Creative Ingredients at Esalen
Melinda Palacio -- August 15, 2006
Esalen is the institution associated with personal renewal and self- discovery, two important ingredients for sparking creativity. Fariba Enteshari's weekend workshop on August 25-27, My Religion Is Love, explores Mathnawi, the teachings of the 13th-century mystic poet, Jalai al-Din Rumi. The Sufi poet's text is a rich source of self-discovery and personal renewal.
Enteshari's workshop appeals to writers, psychologists, artists, teachers, lawyers, and anyone interested in knowing themselves better. Rumi's poetry is about the universal love among us and within us, explains Enteshari, and Rumi is another tool for self-discovery. Rumi's message of love offers a path to enlightenment through the story of the soul's journey on earth.
As a Rumi scholar, Enteshari helps students tap into their own creativity and become in tune with who they are. "Participants become more intimate and accepting of who they are-- that's what Rumi does. Within Rumi's poetry they learn the spectrums of their ego and they work things out within Rumi's stories. Students develop more flow and connection and their blockage goes away."
In addition to studying story, poetry, and metaphor as tools for begetting creativity, Enteshari emphasizes the importance of dream work. Working with dreams and the subconscious has long been a familiar tool for writers and artists. Rumi's wisdom works in tandem with our dreams. After 800 years, the images within Rumi's poetry continue to stimulate writers, teachers, artists, and anyone with the desire to allow the poetic images to inspire their dreams and subconscious.
Enteshari herself uses both Rumi's teachings and her dreams as tools for solving her own problems. She sees the process in her students and in herself as she works with images from Rumi's poetry. Rumi's poetry offers access to the solutions to problems that pose distractions to our creative energy. "I write my dreams. I work on my dreams and I have the solution of what I was looking for," said the Shiraz born scholar and Santa Barbara resident.
Her passion for the teachings of Rumi has turned the former biochemist into a full-time Rumi scholar who has studied the mystic text in its original Farsi. Over the past eleven years, Enteshari has taught Rumi at the University of Southern California, Santa Barbara City College and other institutions, such as Esalen. Esalen remains a cherished location for the founder of the Rumi Educational Center.
Esalen's setting amidst ancient redwood and oak groves and dramatic cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean facilitates spiritual bonding among strangers. Enteshari offered this workshop last year and was impressed by the variety of cultures and religions represented by her participants. "I had so many different people, a Catholic priest, a Muslim from Turkey, a politician from Canada, an Israeli seeker," she said. "We became a sweet stew of love. Rumi's poetry is about the universal love among us and within us."
Esalen is a place of natural hot springs and beauty. Since the '60's, Esalen has been a mecca for anyone needing to experience a unity with nature and a transformation. The weekend workshop in Big Sur, August 25 to 27, provides a key to interfaith understanding, an understanding of self, a path to enlightenment, and the opening of one's creativity. For details contact www.esalen.org or call (831) 667-3000.
Enteshari also leads a weekly Rumi Circle through her Thursday Lecture series in Santa Barbara, from 7:30pm to 9:30pm at Trinity Episcopal Church, 1500 State Street. For more information contact Rumi Educational Center or call 805-570-5270. The Rumi Educational Center also offers Rumi Workbooks and CDs for sale.
More Resources for Writers
- Essential Rumi by Jalai al-Din rumi and et al Coleman Barks
- Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity by Julia Cameron
- Double Your Creative Power by S.L. Stebel
- The Right-Brain Experience by Marilee Zdenek