Art Rosengarten

The Palace Gardens

Approximately 2:30 PM

An excited buzz filled the circle of lawn chairs like anxious bees surrounding the Mother Queen. Thirty or so eclectically frocked Californians now nervously gathered in the private Himalayan garden, but clearly the Palace grounds seemed no longer so elevated. A spiritual journey of a lifetime— within the halo of the Mountain Goddess-- was not supposed to begin on such a tenuous note.

Professor. B., our leader, and “Padre,” the American purple and yellow robed Buddhist monk, were both now standing center stage each holding a portable radio to an ear. It was an eerie montage of sacred tradition clutching to modern technology. John, the visage of Gandalf, now raised his arms to officially speak and shortly thereafter made the following shocking announcement:

“People, brace yourselves, I have some bad news to relay, and I realize the timing could not be much worse given that we are about to launch our six-week program in a couple of hours... Five minutes ago, the BBC International made an emergency bulletin that a major earthquake has struck the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California … Friends, I’m well aware that most of you are from the affected region and I’m terribly sorry to bring this tragic news to you today.”

A major quake in the Bay Area? No one had even considered that the crisis was actually back home, back on the other side, in the city where we lived and had only departed a few days earlier. It was strangely disconcerting that news from home was now knocking on the Palace doors of Taragahr. We had temporarily left it all behind, we thought. Anxiety was starting to envelop the walls of my stomach. What did he mean “major?” The word kept ringing in my ears. Everyone had experienced what I suppose were “minor” quakes, as such was integral to California residency. Truthfully, I sort of enjoyed them like subways or bumper cars. But something bigger was happening here. Why would we be having an emergency meeting over a run-of-the-mill earthquake in California? Then John continued:

“People, it remains uncertain how big this quake actually was. Unfortunately, information from the States is very sketchy at this time and according to the BBC, we won’t have any official confirmation of casualties for another 24 to 48 hours… I repeat, all communication lines to the Bay Area are currently down. The truth is, no one really knows how serious this is… However, I must tell you, honestly, that judging from preliminary reports just announced by the American Red Cross, there is currently reason for significant concern.”

My head began spinning like a Kansas tornado en route to Oz. Memory was now mixing with vertigo in the thin Himalayan air, and I was flashing back to a much earlier time in my current incarnation: age 13, a cold late November morning in the suburbs of Northern New Jersey. I was wearing my gray wool cardigan sitting in the second row of Mr. Pemberthy’s 7th grade Social Studies class. The class was discussing Dorthea Dix and woman’s suffrage, and a few boys were shooting spitballs in the back of the room. Then over the school’s PA system came an unexpected announcement by Ray Sterling, the white-haired, raspy-voiced principal of South Orange Jr. High. It was the single sentence that in retrospect would traumatize the American psyche even to this day: “Students may I have your attention please. This is your principle, Ray Sterling speaking.” After a long pause, the unthinkable words came:

“President Kennedy was shot in Dallas Texas earlier today while driving in a motorcade. I repeat, President Kennedy was shot! He is still alive at this time, according to the latest report, but JFK is now in critical condition at Parkland Hospital in Dallas Texas. All students must return to their homerooms immediately and prepare for early dismissal. Your families have been notified.”

That was it. No further explanation, just the sinking emotion of unthinkable shock. We piled out of the school minutes afterwards, some eight hundred students, shattered, silent, and overwhelmed. Kennedy was the beloved image of America, and certainly for the innocent youth of America, we were made in his image. With a friend, I hitch-hiked up the steep mile hill to my house and a taxicab actually pulled over from the passing lane and stopped to pick us up. The windows were rolled down in the front and a cold gust filled the backseat waking us to the cold reality of this window of time. The black man driving was weeping and cursing “the god damn suckers, they killed the president,” as reports of the unthinkable streamed over the radio. It was the first and remains the most disturbing of all world-altering announcements that would unfold over my lifetime.

I now tried to refocus on the present situation. Strangely, even here in Northern India the news had that sinking “Dallas Texas” feel. I felt numb and intensely anxious at once. Then, in a softer voice, John again spoke:

“My friends, we’ve just learned that they are now making early estimates of catastrophic proportions… I repeat—CATASTROPHIC PROPORTIONS-- of destruction in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, San Mateo and the surrounding areas… People, this may in fact have been “the Big One” everyone’s been expecting for years. Fires have broken out in San Francisco and Oakland, and the Bay Bridge is reported to have collapsed... It’s unbelievable… There is also the possibility, my friends, of massive loss of life.”

Tears were now flowing down his handsome, grandfatherly face, as they were over the faces of us all. At Padre’s bidding, John then again turned to hear what appeared to be another updated report. We waited, stone quiet and consigned to this fate. John’s eyes closed and his face was more somber than before, as he then relayed the latest news:

I’m deeply saddened to tell you what we’ve just learned... but according to preliminary estimates just announced over the BBC ...Ten thousand people are projected to have died today in the San Francisco Bay Area, with up to 100,000 seriously injured. Evacuation procedures may be under way for the entire area. But I must reemphasize--these numbers are uncertain-- we simply won’t know for another day or so the actual facts. I’m terribly sorry for all of us, particularly those of us who have families and homes and businesses in the Bay Area, and for all our loved ones who may now be in harm’s way…

That was it. It was staggering. Natural disaster had struck our own hometown—and we were now only six thousand miles away stranded in the mountains or a meditation retreat. Imagine, if you can, the overwhelming paradox we were left to mentally organize—the event was simply too close to home and simultaneously too far away from home to adequately assimilate and neatly box. Its sketchiness was cruel. Rumblings could now be heard over the chairs:

“Was the epicenter actually in the city itself?”
“ I need to contact my children, they were probably in school when it hit.”
“My husband works downtown on the 40th floor of the Pyramid Building…”
“I’m worried my mother can’t get her medications…she’s diabetic.”
“ It’s three or four days just to get back to Delhi.”
“What are we supposed to do now?”

Given the vast complication of our location and circumstance in relation to the event, this last question seemed strangely the most puzzling, and relevant. What were we supposed to do now? Realistically, waiting seemed all that was available to us. It would be agonizing, but there would be no fast or easy exit out of the mountains. Our loved ones might be lying dead or hospitalized in San Francisco, but we would have to wait. Even if we trekked back down to Delhi, it was doubtful that planes would even be allowed anywhere near the Bay Area. There was nothing we could directly do. We simply needed time, perhaps a day or two, for the facts to unfold. Then, hopefully, communication would be restored, and a reasoned response could be implemented. It was a time warp of sorts, but fortuitously, we now resided in an environment that invited deep reflection over its implications. Dinner was still to be served in a half-hour, as scheduled, followed by the ‘Goddess Invocation Ceremony’ to be led by the wonderful Buddhist teacher, Joanna Macy. The sun was still shining, and the sky breathlessly blue, but eerily, the mountains no longer seemed like mountains, nor did the valleys seem like valleys.

Fact Versus Perception

Due largely to “global shrinkage” brought by modern technologies, word of major disaster travels virtually everywhere almost instantaneously, even back then in the antiquated pre-web days of the late 1980’s. In that vain it struck me as poignant to now see standing quietly behind our circle of lawn chairs the senior Tibetan lama at neighboring Tashi Jong Monastery, Chogyal Rinpoche, who had hiked a mile down the mountain path (with two attendant monks) to personally express his heartfelt condolences to us, the unfortunate Americans, who had just arrived from California, the site of the great calamity. Word travels far and fast indeed, and to think we Americans too can be cared for as the pitied victims of misfortune through the eyes of simple villagers and gentle-hearted Himalayan monks.

Eventually, the actual facts would arrive. Like most citizens around the world, we had just gotten word of the devastating event now known as the Loma Prieta Earthquake. It had occurred on Tuesday, October 17th at 5:04 P.M Pacific Standard Time in Northern California. Factually, we would learn that the 20-second trembler was actually centered about 60 miles south of San Francisco, not within city limits as some were given to believe. It had a Richter magnitude 7.1, leading to the collapse of the elevated Cypress Street section of Interstate 880 in Oakland, the roadbed of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, multiple building collapses in San Francisco's Marina district, and minor damage as far south as Santa Cruz. For years scientists had predicted an earthquake would hit on this section of the San Andreas Fault and considered Loma Prieta one of the Bay Area's most dangerous stretches of the fault. Fate, it seemed, had sparred us from the immediacy of this disaster.

But far from the catastrophic 10,000 casualties initially predicted, in point of fact only 68 deaths occurred in total, 42 in the collapse of Interstate Highway 880 alone. Likewise, in contrast to the initially reported 100,00 serious injuries, in fact 3,757 injuries actually took place. Still, the initial reports were hardly baseless as the earthquake was without question a major calamity, causing significant loss of life, property, and suffering to the Bay Area community. All told, 1,018 homes and 3,530 businesses were damaged, and 366 businesses were destroyed. The estimated dollar loss was 6 to 7 billion dollars. More than 7,000 aftershocks had occurred between magnitudes 1.0 and 5.4 by October 1, 1990 a year later.

Perception, however, is another matter. Perception informs immediate experience (more than facts, usually), and as we dramatically learned over the following hours, perception is unstable over the course of time. Within a window of time, perception dictates experience. It can trigger physiology such as autonomic “fight or flight” reactions, and a wide range of emotions, thoughts and ideas; it can also stimulate creative insights and reflections, as well as motivation, belief, fantasy, and imagination. Whether perception is married to fact matters little, at least, in the short run. Financial markets, for example, are largely at the mercy of consumer perception.

Science, on the other hand, purportedly, is based on fact, and fact alone. It requires evidence that is independent of and unbiased by perception, and can be replicated at variable times with consistent results. The Earth revolves around the Sun, contrary to how we may perceive it, and not the reverse, and this fact can be consistently demonstrated at various times. This fact is considered “objective truth.” based as it is on scientific validity and reliability. However, in the subjective worlds of psychology, politics, art, religion, and popular cultural in general, factual reality takes back seat to subjective and collective perception, often inserted like statistics to bolster a perception, not replace it. Where facts may hold “truth” as such, perception, as the slogan goes, is “reality.” Both, however, are keenly sensitive to situational context and vantage point of the observer, and as such are relative phenomena, and not absolute.

Temporary Windows of Time

The subject of this story is the experience of October 17th, 1989 from the vantage point of thirty Americans traveling in N. India concurrently to the Prieta Loma earthquake, not the actual facts of October 17th, 1989 which, perhaps, is another story. The view of the world from out our collective sixty eyeballs on that day was remarkable and uniquely profound primarily because our perceptual context was under the influence of such fantastically odd juxtapositions in time, space, and circumstance. Simply put, we were deeply under the spell of extremely interesting and meaningful “synchronicities,” that is, temporary windows of time and perception which bring one to the edge of truth and reality.

It is for these mysterious factors that this small tale of two cities is now told, for they are factors which I believe hold relevance to the rapidly unfolding perception of events of the present period. John Broomfield’s communiqué to our group of Goddess seekers was now completed for the time being, and members rose exhaustedly to head back to their rooms. Suddenly, I felt oddly inspired, almost enthusiastic were it not under such grave conditions. A light bulb had turned on. I then jumped up before anyone actually had vacated the lawn, and made a short announcement of my own, as you will remember, my second of the day. Surprisingly, people seemed to pull out of their fogs long enough to genuinely hear what I had to say. Thus I announced:

Everybody--before you all go, I just want to put out that besides being a therapist in my previous life, I also read Tarot cards and given the situation here, I want to offer a reading to anyone who would like to sort things out using the cards. Please talk to me if you’d like to set up a reading either before or after dinner.

I was stunned by the positive response. In the next fifteen minutes, virtually everyone there (except Padre, due to certain professed dharmic obligations I never quite understood) approached me and requested a Tarot appointment, as it were. I jotted down 20 minute intervals, and told all querents to meet me at the small corner table past the tiger skins at the end of the long downstairs corridor at their scheduled times. I knew something important would come of this for I trusted that under such extreme conditions--the Tarot symbols would prove the final refuge. Shivers now run from my spine when I think of magic that would thus run its course.

To Be Continued