The Minarets and Lake Ediza: Harbin Poem Field Notes

Harbin Poem Field Notes


Rainy December
it is,
but not cold,
and Harbin's
transformations are ahead.

... stop here, stop there,
work on the Web,
on the way.

... stop in Middletown,
for more internet,
before heading in,
up,
on that dark, beautiful
road, at night,
in wintery California.

Oh, the warm pool calls.

Traveling in,
in 2010,
long after the '60s -
yet still here in freedom -
this journey is
soon to become watery.

I like Harbin in winter
because it's quiet, -
but there are
a lot of cars
in the lower, parking lot
this eve.
And I like Harbin
in warmer times,
more than other
Hot Springs around,
like Wilbur & Orr,
because there are a lot
of people here, and
Harbin's culture
is free & funky,
and everybody is out
naked on the sun deck,
in the pool area ...
like our primate ancestors,
in the sun?


Bliss
all the time
eludes -

prepara3ion for
having a family?

- and, moreover, loving bliss
neurophysiology
- both nature & biology -
I invite,
fulsomely,
alone,
and with her,
as duet, -
yet practices
for this
welcome focus,
and this pairbonding flow
hasn't simply happened,
yet again,
together, with her,
for kids,
especially.


At the Harbin
Gatehouse
(my playful friend is there:)
- no guest pass tonight -
I checked in
{to The King of Hearts' asylum:},
for $25 midweek for 24 hours,
for camping,
for one

(I'm a member of Heart Consciousness Church -
$30 per year, or $10 per month - my goodness,
and here, at Harbin, for comparison,
the most expensive cabin, Cedar,
costs $300, for two,
on a weekend night),

and signed those
Harbin, check-in forms.
Two films, posted there
at the Gatehouse,
are showing this eve:
The Love Play of the Gods,
about sublime, erotic,
1000-ish year old,
Khajuraho in India,
made by an Indian,
and 'Inception,' ...
all for Harbin, film journeyings
in that hippie theater,
with big pillows, and all,
where it's warm -
but I arrived too late,
and missed the films ...
nice, film titles, though.

Happy to have arrived,
I turn on my hazard lights,
blinking amber in color
- like bus lights in India -
and drive on,
calling out my window,
to my friend at the gate,
'I like the Dr. Seuss
Christmas Tree lights
on top of the Gatehouse.'
Out back, he smiles and waves -
maybe he didn't hear me.

Parking near the temple,
I put down the back seat,
and, oh, find some
whole grain salad
in mustard vinagrette,
and a hard-boiled egg,
in a cloth, co-op bag,
still good from another time,
inflate my camping pad
in the car,
and pull out my
two sleeping bags, -
I like to be warm
when I sleep.
Ready for bed,
I journey up
through beautiful Harbin
to the pools.

There's a column
of light inside the temple.
I've not seen this before.
What's happening there?

Up I head,
in,
toward the pools,
lingering by the mullein
in the garden, and,
there in the dressing room,
she is ...
naked, with purple towel, -
nipples erect, as I head out
the door into the warm pool,
looking in through the window.
Harbin is wondrous ...
and seems
to open ways for normalcy
of attraction between people,
where the city, and social life,
in modernities,
do not ...
Harbin frees open
the naturalness of sexuality
in a safe place & milieu ...
and women,
yes, women particularly,
welcome this,
and come.
Women open at Harbin -
Goddesses in the
language of
New Age
Harbin.
There are so many
naked women here,
and men, too,
- over the decades, as well -
why is this so rare,
in societies?
Oh, the '60s were about
change, and questioning norms,
and doing things differently, and
about hippies going
to hot springs,
and taking off their clothes.
Peace, love & happiness,
- a lot of wild explorations
have happened at Harbin, man -
and a big party,
to you.

This cultural connectedness
which is Harbin,
and the transformations
arising from
its milieu,
its pools,
its spirituality,
its service, satsang & meditation,
its eclecticness,
its freedom from the '60s ...
rocks in its warm pool's
calm, mindful ease,
and naturalness.
Life is good and easy
here at Harbin.

The warm pool was serene,
with 5 people in different places,
all naked, naturally,
under water,
when I went in -
all easing, freeing, being -
on a December night,
in northern California.
No one was cuddling, -
how surprising.
She drifts toward the steps
to the hot pool -
up, out, and in -
Silence, and still, warm waters,
are all around.
Back in the dressing room,
she is bending forward -
her breasts are pendulously-lovely;
another couple dresses and leaves.

Back to my car-cocoon,
for sleep.
The column of light in
the temple -

there was an evening workshop ...

was it an upright, flourescent bulb,
in a wood casing,
for concentration practices? ...
is one guess,
like Stan Grof's natural,
psychotropic, breath-work
workshops,
which I've participated in
in this temple -

is now off,
and people are putting
away their regenerative,
yoga pillows,
- for finding comfort
on that ocher,
cosmic floor.

Harbin is pretty easy-going,
expectations-wise ...
seems to have drunk of
some do-nothing-ness,
of primate-generations
around watering holes
on African savannahs,
of the wisdom of the 1960s,
and, of warm waters, -
as a now hot springs'
retreat & workshop center.

Ishvara bumped into me last week
in the warm pool,
in the eve.
He's rarely there
at that time.
I was glad - I meditated
right then there in
the waters
(was going to do this anyway :),
while he was doing simple twists,
at pool's end, -
and was also surprised.
Although he lives at Harbin,
I rarely see him.
Harbin is a beautiful, unfolding,
clothing-optional,
hippy vision, which is
also financially successful,
thanks to him, -
and since 1972.
Oh, the warm pool.


And shall we create
all this, too, further,
in a virtual world, ~
a virtual Harbin?


*

These Harbin field notes,
as poetry,
seek lyricism.


*

Tomorrow
as I leave,
I'll get out of the car
at the Gate,
hand in the pass
taped to my windshield,
and drive down the
beautiful, Harbin road,
in the dark.


*

And from the speakers ...

the Greateful Dead are jamming, ~
Fire on the Mountain ~
peaking, improvisationally,
at this moment,
And I, transformed
by Harbin,
peak & peak, too,
while listening
to that place's
warm music
in my bodymind,
and the jamming inside.















(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/12/minarets-and-lake-ediza-harbin-poem.html - December 8, 2010)