Symbols: Writing to the Infinite, Harbin Books, Ethnography

In the pool area this morning, a friend who is a Harbin resident, mentioned "writing to the infinite" to me, possibly about my writing about Harbin, in passing. There's an understanding at Harbin that sees everything as {part of} one. Curiously true, the Harbin pools, and its milieu, highlight this, as do the bodyminds there. And Harbin, in this respect, is far-reaching and wild ... so I'll keep singing this Harbin song, ethnographically.



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Harbin Hot Springs has generated a significant collection of writings over its nearly four decades, since Ishvara bought the land in 1972, which show Harbin to be a healing- oriented, Watsu, alternative, New Age, Hot Springs retreat center, emerging from the countercultural, and the freedom-seeking, movements of the 1960s and 1970s.


Here's a bibliography:

Anand, Margot. 1989. The Art of Sexual Ecstasy: The Path of Sacred Sexuality for Western Lovers. Jeremy P. Tarcher Press.

Dull, Harold, with the Water Family. 2008 (2004, 1997, 1993). Watsu: Freeing the Body in Water and with Tantsu on Land. 4th edition. Middletown, CA: Watsu Publishing.

Gilkeson, Jim. 2000. Energy Healing: A Pathway to Inner Growth. New York: Marlowe.

Harbin Hot Springs Web Site. 2008. harbin.org.

Harbin Quarterly. Multiple issues over decades.

The Harbinger. Multiple issues over decades.

Ishvara. 1996. Living the Future. Harbin pamphlet. Middletown, CA: Harbin Publishing.

Ishvara. 2002. Oneness in Living: Kundalini Yoga, the Spiritual Path, and the Intentional Community. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books.

Klages, Ellen. 1993 (1991). Harbin Hot Springs: Healing Waters, Sacred Land. Middletown, CA: Harbin Springs Publishing.

Kötke, William H. 2005. Garden Planet: The Present Phase Change of The Human Species. AuthorHouse.

Wyne, Sajjad. 1997. The Big Bang and the Harbin Experience. Middletown, CA: Harbin Springs Publishing.

Yavelow, Andrew. 2004. Embodiment: Opening your Body to Consciousness. Middletown, CA: Self-published.



harbin.org/authors.htm



(See also "Bubbles: A Brief History of Harbin Hot Springs, and Harbin's HCC and NACOB" - scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2008/11/bubbles-brief-history-harbin-hot.html)







Yet, the pools create an experience of ease, akin to oneness, that these writings don't necessarily do. And Watsu {water shiatsu, which was created and developed at Harbin} complements this. (The Harbin domes in the picture above were created with Watsu in mind). Harbin can generate this ease {the 'relaxation response,' I think}, which is oneness, profoundly.

And with this ease, people try things in far out, fascinating and sensible ways - Harbin has been pretty experimental, but not yet infinitely so. ...















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2008/11/symbols-writing-to-infinite-harbin.html - November 15, 2008)