Mushroom: Counterculture, Harbin, Time

Counterculture

By countercultural, I mean those human articulations that reflect the transformations and radical re-envisionings of the 1960s and 70s - including the political, spiritual, sexual, psychedelic, communitarian, as well as the back to the land movements and revolutions. These heralded and creatively explored, in far-reaching ways, the possibility to change society for the better, often against corporate interests, as well as responded to limitations of tradition and modernity (including consumerism). People very creatively made art with life in a wide variety of ways. Significant and widespread parts of society were touched by these transformations and ways of thinking. Much of this began because mostly white, middle class youth had time on their hands to protest against injustice in American Society, against the war in Vietnam, and for civil rights, engaging their first amendment rights of freedom of speech, protest and expression. From this emerged a variety of ways of thinking, new traditions, organizations and institutions, including Harbin Hot Springs.


Harbin and Counterculture

Harbin’s freedoms found expression in the 1960s and early 1970s. Part of hippie-mindedness involves creating environments where people can do what they want - personal freedom - as a sensible reaction to some of society’s mores or limiting codes. At Harbin, there's an openness about bodies & a Beat or Bohemian quality of life that emerges from counterculture after 37 years, as well as a connectedness which, for all its fractures and disjunctions, gives rise to a culture, that is fascinating and freely normal.

There are only a few people who have been at Harbin for around 3 decades, and they have lived this, and also have a historical view of the Harbin experience and life at Harbin, which patterns and energies are fascinating and uniquely Harbin's own. The people who have come to Harbin since the 1960s and 70s, and especially since Ishvara bought the Harbin property in 1972, have all been part of this fabric of life that predominantly engages and embraces a kind of hippie-mindedness.


Time at Harbin ~ Now

Time works differently at Harbin compared with a city, for example, in my experience. How do people experience time at Harbin Hot Springs, specifically? The warm waters keep flowing, and the pools are always open, and they bring people into the present, in a very lovely and soothing way. The present - now - is also valorized richly at Harbin, by Harbin's culture, New Age thinking and by Ish, but Ish takes a pretty laid back role at Harbin, in many ways. Time to snuggle in the warm pool? ~ now. Time can expand here like a mushroom when you're in the moment, especially when you're in the Harbin warm pool.

People are relaxed, and work plays a unique role here, too. Time is slow and reflects both this particular retreat center's - Harbin is kind of a hippie commune-like - pace, as well as a rural one, but in the context of Harbin’s unique culture. The businesses at Harbin, like the Harbin Restaurant and the Harbin Market open and close according to a schedule, but Harbin is always open, so you can always come here - now. But as a hot springs retreat center run by the Heart Consciousness Church, the people who work 28 hours a week - residents - are also pretty relaxed. There's also the freedom to do what one wants here, especially for visitors, in the moment. And residents, too, have a lot of freedom, too, which affects everybody's sense of time. Visitors, especially, but residents too, are pretty free here to do what they want in the moment.


Harbin as liminal

In an anthropological sense, life is liminal (Turner) at Harbin - betwixt and between (Douglas), and out of social structure - and this is reflected in an easy-going approach to time, too. Residents find an alternative lifestyle, and visitors leave 'social structure.'


Virtual Harbin

With the development of virtual Harbin vis-a-vis real Harbin – virtual Harbin questions of time will become comparable. For example, Second Life calls their time Second Life Time (SLT), which corresponds with Pacific Time (Linden Lab is in California). But it's often light in this virtual world, and time isn't shaped there in relation to the sun.