The Goddess, ET and the “Angel”

The Stream of ConchUs-ness with Sunny Sun-Downer

Ahhhh…. We desert-dwellers are so fortunate. I realized this again last night sitting in the local public hot mineral water pool after a very long drive back down from Northern California. I’d gone up to Chico for a celebration of my sister Christina’s life on the 3rd anniversary of her transition to the “other side.” She left in 2007 within a couple of days of the anniversary of George Harrison’s transition. The “Cosmic Coincidence” (CC) of this is that back in 1971 she turned me onto George’s first album, ironically titled “All Things Must Pass,” giving me some “sweet refuge” as I would perform some of his songs for her family and friends back at the painful time of her departure. Also, in this “CC,” the album contained one of the first introductions of Eastern Mysticism to the popular cultures of the West- his classic song, “My Sweet Lord.”
This was so special to Chris and I, as we were brought up in a rare Orange County household that practiced Hindu meditation- so we were emboldened with this mass-indoctrination from an Ex-Beatle’s introduction of the cross-cultural “Hare Krishna, Hare Rama” and the plethora of other Hindu names of God musically interwoven with Western religion’s “Hallelujah… My Sweet Lord!”
So, fast-forwarding back to the “gift” of the “present,” I found myself at the famous (at least in Northern California circles) “Chico Goddess Temple” (www.thegoddesstemple.com) that my sister frequented, created by metal sculptor Robert Seales (who we used to call “Bobby” but I believe he grew tired of being confused w/the 60’s Radical of the same name, so now goes by “Robert”). This Ah-mazing solar and wind-powered 700-plus acre retreat was created for weddings, funerals, solstice/equinox celebrations, etc., so it was the perfect place to honor my sister, whose picture I placed under the 4 foot tall metal “Goddess” sculpture inside the hall (centered between two massive metal elephant sculptures) and proceeded to honor her spirit with candle and incense. Outside, the entrance to the temple is graced with a 30’ tall metal sculpture of the Goddess with a Yin-Yang symbol on her belly, whose open legs you walk under as you enter. This created the feeling of being born into this beautiful “Goddess Realm,” with statuesque flora and fauna, its wide range of winged-ones, its big pond with fish and ducks, not to mention dogs, cats and a free-roaming friendly hog named “Pig.” With song and dance, including dancing dogs, we honored my sister’s wonderful life as a mother and Northern California activist of many worthy causes (among so much else), whose spirit was glowing in our mind’s eye. (Her spirit also lives on in the 2007section of my blog mentioned at end).
It was on the next night that I would learn about another death in my family- my “spiritual family,” that is. To introduce this part of the story, I give you lyrics by the 60’s sitar-infused hit song, “Fat Angel”:
“He will bring happiness in a pipe, he'll ride away on his silver bike…
and apart from that, he'll be so kind in consenting to blow your mind…
he will bring orchids for my lady, the perfume will be an excellent kind
and apart from that he'll be so kind, in consenting to blow your mind…
Fly Trans-Love Airways, gets you there on time…
Fly Jefferson Airplane, gets you there on time…”
This song, written by Donovan in 1966, and made even more famous (in the 1st Hippie Era) after it was covered by Jefferson Airplane in ‘71, is about an early “Hipster” and drug broker in New York City’s Greenwich Village. One of the people he “turned on,” by consenting to “blow his mind” was my friend Eldon Taylor (ET). Unbeknownst to ET at the time of his association with the Fat Angel, who did more than “peddling” around the village on his silver bike, he was getting “turned on” to something beyond even the experience that occurred from the physical ingestion of an “allay” (entheogenic substances from ‘”acid” to “ ‘shrooms”): The Teachings of Tantric Tibetan Buddhism with the book that the “Fat Angel” gave him to read, “The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa.” The Tibetan yogi and poet-saint was more recently made famous in the 90’s when the Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch teamed up with Erin Potts, a Peace Corps volunteer who he met when he was trekking in Nepal and together formed “The Milarepa Foundation” to create large “Free Tibet” concerts to help Tibet and the Tibetan people whose culture is facing extinction after the Communist Chinese-forced takeover of their country some 6 decades ago.
In one of my recent Desert Valley Star articles, I mentioned during my “1960’s formative years” in Buena Park, a couple blocks away from the “then-free” Knott’s Berry Farm, I would frequent an all ages night club called “The White Room.” Years later, after meeting ET up in the beautiful mountain community of Idyllwild, where he would eventually end up helping to sponsor the construction of a Tibetan Temple (rinpoche.com), I was informed that he ran a billiard room next door to the White Room, making him my “homeboy,” although we were over a decade apart in age. Later still, I found out that he ran a “head shop” in Long Beach back in that Hippie Era as well.
If I may digress (or “pro-gress,” if you will) back to my No. Calif. story for a moment- On the return back south, I managed to stop to play percussion with some old friends who have a band called the Dharma Bums (www.dharmabums.org), a Reggae-Rock band from Woodstock NY, out here on their San Francisco Tibet Day Tour. Their final concert of the tour was held at a comfy café called “Java Beach” in the “Ocean Beach” segment of “The City,” and one of the final songs of the evening was an extended version of band-leader Phil Void’s Eastern-influenced “Infinite Mind.” In another “CC” coup, at the end of one of the most psychedelic versions of the song I’ve ever heard, I seized the moment to dedicate the song to ET, announcing that he had just entered the Bardo (Tibetan for “after death”) state that previous night and that his Long Beach, California Head Shop back in the 60’s was called “Infinite Mind!” I then beseeched everyone to send him loving thoughts to merge with the “Bright Light” as the “Bardo Terdol,” (“Tibetan Book of the Dead”) instructs, on his journey into “Eternal” Infinite Mind. It turned out that I wasn’t the only one there that knew ET, as singer-songwriter Phil and lead guitarist Joseph Liston both knew him from Idyllwild to New York to Nepal.
I had lamented not having a copy of the “Tibetan Book of the Dead” upon hearing of ET’s “departure,” or as the book calls it, “dissolution of the 5 elements back to their state of emptiness,” and wondered where it might be resting since the last time I used it. But lo’ and behold, in my final “CC” here, upon my return to the Desert Hot Springs “Vortex,” what gift was waiting in my mailbox but a gift from my Sis Chris’s Buena Park home-girl and best friend forever, Kathie Rodgers-Wilson of Oahu: The DVD of the Tibetan Book of the Dead narrated by Leonard Cohen! Insert, push a button… This “Ancient Technology” rocks!
Over the course of his life, ET received the blessings of many Tibetan and other holy teachers, such as HH Gyalwa Karmapa and HH Dalai Lama. Those of us in his spiritual family are very grateful to him, especially for his “Angel-ic Connection” and help in spreading the Buddha-Dharma to the West… Especially when I see him with his teacher, the recently “escaped-from-Communist-China-control” Karmapa, (who along with the Dalai Lama is one of four “Dharma Kings” of Tibet) I consent to their “blowing my mind” with the Jewel-like teachings of Awakened, “Infinite Mind.”
-Sunny Sun-Downer is the facilitator of the Desert Karmapa Meditation Center. Check out his blog at www.conchustimes.blogspot.com. His email is conchustimes@yahoo.com.

"Dalai Lama Renaissance" Films Stir Controversy

(Here is [the un-edited version, i.e. 'rough draft' of] the article for the Nov. 26, '09 gc issue of the Desert Valley Star. For the 'less-rough draft' please go to desertvalleystar.com & enjoy! -= :0: =-)

“Dalai Lama Renaissance” Films Stir Controversy with Chinese Government-
Director/Producer Darvich Comes to Palm Springs for Premier and to Share His Dalai Lama Experience!

By Sunny Sun-Downer
On the eve of the 20th anniversary of the Nobel Peace Foundation awarding their prestigious Peace Prize to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, the Director/Producer of the multi-award-winning film called “Dalai Lama Renaissance” and its sequel, “Dalai Lama Renaissance Volume 2: A Revolution of Ideas,” succeeded in “incurring the wrath” of the government of Communist China.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), has, over time, successfully suppressed the release of films in Asia and even had an effect on a film’s extended release in the West, if it is perceived to threaten “Chinese Policy.” For example, films that starred such big names as Richard Gere and Sharon Stone were boycotted by China after the actors expressed support for a “Free Tibet.” All Disney films were banned for an indefinite period after the studio released “Kundun” (which translates as “Presence,” the name the Tibetan people address their leader with), Martin Scorsese’s 1997 film based on the life and writings of the Dalai Lama.
Now comes the CCP’s latest criticism of another in the series of films in recent history- “Dalai Lama Renaissance,” which has joined such “Pro-Dalai Lama” films as “Kundun”- “Seven Years in Tibet,” “Under the Vajra Sky,” “Ten Questions for the Dalai Lama,” among others, that have irked the communist regime. After it was released in theaters in Taiwan this last summer and received front page positive press in the Chinese language Taiwanese newspapers, the Chinese government, in its “The People’s Daily,” (the newspaper/media outlet of the “Central Committee” of the CCP) quickly and sharply criticized “Dalai Lama Renaissance.” The article, titled “Western Movies Build Grand and Perfect Image of Dalai Lama,” claims that “in recent years, a wave of ‘Dalai Lama fever’ has appeared in the Western movie industry… describing the Chinese government’s peaceful liberation of Tibet as ‘cruel oppression,’ and depicting the Dalai Lama’s life in India as difficult… Some movies even advocate the Dalai Lama’s concept of [Tibetan] ‘independence.’” Well, gosh, yeah, Chinese government, what’s “cruel” and “oppressive” about “peace-fully” imprisoning, torturing, raping, and killing over 1 million Tibetans over the last 5 plus decades for their political and religious beliefs, not to mention destroying countless monasteries while importing millions of Han Chinese into Tibet to complete the Tibetan genocide by out-numbering the Tibetans in their homeland? “Some movies even advocate… Tibetan ‘independence...’ ” Oh, the horror!
The Communist Party’s criticism after the sold-out premier in Taiwan is apparently a defensive reaction to the positive press that occurred there, to counteract any affect that it may have on readers in mainland China, who often have access to news from Taiwan. In a touch of irony, the CCP apparently felt threatened by the idea brought up in the film regarding economic sanctions against China from the West. In a scene from the movie, despite the near unanimous agreement on this by the Westerners who came to the Dalai Lama’s residence-in-exile to try and develop a new “Synergy,” he discouraged the proposal. The Taiwanese newspaper “The Liberty Times” points out that, in the film, “the Dalai Lama thinks that humanity is the most important thing in the world and economic sanctions might affect many Chinese citizens, thus he is hesitant whether such an approach is right.” But the CCP aparently can’t even stand to hear the Dalai Lama talk, or they might notice how far he is going to reconcile the situation with these oppressors who have forcibly taken over his homeland in a strategic move to not only have a greater political advantage over its neighboring countries to the west, but to (so far un-sustainably) exploit the resources of timber, water, uranium, etc. of the “Land of Snows,” as the Tibetans call their homeland. The People’s Daily also tries to discredit the producer-director of the film, Khashyar Darvich. In its article, the newspaper claims that the director is a “follower” of the Dalai Lama, and supports this assertion by referring to an interview where Darvich mentioned that he produced the film partly for the opportunity to spend time with the exiled Tibetan leader. Darvich responds, “It’s interesting that the Chinese Communist Party refers to me as a follower of the Dalai Lama. Although I respect the Dalai Lama as a man of peace, just as the Nobel Peace Prize Committee did by awarding him the Nobel Peace prize, and as do most governments around the world, I am not a Dalai Lama “groupie.” When I began the film, I was not very familiar with the Dalai Lama’s ideas. I think that his actions, and the respect that he garners around the world, speaks for itself.” Despite the Chinese Communist Party’s attempt to discredit the film, Darvich states that his production company, Wakan Films, has just signed an agreement to release Dalai Lama Renaissance unofficially into China itself, under the radar of the Chinese Government. I hope that announcing it here doesn’t ruin the “surprise!” “My hope,” says Darvich, “is that the film will open a dialog between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama, and that the average Chinese citizen will be able to see that the Dalai Lama is not such a bad guy and is interested in a solution to the Tibet issue that serves the highest good and benefits both the Chinese and Tibetans. I would be happy to attend a screening of the film in China and conduct a Q&A with Chinese audiences as a way to contribute to positive dialog.” In the meantime, valley residents have a chance to experience this amazing film and its sequel, and a rare opportunity to participate n a Q&A with Kashyar, when it premiers at Crystal Fantasy Enlightenment Center in downtown Palm Springs on the actual 20th anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize, December 10th- also, by the way, the anniversary of the U.N.’s establishing of the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights!” The “Enlightening” fun doesn’t stop there, as the sequel, “Dalai Lama Renaissance Vol. 2: A Revolution of Ideas,” premiers the following night, Friday December 11th. Both films will be shown after a short meditation beginning at 7p.m., to “settle the mind in preparation for the heart-opening experience” that I personally call “a combination of the movies ’10 Questions for the Dalai Lama’ and ‘What the Bleep Do We Know?’ ” Coincidently, Dalai Lama Renaissance, which is narrated by Harrison Ford, features many of the same “radical thinkers of our time” as are featured in those two revolutionary movies. The Question and Answer Session with Producer-Director Darvich immediately follows the film showing and promises to make this a most memorable night in the history of Freedom-Loving Desert Dwellers. This is also a benefit for the Himalayan Children’s Fund (www.rinpoche.com) and “The Well in the Desert” (Please bring surplus canned or packaged food in this time of need!) Crystal Fantasy is located at 268 N. Palm Canyon Dr. in downtown Palm Springs, 92262. For More info on Dalai Lama Renaissance, go to www.dalailamafilm.com. Tickets are available at an advance discount price by going to www.crystalfantasy.com or www.conchustimes.org/theconch. Also, more info is available by contacting Crystal Fantasy at 760-322-7799 or ConchUs Times at 760-673-7580. This is a joint production of Crystal Fantasy, Desert Karmapa Center and ConchUs Times Productions.
-Sunny Sun-Downer’s blog is www.conchustimes.blogspot.com and he can be contacted at conchustimes@yahoo.com

Turning “Blocks” into Stepping “Stones”

The Stream of ConchUsness
with Sunny Sun-Downer
This is the article I've written for the Desert Valley Star Nov. 19, 2009 g.c. issue (& the very 1st published WITHOUT any editing, Yeah!) Skip down to the end if you want to read Andrew Harvey's "Radical" Sacred Activism message! Enjoy (& Thank You "Richard" for your buddha-full comment!) -= 0 =-






I think I've had a bout of "writer's blocks" lately- one block on top of another, almost like my personal "Berlin Wall" that needed dismantling to re-unite the split-apart nations of my mind...
I'm trying to connect with my flowing literary goddess/muse, so I can get the "creative juices" flowing again. Stress and/or depression from the lack of commerce with my healing arts business and the state of the world probably has something to do with these "blocks." It feels like I'm coming out of it now, and that makes me happy, as before yesterday I was going through a "Dark Night of the Soul," and being “pissed off at the world” is normally foreign to me- it is not my natural state, or one that I enjoy. It does serve as a reference point though, as in "how low can you go" before getting "free of the negativity." It has caused me to try to use it as motivation to put my energy into the survival factor, to come up with ways to earn the 'green energy' (or what I call “Dead Presidents’ Pictures,” i.e. “money”) to meet the constant flood of bills, at the risk of losing my happiness-based creativity...
And what transpired to aid in this shift? Well, instead of wallowing in my miserable mental state another day- which was accompanied by the physical 3-week-long head-to-throat-to-lungs-back-to-head-cold I've been dealing with... (You remember "The Weather Underground," the violence-inclined 70's radical group? I re-activated my own, called the "Under-the-Weather-Ground!" Oh, and no, it’s not the H1N1- because I’m holding out for the “S”-free version, the “Wine Flu,” heh-heh, with my new slogan, “Who needs a vaccination, when you can just hit the bottle on your stay-cation!” OK, I tend to make light of serious subjects with a little levity, especially when I believe that “Big Pharma,” with its ties to our government, is pulling a major scam on the people!)… I accepted the offer of the publisher of the Desert Valley Star to capture some bill-paying green energy by distributing the paper around the Coachella Valley. Half-way through the ordeal of negotiating the ever-frustrating Friday afternoon traffic and stopping at about 80-some drop-off points, I stopped for some veggie-tacos at one of them. I started to lift my tired body out of the car seat, when something quite unusual happened that caused me to pluck it right back down: the Grateful Dead came on the valley’s "Hot" radio station (I mean, you just don't hear them on the regular rock radio stations very often, if at all!). There they were again, ultimately reminding me, "You're sick of hanging around and you like to travel- (You) get tired of traveling and you want to settle down... Well, I guess I can't revoke your Soul for trying- Get out of the door, light out and have a look around..." I was instantly given a new “lease on life,” to hear one of my main musical heroes musically shining a light of inspiration in the middle of my tribulations, especially when they sang the chorus, "Sometimes the Lights are shining on me, Other times I can barely see... Lately it occurs to me, what a Long, Strange Trip (LST) it's been!" This alone gave me the energy, perhaps through the "Time Machine Factor" combined with the "Pavlovian Re-connection" of past marathon Dead Tours, to "Keep On Truckin' ," like the “Do-Dah Man,” through the rest of the day- especially looking forward to the end of the job, when I could re-iterate the final verse: “Truckin’, Im a-goin’ home, whoah-oh baby, back where I belong… Back home, sit down and patch my bones…” (And in a totally un-related point, let's not forget that the Dead's 'Truckin' rose to "Number 1" on the radio chart in Truckee, Calif., in the early 70's!)
The next day, I found myself equally depressed about the world situation, specifically with one that has been dear to my heart for decades. It’s about the “Big Lie” in the news again that the Chinese government has fostered on its 1.3 billion citizens, as President Obama travels there for the first time: that it “liberated Tibet from ‘serfdom’ just as President Lincoln freed the slaves in the U.S.” to justify its torturing and killing over 1 million Tibetans and nearly destroying their culture and the country’s environment over the last 50 years. This has Chinese university students wanting to know why President Obama would meet with this “separatist Dalai Lama” (who their government calls a “Monster in Sheep’s Clothing”- kettle calling the pot black, anyone?) at his ‘town hall meeting’ with them. And BTW, what the Chinese government calls ‘serfdom,’ was Tibetan people happily giving part of their crops to support the (unified religion/state) monasteries before the violent invasion of Tibet.
Two things happened that helped me with this. First, I received an email of a talk given recently by author Andrew Harvey, who is an advocate for “Buddhist Global Relief” (www.buddhistglobalrelief.org). This is a new organization founded by an American Buddhist monk, Ven. Bikkhu Bodhi, that is an inter-denominational community of Buddhists and friends of Buddhism who seek to give concrete expression to the Buddha’s great compassion as an ongoing project in the contemporary world. Andrew’s message was so moving and heart-opening as it ‘cut to the bone’ regarding how to deal with the anxiety and frustration so many of us are currently feeling towards the world situation with its wars, aggression and rapidly deteriorating environment, etc. His talk is quite radical and ultimately involves developing what he calls “Sacred Activism.” Space limitation doesn’t allow its inclusion here, but you can read it at my blogsite posted at the end.
The other “mental saving grace” that occurred that evening was experiencing the “Musical Love Fest” of Larisa Stow and her “Shakti Tribe” at Urban Yoga in Palm Springs (Larisastow.com). Larisa, near the beginning of their heart-chakra-opening performance, touched directly on these negativities I’ve been referring to, asking how many of us are going through it in our lives? As the ‘dancing-room-only’ crowd agreed that they could relate, she reminded us about Mahatma Gandhi’s tribulations. What activated him back in his era, was buying a 1st Class train ticket, but then being forced to sit in 3rd Class because of his skin color. He then took his anger and channeled it into the positive activism of his “Satya-graha” (the Hindi word for “Truth Army”) which ended up non-violently liberating India from British oppression.
Also, BTW, for a brand new take on Gandhi’s story, I recommend the ‘hip-hop’ music version by one of the stars of the recent Joshua Tree “Bhakti Fest,” the yoga teacher/songwriter “MC Yogi.” Called “Be the Change” after the chorus: “Be the Change that you want to see, in the world Just like Gandhi!” You can view it on Youtube and/or see the lyrics at his website (http://www.mcyogi.com/lyrics/be-the-change) and let the music help you, as it did me, dance all over those blocks!

(Sunny’s blog is www.conchustimes.blogspot.com, where you can also see his past un-edited articles for the Desert Valley Star in their entirety!)

Transcript of a brief talk by Andrew Harvey, mystical scholar, Rumi translator, poet, and architect of 'sacred activism' - at the recent launch of Bhikkhu Bodhi's "Buddhist Global Relief" in New York City.
I would like to share very briefly my vision of sacred activism with you. I’d like to begin by saying that I only believe three things. I believe that we are heading into the eye of a perfect storm of crises, which threatens the human race and a great deal of nature. I think it is extremely important that we all stop denying just how dangerous and insane and savage the terror this perfect storm of crises is and just what it actually means for all of us and the world. I think you know what those crises are. There is a holocaust going on that the doomsayers had predicted. There is a retreat amongst many of the major religions into fundamentalism, which disorders our unity. There is a domination of a kind of corporate mindset of all of the different rounds of activity of corporate magnates that is brutal, that is addicted to power, that is addicted to domination, that is addicted to exploitation, and addicted to greed. There is a mass media, largely owned by corporations, filling our minds with violence, trash and celebrity trivia, at the very moment where you and I need to be inspired, galvanized and given the authentic information.
And there is a lifestyle which you and I both live, which is hectic, driven and multi-tasking, which makes it almost impossible, for even for the most well meaning of us, to have the kind of pleasure and peace in which to hear the voice and soul that could guide us. And when you bring all of these crises together, and add to them a population explosion which will have three billion or more people on the earth in 2050 to feed, and a proliferation of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of grade A lunatics and psychotics, such as the unfortunate head of North Korea and the completely insane head of Iran, then what you and I are looking at is a perfect storm of interrelated crises that are all the manifestation of a selective force - human self. A human self that has lost the most fundamental connection of all, which is the connection with our own deepest sacred nature, the sacred nature of creation and the sacred nature of life.
That is the first thing I believe, and I think it is very important that we all wake up fast, because all those who are not awake now, are going to be awake very soon. The crisis is not going to relent and it is going to get very much fiercer very soon. If that is all that I believe, I would have asked Bhikkhu Bodhi together, make a vat of Jim Jones Kool-Aid, recite the verses from the Dhammapada together, become One one last time and die together. But that is not happening.
The second thing I believe is this storm of crises is an evolutionary possibility of unprecedented intensity. Because it gives us the opportunity to gaze into the mirror of our destiny, and to see very clearly, that unless you and I evolve to the next level of putting our deepest principals and our holiest compassion and our greatest passion for life into direct clear radical action on every level, we will simply not survive. In other words, this great death that we are living, that we are manifesting out of our addiction, our greed, our extraordinary apathy, our fantastic lack of concern for life, this great death is also potentially the birth canal of an enormous and unprecedented birth. The birth of a chastened and humbled humanity opened at last by tragedy and awakened by the knowledge of the shadow, to really claim all of our innate sacred consciousness and start acting truly and deeply from our heart to turn apocalypse into grace. Turning nightmare into opportunity- a terrible tragic situation into a gathering together on a massive scale to transform the world.
Ever since this vision was given to me - it wasn’t something that I awoke to - it was something that was transmitted to me by my greatest teacher, the man who transformed my life, Father Bede Griffiths, who sat me down at the age of eighty-six, in his quiet hut in South India. On the last occasion we were together, he said, “There are three possibilities, my dear Andrew, for the future of the human race. The first possibility is that the human race will wake up to the horror of what it is creating and ask for immediate transformation and start changing everything. This is totally unlikely. The second possibility is that the human race will prove so stubborn in its addiction and so addicted and so apathetic and so rotten and broken down by the corruption and power that it has chosen that it will continue in its nightmare and suicidal and matricidal power and take the whole world away in its apocalyptic madness. He said I don’t think it is likely either. Because the God that I had in the deepest recesses of my mystical experience is the God of all embracing humanity, all the resourceful intentions, and a God that will go on, going on reaching out to us to give us the strength and the passion and the wisdom to awaken us even in our darkest and especially in our dark humanity. And then he said that there is a third possibility. And this is the possibility that I have experienced in the depths of my life and you will experience in the depths of your life. And this possibility is that this crises is the equivalent on a global scale of a crisis that a mystic goes through at a certain moment on the path when they go through what is called in the Christian mysticism the ‘Dark Night of the Soul’, in Sufism ‘banar’ (?) and in the metaphysical systems of Mahayana Buddhism the shattering of the false self, the shattering of the created self. If humanity can see this immense consciousness as a God sent, God given, God ordained opportunity to unlearn all our dangerous attainments. And if humanity could settle in the deep ground of divine inspiration and learn to how to go through the shattering ordeal with authentic grace, with authentic commitment to transformation then not only will humanity survive, but humanity will be transfigured and transformed and will be born into an authentic divine power, an authentic divine nature through the death of the collective false self that is manifesting this great death that is wrecking everything. Ever since that conversation, I have asked myself, day after day after day after day, one question. One question has burned in me, and that is why I have spent five years writing my latest book when before things came supernaturally, or rather easily. And that question was, if this great death is the birth canal of the great birth, then what is the force, what is the power that can birth this birth? What in us can birth the birth of the divine humanity, transformed by tragedy, illumined by the shattering knowledge, and transfigured by divine grace? What force can give us the power to turn this devastating situation around?
Four years after Bede died, I found a kind of answer. I had a dream in which he showed me two rivers. One river was a river of fire which was going toward the sea and the other which is a river of even more intense fire which was going toward the sea. And at the sea they met and they erupted in a glowing and glorious radiant divine Hiroshima of energy. And then I heard this voice saying, “these two rivers are the two noblest forces of the human psyche. And these two rivers are the river of the fire of the mystic’s passion of the God and the river of the activist’s passion for justice. When these two rivers meet, what happens is a third fire is born and that fire is the fire that is ordained to transform everything and that fire is the fire of divine compassion and love in action.” And it was that dream, that vision that gave me the term “sacred activism” and it is in honor of that vision that I wrote my book and it is in honor of that vision that I honor the work that the Buddhist Global Relief is doing and it is that honor of that vision that I stand before you and ask you to do one thing which has meant anything to you. And if you truly believe as I believe that we are where we are, facing extreme danger but with extreme opportunity. And I ask you in the name of the Buddha to get up at three o’clock in the morning someday soon and to surround yourself with the peace of God in whichever way you understand it and to ask yourself one question, what of all the causes of this beleaguered and damaged world breaks my heart the most? What of all these causes breaks my heart the most? I ask you to dare to ask yourself this question, and I ask you to dare to listen to what your heart says to you. Because you will find that if you do that your heart will reveal to you a sacred mission that belongs to you, just to you, and that will be the most deepest and most radiant voice of your soul and that you will be given, at that moment, an injunction and direction. What you do then, is to join with other people with similar heartbreak, and to work together in your local community, to do something real about what it is that you advocate in yourself.
My last thing that I like to offer to you is what I am doing. I am going everywhere talking about this vision of sacred activism but I am also bringing out a way of grounding it in the world. On Thanksgiving Day, I am releasing a global website called “Networks of Grace” and these networks are going to be cells of between six to twelve people gathered around a heartbreak, or a profession, or a passion dedicating in their local communities to start getting this grassroots radical revolution of the third power, Love in Action, going and it is the only way which we will get a chance of it working. If you are waiting for the corporations to transform your situation, you will wait until the last tree is burnt down. And if you are waiting for the politicians to have major spiritual transformation and suddenly give millions away and start feeding the poor, you will be waiting for the last animal to disappear. This revolution of the soul in action depends upon you and I. You and I getting real about three things: about this tragedy of where we are, about the opportunity of where we can go, and about the heartbreak that you and I all feel. And when we get real about all of those three things, then we are impelled to work together in the networks of grace to do something about them.

Just Another Phish Story

The Stream of Conch-Us-Ness
with Sunny Sun-Downer
(Here is the "Un-Edited Version" of the article published in the November 5, 2009 [g.c.] issue of the Desert Valley Star dot com. To those of you who've read the print version of my articles, I assure you that they will make much more sense here! -=:0:=-)


































Photos by Sun-Downer & Cynthia Santacroce

Phish “Phans” had the “Life of Riley” once they got to the Coachella site of Phish’s Festival 8. (“The Life of Riley” is a popular saying among us older hip-sters, from the radio & TV show of the 40’s and 50’s starring William Bendix, who played the character Riley, blessed with a life of great comfort and ease). This at least compared to the last Phish Festival in Coventry, Vermont, which was like the Woodstock Festival of 1969 in a few ways: Rural farmland, huge crowds and mud… and it coincidently occurred on the same dates in August on the 35th Anniversary of the birth of the Woodstock Nation. Unfortunately, and un-like Woodstock the mud happened at the beginning, when a week of rain had flooded the concert site that became a marsh-land of mud, causing people to be turned away from parking there. Like Woodstock, this caused gridlock on the highway leading to the site, and when Phish bassist Mike Gordon came on “Bunny Radio” (the band’s take-over of a local radio station as they did at Coachella w/Jack FM), like a (Woodstock promoter) “Artie Kornfeld” of his day, he announced that the field and venue were in a state of disaster and that no more vehicles would be allowed in. Instead of turning away, tens of thousands of die-hard Phans parked their cars on highway medians, in breakdown lanes, and on the sides of roads and hiked in to the concert venue, some walking as far as 30 miles, letting neither rain or mud deter them on their “Holy Quest.” Local residents stepped in and began shuttling Phans in and out of the site and to their vehicles. Despite efforts by attendees, trash accumulated from fans stuck along the road. The bill for the subsequent cleanup was sent from the State of Vermont to the Phish organization, who picked up the bill in its entirety, leaving a good impression of these “New Era Hippies” with the residents.
Fast-forward back to the present time, after the heart-breaking news of the break-up of the band and the swing of the ‘Phen-dulum” back the other way with the ecstatic news for Phans that the group was re-uniting this year, these Coachella-ized Phans have had nothing but great praise for the “Flow of Festival 8,” where they luxuriated in 8 wonderful sets of music, Chris Kuroda’s stunningly psychedelic light show, experiential art installations, (including flame-throwing bamboo-art sculptures, a huge un-tethered floating pumpkin that would change directions as many times as it did rainbow colors and a huge balloon like sculpture that would change shapes as many times as it changed colors), delicious vegan and other consumables washed down with favorite libations, and so much more… including the memorable “dazed and confused altered states” from the drug “LOS” (Lack Of Sleep)-induced camping. But these “Spawn of the Dead-Heads” surely take the Grateful Dead lyrics to heart, “When you get confused, Just listen to the music play” and, of course- dance!
So not only did the promoters Golden Voice and Team Phish leave a wonderful impression on the Phans, the Phans left a very good impression on the community. A huge number of business-owners in the Coachella Valley prospered from the influx of some 50,000 Phans, while the concert itself helped employ a great number of valley residents.
And speaking of drugs and our “Dysfunctional Society’s Draconian Drug Laws,” there is at least better news regarding the number of arrests at this festival compared to, for example, last Spring’s Coachella Festival. As of Saturday night there were 16 arrests and 9 more on Sunday, but this is less than half of the arrests for similar offences that totaled almost 60 last spring. Indio police said, “It’s worked out very well. Obviously, the arrests have been narcotics-related, but it’s been pretty good (and) the traffic has been really great.” And it’s been pretty good for Phans of the “Sacred Herb” who were warned in a Desert Sun article last week to keep their (mostly) illegal weed away, as Indio police were ready to wage their drug war w/their devious methods – although the article said nothing about any special enforcement for hard drugs, nitrous oxide distribution (a big problem of yore at Dead and Phish shows) and under-age (or over-age immoderate) drinking. This apparently didn’t stop the majority of Phans who obviously out-smarted the cops and event body-and-bag searchers, as the smell of the skunk-weed was everywhere through-out the crowd. I personally had a problem with the (chemical-saturated and “natural” tobacco) cigarette smoke, which hung like a toxic cloud over and around the crowd, and being able to breathe again was the only reason I was happy when leaving the concert area.
Another “High-Light” for this reporter and his publisher Dean Gray, was meeting and partying with Bambu Rolling Paper heir Sarah Saiger, who left her “Paper Trail” with all she met, while glowing in the recent news of the recently-announced clothing line, Bambu Apparel (bambu.com). Her company was also named one of the “World’s Oldest 1000 Companies,” having started in 1764 (and that is no stoner’s cloudy fantasy, but documented fact)!
Come Sunday night just before the encore of the final set, lead singer and guitarist Trey Anastasio thanked this crowd of “Dead-i-cated Phans” for a “wonderful weekend.” He also gave praises to those behind the scenes by saying, “I just wanted to make a point that it takes a whole mountain of people to make something like this happen.” He then proceeded to name, on a 1st-name basis, a large portion of those involved in making this monumental experience a reality. He closed his announcement with some ear-candy for all the Halloween’d-out “Exiles” from “Shakedown Street,” by adding, “I hope we can do it again.”
Still recovering from the long weekend, I almost forgot to mention that with all the environmental concern shown by the emphasis of making this a hallmark “green festival”- everything that could be was recycled, but even plastic spoons and forks were starch-based and compost-able… I feel encouraged for the world and the follow-up generation of the “Spawn of the Dead” and their Phans, who ultimately proved the old musician’s axiom wrong: You can tune a guitar… And you CAN Tuna Phish!”
-Get past Phish and other Woodstock-related articles from Sun-Downer at his blog: www.conchustimes.blogspot.com

Phish: "Spawn of the Dead!"

The Stream of Conch-Us-ness with Sunny Sun-Downer
Phish: the “Spawn of the Dead”
(Here is the "Un-Edited Version" of the article published in the October 22, 2009 [g.c.] issue of the Desert Valley Star [desertvalleystar.com])
In my previous article titled, “The Heroes of Woodstock, 41 Years Later,” I’m sure I shocked people that know me when I wrote that the Grateful Dead weren’t one of the bands that I was “really into” back in 1968, like I was with the bands Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Iron Butterfly, Canned Heat, Country Joe and the Fish, and the Animals (growing up in a family that practiced yogic meditation, I loved listening to Eric Burdon singing about a soldier staying behind to “…meditate, but it won’t stop the killing, or ease the hate,” in his anti-war tune, “Sky Pilot”).
What was my problem with the Dead? Actually my younger brother, Bill, was hip to the Dead before me, having brought home the “Working Man’s Dead” album a couple of years later (the title being a play on the fact the band had recently been covering Merle Haggard’s song "Workingman's Blues" in concert). Maybe it was the “non-psychedelic” album cover art (they just kind of looked like a bunch of “ruffians standing on a corner” to me) or possibly even (Western Dysfunctional Society-spawned) sibling rivalry that wouldn’t let me “be upstaged by my YOUNGER brother,” but their music also just didn’t grab me. It wasn’t something that compelled me to get a big glass bowl of water, shine a light on it and swirl food coloring into psychedelic swirls (my own simple version of a “60’s light show”) like the others did, as I grooved to their mind-altering sounds! (Later my brother and I would place an electric fan in a box with a hole in it, cut the same-size hole in a record that we attached to the fan and shine a flood-light behind it, creating a “poor man’s strobe light” to add to the effects- after I transcended the “sibling rivalry,” of course).
So, how did I get over my “nonchalant insouciance” to the Grateful Dead, a group I would end up following for a good portion of my adult life? Well, that didn’t completely happen in 1972 either, the 1st time I actually went to see them at the Long Beach Arena with my new friends I’d made in North San Diego County after having just graduated from High School in Orange County. It was an interesting enough experience in general, but I don’t think I was prepared for the marathon-length of the experience, as the longest-lasting impression I have of that night is remembering thinking, during the drawn-out drums and space segment, “when is this going to be over?”
This was obviously before I started to pick up on a connection between a special tribal spirituality and this “Necropolis” (Floating City of the Dead) with its “Dead-Heads” and its before-and-after-party-and-vending-scene (everything from Acid to Zen-Inspired Art: tie-dyed, painted, wearable and otherwise, grilled cheese to “Da-Kind”-Veggie-Burritos, bumper-stickers like “Who are the Grateful Dead and Why Are They Following Me?”, etc.- if a Dead-Head’s imagination could conceive it, we saw it in “The Lot,” as we affectionately nick-named the parking lot outside of a Dead show (with the “Heart” or busiest section, dubbed “Shakedown Street,” after the Dead tune of the same name).
The Grateful Dead themselves, I personally found out upon meeting them much later (1984, maybe?) at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion, were a bunch of “Zenned-Out Marxists” (as in Groucho Marx). As written in my publication, “The ConchUs Times- The Journal of the Dead Buddhists of America, for Those Appreciating Grateful Dead and Buddhist Meditations and Cultures” (that coincidently debuted at the 1989 Long Beach Arena Dead show) in the article, “The Dead and the Dharma,”(quoted from 1973’s “The Dead Book,” by Hank Harrison, who was the Dead’s 1st manager and also, strangely enough, Courtney Love’s father) “…we get an example of the early influence of (a kind of “Beatnik style”) Zen Buddhism from an account of the band then known as ‘The Warlocks,’ trying to come up with a new name. Jerry Garcia turned through the dictionary ‘I-Ching’ style (hap-hazardly) and said to bassist Phil Lesh, ‘What do you think of this one: The Grateful Dead?’ Phil fell off his seat in giddy rails of laughter… but it had the right ring, something for everybody, an infinite array of associations: Egyptian, Gothic, Mystic… Jerry had stumbled upon a reference to the collected folk ballads of Francis Child… The ballads of the Grateful Dead are songs about ghosts who return from the grave to conduct unfinished business. If they are allowed to complete their duties, they are ‘grateful.’ They ran over to share it with the others: ‘Grateful Dead! Sink your teeth into that identity, boys!’ Thirty sets of dentures bit down on steel nails. ‘It’s a koan fit for an iron Buddha…’ ” (And just like a Zen Koan, some things are not decipherable by conceptual thought, so please don’t strain your brain on that one!).
The “Zenned-out Beatniks,” also played a major part in the Dead’s early days, as is mentioned in “Skeleton Key: the Dead-Head Dictionary,” (where the ConchUs Times Journal, coincidently, is entered on page 53… or 58?) quoting Beat-poet Michael McClure, “The Beats gave each other permission to be excellent… Their enduring intelligence is with us in such diverse places as punk magazines, meditation halls- and Grateful Dead shows!”
Fast forwarding decades, the “Phenomena of Jerry Garcia” has come and gone, the “Left-Over Dead,” are still touring, occasionally together, but mostly with their solo projects called “Phil Lesh and Friends,” guitarist Bob Weir’s “Ratdog,” drummers Mickey Hart’s “Planet Drum” and Bill Kreutzman’s mostly Hawaiian island-based “Backbone,” which all serve to keep a lot of Dead-heads satisfied- especially the older ones. But the younger ones have not been idle since Jerry’s transition to the other side 14 years ago, with Dead spin-off bands like “String Cheese Incident,” “moe,” “Psychedelic Breakfast,” “Particle,” “Dark Star Orchestra” and “Railroad Earth, among others. What others, you ask?
Well, there is another spin-off band that, like “accomplished sons making their parents proud,” have filled arenas to the magnitude that the Dead once did: Burlington, Vermont’s “Phish,” composed of guitarist Trey Anastasio, keyboardist Page McConnel, bassist Mike Gordon and drummer Jon Fishman (who, in one of the only ways that they’re NOT similar to the Dead, the band is named after!) They have come quite a long way, following in their “psychedelic-music-generating-mentor’s footsteps, since their 1st gig at a Burlington club called Nectar’s in 1984 to becoming one of rock n’ roll’s biggest acts: grossing over $61 million in ticket sales (to say nothing of merchandise sales) in ’99 and 2000, the last two years before their break up.
Staying true to their mentor’s m.o. (research the “Acid Test” daze for more on the Dead’s early “theater-of-the-strange-explorations,”), these “Descendants of the Dead” would also engage in “acid-drenched” or “hot-mushroom-cocoa-influenced” performances over their “formative years,” but added their own twists. In some of their rehearsals, for example, they would engage in what they came to call “Zen Language Ball.” Blind-folded, and without speaking to one another, someone will start an improvisation of guitar chords, say, and the others will join in as the “Zen Spirit” moves them, grabbing a note as inspiration strikes, and bending and stretching the melody and/or the beat, writing new music out of thin air, in total darkness. Again, (flashing back) I found Rock Scully (the Dead’s 2nd manager) quoting Garcia as the Dead are about to record their album, “Blues for Allah”… “We’re going to go into the studio w/no preconceptions…It’s a chance to hang out together and let ideas evolve from absolute coldness, from absolutely nothing.”
In an amazing show of modern magic, Phish will be in Indio, from Oct. 30 through Nov. 1. The event, dubbed Festival 8, will be the band’s first three-day festival on the West Coast. Over the course of three days, they will perform eight live sets. The event will also feature other attractions, including art installations. For its Halloween performances, Phish will keep its tradition of playing an entire album by another band. A news release did not warn about “wolves in hippie clothing” that have frequented the previous festivals there, so be warned all you peddlers of the sacred mind-expanders!.
Festival 8 will mark Phish’s first festival since its August 2004 farewell concerts in Coventry, Vt. Come dance and make their “parents” proud!
-Sunny Sun-Downer’s email is conchustimes@yahoo.com

"Gimmee An 'F!' "

“Gimmee An ‘F!' "
The Return of the “Heroes of Woodstock” to Southern California, 41 Years Later! By Sunny Sun-Downer (As published in the current issue of the Desert Valley Star)




This year has seen the “Return of Woodstock” to the world’s “Modern (yet Limited) Attention,” being the 40th anniversary of that Epic “Grand-Daddy of All Concerts” in 1969. But how many people realize that we actually had our own “West Coast Woodstock” right here in Southern California, the year before?
While it didn’t have quite the number of acts, or quite the same number of attendees, this concert, the “Newport Pop Festival,” held at the Orange County Fairgrounds was quite notable, having about twenty name acts of the day (compared to Woodstock’s 34) and at least 100,000 ticket holders, and, just like Woodstock: gate crashers. Although called the “Newport” Pop Festival, technically it was held in Costa Mesa- but it was just a “Stone(r)’s Throw” from Newport Beach, and I’m guessing the promoters, Wesco Productions & KHJ-AM Radio DJ “Humble Harve” wanted to capitalize on the name “Newport” to borrow from the legacy of the famous East Coast “Newport Folk Festival.”
Whereas, in a Desert Valley Star article about Woodstock that I wrote earlier this year wherein I related that at 14 years old and living in the “suburban waste-land” (now called) “The O.C.,” I didn’t make it to that East Coast phenomenon, what makes this story special for this reporter is that I DID make it to THIS concert! In spite of the sibling rivalry inspired by “Western Dysfunctional Society,” my older sister, Chris, was kind enough to allow me to accompany her & her new friends from the group our mom had joined after divorcing our dad, “Parents Without Partners.” So, while I was allowed to go down to the concert with them, I was not, however, allowed to “hang out” with them, and proceeded to experience on my own, one of the most life-changing events of my teenage “formative years!” With my paper route money I had been buying “33 1/3” LP’s and “45’s” of some of these music groups (translation for my younger readers: 33 and a 1/3 “revolutions per minute” of a vinyl record album were called ‘LP’s” for ‘Long Playing” and “45’s” were that number of “rpm’s” on a record slightly bigger than today’s CD’s) at the local “Music Box” record store from a guy that looked like Elvis who was always smoking cigarettes. (Other times, when I could get a ride there, I’d get even a better deal at the music store called, “Licorice Pizza”… a challenge for you younger readers to guess where that name came from!)
The groups I was most into who were playing at the festival were Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Country Joe and the Fish, Canned Heat, Steppenwolf, Iron Butterfly (with their near-20 minute version of “Inna Gadda Da Vida”) and the Animals. Although I didn’t have any of their record albums, another favorite group was “The Illinois Speed Press,” simply because they had performed at our local night club that even allowed teens in, called “The White Room” on Orange-thorpe in Buena Park. (I even remember riding my bike up there one afternoon after school and eating some food across the street at the “A & W Root Beer Drive-in” next to some guys from a group called “Poco” who were on their way to a sound check there. I was just researching their name-change to tell you when [1968] they had to change their name from “Pogo,” which they had named themselves after Walt Kelly’s comic character, but were forced to drop when the cartoonist threatened a copy-right lawsuit. So it was synchronous to this article, then, to find out that Paul Cotton, the guitarist of Illinois Speed Press, replaced Kenny Loggins’ recently re-united partner Jim Messina after he left Poco in 1970).
Meanwhile, back at the fairgrounds, other than those groups who I have previously mentioned (and financially supported), the ones I saw (but honestly don’t remember too well, in spite of the fact that it was probably the only concert I’ve attended where I wasn’t actually stoned- that would happen soon after and is “fodder for a future yarn,” heh-heh!) were the Grateful Dead, Blue Cheer, the Byrds and Electric Flag, undoubtedly among others.
Other groups that I’m fairly sure I didn’t experience in the 3-D world, as they performed on the day before which I didn’t attend, were Alice Cooper (which was the band’s name before Vincent Furnier personally took on the moniker), Tiny Tim (the most popular “Freak” of our generation, with his long curly hair, pot belly & ukulele upon which he strummed his eternal hit song, “Tip Toe Through the Tulips”), Sonny & Cher (who, according to various reports were either ignored or even boo’d), Paul Butterfield Blues Band, James Cotton Blues Band, and (tic-tock, tic-tock…) the Chambers Brothers (who non-the-less would “psychedelize my soul” with their big and lengthy hit, “Time” in the near future, along with Hendrix at “Newport ‘69”- again, watch for the sequel).
Some 40 years later, I honestly don’t recall everything that I experienced that day, however, some of my memory was re-stimulated after reading this post on the Orange County Register’s article written last year, posted by “Ashleigh2k”:
“I was there..! I was in the 6th grade and thought I was quite sophisticated, cuz I looked a lot older than my age... I remember getting body painting done with a friend of mine- there were people getting their whole bodies painted, but I modestly settled for a flower on my arm and on my face! The music was great, and there were vendors everywhere selling incense, candles and wares of the 60's throughout the whole thing… I remember people (hippie guys) giving us water from 5 gallon bottles that were freshly unloaded (we were all dying of thirst!), and that it was very hot… it was so much fun, but in hind-sight, it really was no place for a couple of 12 year old girls... But we weren't aware of any drugs being used, (there were, it turns out- but WE didn’t have a clue!), and everyone just thought we were sweet innocent flower children of sorts... We weren't bothered or given anything illicit... It was just one big blast, a ton of fun and great music, and I've always wondered why Woodstock gets all the glory, when really, that weekend at the Fairgrounds in Costa Mesa a year earlier, was WAY cooler!! It was groundbreaking, and should be looked at as bigger than Woodstock for starting it all!” (You can see more stories like this and very cool old photos with the Register article, by searching for “Newport Pop Festival,” or email me for the link).
I too, remember it being so hot that people rushed this big bottled water truck that pulled up on the outskirts of the crowd, and started pulling them out so fast that one slipped and fell, cutting a guy’s head pretty badly. That was the only “bummer” I witnessed the whole day. My other vivid memory, other than the amazing psychedelic music, was saying “high” to this tall brother with hair half-way down his back in a pony-tail. I later met him in the infamous Tim Leary “tribe” stomping grounds of Laguna Beach, “Mystic Arts World,” where he worked in the “bookstore section.” In a “what-goes-around-comes-around” fashion, Michael Callan is now a “High” desert-dweller and can be found performing his musical craft there to this day.
“Furthur”-more, in another “what-goes-around” fashion, some of the musical icons of that “West Coast Woodstock” are returning to Southern California in a rare opportunity for desert dwellers and visitors: The “Heroes of Woodstock” tour will be docking its big “Hippie School Bus” at Spotlight 29 Casino, this Saturday night, Oct. 10 at 8 pm. Yes, 41 years later you can experience (to a degree, heh-heh!) what we did, with survivors of Jefferson Airplane, Canned Heat, Country Joe, Grateful Dead, plus Ten Years After, Big Brother and the Holding Co., and the dynamic singer who wrote one of Woodstock’s anthems: “Candles in the Rain”- Melanie. Ticket info: www.spotlight29.com or (800) 585-3737, and for more info on how you can get downloads of the concert after attending, go to www.theheroesofwoodstock.com
-Sunny Sun-Downer can be reached at conchustimes@yahoo.com and his blog is www.conchustimes.blogspot.com

Creating Peaceful Weapons in a Violent World

By Sunny Sundowner (as published int the ) 09/10/09gc issue of the Desert Valley Star (desertvalleystar.com)
Creating Peaceful Weapons in a Violent World
By Sunny Sundowner
At the risk of sounding “moronic,” I wish to add to some of the world’s great oxy-morons, such as “peace force, soft rock, resident alien, passive aggressive, military intelligence, Microsoft Works- (come on Bill, I kid..! Please don’t infect my PC!), by giving you “Peaceful Weapons.” When one of the editors of this fine publication, Dean Gray, asked me to do an article on creating “peaceful weapons” in an aspiration to create “non-violent” communities, at first I got really perturbed and defensive…
OK, that was a joke- and I hope I got you to at least chuckle by now, whether it was confusing or not. While the topic of violence is a serious thing, the diffusing of the mentality that creates it doesn’t have to be, and my timing is good to communicate what hopefully will be seen as more than just “Another Hippie Rant.” However, even if it seen as only that, there is no shame- because even before the wide-spread 40th anniversary celebrations of Woodstock this summer (of Love), “Hippie” has made a big comeback. Take the onslaught in the fashion world of “Hippie Chic,” (the opposite and antidote fashion to the “militaristic camouflage fashion’ of previous decades) and in the world of popular music with the mainstream press reporting that Jason Mraz’s “Hippie-friendly” jam “I’m Yours” may be the longest running song in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Also, don’t forget that tens of thousands of neo-hippies are headed to Coachella for what I have dubbed “Phish-O-Ween,” when the Grateful Dead spin-off band Phish & their great multitudes “Keep on Truckin’” there for a three-day run this Halloween. And speaking of the “Grand-Daddy of all concerts” of last century, the Phish start their swim into Coachella Valley just a couple of weeks after the “Heroes of Woodstock” psychedelize the valley from an Indio casino. These are but a few examples of Hippie’s re-incarnation (not to mention the economic success of all the new releases of Woodstock CD and DVD Box Sets, and Ang Lee’s wonderful new movie “Taking Woodstock!”)
Not only has the Hippie been calling out for Peace in the World for decades (spawning such whimsical bumper-stickers as “Visualize Whirled Peas”), but we’ve been having fun doing it. When the early-on (1969) incarnation of the “Hog Farm” commune arrived back in New York to help with the Woodstock Concert as part of the Hippie Army (add another oxymoron!), they held a press conference in which they announced that they had elected to work security there, not with batons and mace, but with cream pies and seltzer-spray bottles. Later on Head Hog & Woodstock MC Wavy Gravy, tiring of getting beat up by cops at protests, found relief in appearing in clown and Santa Claus costumes- whatever works, right? (And it did!) At the same time, the “Hog-ified Hippie Harbinger” was bringing “levity” into tense situations, following in the footsteps of Abbie Hoffman and his Yippie cohorts, who had previously attempted stunts to end the Vietnam War, such as massing together in Washington D.C. to try and (unfortunately unsuccessfully) “levitate” the Pentagon! (But it’s the “thought” that counts, right Abbie?)
So my theory incorporates adding another “F” to “Flight or Fight”- “Fun!” And while we’re using the alphabet, let’s back up to the “C’s”- and add “Communication over Confrontation.” This, with skill, can lead to the 3rd “C,” “Compromise.” OK, back the other way, to “G” and “H.” “Having” (a sense of) “Humor” might just be the “Gateway” to “Goodness” in people. I asked the infamous Yogic (“My Other Car is a Yoga Mat”) Comedienne Beth Lapides to contribute anything she could to help me get through this difficult topic, and in a show of not only solidarity but synchronicity, she sent me the following, just as I had written the above: “F and G are so close together in the alphabet, I think that all the fun was turned into gun, by some people who went one letter too far in the alphabet. Of course without F or G you're left with “un” and sometimes “un” is the funniest thing of all - at least we thought so with the Un-Cabaret. (http://uncabaret.com) (I can only add that concepts of “violence” are “Un-natural” to “Higher Consciousness.”)
So let’s take this “Make Love, Not War” rap into some pragmatic applications beyond just having “Fun,” and “Get ‘er Done!” It was at Beth’s presentation, “88% Happy, 100% of the Time!” at Urban Yoga Center in Palm Springs recently that I was reminded of the discoveries of Gregg Braden, a prominent author in (for lack of better term) “New Age Circles” who is bridging ancient wisdom with modern science. His study of the experiments with DNA and Light Photons are astounding to say the least. As Gregg explains in his book, The Isaiah Effect, (where you can find details on these experiments) “basically time is not just linear (past, present and future), but it also has depth. The depth of time consists of all the possible prayers and timelines that could ever be prayed or exist. Essentially, all our prayers have already been answered. We just activate the one we're living through our FEELINGS. THIS is how we create our reality - by choosing it with our feelings. Our feelings are activating the timeline via the web of creation, which connects all of the energy and matter of the Universe. This is the science behind how we can choose a timeline to stay safe, no matter what else is happening.
Remember that the law of the Universe is that we attract what we focus on. If you are focused on fearing whatever may come, you are sending a strong message to the Universe to send you whatever you fear. Instead if you can get yourself into feelings of joy, love, appreciation or gratitude, and focus on bringing more of that into your life, you are going to avoid the negative stuff automatically. You will be choosing a different TIMELINE with your feelings. You can even prevent getting any flu virus, etc, by staying in these positive feelings, which maintains an incredibly strong immune system.
So here's your protection for whatever comes: Find something to be happy about every day, and every hour if possible, moment-to-moment, even if only for a few minutes. This is the easiest and best protection you can have.”
Bringing it ‘full circle,” I must close by repeating the words Jimi Hendrix gave to the remaining audience 4 decades ago at Woodstock, after his “mind-blowing” set of psychedelic sounds: “Peace… and Happiness… Happiness!”

-Sunny Sundowner can be reached at conchustimes@yahoo.com

The "Bhakti Fest"- Flowers from the Seeds of Woodstock

(As published in the 9/03/09gc issue of the Desert Valley Star) By Sunny Sundowner

When I was young- about ten or so years old, my parents took my brother, sister & I out from our dwelling in the suburban O.C. to a mystical retreat center in the high desert, called back then: “The Mentalphysics Institute.” It was like nothing I’d seen up to that point in my life, with it’s “other-worldly” sanctuary buildings. It was founded by Edwin John Dingle, who had visited Tibet in 1910, where he studied for nine months and reportedly learned the East Indian Yogic art of pranayama (breathing control), the remembrance of past lives, and other advanced spiritual disciplines. His “Science of Mentalphysics,” based on Tibetan and other Asian teachings, was begun in 1927 in Los Angeles, CA. The Institute was incorporated in 1933 and land for the 460-plus-acres retreat center in Joshua Tree was acquired in 1941. Dingle, who came to call himself “Ding Le Mei,” was a friend of Swami Paramahansa Yogananda, (one of the first Yogis to come to the West from India, all documented in his infamous work, “Autobiography of a Yogi”) and was the author of many books on spirituality, history and economics. Like Yogananda, he incorporated Eastern spiritual notions into Western Spirituality to create a "Super Yoga of the Western World.” Buildings at this spiritual-vortex-site, now called “Joshua Tree Retreat,” came to include the “Preceptory of Light,” the “First Sanctuary of Mystic Christianity” and the “Caravansary of Joy,” a 700-foot-long residence designed and built by Lloyd Wright, son of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
It had been years earlier still that I had been introduced to the singing and chanting of devotional songs to open the heart to Divne Grace: songs that Yogananda had introduced to us here in the West, such as “Hey Hari Sundara!” (“Oh God Beautiful” in English). I was also introduced to Yogic exercise around that time, and when school-mates got wind of these things while visiting my family’s dwelling, I was made fun of as an “oddball” in what I call our “Western Dysfunctional Society’s” schooling system. I had to live with this “stigma” for years, until something happened in August of 1969: Swami Satchidananda (who, like Yogananda, was another “Harbinger of Yogic Methods of Enlightenment” in the West) opened up the Woodstock Music and Art Fair by teaching upwards of half a million people about meditation, yoga and devotional chanting (and “enlightening” untold millions more on the experience through the subsequent movie and media attention). Finally, to my great joy as a young American teen, with this event and others like it I was emerging from “oddball” status to “trendsetter.” East was truly beginning to meet West, as the Swami told the gathered multitudes: “There is a dynamic manpower here. The hearts are meeting. Just yesterday I was in Princeton (NJ), at Stony Brook in a monastery, where about… three hundred Catholic monks and nuns met and they asked me to talk to them under the heading of ‘East and West—One Heart’… I would like you all to join me and our group here in repeating a very simple chant. As I was reminding you of the sound power, there are certain mystical sounds which the Sanskrit terminology says are the bijak-shara, or the “seed words.” We are going to use three seed words, or the mystic words, to formulate the chants... “Hari” is one word. “Om” is another word. (The third word was “Ram,” and the entire festival then chanted the “Hari Om” and “Hari Ram” chants together.) He also informed us, “Here, I really wonder whether I am in the East or West. If these pictures or the films are going to be shown in India, they would certainly never believe that this is taken in America. For here, the East has come into the West. And with all my heart, I wish a great, great success in this music Festival to pave the way for many more festivals in many other parts of this country.”
One of the attendees at that monumental event was a young aspiring yogi from New York who had acquired the spiritual name “Sridhar.” He took these words to heart, as four decades later almost to the day, he and his team of Bhakti Yogis (or devotion practitioners) have created the West’s largest gathering of yogis and devotional-chanters to ever occur in America, the “Bhakti Fest” at Joshua Tree Retreat Center Friday through Sunday, September 11-13. Because of the planned 3 days of around-the-clock chanting, yoga workshops, nutritional vegi-cuisine, yoga-related vendors, healing arts center and more, in the ever-expanding yogic community (with yoga centers now outnumbering Starbucks!) it has been dubbed the “Spiritual Woodstock.”
Besides the most renowned “Yogis of East and West” appearing (live by satellite), Deepak Chopra (made famous by Oprah) and Baba Ram Das (author of “Be Here Now” and countless other enlightening literary tools), the list of Western Indian Kirtan (call and response chanting) performers and yoga instructors is seemingly endless. While you will (basically) have to rely on the new saying, that “a website is worth a thousand words” (www.bhaktifest.com), I will take a moment to touch on some of my favorites (which is difficult to do, in that really “all” of those in the line-up are my “favorites!”). So, in that light- quite some time ago, while listening to internet radio stations like sacredsoundsradio.com, I would experience kirtan divas such as Donna Delory. Like fellow female BF-performer, Wah!, she has such a unique approach in bringing traditional Hindu mantra into contemporary music styles, that it’s easy to see how she must’ve been a great influence for Madonna’s (Hindu music-oriented) “Ray of Light” album, in that she’s been one of Madonna’s back-up vocalists over time! Larisa Stow and Shakti Tribe fit into that same category as Donna and Wah!, and it will be a wonderful home-coming for them, as they are “high desert kirtan pioneers,” having previously performed their “Shakti (“Awakening Power of Divine Grace”)-Saturated” music at this same retreat center, as well as for a (Conchus Times Production) Integratron Spring Equinox Celebration.
Add to these an AH-mazing “unfolding mandala” of other performers such as Jai Uttal, Shiva Rea, Dave Stringer, (Alanis’s twin brother) Wade Morrisette, Wynne Paris, Shyamdas, (Joshua Tree’s own) Art Kunkin and another favorite that the younger generation can’t get enough of: MC Yogi. Like his predecessor (and fellow BF performer) Girish, MC Yogi has not only fused Hindu Kirtan-Style chanting with a contemporary hip-hop style, but he was recently featured (in a ‘what goes around comes around’ fashion) rapping for a Starbucks’ “Community Organizing” TV commercial. With all this and more (and with the additional mention that these chanting yogis in India have been known for centuries as Kirtan “Wallahs”) I look forward to seeing you at the Joshua Tree “Wallah-Stock,” where I invite you to “tune in (to the heart of devotion), turn on (compassion for your-self & others) and drop out (of ego-clinging)” and I guarantee you’ll hear the words “Hari, Om, and Rama” vibrating more than once amidst the 108-thousand mantras and asanas manifesting at the “1st Annual Bhakti Fest!”
-Sunny Sundowner can be reached at conchustimes@yahoo.com

Spirits in the Sky- Sky Sunlight Saxon Tribute (as published in the 8/27/09gc issue of the Desert Valley Star)

The “Father of Garage Rock” and “Flower Power” Sky Saxon meets the “Harbinger of Alt-Rock”- Billy Corgan by Sunny Sun-Downer
Billy Corgan debuted a new song on July 24th of this year at the Echoplex in Los Angeles, called “Freak,” as a tribute to 60’s legend Sky Saxon and there are indications that it will be coming out on the re-formed Smashing Pumpkins album sometime soon. This re-emergence of Billy Corgan with his new (internet-penned) “barely legal” drummer, 19 year-old Mike Byrne, was causing more stir in S.P. circles (and in Rolling Stone Magazine & on various music blogs) than the actual debut of the group Billy formed to perform this tribute: “Spirits in the Sky.” This “Alt-Rock Super Group” was composed of B.C. on guitar, and also featured the 60’s legendary Electric Prunes’ bassist Mark Tulin, as well as equally legendary 60’s band Strawberry Alarm Clock’s keyboardist Mark Weitz, Kevin Dippold on guitar and Catherine drummer-percussionist Kerry Brown (who at one point was married to former Pumpkins bassist D’Arcy Wretzky). Its purpose was to honor the legendary lead singer Sky Saxon of the band called “The Seeds”- who left us ironically a half-day earlier than another famous musician on that June 25th, Michael Jackson. The Seeds’ big hits back then were: “Pushin’ Too Hard,” (which, although apparently about a ‘relationship problem,’ Sky said was dedicated to “repressed society”), “Can’t Seem to Make You Mine” (look for “Betty Paige Dances to the Seeds” on you tube, and you’ll probably say something like, “Oh I heard that song on a deodorant commercial!”), “Mr. Farmer” (dedicated to the ‘Hippie Farmers,” [nudge-wink] & heard on the “Almost Famous” movie soundtrack), among others. Not only did Jim Morrison & his Doors band-mates used to stand in the audience of Sunset Strip night clubs back then- mesmerized and influenced enough to duplicate Sky’s “Rock n’ Roll-Shaman” style in their own music, but legends like Muddy Waters have been quoted saying that “…the Seeds were America’s Rolling Stones.” Indeed, Sky’s on-stage persona required lines of police to keep young women from rushing him during performances (a la “Beatles”) at such sold-out shows as at the Hollywood Bowl, where he would drive them “into a frenzy” with songs such as the trance-like (17 minute live version of) “Up in Her Room.” Speaking of the Rolling Stones, when I produced a show 5 years ago at Pappy and Harriet’s with Sky and a recent Seeds incarnation, he told me personally that when he met the Stones back in the 60’s, he turned them on to the concept of “Flower Power” and they then ran with it, even creating an album called “Flowers!”). Since those days, Sky’s popularity waxed & waned to varying degrees, and is greatly documented in the plethora of albums he created with the Seeds, his solo work as Sky “Sunlight” Saxon, etc. (More info: www.skysaxon.com) Just before Sky’s untimely death, Billy Corgan had been collaborating with the Seeds’ front-man on a variety of projects, including an unreleased song called “Choose To Choose Love” (called “Sky Saxon- Choose to Love feat. Billy Corgan” on youtube.com). It’s a very moving experience to watch it, and dare I say, is the forefront of the return of Sky’s notoriety 4 decades later, albeit posthumously. Before Billy introduced the Sky Saxon-inspired song “Freak” at the Echoplex tribute, he said, “I wrote this song, and then thought ‘these lyrics are so weird- I never would’ve written these before I met Sky.” He added, “Sky Saxon came into our lives, and our lives have never been the same,” to the grinning nods of his fellow musicians. This is also seen on the Pumpkins’ website, where Billy says, “This website is going to change. It is going to transform into something that is consistent with the concepts of love, grace, and community. We are not looking backwards anymore, only forward. What makes the things I'm saying here even more real to me is the passing of my dear friend Sky Sunlight Saxon. Sky lived everyday with the concept of LOVE as his guide, and he walked the talk. He was a spiritual warrior who would tell me that Yahowa knew the beauty of our hearts, and that musicians were the living prophets of the world. So in Sky's memory I am going to re-dedicate this website to represent the things he cared about most: love, life, music, his spiritual family, and the protection of all God's creatures, big and small.” When Billy brings his new “Spirits in the Sky” band to Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace this weekend, I pray that even with the added frenzy of Jane’s Addiction’s Dave Navarro being added to the “Spirits,” that the focus remains on the eternal Love-Rock God, Sky “Sunlight” Saxon. (For more info on Billy, go to www.smashingpumpkins.com)

Desire Heart Spirit in DHS!

This is the link to the (less-than-helpful) L.A. Times article that came out Aug. 25 called, "Desert Hot Springs is fighting for its life" (for you to copy & paste)...
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-desert-hot-springs25-2009aug25,0,5740836.story?track=ntothtml

And this is the letter I sent off in response to the LA Times today... If this were one of my articles, I'd title it:
"From 'Desperate Hot Springs' to 'Desire Heart Spirit!'"
(Won't you join me in envisioning their printing it?!) -=0=-


Dear Editor:

Many residents and business owners of Desert Hot Springs are dismayed with David Kelly's report: "Desert Hot Springs is fighting for its life" (8/25/09). While its focus is almost completely on the negative occurrences of this low-desert town, a fraction of the article gave the opposite: some of the positive aspects, from one local spa-owner, of the great healing waters, great climate, mountain views and the "energy vortex" here. We are asking the Times to do a follow up article with its focus on these aspects of Desert Hot Springs and especially its new "Energy Vortex" plan. Modeled after a similar Sedona, Arizona plan, its focus is to revitalize the downtown area with a commerce-friendly shopping and entertainment district based upon the elements of earth, air, fire and water, with lakes, parks, outdoor amphitheater, theaters, etc. (info of which is available by clicking on "vortex specific plan" at http://www.cityofdhs.org). In tandem with the new emphasis on public security in our future is a new beautiful reality we envision for this desert city that has boasted as a slogan, "Desire Heart Spirit!"
Sincerely,
Steven "Sunny" Sun-=0=-Downer
HAALOS Healing Arts Center
"Old Town" Desert Hot Springs CA 92240

HAALOS Benefit! "Remembering Woodstock: Even If You Don't Remember!" 8-15-09gc 7pm

(Image on left): Original Ad in the Los Angeles Free Press (Editor: Art Kunkin)
Next: Swami Satchidananda opens the Woodstock Festival by turning on a half-million people to Eastern Spirituality. Then, next is the AH-Some "Remembering" graphic done by HAALOS supporter Dennis, and of course, "The Radical Three"- Art Kunkin, Paul Krassner, Dean Gray.
HAALOS' WOODSTOCK 40th ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION: "REMEMBERING WOODSTOCK- EVEN IF YOU DON'T REMEMBER!"












PANEL DISCUSSION with Sixties Icons Art Kunkin (Editor: The Los Angeles Free Press, Alchemy Guru, etc.), Paul Krassner (Editor: The Realist, Yippies Co-founder, Author, etc.), plus Dean Gray (Editor: the Desert Valley Star). Live Music with local artists performing music from '69 Woodstock Concert. Refreshments.
Benefit for HAALOS $13.00 in advance from HAALOS
Also, re; seating- if you're comfortable sitting on the carpet, we'll have some cushions, and you're welcome to bring your own. Likewise, re; chairs- we have some, but you're welcome to bring a fold up lawn chair- just no 'Love Seats' please... (we've had problems).
Also- THIS JUST IN! Paul, in a show of support for his favorite Acu-Pressure spot: HAALOS, will be offering his classic book published by High Times, "Pot Stories for the Soul," for 13 pictures of George "I Grew Hemp" Washington ($13)! And if you're quick, you might get him to sign it! (My favorite story so far is Lynn Phillips' piece about her wild experiences in SF in the sixties, called "Love & Haight.")
$15.00 At the Door- (If Avail.!)
Saturday Aug. 15th 7pm Live Music 8:30pm
HAALOS Healing Arts Center & Empori-om
12078 Palm Dr.
Desert Hot Springs 92240
760-673-7580

-For Woodstock Era Music 24/7 (for free, as it should be) check out www.woodstockuniverse.com & click on the 'radiowoodstock69' button!
-My friend Lisa Law's Woodstock Photography will be on exhibition (along w/Jim Marshall/Baron Wolman/Henry Diltz Woodstock photos) in Venice at Duncan Miller Gallery from 8-15 to 9-25 (http://duncanmillergallery.com)
-The movie on Woodstock Icon Wavy Gravy "Saint Misbehavin' "is coming to Lost Angeles at the Arclight Theater 8-15 thru 8-20
(So Many Woodstock Events So Little Time!)
-Also, please check out: www.artkunkin.com, paulkrassner.com, desertvalleystar.com
and... oh yeah- if you want to contact me by email, i use this one WAY more than gmail (no offense, google!): conchustimes@yahoo.com
Please Share This Info W/Your Friends &/or Enemies! OK? GROOVY BABY!