The Beginning
“I had never thought about massage,” Brita says.
She smiles as she remembers how it began — by coincidence, at Rancho La Puerta in Mexico, long before she came to Esalen.
“I was with a man who went there, and it was one of the first centers — a kind of fat farm with New Age ideas. They had massage.”
Someone gave her a session. “It felt like a grasshopper attacking me,” she laughs.
When she later arrived at Esalen, the place already had a long history as a hot springs.
“Massage was being practiced there, as it was at many hot springs in California. One of the women, Storm, was absolutely wonderful — she would just float around.”
“And I finally signed up for a workshop with Molly Day-Shackman. Really, I suffered through it. I cannot say learning massage was easy for me. For one thing, Molly was very much about intuition — start anywhere — although she did teach us a particular form.”
“But I practiced, and then people really relaxed under my fingertips, and that felt good. I think it was when I could see that my touch was really a benefit to people. I felt that this was something I could do.”
From these beginnings, Brita’s interest in massage grew — not as a career move, but as a way of understanding human connection.
The Early Years
“It was a wonderful time at Esalen,” she says.
“Everything was new, and we could try out things. A lot of the leadership was under thirty-five.”
“If we wanted to do a workshop, we went to Dick Price and he said, ‘okay,’ and put us in the catalog. We had tremendous opportunity, and a small cohort of us really brought Esalen Massage forward.”
They met not in meeting rooms but in the baths.
“We met in the baths all day long. If it was stormy, there we were — the wind blowing, the tarp lifting, the rain coming in. We were literally on the edge.”
They spent hours discussing language and form.
“We met for hours over the smallest words. ‘Healing’ was a word we didn’t want to use — not until this century.
“We talked about how much movement to include. In those years, we always had movement in the evenings. We spent a lot of time clarifying what we were teaching. How much form did we need to offer?”
Mentors and Influences
“The experience of the place gave me the most inspiration,” Brita says.
“We were surrounded by people who were innovating.”
She remembers Seymour Carter, “willing to try anything. He once took a class to the ocean, gathered seaweed, and slathered it over everyone’s bodies. Seymour was incredibly influential — he made us think outside the box.”
She also mentions Dick Price, who “incorporated the body and the mind so that what was happening on the table physically had a corresponding aspect mentally. That was such an important insight.”
“I can name a few teachers,” she continues. “Molly Day-Shackman, of course. Milton Trager — he took us from just lying there to actually moving the body, shaking it, bringing the mind in with his idea of ‘hook-up’ — being connected with the client.”
“Ida Rolf was impressive but also so scary. She had such clear ideas and was a big, strong woman.”
Other influences came from outside the massage room.
“Al Huang taught us how to move around the table. His Tai Chi became part of the practice. That’s why I can sit here at over eighty and still say I’m practicing — our body mechanics were good.”
“I’ll also give a shout-out to Elisa Lodge, who took the Rolf Movement training and brought it into our classrooms. Every class in those early years, we filmed people working, then Alyssa helped us see how a session could be more effective physically for the giver.”
She adds, “Charlotte Selver, who came out of Germany, had a big influence too. So much of this work came from German teachers — Charlotte and her mentor Elsa Gindler. And now we’re coming back full circle to Europe again. That’s really exciting.”
Offerings at the Gathering: Legacy and Teachings
Asked what she will offer at the next EMGV Gathering in 2026, Brita smiles.
“One session will be a Legacy Session — involving whichever legacy leaders are there: Peggy, probably Deborah and Vicki.
“The other session I’d like to offer is a kind of practitioner tonic — what to do on the days when you’re not on top of your game. How to come into a session in a way that I can both offer something of value and refresh myself. How to prepare and how to come out of it feeling fuller rather than burned out.”
She often reminds her students, “On a good day, we give a great massage. On a less-than-good day, what can we do? How can we still be at the top of our game?”
Belonging and Gratitude
“For me,” Brita says, “the feeling I have — and I had it again when I moved into the EMBA chair and we started Zooming worldwide — is that we belong to a common cause.
“To know that this person and this person and even this tree are all part of a kind of joined-together philosophy of health and wellness and tremendous respect and faith in our innate healing abilities.”
“I have such tremendous gratitude for this work,” she says softly. “Both for its effect on me and because I still feel this is the only way to world peace — for us to learn to touch each other and be comfortable in our own beings.
“And I’m still here. I think together we can move the dial toward world peace.”
Closing Invitation
Brita’s story carries the sound of waves and the steady rhythm of lived experience. You are warmly invited to meet Brita and the EMGV faculty at the next Gathering in Switzerland —
to listen, to learn, and to share in this circle of touch and presence.
“May touch bring you home.”
Learn More About Brita
She is a founding member of the Esalen Massage School, a licensed psychotherapist, and a long-time teacher of Gestalt and somatic awareness. You can learn more about Brita Ostrom on the Esalen Institute website.
There you can read her stories, explore the Esalen Massage Legacy series, and watch videos that capture her presence — a living bridge between the early days at Big Sur and the ongoing evolution of Esalen Massage.