Locust tree: Chapter 2 - Histories of Harbin

Harbin ethnography:


... Actual and virtual Harbin contrast as that which is place-based and that which is digitally mediated as multimedia (Packer and Jordan 2001) as name and representation of place and culture.



Chapter 2: History

Prehistories of Harbin: From actual to virtual – Histories of Harbin – A personal Harbin history – Histories of Harbin research - Challenges of Developing a Virtual Harbin and Writing this Harbin ethnography - Harbin as dream, ethnographically, in actuality.

Harbin Hot Springs is a nonprofit hot springs retreat and workshop center in Lake County in northern California, near the wine-producing Napa Valley region, about 2 hours northeast of the San Francisco Bay Area. Significantly influenced in its current form by the 1960s and 1970s, Robert Hartley (AKA Ishvara), its founder who still lives on property, bought the land in 1972 to be a Gestalt Center with hot springs. Sold to Heart Consciousness Church (H.C.C.) in 1975, Harbin is also a kind of visionary, hippie commune where 150-180 residents live and operate the retreat center for visitors from all over the world. Harbin's New Age Church of Being (NACOB) was incorporated in 1996. Harold Dull and the Water Dance Family created and developed Watsu (water shiatsu) and Waterdance, two new forms of water dance movement therapy, at Harbin. Located on 1700 acres, much of which lies in a beautiful, remote valley, Harbin is a leading expression of the 'New Age,' and attracts an eclectic and colorful variety of visitors and residents. Harbin's clothing-optionalness, its pools, its milieu, and its natural beauty significantly influence remarkable aspects of the 'Harbin experience' (http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2008/11/bubbles-brief-history-harbin-hot.html - November 18, 2008).

Harbin Hot Springs, since 1972, has given rise to multiple visions of 1960's possibilities and hippie creativity, that emerge from a wide variety of versions of its history of nowness in the pools, many of which are forms of virtuality. ...





(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/08/locust-tree-chapter-2-histories-of.html - August 4, 2010)