, they wrote and designed the Medicine Cards together in one week. Days afterward they had a publishing deal. It's been translated into 6 languages and has sold over a million copies worldwide.

But back to the hummingbird. Now it seems I'm surrounded by them. Siting in the bubbles in my outdoor tub, I watch them zoom up to the sage and aloe, flashing their scarlet throats as they hover above the flowers. Big purple spears of Ecchium are also a favorite drinking spot for hummers this time of year. One unfortunate little flier exhausted itself indoors, ending up in a bowl of leftover salad dressing. We cleaned it up carefully, as if it had survived an oil spill.

We're amassing a collection of their tiny corpses since they tend to do a kamikaze act against the garden-reflecting windows at our workplace. We place them lovingly on our altar, tuck them into the dashboards of our cars, give them as gifts. Fly on, Sister Hummingbird, into the next world.

Hummingbird is Joy—she loves life and all its pleasures. She seeks beauty and bliss. While her medicine may seem fragile, she's really a tough little bird. It's said that her feathers open the heart, making excellent love charms. Hummingbird teaches us to drink deeply of life's sweet nectar, then to swiftly and brilliantly let go into the next moment. She is my ideal.

Hummingbird on succulent photo by Sula Nichols
Hummingbird Medicine card by Angela Werneke
Flowering maple photo by www.plantsafari.com

Artist of the Sea

All of us follow our unique paths. Or, as Antonio Machado said:

Wanderer, your footsteps are the road,
and nothing more.
Wanderer, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.

When a Big Sur kid grows up, after a magical childhood including education in the arts and natural history, he may very likely become an artist of some kind. For Jonathan Newell, one finds that, like his favorite creature the octopus, his life incorporates the mysteries of science and art.

Jonathan began his journey at the Newell Ranch in Big Sur in 1969. On this sprawling ranch and redwood forest, Jonathan's grandparents Ralph and Teva Newell built a Spanish style home in handmade adobe brick. The fountain in their courtyard is set with ancient Esselen Indian mortars and mosaics of astrological figures.

Ralph Newell's peers were some of the titans of Big Sur's homesteading past: rancher Billy Post, and builders Walt and Frank Trotter. But he also was friends with the artist and inventor Harry Dick Ross, a more bohemian type of fellow who lived on Partington Ridge, and eventually married Henry Miller's ex-wife Eve.

As a boy, Jonathan was inspired by all of these men, but especially by Harry Dick Ross, who in addition to building large aerial spirographs from butcher paper, boxes and wire, collected feathers, arrowheads and rare plants. In this way, Jonathan developed an open mind, and is passionate about diverse fields of study today.

His parents, Roger and Beverly Newell, are artists as well, and fostered a sense of wonder in their children, with everything from music and dance lessons to landscape design projects at the Ranch. With his brother and sister he began learning of the mysteries of the deep at the Monterey Bay Area Research Institute's Lyceum school during the summers. (This is now the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, MBARI.)

One of Jonathan's earliest memories is of dissecting a giant kelp bulb's root system to find a baby octopus inside. He was certified as a scuba diver at 13 years old, and began diving for Big Sur Jade soon afterwards. One dream was to become a marine biologist, and while he pursued these studies he also traveled and led diving expeditions in Indonesia and the Caribbean.

There is a place where scuba diving and the art world converge: diving for treasures lost at sea. Gold coins from the 17th century Spanish shipwreck, the Atocha, sparked Jonathan's imagination. He'd begun learning jewelry and metal design in college, and mixed this with his love of marine creatures by creating golden octopi holding these treasure coins in their tentacles.


Over the past decade, Jonathan has created a huge body of work with his solar and wind powered metalworking studio, JN Design. He provides elegant design solutions and one-of-a-kind artwork in bronze, steel, glass and stone for homes and businesses up and down the Central Coast. With architect Mickey Muennig, he created the steel railings at the Esalen Institute baths. He's also an inventor, building a wind-turbine generator and tweaking designs for a hydrogen powered car. His dream nowadays is to raise awareness of our marine environment through art and to develop technology that helps the planet. It's all going on in the sorcerer's workshop at JN Design.

In 1999 he married Paula, also an artist, and they have two beautiful children. JN Design is in many ways a family endeavor. Paula contributes design concepts, helps with the finish work, and keeps everything working smoothly, while Kyler and Micaela play in the studio with paints, paper and clay. "With Paula," Jonathan says, "I'm ambidextrous. Together we can be both spontaneous and meticulous, and manifest so much more, on all levels."


Artistic progeny: Kyler's first sculpture at age 6 was an oriental fish kite cut out of paper, complete with moving parts. Micaela's a painter, and that means coloring outside the lines, sometimes with indelible markers on a new leather couch, but hey, she's so adorable, who cares?




You can see Jonathan's work in Big Sur at the Del Campo Gallery. He recently installed some of his latest works in bronze there, including a chair suitable for Neptune, made from the cast forms of giant kelp leaves and bulbs, and a beautiful sea orchid lamp that lights up at your touch.

His fulfillment as an artist is deeply connected with his ideals. "Success began to come to me when my kids arrived on the scene," he says. "I stopped trying to be this persona and began working on doing the best job I could do. It was putting my authentic self out there that made the difference. Challenges became exciting. I now learn more from my mistakes, and feel I'm closer to my dream of helping create a better world."


To complete the Machado poem, with a fitting reference to the ocean:

By walking one makes the road,
and upon glancing behind
one sees the path
that never will be trod again.
Wanderer, there is no road--
Only your wake upon the sea.

Photos: Newell Family collection
Trumpet flower and leaves by Paula Newell

Nature Junkies

You’d think, living in Big Sur, we’d have our fill of Nature. But nooooo, we while away our evening hours watching the BBC’s Planet Earth documentaries. We watch them over and over, enjoying them more each time. They’re an exercise in how many ways we can say “WOW.” We spice up our commentary with “Oh, my god,” “Unbelievable,” and “No way!”

If you’re living on Planet Earth, you’ve probably heard of this expansive series, created by the BBC over a 5-year period, with a budget of $25 million. The film-making is wildly innovative, the scale immense, from spores to outer space, the sound amazing. The Diaries, explaining the most challenging aspect of making each episode, are as insightful as the episodes themselves, in their way. There’s just never been a nature documentary this good. It’s clearly a labor of love, an artistic masterpiece and well, WOW.

Of course, since this is the Rowland-Jones household, a bit of irreverent humor creeps into our awe-filled viewing time. It doesn’t help that the narrator, David Attenborough, has a plummy upper class Brit accent, with dramatic timing that recalls Monty Python, to everybody. With all due respect, there’s something about his voice that simply demands ridicule.

He makes a perfect babysitter for the under 8 set when they visit and parents want to sneak away to watch the sunset and drink a glass of wine. “I feel so good that my kid is being educated by David Attenborough,” one Dad said recently. And while it’s not snide, exactly, the impersonations are rife with plays on the educational commentary—“Ahem, and then the tiny desert animals urinated on themselves to cool down and survive the terrible noon-day heat.” Only mad dogs and Englishmen…

Probably the single most impressive feature of this series is the aerial filming of migrations of all kinds of creatures. Next would be mating rituals never before filmed, such as the flying leaf tree frog, who jumps from leaf to leaf, then on top of the nearest female. “The male frogs have dry toes, which enable them to keep a viselike grip on their moist partners.” Yes, Attenborough actually says this.

The complete lack of inhibition in the mating department is delightful. The males make the extravagant displays, and the females, for the most part, get to do the choosing. The Bird of Paradise from New Guinea with 6 individual antennae-type feathers popping out of his head has a mating dance that is a wonder to behold. He becomes another creature entirely, with bright blue dots in his crown, his feathers expanding around him into a saucer shape as he hops energetically from side to side. Another favorite is the Gobi desert camel, who spanks his own behind and squeals to attract a mate. Makes humans look kind of tame.

If you sat through an afternoon movie in grade school, you expect the nitty gritty of watching the small, old and weak get predated. But in Planet Earth the sense of you-are-there is enhanced by the high definition filming — dying critters’ last gasps and body spasms. Lions jumping on a baby elephant’s back at night, spiders ingesting ants trapped in the bottom of tropical pitcher plants, great white sharks engulfing seals, ducklings gobbled by foxes and on and on. Not recommended viewing with your TV dinner.

Then there’s the Rorschach test of who likes what. What one person can’t stand to watch, say, hunting eels swimming in a pack underwater, another person thinks is cool. We almost lost it with the cave-dwelling cockroaches, along with our neighbor, whose enormous screen made watching them cavort en masse pretty nauseating.

Everyone, however, likes babies. And all babies of all species, plant, animal, some insects, even fungi, are cute. What is that? Something deeply programmed into our reptilian brains. I wonder though, are baby sharks cute?

Planet Earth deliberately focuses on the world’s wonders, and not on the many threats to Nature, in order to foster a sense of joy instead of despair. Creating the feeling of relating to the natural world is of course a pre-requisite for generating a burning passion to save it from destruction.

Since so much of Planet Earth is footage most humans never see in person, I can’t help remembering the key scene in the ’73 film Soylent Green, starring the recently departed Charlton Heston in a very unusual role for him. New York City, 2022, and the planet has been destroyed by the Greenhouse Effect (imagine that.) Nature is dead and food is mass- produced in unappetizing biscuits, rationed to rioting urbanites. One character chooses to be euthanized. As he takes his lethal pills the mortuary staff shows him film of the world as it used to be, i.e. Nature: mountain meadows filled with flowers, waterfalls cascading down cliffs, beaches, plains, wildlife. This man had talked of this world he remembered, yet no one believed him. The joy on his face (the actor Edward G. Robinson, in his last film) made me weep.

Planet Earth may also make you weep, and not just with laughter (Toby's favorite quote so far: “Female asses are mysterious creatures. They come and go as they please, and much of their behavior seems unfathomable to an outsider.”) It will make you amazed and proud to be a citizen of this planet, happy to be alive, and determined to savor as much of our wonderful world as you can.
Photos: Thanks BBC!

Stefan joins the Coast Guard

In 1995, Stefan Edmondson Magnusson Toren sailed with his parents from Darwin, Australia to the Caribbean Islands, a journey of 21,000 miles, when he was just 5 years old. Now, at 18, he’s joining the US Coast Guard for a 6 year tour of duty.

When Stefan was completing his secondary school studies he decided that being a “Coastie” was something he wanted to do. He just graduated from his 8 week basic training in Cape May, New Jersey, and joins the crew of the USCGC Buckthorne as a seaman in Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan (pronounced “soo saint marie”) next week.

Magnus and Mary Lu Toren, Stefan’s parents, invited us to join them in celebratory dinner for him this past week. Their cabin glowed in the candlelight as we drank French champagne in small etched glasses, and ate delicious Pasta Bolognese while reminiscing about Toren family adventures past and present.

What Stefan remembers from that first, epic journey across the South Atlantic is Table Mountain while sailing around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, seeing his first crocodile, and getting a thorn in his hand on Devil’s Island in French Guiana. He recalls sudden squalls on the open seas, schools of dolphin, and the ubiquitous flying fish, fleeing their pursuers like skipping stones across the waves.

As they passed one particularly beautiful island, Stefan asked to go onshore. “Sorry, Stefan, we don’t have enough time to do that,” said Magnus sympathetically. “But Dad,” Stefan said, “I have enough time. I’ll loan you some!”

On the Scott Free, the 65’ sloop they traveled on, Stefan got his first taste of the seafaring life. Now he wants to be a boatswain’s mate and more, moving up through the ranks of the Coast Guard. He eventually wants to drive a 47’ motor lifeboat in 20’ waves! His Dad has a great-grandfather, grandfather, great-uncle and father who all served in the Swedish military. Father and son wear matching Coast Guard hoodies. “It’s good to know that there’s a Toren serving in the United States’ armed services, “ Magnus says proudly.

As you might expect from such a self-aware young man, Stefan came up with the “wild idea” as he put it, to join the Coast Guard all by himself. It seems the Coasties are like a big fraternity ready to spring into action to help others when the call comes. Stefan wants to do his best to make a difference, he says modestly. His preparation, he said, was sailing with his parents, traveling by himself, and living in a boarding school community. He thoroughly explored the Big Sur wilderness as a kid, and, as a competitive gymnast since he was 9 years old, he brings a high level of physical fitness to the job.

Self-sufficiency in the natural elements seems to be a practice and a goal. When I ask what he liked best about growing up in Big Sur, his eyes sparkle and he says, immediately, “The woods. Being able to run out into the woods, fend for myself, and come back and say hey, I did this. The freedom of it.” By himself or with a friend, Stefan spent a lot of time in the forest growing up on Partington. The time of year he likes best there? “Winter, when it’s down pouring rain, that was the most fun.”

The downside to being a kid in Big Sur, he says, is “being so far from everything. Like, I want to go do this, but we can’t because it takes too much time to get there.” Yes, we can relate to that one. It’s a matter of taking the good with the bad, but it does seem to be harder on younger folks.

Stefan will be learning navigational skills working on the Buckthorne, a buoy tender on the Great Lakes. Buoy tenders are the Coast Guard’s unsung heroes: it’s tough as nails work, and ensures the safety of ships throughout the region. Sailors rely on buoys the way airline pilots rely on landing lights, says the Coast Guard literature. Fortunately he’s beginning his service in the Springtime of this notoriously cold part of the country.

The Great Lakes were formed during the last Ice Age, about 14,000 years ago, and the temperature there today was 46 degrees, dropping to 30 degrees (in other words, they’re expecting snow on this early April evening.) Considering Stefan’s least favorite memory of basic training was a midnight fire drill that left him outside in very cold weather in his skivvies, we imagine he’ll be dressing warmly.

Right now it seems Stefan’s biggest problem is listening to his Mom rave about his accomplishments, and about the first-class treatment they received at the Admiral’s Club in the airport. “Hey, give her a break,” we say, “she’s a Mom, after all!” And, fitting for any discussion involving sailors, we debate the pros and cons of different tattoos, what the Coast Guard allows and what it doesn’t (no graphics above the collar of your shirt, for example.)

That evening, all the adults are moved by the potency of Stefan’s fresh start in a new world, where he’ll be following his dream and helping others along the way. Youth, strength, integrity, awareness, Stefan embodies all of these qualities profoundly.

As we start to give him advice for his future though, a neighbor who’s a veteran laughs at us. He’s more interested in pay and benefits (Stefan will make about 7 times what he made per month in the Marines in the 60’s.) The idea of sending Mom pictures of his apartment elicits a snort: “I would never have shocked my mother that way,” he says to me, discreetly.

Soft buzz cut hair with v-like pattern on top of his head, slate blue eyes, old soul smile. Hood pulled over one side of his face, napping after dinner with his head resting on his dog’s belly…we wonder where the world will take Stefan on this next adventure, what challenges he will face, what dreams he will fulfill. It's comforting to know though, that where ever he goes, he will be piloting his own ship.
Photos: Mary Lu Toren, Dick Sonnen, Linda Sonrisa, USCG

Sacred Work

“Know thyself.” These two little words (originally posted at the temple of the Oracle at Delphi in ancient Greece) form the basis of all psychology, said renowned psychoanalyst Erich Fromm. And so, my husband and I trundled 6 miles down the road to Esalen Institute last week, for six days of guided exploration on this endlessly fascinating topic.

The workshop, The Intimate Couple, was led by modern-day seers Jack Rosenberg and Beverly Kitaen-Morse, PhD’s with decades of experience in helping souls know themselves better. The goal: to feel more joy and fulfillment during our brief time on the planet with each other.

Yes, I confess there's a vision of Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice in the back of my mind, especially since we're in the Fritz (Perls) meeting room, where Fritz himself lived, the founder of Gestalt therapy and leader of the original encounter groups in the 60's.

The name for Jack and Beverly’s system is Integrative Body Pyschotherapy. Healing and honoring ourselves, v. repeating old patterns that perpetuate our wounds, is the key. Only when I am fully present (the work of consciousness) can I truly give, to myself and to my loved ones.

It’s all in the breath. This is where we dip into our core sense of Self, the “I am” that guides us through our journey. This awakens our sense of “authenticity and aliveness in the body." After our week of practice, we have a big fat book that explains it all, with diagrams and breath exercises, some yummy memories, and a fresh perspective on our internal landscapes.

It seems that it’s not just “know thyself”, but also “share thyself.” One of the most extraordinary phenomena of a workshop of this sort, where mature people come together in the spirit of discovery with compassionate experts, is the electrifying realization that as much we are different, we are also the same, underneath. Even gender differences recede, becoming merely a facet of core self, when we consider the basics: how much love did you receive as a child, and how much love can you give and receive today?

I "show up" by being powerfully vulnerable. Someone who I didn't see fully comes into focus, beautifully. Or someone who intimidated me becomes simply human, more like me than I could ever have realized. We weave a common thread of humanity between us and grow closer, despite our superficial variations. Imagine applying this dynamic cocktail of vulnerability and understanding to your beloved, expressed in the body, and you get the picture: the potential for communion.

By the end of the week we'd shared profound truths, and belly laughs usually reserved for old-timers sitting on the porch together. We took ancient skeletons out of our closets, then Jack and Beverly wrapped them up tenderly in soft, exotic fabrics. We danced with them gently around the room and out under the stars, and found they weren't so bad after all.

Photo by Linda Sonrisa. Skeletal couple courtesy of http://www.diadelosmuertos.us/