Up Bear Creek / 5jan25012

Visiting a New Mexico hippie haunt

Lama Foundation Winter 2006

LAMA … For many years in the Sixties those of us in San Francisco heard and read about the commune movement in northern New Mexico – places like the Hog Farm, New Buffalo and Morningstar East. While many of those places disappeared, Lama became a foundation and has continued as a communal haven of renown in the counter-cultural movement since its founding in 1967. Its prayer flag cottage industry has helped it survive economically, while the publication of Ram Dass’ Be Here Now also gave Lama a long-term financial grounding … This past weekend I got to make my first to the residential cluster of homes that surround the famous intentional community. It was a birthday party for an old friend, and in the process of celebrating I got to meet some incredible people … 

Morningstar East (1969)

 That included Rick Klein, the legendary musician and New Buffalo commune founder, and his wife Terry. Rick played some amazing music for us, and the two of us had some lovely talks about the hippie days … Annie Degen was a charming veteran of that same period, and lives in a beautiful adobe adjacent to Lama full of paintings and mementoes of her famous painter/poet partner, Bill Gersh, who was a legend in Taos throughout the Sixties and Seventies. I don’t think I’ve met an elder who more embodies the hippie spirit or keeps that flame alive than Annie … Musician and string instrument-maker Tony Sutherland was the wonderfully gracious host for the birthday bash. His song “Everything Is Everything”  can be found on YouTube … 

Wendelin Scott, Yoga Source, Santa Fe

Incredible yoga teacher, Wendelin Scott, was able to key into our group of newbies and experienced practitioners in a way that made the least experienced feel comfortable and at home in various asanas. She’s co-director of Yoga Source in Santa Fe and a devoted student of Advaita Vedanta. She holds a Masters in Eastern Classics and Sanskrit from St. John’s College … I’m hoping many of these folks will come up to join us for the Telluride Mushroom Festival this year.

SPEAKING OF SHROOMFEST … We’re offering a special discount price for a full weekend pass to the Telluride Mushroom Festival for locals (anyone reading the Watch) – good until the end of January. Just $125 -- $50 off the full price … For more info, call me at 327-4767.

ELECTRO MAGNETIC FIELDS… The issue of “smart meters” continues to confound many of us. I don’t appear to have any personal effects from all the invisible waves and rays piercing my home walls. And yet it’s becoming increasingly hard to ignore how strongly they affect certain sensitives. And information keeps coming in that they may have unknown long-term effects on many of us … 

Smart Meter demonstration in California

The recent article in Scientific American (January issue) on animal behavior, “The Compass Within” speaks at length about the magnetic sense in animals that scientists are just now zeroing in on, and how it works. As the article begins, “Franz Anton Mesmer’s 18^th-century belief in ‘animal magnetism’ – the notion that breathing creatures harbor magnetic fluids in their bodies – had long been relegated to the annals of charlatanism.” But recent research has documented that dozens of species of animals exhibit a magnetic sense. Maybe even humans. But scientists aren’t exactly sure how it works … Magnetism is, as neurobiologist Steven M. Reppert suggests, “the one sense that we know the least about.” Various mechanisms have been suggested and tested, but results are still not conclusive … Thorsten Ritz, a biophysicist at the University of California at Irvine, does note that “radio waves induce electric fields that could disrupt biological processes in unpredictable ways.” While he was speaking to animal orientation in long migratory flights, the concept of EMFs affecting animals (and humans) in ways we don’t understand seems to be becoming more accepted. Clearly, we need more and better research to understand how our increasingly electrified world is affecting us, not just technologically but physiologically too.

A solar Glory

THE GLORY … My teacher, Dolores LaChapelle, was always fascinated by the solar phenomenon called a “glory” – a circular rainbow of light seen in alpine regions, often surrounding one’s shadow form on nearby clouds. First reported by a French scientific expedition to Ecuador in 1748, the exact mechanism of this rare but fantastical light show has been explained in many ways. But H. Moysés Nussenzveig’s article about it in the same issue of Scientific American is worth reading … Turns out, it’s not nearly as simple as has often been explained. Three effects are involved. However, geometric-optic axial back scattering has only a small part to play, edge rays aren’t all that big a contributor, but Mie resonances arising from the tunneling of light seem to be the main effectuator.

THE TALKING GOURD

Vocation

Seminary for me

was R.C. boot camp

Basic training

for church, not state

Our mission to tithe

& save, not tax

& kill. Now elected

to local office

I serve the people’s will

The statutes my bible

Compassion my skill

Blindfolded

at the altar of balance

Genuflecting

still