S A N   F R A N C I S C O

continued

 

Roughly sixteen square city blocks, Haight-Ashbury is technically bound on the north by Fulton Street with Jefferson Airplane's landmark black-gold mansion [now classic ivory-white.] The southern edge at Buena Vista Park and east area along Divisadero Street is connected to the ancient Temple of Saturn, similar in frequency and ambiance to the last scene of The Matrix Revolutions, a smoky quartz vibration. The entry park to Haight territory represents the treaty Neo established between The Architect and The Oracle. In alchemical terms, The Architect is lead ore and The Oracle is copper.

"But just as the work of transforming lead into gold was in many cases a chemical symbolism for a spiritual transformation of man himself, so the immortality to be conferred by the elixir was not always the literally everlasting life but rather the transportation of consciousness into a state beyond time." - Alan Watts

Coffee shops often hosted musicians and poetry readings, reunions, discussions about cinema, photographic art, and gallery shows. An artist could use a popular café as a set up to display new photographs and expand interest in the latest techniques, like micro-photography, landscapes and 'people on the street.'
Several café books popular in the day: Autobiography of a Yogi, Brave New World, The Dharma Bums, Fahrenheit 451, Finnegan’s Wake, The Golden Bough, Hero of a Thousand Faces, I and Thou, The Illustrated Man, Kon Tiki, Lord of the Rings, The Manchurian Candidate, On The Road, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Prophet, Stranger in A Strange Land, The Ticket That Exploded (censored in USA, but passed from person to person under the table), and The White Goddess.

Some behavioral trends began to define bridges between two prominent cultures in San Francisco (outside the financial district) at the time. Film buffs would continue to grab a bagel at Mori’s Deli on Kearny and stop over at Café Trieste in North Beach to dine on espresso and cigarettes - the I and Thou on Haight Street, next to The Straight Theatre, served a large selection of Italian Sodas and fresh baked delicacies with an insightful palm reading.
The newest fashion began with the ‘you are what you eat’ factor. That phrase caused a change in the way we shop for health, happiness and harmony in our lives. Conscious awareness about the national menu was coming into vogue. Dietary green light guides helped generate avid support for the Diggers Food Co-Op service. The fresh food mindset worked its magic and took shape as consumers sought to excise chemicals from their diet. The Diggers provided a long list of things that were available from local farms, dairies, and private sources. One had but to check off the tea, cheese, bread, soap, etc. and then pick up at a distribution site a couple days later. It was all quite convenient... and cost effective - food bills were cut in half! Books by popular speakers Adele Davis, who researched and wrote about true nutrition values, Back To Eden, listing herbs for health, by Jethro Kloss, and George Osawa’s macrobiotic step program were lining pantry libraries next to cookbooks.

Actually Osawa began an austere trend that involved a macrobiotic program not unlike principles at the foundation of the Buddhist menu for immortality [first written down at the time of Christ] – the elevation in thinking caused a chain reaction and people began to attend Za-Zen services at dawn. Buddhist philosophy was one of the common interests in the Haight and North Beach and its unlikely missionaries Jack Kerouac, Alan Watts, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, Peter Coyote and others prompted further research.

Julia Child wined and dined at the other side of the pendulum swing with her 'to die for' kitchen and love of fine, rich food and drink.

right, truth on the label: contains poison
Linda McCartney urged people to read labels for content info and boycott food/cosmetics/clothing with harmful chemicals, especially ingredients like red dye 2, a known cancer causing agent. Simultaneously, there were important changes in ‘luxury’ shopping as a parallel movement grew based on the discovery of Hunza, a lost civilization something like the legendary city of Alexander in Kipling’s, The Man Who Would Be King. Boutiques and salons began to provide beauty creams, cleansers, natural oils wraps, and anti-aging products, many from natural ingredients like apricots, avocados, aloe vera and yucca cactus. The Zen Bakery near Parnassus could barely keep up with orders, as local favourites like Pache bread became as popular as 9 grain sprouted and San Francisco sourdough.

Several paranormal events have been verified in early Haight, south of Masonic, common within the traditional pre-quake Victorian blueprint. The structure of the phenomena is usually akin to serial North Beach installments, fundamental to the Bohemian lifestyle of many Golden Gate poets, artists, and filmmakers. San Francisco landmark homes of Big Brother and the Holding Company [corner of Page & Broderick], Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and The Charlatans, are exemplary of modern styles cultivated in the traditional, vibrant San Francisco ambiance. Ophiel lived only half a block from 1090 Page - considered the local "wizard on the scene," he penned several mystical "how to" guides for beginner through intermediate levels of study while padding around his Victorian apartments. Allen Cohen, editor of The Oracle, popular Haight-Ashbury newspaper, lived and worked nearby in his own Victorian digs on Divisadero. Major common denominators linked to architecture held the community together, based on the principle that form follows function. Stain glass door and window remnants, facades and fireplaces, traditional hand crafted wood and iron embellishments of classic pre-quake City life, still endure as examples of Herb "Don't Call It Frisco" Caen's "real" San Francisco.

A tone of the prevailing pilgrim mindset during America's search for El Dorado, Utopia, and Shangri La increased after the loss of Camelot. The Seven Ancient Temples of San Francisco [On the Bus page] provide basic energy management guides if you are divining the area. During the time of alternative cultures in San Francisco, Pomo Indian excavations were underway by Golden Gate Bridge. Outstanding impressions we pick up from these digs emphasize early inhabitants of Northern California wanted to be 'invisible' - there is almost no trace they were here, save a few burial sites north, near the Valley of the Moon. It stands out. The translucent energy field of Northern California seems to combine well with groups drawn to the Pacific Ocean shores. The Rosicrucian complex erected in the San Francisco area was selected by pinpointing the ideal latitude and longitude for facilitating pure psychic energy in the United States.

Built on seven ancient hills, in keeping withtheories of Le Plongeon and others, San Francisco energy grid matches correspond with myths, prophecy, and rumors that re-surfaced in the well-known Edgar Cayce readings. Predictions included Atlantis rising, in sync with the 1968 Virgo alignment, when Hopi Indians in Flagstaff first invited 'white people' to their Autumn Equinox ceremony. The alignment may suggest San Francisco is a post-Lemurian, Mayan, or Atlantean site. Several points of evidence support the theory that the Pacific Coast of the US once belonged to a different land mass - evidence of a wide variety of plants and trees that are unique to California, Oregon, and Washington. Hopi and Havasupai believe their knowledge and inter-linking phenomenon are handed down from Anasazi, which means "people of the blue-green waters." These Native American legends are more than two thousand years old. Descendants of the Ancient Ones predicted an underground West Coast culture thread would be stimulated during the archetypal changes that began in the 60s, prompting both physical and spiritual exchanges with the tribes living near the Grand Canyon.

Hollywood picked up on the influence and infused the higher soul powers of Native Americans in several provocative movie scripts such as Altered States, Easy Rider, Windwalker and many more. During this millennium super-fast pace Nicolas Cage suspense thriller NEXT captures a wonderful scene at the ancient waterfalls within the canyon, spiritual epicenter for the United States.. This scene ties into Strawberry Hill [Golden Gate Park] as a combination of ancient Neptune/Poseidon and Jupiter as co-rulers of the twelfth zodiacal sign Pisces.
The link/prophecy that binds Mt. Shasta in Northern California with The Sacred Mountain in Arizona is also evident at Strawberry Hill above the waterfalls overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The power of the Strawberry Hill Deva is transformative, a consciousness altering encounter - the site was perhaps sought for earthquake prediction. Recognition of our interdependence with nature via second sight activates psyche ties with ancient herds of sacred animals like small deer or horses, known for their sensitivity to land tremors well in advance of the rumble. The feeling strongly resembles the presence of the shaman in the caves at Lascaux, France.

 

         

 

I don't think about time.
You're here when you're here.
I think about today, staying in tune.

-John Lee Hooker

click 1090 Page for interview with Peter Albin

The mystique that begins at Market Street near Hyde/Market, well known for various space-time warp phenomena points of interest, streams up Oak Street and goes near Neal Cassady's old pad. The power lines running through the area draw artists, writers and chess players by the truck load - many landed at The Blue Unicorn coffee house in the early 60s on the 'traditional' Haight Street line. The Right angles provided by Fillmore and Divisadero crossing Haight were weird and wonderful places, located by walking down the street. Before 1966, old magical supply stores could easily be found in the area. Thelma's Soul Food [Rodney Albin next door neighbor] was one good source for soul bread, The Magic Theatre for Madmen Only, and the Haight Street intersection with the Both/and (Monk, John Lee Hooker, and John Handy might be in rehearsal), were generally cool places.

 

Upward from Market, Haight Street directly very hot chi at specific intersections. Power begins around Buena Vista-Corona Heights Park. Cross Central and you see an instant karma Ziggy Marley mural on the corner. Intersections at Haight-Masonic, Haight-Ashbury, and Haight-Cole were the most obvious to first time pilgrims. The corner of Haight and Masonic is well known for transformational make-overs. The Psychedelic Shop [later the Holistic Center] once graced the corner across the street from the Drug Store Cafe. Known today as Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream shop, the interior was based on a standard apothecary theme with lunch service and a counter for the afternoon crowd in search of a perfect root beer float and ice cream sunday. The next incarnation was The Drog Store Cafe, the inevitable devolution as LSD became controversial and slipped to prohibition status. The cascading waterfall of akasha that runs through and past the 710 Ashbury Grateful Dead house rushes down to the intersection of Haight-Ashbury and pretty much dominates much of the whole area. But, the right angle that links to the old tractor beam at Page-Broderick, 1090 Page Street, home of Big Brother & The Holding Company, also generated a tremendous amount of invisible, insulating energy envelopes. The structure no longer stands but the etheric energy remains within the zone, similar to an oversoul guardian and protector [see Trump XI] - I digress, sorry. "

Further on toward Golden Gate Park head shops lined both sides of the street. On the right side people gathered mostly in front of The Print Mint or, further on, the Straight Theatre. At Haight and Cole there is now a stone wall mural where the Straight Theatre existed. Across the street, under a new name, new ownership, is the 1711 Haight Street store where I had a daytime job counseling and readings for tourists passing through Haight-Ashbury wonderland. It felt like the Middle-earth described by Tolkien in, The Lord of the Rings!

 

 

“It’s not a matter of fashion, long hair, short hair, what you do for a living, or any of those things, it’s what you believe. What things did you cling to as the polar beliefs in your life. What’s the important stuff to you.

For us, it was never a question of – there never was a debate. It was over from the very beginning. For us, the very first acid trips, the very first excursions into psychedelia was – whatever there is, there’s more than we’ve been allowed to believe. Whatever there is. We don’t know what it is, we can’t describe it, we just suspect its existence, but we know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that there’s more than anybody ever let on. We know that."

LEGEND Jerry Garcia

On the same road to the Stanyon Street door to Golden Gate Park are more power sites listed below. Sun energy dominates at the [Straight Theatre power point on Haight between Cole & Shrader. The nebulous Mercury Temple zoned in near Quicksilver's rehearsal hall, and the Digger's Free Store, an experience in creative commerce and trade. Free trade meant the store carried only free merchandise ... based on the theory of spontaneous requirement [like Hogwarts 'Room of Requirement' that provides for a specific need at the time.] Something in exchange for something wanted of equal value pretty much covered the ethic of the Free Store.

          

On to Gabriel's Feed, near Sun and Mercury temples, where the infamous "international bust," happened during one of Gabriel's renown community dinners. See San Francisco, part one for more. The table was set for the entrance of the recording industry, drawn to the talent permeating the Bay Area, especially within Haight Street's combination of psychic and metaphysical phenomena. At that moment, when everything was ready for the main course, the U.S. government decided to start the war in Viet Nam and insist on a draft notice for all musicians eligible to sign record contracts... that is another story to be told under another heading. Again, I digress - sorry.

The San Francisco scene, if you will, people speak of it now as the rock n roll business or the music business, and at that time, it was not. People came to the ballrooms without knowing who was going to play, just that someone was going to play.
It was possible to bury the band entirely in the light show, so that no individual was recognizable, and the audience loved it, and the band loved it.
                                        -Chet Helms

Mimi Farina and Elizabeth Cotton
click pic for heartwarmers

 

The Festival Spirit

"Let Tellus, fertile in fruits and herds, present Ceres with a crown of wheat stalks; let the healthy
waters and breezes of Jupiter nourish the offspring."
- Horace, Carm. Saec. 29- 32

Festival atmosphere tones were supported by master poster, mural, and silkscreen artists. Rick Griffin, one of those famous L.A. surfers who decided to migrate north, eventually traded his surfboard for a day-glo paint set, and made history during the psychedelic era. [Mickey McGowen, curator of The Unknown Museum, covered psychedelic era concert posters and the artists who represented the then Southern California community.]

Earlier we enjoyed, Notes From Underground, Herb "Mr. San Francisco" Caen, and Charles "Peanuts" Schultz. They helped inspire the North Beach literary link with events related to Haight-Ashbury origins. Still, long before Caen coined the term "beatnik" in 1958, Bohemians were "in" around town. During the 40s and early 50s, the bohemian first wave was out and the 'rent a beatnik' want ads increased. Anais Ninn gave lectures in downtown SF art galleries; she had her own parade of "groupies." Dali set up his first San Francisco exhibit featuring, 'bread' and spoke of nothing but Gali. Benny Buffano fashioned majestic mosaic kaleidoscopes throughout the City - his great white bear is still the Ross power animal in front of the Fire Station.
"Everyone" had store front galleries. Later, treble rents caused North Beach locals to migrate with Joan Varda to the Grey Havens of Sausalito, a "go North, young man" mindset that continued. The "I and Thou" next to the Straight Theatre retained a North Beach style, aroma of espresso, fresh pastry, and Italian soda that seemed to flourish during the Summer of Love - patrons could enjoy in depth palm readings from a professional truthsayer.
left, Mick Jagger and John Lennon, The Rolling Stones and The Beatles during the first wave of the "British Invasion." listen to vintage top ten songs Ruby Tuesday/Let's Spend the Night Together from The Rolling Stones – 1967 7:41 This clip is famous for second song. Ed Sullivan had insisted Mick replace "Let's spend the night together, " with "Let's spend some TIME together." Did not go over too well with the Stones.

 

 

Extraordinary, classic Avalon Ballroom treat

San Francisco


Home Made Pear Ice Cream

Pear Ice Cream Ingredients

Makes 1 quart
· 2 cups milk
· 2 cups heavy cream br> · 1 cinnamon stick
· 6 Bartlett or Anjou pears, peeled and cored
· 6 large egg yolks
· 1/2 cup sugar
· 2 tablespoons brandy, (optional)

Directions

1. Combine milk, cream, and cinnamon stick in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Heat until small bubbles appear around the edge. Remove from heat, cover, and let steep for 30 minutes.

2. In a large saucepan over medium-high heat, cook pears for 45 minutes, or until they make a thick sauce. Let cool a bit, then puree in a food processor or blender.

3. Beat together egg yolks and sugar in a small bowl. Bring milk mixture back to a simmer, and whisk about 1 cup hot milk into egg mixture. Return to pan, and cook over low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon until thick enough to coat the spoon, about 5 minutes.

4. Stir puree into ice-cream base. Chill, then stir in brandy, if desired. Freeze in an ice-cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. Store in an airtight plastic container up to 2 weeks.

The Magic Pitcher, a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne

 

Grateful Dead on stage during 1969 Haight Street Faire
photograph Jim Marshall

 

THE ONLY DANCE THERE IS

"I merely see this as a logical progression of my own evolving consciousness. And I see the way it’s happening to me is quite Western. I am making use of Eastern methods. I am not Hindu. I am a Western, Jewish boy from Boston who has studied Hinduism. I also find the same thing in the Greek Orthodox Christians, and in the Hasidic movement in Judaism. I find it in all mystical traditions: in the Sufi, in the Egyptians, and certainly in St. Teresa and St. John and so on. So that, I find that it is in a way the amalgam of all this stuff that is allowing me to be what I am doing right at this moment.

It seems to me that there was a point where my "attachment" to my Western training stood in my way. I didn't have to give up my Western training, what I had to give up was my "attachment" to my Western training. That's the critical difference. I didn't lose my Western training. As I said last night, Jung said in a eulogy of Richard Wilhelm, "He is a gnostic intermediary, in that he was willing to give up a Western predisposition in order to experience another system at the being-level, in order to bring it back."

-Ram Dass, THE ONLY DANCE THERE IS

 

Frodo Lives!

So, what was the Haight-Ashbury really like? Perhaps it was described as the cutting edge, convergence point where multiple global collective feeds continually streamed to meld in a tight, hip community.

The festival atmosphere at the Haight-Stanyan entry to Golden Gate Park felt like the Baggins party in The Lord of the Rings. People had buttons, signs, and stickers that said, "Vote for Bilbo," "Frodo Lives," and "Welcome to Middle-earth."

J. R. R. Tolkien included many ancient mystery symbols in Bilbo's party scenario that were happily embraced by Hashbury residents. Just about everyone was invited to the party tree to celebrate Bilbo's amazing one hundred eleven years. Frodo [who shared the same birthday] played drums in the folk band for hobbits dancing in a free moving circle.

The sense of it all rings true to mystery play rituals that opened the door to the 'other world.' In fact, wherever you were in the Haight, if you were within a few blocks of Golden Gate Park, the tall African drums were heard. The beat would go on calling people to the park throughout the daylight and starshine hours. We all knew the Bridge of Kinvat, the etheric bridge that joins all Terrans with the energy of the star Sirius, connects with Earth near the Golden Gate Bridge - even if the knowledge be purely intuitive.

The party day, September 22, is one we call the Autumn Equinox, though the Shire calendar reckons time a bit differently. The song remains the same though, and so does the dance style that was popular at the Fillmore, Carousel, and Avalon Ballroom. The circle dance is celebrated around the world at the May Pole, as a mainstay for agricultural festivals, and for the Solstices.

Interview with Chet Helms coming here soon!

 

Middle-earth Inn
Rudolph Schaeffer The Need for Beauty

 

Concerning Dowsers
Dowsing has been popular in England since at least the time of King Henry VIII. The 1-inch grid I used to dowse Raglan Castle and surrounding land is the standard model, easy to create with a ruler, pen, and large piece of paper. Colin Wilson writes about theories developed by two British dowsers, Captain Robert Boothby and Reginald Smith of the British Museum.

"Boothby asserted that barrows and other prehistoric sites were crossed underground streams, and that long barrows had a stream running along their full length; Smith stated that at the centre of every prehistoric site a spot be found from which a number of streams radiated; he called these ‘blind springs.’ When he retired, at the end of the war, Underwood decided to devote his days exploring prehistoric sites with a dowsing rod.

He quickly reached the conclusion that Boothby and Smith were both correct about underground streams and blind springs; his rod detected these without difficulty. He found that they responded ‘negatively’ – that is to say, the left hand seemed to take most of the ‘pull.’ And then, to his surprise, he found another type of force that caused a pull on the right hand. This did not seem to be water, but some magnetic force under the earth.

In fact, there seemed to be two types of magnetic force, one at least twice as wide as the other. Underwood called the narrower type ‘track lines’; they seemed to consist of two parallel lines of magnetic force, between one and two feel apart. He called the other, more powerful type ‘aquastats’; these consisted of two sets of parallel lines, like two railway tracks running parallel. Sometimes, the ‘negative’ water lines and the positive aquastats ran along the same course. These he found particularly significant because they seemed to explain why certain sites were chosen as holy. Because he found so many of these ‘double lines’ on sacred sites, he named them ‘holy lines.’"

-Colin Wilson, MYSTERIES

Sacred Space

 

 

We Are All On The Bus

in memory of Ken Kesey - November 10, 2001

Waking down Pearl St. in Oakland
a curled brown oak leaf flutters
and floats down to the sidewalk.
I think of Kesey's great soul
ripped like a giant redwood
from the earth floating upward
fluttering around us laughing
urging us to an openness that
humanity has forgotten
in the midst of yet another
war of fear and hatred.

He joins the great cabal
of our generation -
our beat-hippie ancestors
urging future generations to move
toward freedom-real freedom
that has its roots in the open heart
and the truthful mind.

They are greeting him there
in the land of the ancestors
Kerouac, Ginsberg, Leary
Garcia, Cassidy, Parker,
Coltrane, Janis , Hendrix
Miles, Corso, Micheline.

They are there smiling
at the wonder of the cycles of life
at the humor of being and not being
at the playfullness of the illusions
we build our empires upon.

They will dance there forever
and we can dance with them as we have
in the great exploration that opened
up the unity we discovered together
hidden in the depths of the mind.

This is the real graduation,
the alignment with the light
toward which we are forever traveling.

-Allen Cohen

 

         

 

 

Interview with Peter Albin
Allen Cohen - Ginsberg poem - THREE LIVES AND SOME HIPPIE TRUTHS.
Jerry Garcia, Part Two
board The Bus here
BACK to Immortals ~Digger Space

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