For some people, the path begins with touch. For Corey Costanzo, it also began with sound.
Many in the EMGV community already know Robin Fann-Costanzo and her deep connection to the Esalen® Massage lineage. Together with her husband Corey, she created Still Point Wellness in Asheville, North Carolina — a place where bodywork, presence, and restoration meet.
Corey’s path moves between Esalen Massage, somatic psychology, and the deeply resonant world of sound. During the Esalen Massage Global Village gathering in Switzerland, he will offer a live Didgeridoo Meditation inspired by the late-night sessions that began years ago in the baths at Esalen, while also supporting parts of the gathering through workshop assistance and community presence. .
The following text was written by Corey himself.
We wanted to share his words in their original voice.
From New York Noise to Big Sur Silence
It took a series of downturns for me to realize that I wasn’t happy with the structure of my life. New York City had shifted from a time of great adventure and possibility into something suffocatingly lonely and unfulfilling. Somewhere between the house beats of fabulous dance floors and the adrenaline rush of a successful dot-com startup, it happened: I hit the ceiling — in more ways than one.
In 1999, I felt a strong push to leave New York, and this time I didn’t resist it.
Traveling to Learn
I began traveling with the intention of learning whatever I needed most. Capoeira in Brazil. Massage in Thailand. Didgeridoo in Bali.
At a craniosacral therapy workshop, I closed my eyes and placed my hand over a table covered with books. When I let my hand fall, it landed on Candace Pert’s groundbreaking book, Molecules of Emotion. In it, she described a place in Big Sur called the Esalen Institute — a place that had helped her heal and integrate after feeling betrayed by mentors who took credit for her life’s work.
Two days later, an ex-girlfriend unexpectedly called me from her honeymoon while traveling through Big Sur. She told me she “couldn’t stop thinking about me” as she drove past this place called Esalen. She felt compelled to pass the information along to me.
Finding Esalen
Connecting these dots, I applied and was accepted into Esalen’s work-scholar program. I headed to Big Sur to live, work, and study spiritual massage with Maria Lucia Sauer for 30 days before beginning a year-long massage program in New York State.
Thirty days quickly turned into sixty, and eventually into a year-long internship in the Esalen kitchen, where I had access to the full catalog of workshops and in-house programs. I let go of my massage school plans in New York and chose instead to receive my foundational massage training at Esalen.
That decision opened the door to a lifelong fascination with the psychology of the mind-body relationship and eventually led me to graduate school in clinical somatic psychology.
Grief, Presence, and Sound
During my first few months living at Esalen, I experienced a heartbreak that deeply affected me. Immersed in Gestalt Awareness Practice — with its emphasis on presence, embodiment, and emotional awareness — I became determined to transform the grief into music.
Late at night, when no one was around, I would sit in the silent side of the baths and play the didgeridoo. The deeply vibratory and resonant tones reverberated off the concrete walls and glass, moving through my entire body. It became both cathartic and deeply integrating at the same time.
When the Baths Became a Gathering
Word spread quickly. Within a short time, I would open my eyes while playing and see people dancing, exchanging bodywork, meditating, or soaking in the mineral spring baths. Above us, the stars stretched endlessly across the night sky while, far below, the Pacific Ocean crashed rhythmically against the cliffs. The ocean itself became a kind of metronome for the drone of the didgeridoo.
This was the beginning of what became a weekly offering from 2003–2012 called the Didgeridoo Meditation.
Trauma expert and author of The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel van der Kolk, later wrote: “Corey’s didgeridoo adds a fourth dimension to the safety, rhythm and soul that is the magic of Esalen.”
Bringing the Spirit to Switzerland
I’m excited to bring the spirit of the Didgeridoo Meditation to the Esalen Massage Conference and look forward to recreating this open, inclusive, vibratory journey experience in the Swiss Alps.
