New Dimensions; Gabrielle Roth; Part 1

<v Michael Toms>[music] It is only through a change of consciousness that the world will be transformed. <v Michael Toms>As we bring mind, body, psyche and spirit into <v Michael Toms>harmony and unity, so also will the world <v Michael Toms>be changed. <v Michael Toms>This is our responsibility. As we create <v Michael Toms>and explore new dimensions of being. <v Michael Toms>[music] Hello there and welcome to New Dimensions.

<v Michael Toms>My name is Michael Toms and I'm going to be your host. <v Michael Toms>And on today's edition of New Dimensions, we're going to be talking with a person <v Michael Toms>we've talked with in the past and someone who, oh, is an old friend. <v Michael Toms>As so many of the people we talked to are. <v Michael Toms>Gabrielle Roth, founder of the Moving Center, a female shaman, <v Michael Toms>if you will, a wonderful wizard. <v Michael Toms>And Gabrielle is going to be exploring lots of things. <v Michael Toms>Her own journey, which is included so much of what we're used to hearing here on New <v Michael Toms>Dimensions. Stay with us. We'll be here for two hours. <v Michael Toms>[music] <v Michael Toms>Gabrielle, it's been a been a couple of years since we talked to you.

<v Michael Toms>Perhaps the best way to begin is to have you bring us up to date a little bit about <v Michael Toms>what you've been doing. Where you been? <v Gabrielle Roth>Well, I followed my heart to New Jersey and <v Gabrielle Roth>directly into the life of my soulmate. <v Gabrielle Roth>[pause] So that took me away from my roots. <v Gabrielle Roth>Away from. The place where I've developed my work and my being <v Gabrielle Roth>into a whole new environment. <v Gabrielle Roth>And that took me deeper inside to look inside my <v Gabrielle Roth>heart and feel what had happened to me over the last <v Gabrielle Roth>10 years, how deep changes into look, um, <v Gabrielle Roth>to allow I supp- I suppose myself the space to just be <v Gabrielle Roth>and let the river run, let the creative river run and see what came. <v Michael Toms>You know, those roots really go back to the whole beginnings <v Michael Toms>and origins of the human potential movement,

<v Michael Toms>Esalen and the days of Fritz Perls. <v Michael Toms>Talk about those roots a little bit for those of our listeners who may not have come in <v Michael Toms>touch with you and in your work. <v Gabrielle Roth>Well, they go back even deeper. I was born in San Francisco, and I <v Gabrielle Roth>was reborn in San Francisco. <v Gabrielle Roth>So we'll start with a rebirth since the- <v Gabrielle Roth>My um, [long pause] I <v Gabrielle Roth>suppose my my path has been about the individual <v Gabrielle Roth>creative spirit, discovering it, nourishing it and fostering it in myself and learning <v Gabrielle Roth>how to do so in others. <v Gabrielle Roth>And on this path, which has been a dancing path, I've had many, many, many <v Gabrielle Roth>teachers, starting with the small children and the older <v Gabrielle Roth>people and the mental patients and the drug addicts and the alcoholics <v Gabrielle Roth>and all the people that I've danced with and that I began dancing with as a very young <v Gabrielle Roth>girl.

<v Gabrielle Roth>So that primarily I've danced with my <v Gabrielle Roth>whole culture and [long pause]. <v Gabrielle Roth>When <v Gabrielle Roth>I finished college, I <v Gabrielle Roth>left my country and I went to live in Europe for several years. <v Gabrielle Roth>I was really looking for the answer to a question. <v Gabrielle Roth>I was looking for the answer to the question what does it really mean to be a human <v Gabrielle Roth>being? <v Gabrielle Roth>I was young, and I was innocent, and I was courageous, <v Gabrielle Roth>I suppose. I wanted to know what happened. <v Gabrielle Roth>I wanted to know what happened to in Germany. <v Gabrielle Roth>I wanted to know how could people- how could something like the Holocaust <v Gabrielle Roth>happen? That was what brought me to Germany. <v Gabrielle Roth>And so I spent time there, and I absorbed. <v Gabrielle Roth>I didn't study in the archives. I studied in the archives of the soul.

<v Gabrielle Roth>I looked for my answers in the life of the people. <v Gabrielle Roth>I look for my answers in the soul of the folk. <v Gabrielle Roth>And I returned home with this feeling that <v Gabrielle Roth>when we stopped paying attention to our own intuitions, when we <v Gabrielle Roth>stopped paying attention to our hearts, then we open ourselves up <v Gabrielle Roth>to all kinds of forces. <v Gabrielle Roth>And we begin following- [pause] <v Gabrielle Roth>we began following- [pause] the outside <v Gabrielle Roth>rather than inside. <v Gabrielle Roth>And I left it there. It was like that was enough for me to absorb at that time. <v Gabrielle Roth>And I began teaching, began teaching here in San Francisco. <v Gabrielle Roth>It startled me. <v Gabrielle Roth>At one point, I was teaching in a very good high school here in San Francisco, and I had <v Gabrielle Roth>all senior classes in English, literature, history

<v Gabrielle Roth>and drama. <v Gabrielle Roth>What startled me was that these kids weren't capable of thinking for themselves. <v Gabrielle Roth>They had recopied to a lot of textbooks, <v Gabrielle Roth>a lot of them were going to leave school and go to Vietnam and die the next year. <v Gabrielle Roth>Some of them were gonna get married and have children. <v Gabrielle Roth>Some of them were going to go on to college, and they had no sense of themselves <v Gabrielle Roth>and no sense of how to think, how to be original, how to be and how to make <v Gabrielle Roth>individual contributions. <v Gabrielle Roth>They were there to please me to get good grades and, you know, to kind <v Gabrielle Roth>of outwit me and find out what answers I wanted and give them back to me. <v Gabrielle Roth>So I spent six to eight weeks at the beginning of the term just really challenging these <v Gabrielle Roth>kids and getting them to think for themselves, to challenge me, to question me. <v Gabrielle Roth>However, I was left with a feeling of helplessness,

<v Gabrielle Roth>like I was so little and the system was so big, and I just simply did not <v Gabrielle Roth>see how I could how I could change anything. <v Gabrielle Roth>Um, and that brought me to leaving <v Gabrielle Roth>the system and entering the human potential movement, so to speak. <v Gabrielle Roth>Finding an alternative. Which the first alternative for me was Esalen. <v Michael Toms>Or like really finding yourself in a different way. <v Gabrielle Roth>Well, what happened was I quit teaching, and I thought I would dance. <v Gabrielle Roth>I thought I would devote my whole life to dancing, which was what my life was about <v Gabrielle Roth>anyway. Only after about three months of steady dancing, <v Gabrielle Roth>I- I my knees started to act up. <v Gabrielle Roth>I had an old ski injury, and the doctors told me I would never dance again. <v Gabrielle Roth>And this was frightening for me. I couldn't. <v Gabrielle Roth>It was something impossible for me to face. <v Gabrielle Roth>The idea that I would never dance again. <v Gabrielle Roth>I mean, this is just really as deepest as you can hit me. <v Gabrielle Roth>And, um- oh, they want to put nails

<v Gabrielle Roth>in my knee and, you know, give me all kinds of pills. <v Gabrielle Roth>And I was really frightened, uh, so that I had left the system <v Gabrielle Roth>and I had made my choice. And now my choice wasn't working and I was kind of in limbo. <v Gabrielle Roth>And this took me actually to Esalen. <v Gabrielle Roth>And it was like looking for a way to express myself through my body that wasn't <v Gabrielle Roth>dancing. And it was at Esalen that I began to notice that no one was dancing that <v Gabrielle Roth>rhythm. The rhythm was being held back and contained and- and that <v Gabrielle Roth>if I couldn't dance, by golly, I was gonna get everybody else, too. <v Gabrielle Roth>And it was kind of from that spirit that the work really began to develop. <v Gabrielle Roth>The Moving Center work. <v Michael Toms>Michael Murphy and Dick Price both gave you support to do that at Esalen. <v Gabrielle Roth>Oh, you better believe it. Michael Murphy and Dick Price are two of my greatest heroes. <v Michael Toms>And what was your contact with Fritz Perls? <v Michael Toms>I know you met him at Esalen as well. <v Gabrielle Roth>My contact with Fritz was daily. <v Gabrielle Roth>He was a very, very good friend. He was a playmate. <v Gabrielle Roth>We did a lot of mime work together.

<v Gabrielle Roth>We conversed, you know, in- in a theatrical language. <v Gabrielle Roth>Fritz loved my work. He loved the movement. <v Gabrielle Roth>He, uh- we often spoke to- of working <v Gabrielle Roth>together with the children and- and really bringing this energy back <v Gabrielle Roth>into the lives of children. This permission to really express the physical body <v Gabrielle Roth>and spirit in the heart through the body, back to the children. <v Gabrielle Roth>And I would say that Fritz was one of my greatest inspirers and supporters. <v Gabrielle Roth>He, uh- I even at one point asked Fritz if he would train <v Gabrielle Roth>me to do gestalt. And he laughed. <v Gabrielle Roth>He said, 'No, no, no. <v Gabrielle Roth>You do what you do. <v Gabrielle Roth>You are already out there.' And,uh, he gave <v Gabrielle Roth>me the space to do that. I worked both with his groups and with Jack Downing's groups and <v Gabrielle Roth>with everybody's group who came to Esalen practically at that time. <v Gabrielle Roth>It was like Esalen was my research laboratory. <v Gabrielle Roth>I sat there, and I- I just worked with, uhm <v Gabrielle Roth>bodies every day, you know, 30, 40 bodies a day and really went

<v Gabrielle Roth>into investigating, finding out what what inspires the soul, what ignites <v Gabrielle Roth>movement, what ignites change. I mean, how do you catalyze <v Gabrielle Roth>this period into motion? How do you bring life to these cardboard bodies? <v Gabrielle Roth>How do you allow people the space to celebrate themselves, <v Gabrielle Roth>even their pain? And I used- I was like a cosmic disc jockey. <v Gabrielle Roth>I would walk over to the Esalen side of that property with 57 records and <v Gabrielle Roth>go in the room and just sit there and <v Gabrielle Roth>feel the energy and then begin to translate it through music. <v Gabrielle Roth>Very similar to what disc jockeys are doing in discotheques today. <v Gabrielle Roth>And,um, that was my beginning. <v Gabrielle Roth>The first time that I did a movement session at Esalen, uh, I <v Gabrielle Roth>had it all planned. I had all written down on a piece of paper. <v Gabrielle Roth>I knew exactly what I was going to do. I had my 10 records and I went to the room and <v Gabrielle Roth>there were 30 bodies sitting there waiting for me.

<v Gabrielle Roth>And the record player broke, <v Gabrielle Roth>and somebody ran around and found a tape recorder. <v Gabrielle Roth>And the only tape they could find was a Ravi Shankar. <v Gabrielle Roth>And I'd never heard of him. It was Indian music. <v Gabrielle Roth>I never even heard it before in my lifetime. <v Gabrielle Roth>So all of a sudden this Indian music came on, and I was there. <v Gabrielle Roth>And that's how I began my work. It was like, uh- <v Gabrielle Roth>that's how I began my work with the normal neurotics. <v Gabrielle Roth>I had been doing this with children and everyone else for years. <v Gabrielle Roth>But this was a new step. <v Gabrielle Roth>And from that day on, I never saw any reason to plan anything. <v Michael Toms>So you really got into spontaneity and how spontaneity really works. <v Gabrielle Roth>Well, see, I thought that because they were adults and they were professionals and <v Gabrielle Roth>everything that I had to have a plan. I mean, I'd always worked, um, I had- <v Gabrielle Roth>I had always winged it, so to speak. You know, I mean, with children, you can't plan <v Gabrielle Roth>anything yourself. There so advanced. <v Gabrielle Roth>I mean, it's you have to be in the moment with children. <v Gabrielle Roth>With mental patients, you have to be in the moment.

<v Gabrielle Roth>You can't have a plan. Nobody cares about your plan, you know. <v Gabrielle Roth>I mean, so I had trained to really be in the moment. <v Gabrielle Roth>And this, um, <v Gabrielle Roth>this just, uh, was a good beginning for this next stage to have to begin <v Gabrielle Roth>in the moment. <v Michael Toms>We're talking with Gabriele Roth. <v Speaker>[Song: Bright Sky by Bruce Cockburn] <v Michael Toms>Gabrielle, you've written some poems, some poems that are particularly relevant to what

<v Michael Toms>we're just talking about, Esalen and Fritz Perls and your contact with people <v Michael Toms>like Michael Murphy and Dick Price. <v Gabrielle Roth>Yes, I'd love to share some. I- when I first found myself in New Jersey, and <v Gabrielle Roth>suddenly I had a lot of time and lot of space that I'd never had before. <v Gabrielle Roth>I sat down to write a book in regular paragraphs <v Gabrielle Roth>like a big person should. And what came were poems, hundreds of poems. <v Gabrielle Roth>It was like befitting a shaman to receive the shaman poem first. <v Gabrielle Roth>And that's when I did, one right after the other. <v Gabrielle Roth>It was like going through layers of myself and of my experience and- and, um- and <v Gabrielle Roth>these experiences came out in oem- in the form of poems, so to speak. <v Gabrielle Roth>[music] [begins to recite poem] Misters Michael and Dick behind the Esa;en scene <v Gabrielle Roth>were two men with one dream. <v Gabrielle Roth>It was a vision seen with precision to form

<v Gabrielle Roth>a living piece of art through a movement of the heart. <v Gabrielle Roth>Asselin was made by two men with more dreams <v Gabrielle Roth>and fewer schemes than any in their class. <v Gabrielle Roth>Michael, with the altar boy eyes and Dick with his <v Gabrielle Roth>flying feet, invited all moving minds to meet. <v Gabrielle Roth>And they came and they spoke <v Gabrielle Roth>and they changed. <v Gabrielle Roth>After the words came the feelings with new gurus to shout <v Gabrielle Roth>and pound pillows into the Esalen ground. <v Gabrielle Roth>Esalen grew in loose lady lines, a moving shadow <v Gabrielle Roth>of the man behind her, changing all the time. <v Gabrielle Roth>After the feelings fell, we entered physical hell <v Gabrielle Roth>and more teachers came to play the body game.

<v Gabrielle Roth>After all is said and done, we found out they were one, <v Gabrielle Roth>and Esalen is still not done. <v Gabrielle Roth>Dick now has altar boy eyes, and Michael gets his feet to <v Gabrielle Roth>fly. And what they've given to you and I won't be noticed <v Gabrielle Roth>until they die. <v Gabrielle Roth>Misters Michael and Dick, I have grown in your shadow. <v Gabrielle Roth>You gave me the place to explore my own space, to <v Gabrielle Roth>develop my own form and to move at my own pace. <v Gabrielle Roth>You made a master model of what a teaching community should be <v Gabrielle Roth>with no God or figurehead, simply unity, <v Gabrielle Roth>grounded in function, flowing everywhere. <v Gabrielle Roth>This could only happen because you chose to dare <v Gabrielle Roth>people to be their own gods moving their own minds.

<v Gabrielle Roth>God people like you are certainly hard to find. <v Gabrielle Roth>I love you both with my whole heart, <v Gabrielle Roth>without your love. <v Gabrielle Roth>I couldn't have found my art. <v Gabrielle Roth>[music] <v Gabrielle Roth>Fritz, grandfather friend. <v Gabrielle Roth>Gentle giant with fiery speech. <v Gabrielle Roth>Seeing the whole he couldn't reach. <v Gabrielle Roth>Wandering Jew seeking his home faded <v Gabrielle Roth>in paranoia to roam.

<v Gabrielle Roth>Casting himself as the fool, he swam in the unconscious pool. <v Gabrielle Roth>Relighting finger twitches to mother, which is <v Gabrielle Roth>the court jester, threw his darts aimed at ego's <v Gabrielle Roth>smothering hearts. <v Gabrielle Roth>Our white magician knew no contrition. <v Gabrielle Roth>He was wild, spontaneous, like a child. <v Gabrielle Roth>He moved like a mime to his own sense of time. <v Gabrielle Roth>A long haired wizard, slippery as a lizard. <v Gabrielle Roth>Passions wore his face. <v Gabrielle Roth>Cigarets set his pace. <v Gabrielle Roth>Oh, such pain if he were to fall on the other side <v Gabrielle Roth>of his very own wall. <v Gabrielle Roth>To me, he was an inspiration to serve my own creation. <v Gabrielle Roth>Such a master mirror reflecting fears as

<v Gabrielle Roth>well as tears. <v Gabrielle Roth>In his 70s, still trucking, in fact, <v Gabrielle Roth>still making love. <v Gabrielle Roth>Fritz my grandfather friend. <v Gabrielle Roth>How I mourned our end. After all, <v Gabrielle Roth>how many souls fly to look God <v Gabrielle Roth>in the eye? [music] <v Michael Toms>Gabrielle, how long were you actually at Esalen. How many years?

<v Gabrielle Roth>Well, I lived there for three and a half, and I've been working there for <v Gabrielle Roth>over ten. About eleven. <v Gabrielle Roth>It's been a very important place. And in fact, as I've moved out into the world, I <v Gabrielle Roth>realize more and more what an important and valuable place Esalen has been, not only <v Gabrielle Roth>for me, but for many. <v Gabrielle Roth>And in that, [long pause] Michael <v Gabrielle Roth>and Dick- Walt Whitman once said institutions <v Gabrielle Roth>are but the length and shadow of a man. <v Gabrielle Roth>And we can look at a lot of institutions through that quote and <v Gabrielle Roth>see the truth. <v Gabrielle Roth>That gentle giant mind. <v Gabrielle Roth>As long as I had to play in a shadow, it was fantastic for me to play <v Gabrielle Roth>in the shadow of Michael and Dick. <v Gabrielle Roth>That they could create a collective energy that inspired

<v Gabrielle Roth>uniqueness and individuality without-neith- <v Gabrielle Roth>neither of them ever chose to to to use or misuse <v Gabrielle Roth>that position. <v Gabrielle Roth>It was truly out of their own deep, deep commitment to <v Gabrielle Roth>the seeking path that that institution was born and still <v Gabrielle Roth>lives. <v Gabrielle Roth>I mean, Michael basically ran Esalen from a meditation pillow in San Francisco <v Gabrielle Roth>by allowing- it's a very feminine organization. <v Gabrielle Roth>It always has been. It changes a lot. <v Gabrielle Roth>And it you know, it's very much like the breath in and out. <v Gabrielle Roth>It serves, it deeply serves. <v Gabrielle Roth>There's never been a figurehead, even when- when Fritz was there. <v Gabrielle Roth>I mean, it's like, you know, it's like a grandfather friend. <v Gabrielle Roth>I mean, Esalen has always had some sense of wanting to have a grandfather friend <v Gabrielle Roth>around. Now we have Gregory Bateson.

<v Gabrielle Roth>And this is very important that any kind of community that is created as a <v Gabrielle Roth>model have um- However, <v Gabrielle Roth>the old people and the young people represented like Esalen now has a very, very strong <v Gabrielle Roth>program for small children. <v Gabrielle Roth>So there's a sense of balance there. <v Gabrielle Roth>And this is appropriate as Esalen is moving into its <v Gabrielle Roth>maturity. <v Michael Toms>I was going to say there's almost a recognition- I mean there is a recognition of the <v Michael Toms>hero as well. <v Gabrielle Roth>Yes. <v Michael Toms>Certainly people like Fritz and Gregory would fit the role of hero. <v Gabrielle Roth>Absolutely. <v Michael Toms>Joseph Campbell also spent much time in Esalen. <v Gabrielle Roth>Well, Esalen has been there to serve our heroes and to allow them the space <v Gabrielle Roth>to do original research with, you know, with <v Gabrielle Roth>no limits. <v Michael Toms>You know, Gabrielle, you- you've really explored working with the body and in talking <v Michael Toms>about your experience with so many groups at Esalen, people coming down, and

<v Michael Toms>I just have this picture of people who really are coming to Esalen with <v Michael Toms>the whole media vision of what Esalen is.