OM TRESPASSING

the lane

Highway 29 runs north-northwesterly through the heart of the Napa Valley.  About midway between the towns of Napa and St Helena, after the Yountville Cross and before the Oakville Cross, marked as “7700 St Helena Highway”, a lane ran easterly, collonaded by two rows of stately eucalyptus trees.  The eucalyptus trees, eighty-eight in number, were mature, tall, giant in fact.  They were of course non-native to the locale and like all eucalyptus, notoriously unhospitable to bird life.  They thus provided a silent, fragrant, shaded and imposing corridor, flanking the lane that led to the ranch.

The lane had once been gravelled, but few pebbles remained on what was nothing more than a dirt path.  Its defining feature was its surface, marked not by potholes, but by craters worthy of a moonscape.  Driving was reduced to a slow crawl as the length, breadth, and depth of the individual ruts and depressions forced constant choices between attempts to find routes around the hollows and cavities and the courage to drive over them.  The passage was adventurous enough in the hot, dry summertime, but riskier in the wet season when the depth of the puddles was not readily apparent.

Approaching the ranch required a major shift in mindset from the highway driving that brought one to the lane.  Cruise control and autopilot were deactivated, speed was reduced to a minimum*, mindful awareness of where you were and what you were doing was required at every moment in order to navigate properly.

About a quarter of the way down the lane was a small bridge over a stream bed.  Before the bridge was a sign marked “NO TRESPASSING’. 

After crossing the bridge another sign stood, proclaiming “OM TRESPASSING”.

the oak tree

The lane led to a clearing next to the house, where cars could park.  In the center of this area was a massive oak tree, of undetermined but obviously venerable age.  Its presence was imposing — rooted, massive, imperturbable.

Though clearly entered upon the decline phase of its life cycle, the tree stood with a natural dignity and grace unaffected by youth or age.  In the day, it provided shade from the sun or shelter from the rain.  In the dusk it revealed that it was the home, or a least a favored roost, of a large owl, who would swoop low with a soft flutter to begin its evening hunts.

the kitchen

From the parking area, the house could be entered through the kitchen.  It was a “side entrance”, but a direct entrance to the center of activity of the ranch.  In recognition, acceptance, and celebration of the fact that all humans, like all animate life forms, are essentially feeding tubes, the Diamond Sufi experience was a constant feast.  Kurt was more than a master chef, he was authentically a culinary magus, transcending his genetic heritage as the son of a restauranteur and his own “professional” experience founding and hosting the Diamond Sutra Restaurant.  Kurt cooked constantly, never the same dish twice, never with a set recipe, always with ad hoc spontaneity, and always, unfailingly, with fantastic results.  Kurt’s cooking was a social event.  Although he was content to cook alone, he more than invited, he inspired collaboration in the creation of meals with his talented gastronomic companions such as Jene LaRue, Tom Genelli, Larry Barnett and other friends, guests and visitors in a free form culinary dance.

To the side of the kitchen was a pantry closet, its shelves lined with cans, bottles, and boxes of foodstuffs domestic and foreign, as well as liquors and liqueurs from around the world.  The kitchen itself was dominated, naturally, by the stove and its oven, the sink, and the table, around which food was prepared and consumed. The kitchen was a celebration of the cornucopia of California. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, midnight and midday snacks flowed in a constant stream, lubricated by juices, coffee, tea, beers, wine, whiskies, liqueurs of every source and description, accompanied by endless talk and laughter, enveloped in clouds of aromas, pungent, sweet, and utterly delicious.

the living room

From the kitchen, one entered the living room into an alcove off its main space, like the foot of an “L”.  Here was placed a large round table a foot or so in height off the floor, surrounded by mats, rugs, cushions and pillows for seating.  This was the “formal” dining table, for larger gatherings than could be seated comfortably around the kitchen table.

The main space of the living room was empty, couches and chairs were mainly on the sides.  In the center of the room was a large Persian rug, its central design the “Star of India”. According to Kurt, this was a family heirloom.  It was the primary surface for standing, sitting, reclining and dancing. 

In the center of the east wall was the fireplace. When the hot weather had passed, the fireplace was basically in constant use.  Grape vine prunings made excellent kindling while oak was the primary combustible, burning slow and hot and clean and holding embers well. The area in front of the fireplace — the hearth — was, as much as the kitchen table, a primary spot for gathering and conversing for many long hours.  The fireplace also served as a primal grill, for instance, for Tom Genelli to broil lamb chops.

the deck

Off the living room, accessible through a glass paneled door next to the dining alcove, was a broad wooden deck running the entire length of the outside wall.  In temperate weather, it was another spacious and comfortable location for sitting, talking, smoking, laughing, drinking, dancing and taking basic joy in being alive.  Shaded to the north by the house and to the south by the bamboo grove, it had a pleasant light. Cushions, mats and rugs brought from inside the house made the deck an indoor/outdoor transition space, constructed but natural, grounded but unlimited, conducive to insights, encounters and conversations with the same qualities.

the bamboo

A bamboo grove, mature and established, of timbers up to four inches or so in diameter and heights of up to fifty feet, spread over the area north of the house.  Harvested stalks were put to innumerable uses around the ranch, and Kurt’s friend Super Dave crafted lovely shakuhachi style flutes from root ended culms*.  The bamboo inescapably lent an “oriental” air to the surroundings, and Kurt and his companions were naturals for the roles of the Taoist “Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove”.  Bamboo being a grass, essentially one organism sharing a dispersed root system, has a unified life cycle in which it extends it roots underground and its culms above ground, maintains itself for years, then flowers, produces seed, and dies.  This latter event befell the grove some years into Kurt’s tenure at the ranch, green turned to brown, impermanence affirmed its constancy.

the sweat houses

Using bamboo sticks tied with twine, Kurt and his friends constructed semi-geodesic dome shaped frameworks which were then covered with canvas, blankets or whatever other material was at hand.  Meanwhile in a fire pit of oak logs, stones were piled to absorb the heat.  By the time the houses were finished, the stones were ready and were placed inside in the center.  Participants sat in a circle around the stones, closed the door flaps, and placed some dry sage leaves on the stones.  As the sage smoke filled the air, water was sprinkled on the stones. Through the grace of the Great Spirit the stones selected did not explode. The searing steam attacked bodies, faces, nostrils, lungs.  Wet washcloths flew to cover scalps and noses.  Pores opened like faucets as sweat streamed out.  Darkness, closeness, smoke, heat, steam, and pounding pulses combined to accentuate fear, fear to be faced and contemplated until a moment of decision: has a danger point been reached?  When the answer was yes, it was time to raise the flap and emerge back into the open air.  After a brief cooling of body, emotion, and rationality, the sauna could reentered.  In a second session, the temperature was ever so slightly cooler, the mental chaos slightly diminished, and the pores still pouring sweat non-stop. By the third or fourth session, a stability was achieved that allowed body and mind to sit and sweat quietly and calmly.*

the pool

South of the house, beyond the bamboo and the sweat house area, was an enclosed swimming pool.  The structure around it was non-descript and as featureless as a pre-WW II government building.  It had windows on the side, not washed in decades, and walls and a roof that combined to prevent any ray of sun from ever striking the water.  In its darkened condition, the water needed minimal chemical treatment to maintain a basic clarity.

After finishing the sweat baths, still boiling inside, bodies stepped into the pool house, perched on the edge of the pool, and minds contemplated the plunge.  The mental leap and physical leap occurred together, propelling a dive into the water — water as frigid as a North Sea fjord.  The shock to the whole body surface was so total that it was perceived more as mental concept than a physical sensation.  Physically, the frigid water caused the skin’s pores to close, trapping in the body’s elevated heat.  The balance of the inner heat and the outer cold rendered the skin’s sensation as a neutral feeling rather than a stinging pain, allowing one to swim like a seal. Our hearts were stronger then.

Apart from sweat baths, the pool was too cold to be used except on especially hot days, even then only for brief swims for those with thick enough skins.

the grounds

Kurt liked to say that the ranch grounds had been designed by John McLaren, the designer of Golden Gate Park.  Certainly the care and imagination of someone had gone into the original planting of the grounds.  In addition to the eucalyptus rows, the oak and the bamboo grove, the ranch contained a number of tall palm trees and unusual fruit trees, including a “kaki” persimmon, forty to fifty feet tall with fruits sweet as dates. South of the deck was a very old plum tree, with orange colored fruits that tasted like apricots.  An old Muscat grape vine produced large light-colored pink tinted grapes with a magical taste. Across the entire front of the garage grew a wisteria that must have been many decades old. It blossomed profusely in the spring, and one needed only to sit under it to get inebriated by the perfume.

The Diamond Sufi Ranch was on the valley floor of Napa Valley.  The soil, never having been subjected to the abuse of intense industrial agriculture, was a rich, black loam that would crumble through the fingers.  The prodigious energy of Jene LaRue applied to that soil produced a vegetable garden that radiated prana. Mounded rows of loam were surmounted by a profusion of curling, climbing stalks and leaves of squashes, peas, beans, tomatoes, their tendrils twining over bamboo trellisses, reaching up and out to drink every drop of Napa sunshine they could reach. Late afternoon to early evening was watering time. Kurt and Jene, as rain gods, showered sprays of water onto the grateful plants and soil, droplets sparkling in the light of the setting sun. Like everything else at the ranch, gardening was a sacrament.  Jene instructed that planting seeds into the furrowed soil was to be done while straddling the rows:  “You’ll get the idea.”

the grapes

Although situated smack dab in the center of the Napa Valley, the ranch was not planted with grapes when Kurt first moved in, but lay fallow, most likely due to the benign passive neglect of the Hamm family, owners of the property.  But the properties on both sides, and their adjacent properties up and down the valley, were cultivated with rows and rows upon rows of Cabernet Sauvignon grape vines.  The vines were protected against early spring frosts by smudge pots, whose smoke would be circulated among the vines by large fans.  The muffled roar of their propellors, usually activated from after midnight through dawn, was dubbed by Kurt “the Krypto-Tibetan Luftwaffe”.

Throughout the summer the grapes thrived in the hot days and cool nights, their bunches swelling from small green pearls to plump reddish orbs swollen with juice.  When their moment had arrived, the grapes were harvested in a rush, crews of guest workers moving diligently down the rows with no time to spare. 

Grape bunches not deemed ready for pressing were left on the vine.  As these abandoned treasures ripened slowly in the weeks following the harvest, they were available to be plucked, held up against the sky, and squeezed, their sun warmed and sweet juices dripping and dribbling into and over mouth and throat, the kindly and bountiful gift of Dionysus.

the river

Highway 29 to the west and the Silverado Trail to the east run parallel to the Napa River, which flows through the heart of the valley.  The east end of the ranch abutted the river.  Although it was the essential defining feature of the valley, the river was blessedly ignored by the valley’s activity, untouched and “unimproved”, a secluded and natural preserve openly hidden in the midst of an intensely cultivated landscape.  The banks of the river were lined with trees, reeds, bushes, and grasses of every kind, in a tumbling jumble, giving off that unmistakable bittersweet smell of riverine vegetation.  The river was still home to a range of wildlife, presided over by a regal blue heron.  Good sized fish swam lazily, and most dramatically a population of eels anchored their tails in the riverbed and stretched their bodies vertically to undulate in the current. Birds of all kinds, of course, fluttered and chattered constantly.  Turtles, frogs, and the occasional snake came and went, through the bushes, across the sand, in and out of the water.

The lushness of the climate and soil, and the plant and animal life that enjoyed it, made it easy to see why the Napa and Sonoma valleys were said to be the most densely populated areas north of Tenochtitlan (today’s Mexico City) prior to the European invasion. The river had obviously been a luxuriant hunting ground for centuries, evidenced now by the abundance of obsidian arrow heads and even spear points found in the sand and pebbles lining the river.  Every year, the winter rains washed away a bit more of the banks, exposing more artefacts for discovery in the next spring and summer.

A few spots along the river were graced by sandy beaches, where Kurt and the ranch family wiled away indolent summer afternoons, bathing in the river and in the sun, picnicing, playing, snoozing and boozing in a hidden world that could have been one of the secret valleys of Himalyan legend.

the dogs

Dogzilla was the first dog of the ranch.  Kurt said he found her as a puppy when he visited the Hopi homeland in Arizona.  He rescued her from a Hopi child who was tormenting her and brought her home to the ranch.  Dogzilla carried herself with a calm, alert and regal air, like an Egyptian Anubis.  She of course was given the run of the ranch, indoors as well as outdoors — house, deck, fields, river — and she had a personalized wavelength of communication with Kurt.  Dogzilla was never a beggar — on the contrary, she let it be known that she deserved her own place at the table, where she always displayed dignified manners and decorum.

At what was probably her first heat, she was knocked up and bore a small litter.  The sire was unknown, but from the looks of Dog Juan, must have been a long hair.  Dog Juan was her sole surviving pup and she cared for him well and taught him the ways of the rabbit, the squirrel, the skunk, and the human. He looked nothing like her, but had her same dignity, calm confident sense of responsibility for the ranch, and personal communication channel with Kurt.

Dogzilla met a tragic end one day on Highway 29, and was deeply mourned.  Her spirit lived on through her progeny Dog Juan, who remained with Kurt through his entire tenure at the ranch and beyond.

the music

Basically, at the ranch the music never stopped.  This was before the time of CD’s and streaming, and Kurt had a large collection of LP’s, primarily of “world music”.  The world of Kurt’s music in large part stretched in a band from the Andes in the west eastward through Africa into the eastern Mediterranean, Arabia, Persia, and on across India, but included many other traditions — Flamenco, Japanese, Turkish, and so on. Although he had an extensive collection of 45’s, the basis of his UCLA lectures on rock and roll, less modern American music was played at the ranch than its ancestral traditions from Chad, Burundi, and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa.  Kurt was particularly fond of the Indian shenai player Bismillah Khan, inspiring Kurt to learn to play the instrument himself.  The turntable was in the living room where most of the music was played and the dancing danced, but in pleasant weather the speakers were often put on the deck ourside. At other times, the deck resonated with the sounds of the tabla accompanying north Indian singing by Kurt’s friend Harish.

the ladies

[this section intentionally left blank (save this statement itself) to protect the not so innocent.]

the uncontrolled substances

[same as the ladies]

the visitors

For years, Kurt taught his classes at Sac State on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Weekends at the ranch ran from Friday through Monday.  The ranch had intermittent residents, regular guests, occasional guests, drop in’s, drop out’s, friends of friends, academics, artists, spiritual teachers, spiritual learners, and spiritual seekers of every discipline and lack of discipline.  Kurt was ever a gregarious host, constant chef, chief clown, dancing bear, and ringmaster of the nonstop circus.

The first large group gathering at the ranch was a three day meditation retreat led by a popular Tibetan lama, Chime Rinpoche, who was based in London where he curated the Tibetan collection at the British Museum.  Fifty or so people attended the retreat, which was held in the living room.  Since the limited plumbing facilities in the house were inadequate to accommodate that large a group, a latrine was dug in a suitable spot on the grounds.  Many of the meditators were unprepared for this close a return to nature, and were greatly relieved at the arrival of orange colored port-a-potties.  Chime Rinpoche returned in the following year to lead another retreat, and in the years after the ranch hosted numerous teachings and retreats in various traditions.*

Kurt’s life at the ranch for the most part predated the TV soap opera that turned Napa Valley into a tourist mecca to rival Disneyland.  But Highway 29 was already subject to heavy weekend usage as wine touring grew in popularity.  Occasionally a car would venture down the lane, undeterred by the road condition or the “no trespassing” sign.  They would lower a window and peer out behind their sunglasses asking if this was a winery.  Once a helpful and enterprising visitor arrived uninvited and generously offered to cut down the “nuisance” eucalyptus trees and haul away the cuttings, all at no cost to Kurt.  Kurt advised him that every one of those trees had been planted by his grandmother by hand, and he would no more allow any of them to be cut down than he would dig up his grandmother’s grave and scatter her bones.  The visitor got the message and retreated back down the lane.

the fire

Nobody knows how the fire started, but it ignited near the highest point of the house close to the chimney.  Kurt kept the charred remains of an electrical connection that may have shorted near the roof, and dismissed the idea that burning the wrappings of his many birthday gifts in the fireplace on a hot dry July day had anything to do with it. Some suggested that the pitch accumulated in the chimney from burning eucalyptus played a role. Whatever the cause, the result was irreparable damage to the house, fortunately without injury to any person or pet, but condemning the structure as uninhabitable.  Many books, art, and objects accumulated by Kurt over the years were destroyed by fire or by water, but much survived.  Circumstances allowed Kurt to move shortly thereafter across Highway 29 to a house on the eastern slope of the Mayacamas, on an “emerald shaped” property with a small outdoor pool, where he lived for a few years before moving to Davis*.  The law of impermanence had rung its bell, and the dream that was the Diamond Sufi Ranch had gone up in smoke.

Joe Duane
April 1, 2018

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CLIFF NOTES:
(provided by Cliff Barney)

the lane: But not by Kurt, who habitually drove over around and through the holy mess as fast as he could in his VW bug.  And when that became impossible, he cut out to the right and created a whole new path through the grass to one side.

the bamboo:  Super Dave eventually moved to Montreal, where he took up making classical flutes that were of great renown.

the sweathouses:  The stones, glowing red-hot, were shoveled into large galvanized tubs and carried into the sweathouse.  One of us would carry a hose inside and douse those gasping for breath until the heat became too much for everyone, hose or no, and we all fled to the icy bathhouse water.  At one time, my then two-year-old son Ezra followed us into the bathhouse, slipped on the tile and fell, causing him to yell with surprise and imagined pain.  Kurt picked him up and tried to comfort him, but Ez continued to yell, at which Kurt carried him to the edge of the pool and unceremoniously dropped him in.  He came up yelling louder than ever and I jumped in and held him lest he drown.  Ez never forgot the event, but he eventually forgave Kurt for it, and the two became lifelong friends.

the river:  The river being normally too shallow for swimming, we would play on the riverbanks.  Occasionally Kurt and I would take some of the kids down and make stone castles out of the cubical red and green rocks that lay like so many toy blocks on the sand.  Kurt could make a game out of any situation.

the visitors:  Just before the end of one of Lama Chime’s visits, a group of ranch hands were sitting around the kitchen table when a guest appeared bearing a huge sack, which he opened and poured on the table.  The contents were fresh peyote buttons, picked the day before, we were told, in Texas.  At that moment the lama entered the room on his way out, glanced at the tabletop and its contents, smiled lightly, and departed.

the fire:  Via a sojourn at 2121 Russell Street in Berkeley, a venerable house more than 100 years old, whose gardens were watered by a hand-dug, brick-lined 65-foot well, and which had its own baraka.