Kitagata Hot Springs (Uganda): Brainstorming, how would #ActualVirtual HAI workshops work in a #RealisticVirtualHarbin ~ http://tinyurl.com/p62rpcg & re "#NakedHarbinEthnography" @HarbinBook & re ethics esp? Human Awareness Institute's 'Love Sexuality & Intimacy' workshops have been central to Harbin since '70s * * STAN DALE ... (Wiggle, wiggle, pop ... ) What Is Sex? - Stan Dale * * * online HAI workshops, conceptually, could dovetail with creating online Angela and Victor Yoga workshops, and I.T.-wise - since ... it can be hard to get to these places A) Harbin Hot Springs, and B) Lesvos, Greece, and ... both have been taught at Harbin, and ... both are learning-oriented (and right out of the 1960s and '70s as well :) ... and re the Sexuality wiki subject at World Univ & Sch as well - https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Sexuality - check out the best STEM CC-4 OpenCourseWare here ... and for ethno-wiki-virtual-world-graphy as well, where all of us people (ethno) could quickly add or edit (wiki) a virtual world (think Google Street View with SL) to co-represent HAI workshops, Harbin Hot Springs, and Angela & Victor Yoga workshops

Brainstorming, how would #ActualVirtual HAI workshops work in a #RealisticVirtualHarbin ~ http://tinyurl.com/p62rpcg & re "#NakedHarbinEthnography" @HarbinBook & re ethics esp? Human Awareness Institute's 'Love Sexuality & Intimacy' workshops have been central to Harbin since the '70s ... 

* 

Hi David,

How's your new year unfolding? How are you? How's your tutoring going? It was really great to see you in DC. And thank you for a very nice dinner!

Brainstorming, how would HAI workshops work in a #RealisticVirtualHarbin I wonder? Human Awareness Institute's 'Love Sexuality and Intimacy' workshops have been central to Harbin Hot Springs since the 1970s (and in another form since the '60s with Stan Dale, I think. In my "Naked Harbin Ethnography" book, I've included my interview with Harbin's founder Ishvara in 2008 where he touches on some of this). With your and your landlord's interest in HAI workshops, and from the Washington DC area, a whole new creative dynamic could emerge in exploring them online {~ http://tinyurl.com/p62rpcg ~ with Second Life conceptually, but moving toward realism}, I'd think. Thoughts? 

Such online HAI workshops, or similar, and named something new perhaps, could potentially complement on-the-ground HAI workshops such as in DC (and far from Harbin), I'd think too, and possibly offer alternative cultural approaches to some of the junk that might arise with them otherwise. Appreciating the Awareness word in the HAI name re consciousness and >learning< love, sexuality and intimacy. Pretty rad idea-wise, but I don't know HAI's history or track record (in the Now) something I might seek to diverge from online somehow, but which might now be as interesting in virtual reality, as in reality  ... :)

Did a Youtube search on Human Awareness Institute's 'Love Sexuality and Intimacy' workshops, as well as on Stan Dale, and found the following HAI talk and culture ... interesting language ... and re my unfolding actual-virtual Harbin Hot Springs' ethnographic project, esp ... HAI seems to have taken sex education from the 1960s forward to a degree of sophistication ... and California's Harbin culture seems to support and inform this.

At 5:30 here - https://youtu.be/T3BrTWu3myA - I recognize and know the woman on the right, from Harbin, and who asked to be taken off the World Univ & Sch's email list 2 or 3 years ago ... (am not sure why! ... sex trade questions come to mind ... and re ethics' questions ... ) Yet HAI seems too to create a culture of hope and potentiality around powerful emotions and experiences of love, intimacy and sexuality ... what an interesting cultural creation ... and how will HAI develop after the Harbin valley fire of September 2015, and at Harbin, other places around the world ... but especially online? 

Would appreciate it too if there were a focus on friendship in HAI sales' pitches (I'll call these below, in part). Tweeted about some of this: 

Brainstorming, how would HAI workshops work in a #RealisticVirtualHarbin http://tinyurl.com/p62rpcg I wonder & re "#NakedHarbinEthnography" & re ethics esp? Human Awareness Institute's 'Love Sexuality and Intimacy' workshops have been central to Harbin since 1970s #ActualVirtual ~

Brainstorming, how would HAI workshops work in a #RealisticVirtualHarbin https://t.co/8F7i8x7dSD I wonder & re "#NakedHarbinEthnography" & re ethics esp? Human Awareness Institute's 'Love Sexuality and Intimacy' workshops have been central to Harbin since 1970s #ActualVirtual ~

— HarbinBook (@HarbinBook) January 10, 2020

- https://twitter.com/HarbinBook/status/1215697554626600961?s=20


Brainstorming, how would #ActualVirtual HAI workshops work in a #RealisticVirtualHarbin ~ http://tinyurl.com/p62rpcg & re "#NakedHarbinEthnography" @HarbinBook & re ethics esp? Human Awareness Institute's 'Love Sexuality & Intimacy' workshops have been central to Harbin since '70s

Brainstorming, how would #ActualVirtual HAI workshops work in a #RealisticVirtualHarbin ~ https://t.co/dHWQmnrQPY & re "#NakedHarbinEthnography" @HarbinBook & re ethics esp? Human Awareness Institute's 'Love Sexuality & Intimacy' workshops have been central to Harbin since '70s

— ScottMacLeod (@scottmacleod) January 10, 2020

- https://twitter.com/scottmacleod/status/1215699216653176832?s=20

Cheers, Scott

- http://www.scottmacleod.com/ActualVirtualHarbinBook.html 

~ http://tinyurl.com/p62rpcg ~ https://twitter.com/HarbinBook ~ http://bit.ly/HarbinBook ~

* 

(Lots of Harbin Hot Springs in this video ... both the Harbin creek, and the Conference Center)
An Introduction to the Human Awareness Institute (HAI)

https://youtu.be/4NLxJ0O3J9g

Human Awareness Institute - How To Love Yourself and Others
https://youtu.be/FFJs6N-IdTY

Human Awareness Institute (HAI) - Deepen your awareness and love of life
https://youtu.be/_JaQrCJ_FjE

Human Awareness Institute (HAI) - A safe place to grow and be accepted
https://youtu.be/rOizGx3T8LY

(Stan Dale mentioned here ... )
Why my wife and I took HAI's workshops (2004)
https://youtu.be/WRQ6mXvt0lM

Human Awareness Institute (HAI) Become the person you've always dreamed you could be.
https://youtu.be/WRQ6mXvt0lM

Part 4: Feeling Sadness or Anger Makes Me Feel Alive
https://youtu.be/TpGj2E5BDw4

(talk about it, talk about it ... )
Part 9: Dealing With Shame Around Genitals
https://youtu.be/sKG-scxQP_g

Ways To Handle Unwanted Attention (part 3)
https://youtu.be/0crE1P6Yu3A

Part 1: Jason is speaking about HAI and love

https://youtu.be/ygct1jyhZec

Before HAI Level 3 workshop
https://youtu.be/rGM1CPHvllc

Part 6: Experiencing NEW Happens Only When We Are READY
https://youtu.be/9DnQCfLGzis


* *

STAN DALE ...

(Wiggle, wiggle, pop ... )
What Is Sex? - Stan Dale
https://youtu.be/WyfbDg5MwjI

Unconditional Love - Stan Dale
https://youtu.be/U7ijGiS1KQg

Intimacy - Stan Dale

https://youtu.be/RaujDYBT1Cg


* *

Human Awareness Institute (HAI) Become the person you've always dreamed you could be.
https://youtu.be/AF9k5USlDO4

Introduction to HAI - Part 2 (2009)
https://youtu.be/T3BrTWu3myA

-- 

- Scott MacLeod 

- http://scottmacleod.com 

* *

David, 

Brainstorming-wise and following up, I think online HAI workshops, conceptually, could dovetail with creating online Angela and Victor Yoga workshops, and I.T.-wise - since

... it can be hard to get to these places A) Harbin Hot Springs, and B) Lesvos, Greece, and

... both have been taught at Harbin, and

... both are learning-oriented (and right out of the 1960s and '70s as well :)

... and re the Sexuality wiki subject at World Univ & Sch as well - https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Sexuality

 - check out the MIT OpenCourseWare here

... and for ethno-wiki-virtual-world-graphy as well, where all of us people (ethno) could quickly add or edit (wiki) a virtual world (think Google Street View with SL) to co-represent (graphs) HAI workshops, Harbin Hot Springs, and Angela & Victor Yoga workshops.

Cheers, Scott

New book . . . "To the Dance or the Pools? ~ Virtually!: How different it is to soak at Harbin Hot Springs, than to realize it in virtual Reality"
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0578625490/
- https://www.amazon.com/author/scottmacleodworlduniversity

- http://worlduniversityandschool.org/AcademicPress.html

* 

* * * 

https://web.archive.org/web/20200110193326/https://i.pinimg.com/236x/93/26/39/932639b86952721400f1519f5e5182a7--uganda-hot-springs.jpg

https://web.archive.org/web/20200110193416/https://i.ytimg.com/vi/jQU139y3Fyw/maxresdefault.jpg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitagata_Hot_Springs

...

Naked Harbin ~ New Website for 'Naked Harbin' Book ~ Promoting My Upcoming Ethnography ~ http://www.scottmacleod.com/ActualVirtualHarbinBook.html ~

Naked Harbin ~ New Website for 'Naked Harbin' Book ~ Promoting My Upcoming Ethnography ~

http://www.scottmacleod.com/ActualVirtualHarbinBook.html ~

~

Blue-spotted ray: Clothing-optionalness, an English Garden and appeal, esp. vis-a-vis Harbin.org, and my actual / virtual Harbin ethnography, here ... http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com ... for 3+ draft chapters plus much more

http://www.rossum.com/philip10/1/52_600.jpg

Clothing-optionalness, an English Garden and appeal ...

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2012/09/26/world/europe/clothing-optional-days-add-to-english-gardens-appeal.xml ...


especially vis-a-vis Harbin Hot Springs in northern California ...

http://harbin.org ...


and my actual / virtual Harbin ethnography, here ...

http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com ...

for 3+ draft chapters plus much more ...






~~~

Pine Grosbeak: The bubble-shaped Harbin Domes are an ephemeral vision up on the hillside, across the valley, and a little paradise with warm pools

Harbin ethnography:


... As an ethnographer of this actual Harbin Conference Center, it's occurred to me recently to actually be at the Conference Center while I write about it, in the 'now,' so as to 'rif' with it and my experience of this building and its spaces and beauty (these blog entries also refer to the Conference Center: http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/search/label/Harbin%20Domes, some written while within the Conference Center), both with (perhaps at a dance and a workshop) and without other people present, as a new kind of anthropological, participant-observation method.

The bubble-shaped Harbin Domes are an ephemeral vision up on the hillside, across the valley, and a little paradise with two warm pools, which are also not geothermally heated. When there, the bubble domes surround the two lovely pools. The Dome area is quiet and serene, and the sand-colored Domes are light and pleasant to be among. The 4-5 (?) Domes themselves circle around the backside of the 2 pools, allowing for far-reaching views down and across the Harbin valley, when in the park-like enclosed space of the Domes. The Domes have an alternative feeling - a kind of hippie space, for alternative living. One rectangular room is built on top of the tallest Dome, and seems to be a kind of room a hippy could look off into the distance from, colorful towels and art hanging out the windows. There's also a community kitchen here – which feels a little like a youth hostel's. And the bas-relief swirls both on the outside of the Domes, and in the rooms themselves add to the bubble-like, rounded, moving, hippy, organic, hot springs' retreat center sense of the place. The Dome rooms are for rent as guest rooms. A few years ago, ownership and operation of the Domes transferred back to Heart Consciousness Church from the School of Shiatsu and Massage, for better management, I think. In the long parking lot, many solar panels act also as car ports. There is also a little smoking canopy-tent. As a Watsu School, and a place for workshops, the relatively small Dome complex is intimate and relaxed, facilitating the further creative development and teaching of Watsu (water shiatsu).

The cobb and bale Harbin Temple, or straw bale and mud hippie heyima, with a wonderful roof of spiraling, curved beams, lovely ocher, cosmic floor, and swervy walls, both outside and inside was built around 2005 in Mainside. ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pine_grosbeak





(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2011/03/bubble-shaped-harbin-domes-are.html - March 15, 2011)

Hemiphractus fasciatus: Harbin Hot Springs' videos online

Harbin Hot Springs' videos online I found online recently:




"Maharaji's Dream" Harbin Hot Springs Jeff Palmer Memorial Concert 2008


(This video no longer exists on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj1aYhJLqlY

(There was beautiful dancing here).



*


Waters of Life (Watsu documentary where Harold Dull talks about Watsu's origins at Harbin and much more)

http://vimeo.com/338135




*

"Groove Time" Harbin Hot Springs Jeff Palmer Memorial Concert 2008

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO1_Ef1NTOg


*

"Encore" Harbin Hot Springs Jeffrey Palmer Memorial Concert

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y-Qb1v94Fg



*

Hoosh in Harbin Hot Springs, CA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibQQubwU7vs


Part 2 - Trip to Harbin Hot Spring Park, Napa Valley, CA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EyCF7LxdJY



Part 3 - Going to Harbin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ0ls6Qx1vg


Part - 5 Hiking at Harbin....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIwsSJVdSFs




*


Harbin Hot Springs (Poem)

Randolph, Bob (tecoloteblanco). 1989. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziB2mx8NPOg Harbin Hot Springs]. youtube.com




*


Torrent - Harbin Hot Springs- California

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alYNIu2VEqE




*

Watsu - Wake Me Up Yin Slower

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dg4wzqeKlU




*


Watsu - Wake Me Up Yang Faster

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stTVjKvmV_8



*


Crystal blankets, Light & Sound Technolgy with Sacred Geometry @ NATIVE SYNERGY!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OOwj1okQ4A



*


Watsu Center Retrospective Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbTH2cKitK4


Watsu Center Retrospective Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLa2175GR3k



Watsu Center Retrospective Part 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fihxaAmIUEY



*

Hula Hooping at Harbin - AquaLammas Party

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnB5O2SWxi4



*

Harbin Wedding Mellissa & Richard

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSG5NtpAafg&NR=1



*

JOY, Laughter Creativity & Play - A Laughter Yoga Workshop (at Harbin Hot Springs 2008)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhw8kWm_BmQ



*

The Workshop (2007) Part 1 of 14 full film movie online (filmed at Harbin

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xccyc2_the-workshop-2007-part-1-of-14-full_shortfilms


*

Do Open Relationships Work? "The Workshop" debuts at Tribeca (2007)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeZLJg0kPmM



Do Open Relationships Work? "The Workshop" debuts at Tribeca

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeZLJg0kPmM




*


Remembering Here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3hLKWhXXKs



Paul Lowe clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7TEgX3TeV4



Paul Lowe on living in the moment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e07mN7NrcWE



Paul Lowe on monogamy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCqcF98Af5I



*


Stan Dale founded the Human Awareness Institute

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHz-U-4KZnE


Stan invites you to be love 24 hours a day

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpAGNeWFyxY



*


Tantric Yoga for Lovers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXtpuEJMnEk




*


Tantra Workshops with Steve & Lokita Carter

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9IxTYtEFz4



The Breath of Tantric Love-Steve Carter Part3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HPjLLvhGEA



*

TES AND THE GOD SQUAD (Polyamory at Harbin Hot Springs)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MG-ynwOWAo


TES AND THE GOD SQUAD (PART 2)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp_-HboHSIE


*


How to Tie the Harbin Knot by TIAT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPHy96BYXFc



*

Heather Salmon: Changes on Mother Earth

http://vimeo.com/12128074




*


Watsu - Playful Water Therapy Session with Art Photography

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHjm1frwpqo



MATERNITY WATSU FOR EXPECTANT MOTHERS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6TzbXbTqjs



water dance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsNmnXlifxQ



Aqualana® und Watsu - 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLZc-T3PmGg




*


shiva shambo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtj_awht-bI



*


Dance Awakening at Harbin Hotsprings -1

http://vimeo.com/4316680




*


watsu week 2007 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9l7-FCLWQA



*

Celebrating Humanity with Marianne Neuwirth (Contact Improv)

(The video was taken by 6 year old Shalene at this year's Memorial Day Contact Improvisation Jam at Harbin Hot Springs. It is of a dance choreographed and performed by Marianne Neuwirth to celebrate humanity. Many of us joyfully accepted her invitation to join her in the celebration. Thank you, Marianne! for embodying our wonder.)

http://vimeo.com/5258458



*


And ...


"The Making of Virtual Harbin Hot Springs as Ethnographic Field Site in Second Life & Open Simulator" - by Scott MacLeod in April 2009

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nhvcHw54GE
(Also accessible here: http://scottmacleod.com/papers.htm ).

(Virtual ethnography: I found these in about a two hour search; I was surprised I couldn't find more, especially on youtube.com. All of these videos either happen at Harbin Hot Springs in northern California, or they've inspired the Watsu in Italy, for example).





(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/11/hemiphractus-fasciatus-harbin-hot.html - November 28, 2010)

Finless Porpoise: Among all these dancing avatars, Rose and I began to dance, and her avatar touched the virtual golden orb

Harbin ethnography:


... if you want your islands builds to remain up and visitable.

Among all these dancing avatars, Rose and I began to dance. Her avatar touched the virtual, golden orb suspended in the center of the room which had printed above and below it 'touch me to dance,' and her avatar began to move beautifully. I had pointed this out to her through an instant message type chat message directly to her, which no one else could see. And instead of touching the faintly-blue, golden, companion orb next to the orb Rose touched, I dragged from my inventory a dance script which allowed me to twirl and spin, all around her. Much of Second Life 'animations' are made up of scripts, little computer programs which instructor objects to do things. There are scripts for dancing, building, music, clothing which flows, hair, water, most of which animate prims, which are the building blocks of Second Life. Avatars can share scripts they make, share them to friends, and store them in your inventory. And avatars buy and sell these using Linden dollars. I next asked Rose if she would like a hoola hoop (Fig. 1.9) to dance with, and she said yes. I dragged a hoola hoop object from my inventory to her avatar with my cursor, and the multi-colored hoola hoop began to spin around her. Giving her one for her inventory for later use, I asked her if she would put it on me, and we both started to hoola. The music at this virtual dance grew more complex and beautiful, and at my home in actual life, I begin to move in front of my computer, while interacting with the computer, - softly around and around, as in a Watsu {water shiatsu} in water, to the music, thus bringing the virtual and actual together in my bodymind.

As avatars are dancing, someone types for all to see: “I have clothes ...













(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/04/finless-porpoise-among-all-these.html - April 10, 2010)

Air-breathing aquatic animals: Still interested in doing a virtual Watsu together, Rose and I fly east to the virtual Harbin Conference Center pools

Harbin ethnography:


... the Dragon Ridge on virtual Harbin's island, and talk as we gaze out over the ridge.

Still interested in doing a virtual Watsu together, and with virtual sunset coming on, Rose and I fly east to the virtual Harbin Conference Center pools, where I've rarely seen people in the waters, and which, like the Harbin Domes' pools, do not have geothermally heated water. Our avatars land near the Harbin Conference Center's main entrance, where there are also number of pools at different levels, at around 7 in the evening. Second Life Time corresponds currently with Pacific Time in California, for example, from which soil the program and virtual world of Second Life emerged. An Harbin Unconditional Dance in the Harbin Conference Center occurs these days in 'real life,' as well as virtually, on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8 pm, so, after the Watsu, we would go to the dance. No one is around under the trees near the secluded, virtual, Harbin Conference Center, so we enter the water of the upper most pool, this time naked. We begin again facing each other, and I take her virtual wrists, and as we relax into the water, we begin to synchronize our breaths, and let ourselves descend a little with our exhales, and rise naturally, and virtually, with our inhales. Ease grows on our faces, and our eyes soften. I draw her head and upper body into the crook of my arm, and begin to float her, allowing her body and legs to trail through the water, as I begin to give her a Watsu. As she receives this, and releases, a faint smile grows over her face. Time passes quickly, and two avatars appear on the mini-map, coming across the bridge to the Conference Center, so I draw Rose to the wall of the pool, rest the back of head there, and press her belly in to bring her virtual sacrum to the pool's edge underwater. Totally relaxed, and happy, with her feet on the bottom of the pool, she opens her eyes, and slowly begins to emerge from the freedom of the Watsu. We thank each other, and I mention that people are beginning to arrive for the dance, so we get out of the pool, and put on our clothes, and walk into the Conference Center.

We went into the upper porch, outside the beautiful main …












(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2010/04/air-breathing-aquatic-animals-still.html - April 6, 2010)

Most Distant Space Objects: Turning Flips through the Air at the Harbin Dance, "Throw Down Your Heart," Why not sing with friends ... over the phone?

I visited Harbin yesterday and today ...



Here's an ongoing, occasional record, as ethnographic insight, into what happens at Harbin.



The weather in early December is so nice in California. We may have had only around 7 days of rain so far this fall. And the temperature is generally mild.

I went first to the pools. Alligator day had just ended. It's a regular draining and cleaning of the pools, which perhaps sometimes makes unexpecting guests feel like alligators. People in the remaining 2 feet of water or so, at its lowest, may also look like alligators, compared with when the water is high; people often look beautiful, nude, in the warm pool. People can soak in the heart-shaped pool on Alligator day, though, which is just a little cooler than the body temperature water of the warm pool. Alligator day can also be 'festive' - people chat with each other in the warm pool as the water is filling up, and the warm pool is a little less meditatively quiet than usual. I've occasionally seen large numbers of rubber duckies in the pools, as well as lots of kids in the warm pool, when the water is low, whereas kids aren't allowed in the warm pool when the water is high.

At the Tuesday night dance in the conference center, the music was great and very danceable. The space is harmonious, beautiful in a modern way with a lot of wood, and really well designed - especially for Harbin workshops and dances. I found myself turning flips through the air onto a large pile of pillows during the dance. The dances are mostly hippie boogies.

I'm amazed that Harbin in a way has institutionalized "the party," that they have created an adult playground, where kids, hippies and Bohemians of all kinds come to play. This thinking comes directly from counterculture and the 1960s. Harbin is very cool in 2009.

I wonder, too, how Harbin is performative in an anthropological sense. And while these are my ethnographic observations above, Harbin attracts a significant number of people these days, even in mid week in the winter; so variety and subjectivity of experience is diverse, and, as a whole, represents Harbin's 'culture,' - a pretty cool fabric of life. Writing or representing Harbin ethnographically might be complemented richly with an ethno-wiki-virtual-world-graphy approach, where many Harbin folks might represent it over years.


At 9, I went to see "Béla Fleck: Throw Down Your Heart," in the Harbin theater. In so doing I missed the Full Moon Ceremony in the warm pool. "Throw Down Your Heart" is an inspiring musical collaboration between a very fine banjo player (Béla Fleck), interested in African music, and musicians in a number of African villages in east Africa. The very inspirational Tanzanian musician Aniyo (sp?) seemed to have been personally transformed by music-making, in a very happy way. At one point after making music with Béla, Aniyo says "We are together," which is what music can do, and did for them in this film.

[THROW DOWN YOUR HEART, directed by Sascha Paladino, follows American banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck on his journey to Africa to explore the little known African roots of the banjo and record an album. Béla’s boundary-breaking musical adventure takes him to Uganda, Tanzania, The Gambia, and Mali, and provides a glimpse of the beauty and complexity of Africa].

After waking, I went back to the pool area in the morning. In the pool area, I began re-reading Ish's book "Oneness in Living." It's Ishvara's (Harbin's founder in 1972) remarkable record of Harbin language and thinking, and the 1960s and 70s, the New Age, and much else. I'll return to it again soon. After soaking in the pools, I ate lunch by myself outside in the now-dormant garden, sitting on the ground near an apple tree, not far from Harbin's beautiful temple (built in 2005).

Harbin creates a harmony, and kinds of togetherness, that are very far-reaching, and which emerge significantly from life around the pools. Harbin reminds me of so much, but a little, here, of the Beatle's song "Come Together." I get 'there' {to 'coming together'} at Harbin. You can too.



**

Time to read Alan Watts closely. He wrote about some of the themes I explore in this blog, I'm realizing, during the 1960s.


***

Why not sing with friends ... over the phone, for example? Why isn't this a common practice?


****


This is far out:

Most distant objects seeable with the naked eye:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2008/brightest_grb.html












(http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/12/most-distant-space-objects-turning.html - December 2, 2009)

Heat: Fire Engine, Harbin Technologies, Harbin Pools

Near the Harbin Hot Springs' front gate is a vintage fire engine from the 1950s, in very nice condition, which is one of the first things you see after driving up the 4.2 mile-long road from Middletown, California. On its passenger side door, it says "Middletown - 608 - Harbin Springs Annex." It has some flame detailing on its front, right fender, and three fire extinguishers that look like they might work on its right running board, behind an "Extreme Fire Danger" sign. The sign reads:

[NOTICE
NO SMOKING
NO CANDLES
NO FIRES
of any kind
violation with result
in immediate expulsion
(all in capital letters)
].

The seat in the flatbed in the back of the truck, from which some one might have operated the water controls during a fire, is covered with leopard skin-like textile. There are a few remaining hoses on the truck, that are probably nonfunctional. Harbin is hot, and this fire engine is apropos, as a symbol.

At the Thursday night dance in Harbin's Conference Center last night, the DJ had set up a number of black lights on beautiful tapestries that were influenced by Hindu and Mayan - so, 'New Age' - art. Perhaps between 40 and 70 people attended, over the course of the evening. The dance's energy is integrating, and unique to Harbin, due to its milieu. After the dance some people went up to soak in the pools.

The Conference Center has recently been renamed the "Stan Dale Conference Center," in memory of the founder of Human Awareness Institute, whose workshops fit in well with Harbin.

The technologies that Harbin uses in general are those for a 1200-1700 acre Hot Springs' retreat center, so, for example, there are buildings, vehicles, backhoes, and pool cleaning tools, and some technologies which gained popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, including sound systems, and black lights. And computers are used to play rock and roll and techno music.


{Are the Harbin pools a kind of technology that have salutary effects - that is, harmonizing effects - on bodyminds, that is, on a kind of symbolizing information technology?}

Heading to the pools . . .

Land: Alternative Vision, Roots, Back to the Land

I have some good friends who went back to the land in the early 1950s. They moved from a mid-West city to as-rural-as-you-can-get eastern Oregon, worked very hard, and eventually were able to buy a 700 acre ranch, and build their own house with lumber from their property, where they've lived for decades. They tree-farmed sustainably, and gardened, taught college and school, and realized a vision. They had gone to a Quaker college, - part of this back-to-land, sustainable vision emerged in this context, I think.

This kind of vision grew in the 1960s and 1970s. An estimated 2 - 10 million people tried to go back to the land in the late 1960s and early 70s (Turner). And hippies developed this vision to include hippy communes, of which only a few remain, partly due to a lack of organization business-wise, I think.

My good friends (my aunt and uncle Ted and Mary Brown) were sensible business-wise and they also practiced sustainable forestry, creating a kind of tree-garden on their land, which nevertheless involved very hard work. Not only did they realize a kind of 'little house on the prairie' American pioneering dream, without costs to Native Americans, they also raised a family in the process.

I find it fascinating that the hippie-countercultural social freedom movements of the 1960s have long prior roots - my good friends are an example - from the 1950s and before. And my friends sought and found a kind of freedom.


***

For some, Harbin, as hippie commune, similarly involved a return to living on the land, and a sustainable environmental vision. The Harbin garden, now beautiful, but with all its ups and downs, is one expression of this vision. And visitors continue to return to the land and the experience of nature - in the pools, too - when they come into the Harbin valley.


Heading to the pools, soon.

*

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_old-growth_forests

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallowa_Mountains

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallowa–Whitman_National_Forest

(http://www.pacificforest.org/stewardship/images/brown.jpg) 

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Leaf: Harbin - Conference Center, Dances, Seeing, Human Condition

The Conference Center, with its outdoor pools, that I've rarely seen anyone in (but I also have not yet taken a workshop here), provides space for workshops ranging from Human Awareness Institute's "Love, Intimacy, and Sexuality" to "Laughter" workshops, to space for musical events and dances. All of these workshops and events happened at Harbin in the spring of 2008. I've mostly done unconditional dance in the Conference Center, over numerous years (since around 1995, when I first came to Harbin). The Conference Center's physical design facilitates both dancing - there's ample space, as well as both carpeted and nice, wooden floors on which to dance - as well as a sense of harmony, openness, and simplicity. The building has clean lines with a lot of wooden beams and walls, a high ceiling, a porch and surrounding open area where other workshops could be held in parallel. It's settled in a lovely, wooded location, across a wooden bridge, and separate from Mainside with its Stonefront Lodge, the guest rooms in Azalea, Walnut, Fern, and the main pool area, and the (new) cob and bail Temple (2005) across the creek, as well as the Domes on the same side of the valley, and the village where many residents live up the main Harbin road, and all the rest of Harbin's buildings. As part of Harbin, the Conference Center facilitates possibilities for guests and residents to come together for dancing, and the taking of workshops which come to define Harbin's culture, - assemblages or patterns that make up the life of Harbin. This includes what people like to do at Harbin - the free ideas of Harbin - that is, Harbin's fabric of life. Harbin's dances, Kirtan (chanting), and evening events all include Harbin residents and guests, and bring this community together in a variety of ways. After the dances, many people often go to the pools, which inform much of the tenor of life, and the Harbin experience. When workshops are taking place in the Conference Center, dances are held in the Temple, which is also a lovely space, but smaller.


Harbin Dances

The dances are interesting at Harbin. They involve an exchange of non-verbal energy, where people find a kind of 'flow: the psychology of optimal experience' experience, but which also unify the group and Harbin, and through movement. The way I see it, if tensions emerge 'neurophysiologically' at Harbin, where language won't mediate, dance opens possibilities to see who a person 'is,' that they dance freely, which somehow rights things.


***

Someone has strung a tie die hammock to the right of the Heart pool between two grape arbor supports, and is lying in it. I haven't seen that before. I continue to see things at Harbin again and again which I haven't seen. For all its constancy – there are only a few new buildings since Ishvara bought the land in 1972 - there's still a lot of newness and nowness.


Seeing

People seem to like to see and be seen, and this process is quite open here at Harbin. In fact, Harbin's pool area is designed for this in a way. Men and women undress together in the dressing room, into and out of which people can see. The pool's water is clear and it often has a light blue light, (although this morning it was deep green blue) and the area around the pool is very visually open, so people see here too. From Fern kitchen one level above the pools, one can see both the pool area, and part of the pool. The walkway through the middle of the pool area is visible from all angles. Sometimes people dress very spectacularly and walk through this area. Although 'watching' the human dance - the human condition - through millennia seems to continue, it's often been mediated in a stadium, or by media, while at Harbin it's very immediate.


How is it that the day smiles here at Harbin, especially on weekends? People come out, take their clothes off, talk with friends, soak in the pools, seem pretty content and relaxed in a natural way, that emerges from the milieu. There's normal, content, human happiness, as well as community at Harbin.

...