WEBVTT - 3 | Tree Time 0:00:02.080 --> 0:00:04.760 The Red Weather is a work of fiction. Any resemblance 0:00:04.800 --> 0:00:07.360 to actual persons or events reflects the adaptation of real, 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:10.959 publicly available materials for creative and legal reasons. The content 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:13.640 of this podcast is the sole responsibility of Red Weather 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:16.560 LLC and does not reflect the views of responsibilities of 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:22.040 iHeartMedia or its affiliates. Previously on The Red Weather in 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:25.200 nineteen ninety five, my neighbor and a trainer disappeared from 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:25.640 a commune. 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:28.920 So this guy was called the Father or something creepy 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:31.960 like that. Very much polyamory, kind of like dude has 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:33.360 a bunch of wives kind of thing. 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:35.880 I was with Anna's sister Willow that night. 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:38.360 If you were on the TenderHearts property, then none of 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:39.200 the adults were there. 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:41.760 They were all on the Sunrise seance hike. 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:43.800 Yeah, it was only a few days before their Tenderheart's 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:44.720 alibi at Felippart. 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:46.919 What are you saying that they weren't at the Sunds, 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:57.400 not all of them? 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:03.960 Good morning, good morning, good morning. I have. 0:01:05.480 --> 0:01:10.039 Tucked myself into a little space by. 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:11.720 The wood shed, out of the rain. 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:15.720 I think it's a perfect place and a perfect time 0:01:16.160 --> 0:01:18.680 for a ramble. 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:23.000 This is Elrick Light aka Eric Lidsky, the man who 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:25.080 founded a commune next to me when I was a kid. 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:32.640 Anyone here that's living with us on this beautiful homestead 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:36.759 here in Sebastopol will tell you. I'm very particular about 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:40.080 my spots. I have a big believer that there are 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:47.920 positive spots and that there are not so positive spots. 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:51.640 These were recorded sometime between nineteen eighty eight and nineteen 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:54.360 ninety two, while he walked in the woods or sat 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:57.280 in meadows places I might have been roaming around in 0:01:57.360 --> 0:01:58.960 two me and Willow. 0:01:58.840 --> 0:02:01.760 Take this with you, suit along to these people if 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:05.800 you can. And many of these people that we're discussing 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:08.320 with heart and hearts aren't ready to hear the message. 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:12.959 And that's fine. Sometimes it's enough to deliver the message. 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:17.399 But between the lectures or sermons, there are human moments 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:18.960 that are really specific. 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:32.399 There's an owl I've named him Jabberwaukee. 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:33.919 And sometimes bizarre. 0:02:34.600 --> 0:02:40.959 Why do I rock nicely? Why do I rock myself? 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:47.720 Do I rock myself to sleep at night? What's the difference? 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:52.480 I kept listening waiting for something. I'm not sure what. 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:55.240 It's not like he was suddenly going to start talking 0:02:55.280 --> 0:02:59.720 about human sacrifice or mentioned and a trainer. In fact, 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:01.360 he doesn't mention any names. 0:03:01.480 --> 0:03:05.760 Let it fall, let it fall, let it fall, let 0:03:05.800 --> 0:03:12.480 it fall, let it fall, and be free, Be free. 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:17.240 But his commitment is intense, and sometimes the line between 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:21.240 a sermon and something more personal gets blurry. 0:03:27.200 --> 0:03:33.480 I've done bad things, I know what, just like you, 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:39.120 Just like all of you, I sit and I pretend. 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:44.640 And because I want to be. 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:48.200 That vision of. 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:52.600 What I know, I am capable of being. 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:55.840 So I pretend. 0:03:58.840 --> 0:03:59.240 I know what. 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:03.160 I'm gonna do it again. No, I don't want to 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:05.960 do it again. I'm going to do it again. 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:09.840 Again. I don't want to do it again. 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:13.720 When I went home to look into Anna's disappearance, I 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:15.320 knew I was going to have to learn as much 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:17.480 as I could about el Rick and the collective he 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:20.479 ran called Tender Hearts. Since Anna lived there before she 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:23.920 vanished in nineteen ninety five, I figured things would get 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:28.720 a little new age, spiritual, little hippie dippy. But I 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:32.679 never expected what I did find. I am actor and filmmaker, 0:04:32.720 --> 0:05:30.200 right or strong. This is the red weather. Okay, let's 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:34.080 try this again. I was a week into going back 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:36.760 to my hometown and researching Anna's case. I was still 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:40.320 mostly just playing catch up to the investigation. I'm calling 0:05:40.640 --> 0:05:47.200 from my parents' landline, so idea doesn't come up. Sheriff Maldonado, 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:50.000 who had led that investigation back in nineteen ninety five, 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:51.839 told me that things would make more sense if I 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:54.919 got access to the official case file. Hello, Hi, this 0:05:55.040 --> 0:05:58.640 is Ryder Strong. I'm calling again for Grace Lachlan and 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:02.520 the current sheriff. Grace Blachlan had promised to share transcripts 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:05.599 of some witness interviews, but I hadn't heard back from 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:09.000 her for days, and the people in her office didn't 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:12.320 seem to have time for me. Everything's in storage, so 0:06:12.560 --> 0:06:13.320 it's not easy. 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:16.359 We have one building for the whole county. 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:17.839 You're a meddlin. You're a medling. 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:20.560 My buddy Chris was helping me. You're like every housewife 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:23.320 with a Facebook page who's playing Internet sloop. 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:24.359 She's got a theory. 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:26.640 So why don't I, you know, even if it's a 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:29.080 complete nothing burger, why don't I bring them a pager? Okay, 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:30.320 so you're going to go to the sheriff with a 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.039 busty pager that your dead dog buried. I knew Chris 0:06:33.120 --> 0:06:35.120 was right. I had already admitted to the cops that 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:36.760 I had lied to them when I was fifteen, and 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:38.360 so if I was ever going to get their help 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:40.760 and learning about the case, I had to play it cool. 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:45.120 Going back over the details about that night, I really 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:47.960 begun to think that Anna's boyfriend Mick had something to 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:51.400 do with her disappearance. But then after talking to Maldonatto, 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:54.720 it was becoming clear that the Sheriff's department was way 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:58.000 more interested in Tender Hearts and its leader, Elrick Light. 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:01.360 But as far as I knew, and it disappeared, all 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:03.320 the adults of Tender Hearts had hiked up to Mount 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:06.920 Saint Helena for a sunrise seance, right and suff for 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:10.960 l Rick. Oh so you knew this too, yeah, almost immediately. 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:13.640 Monica Tremblaine was reporting for The Press Democrat in nineteen 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:14.200 ninety five. 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:16.480 It was only a few days after Anna was missing 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:18.640 that the seance story it fell apart. 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:21.840 A few of the women came forward. So where was 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:25.400 he and what did that mean for the investigation? And 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:28.480 who were Tender Hearts in the first place. When I 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:32.040 started interviewing friends, I quickly realized I knew very little 0:07:32.120 --> 0:07:37.560 about their alternative living situations. Orion's commune had failed. Almost immediately. 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:40.680 The community kind of got a little more contentious and 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:42.800 a little more distance and kind of factioned off. 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:44.640 You know, my mom describes it kind of just like, 0:07:44.760 --> 0:07:46.240 you know, not really lasting. 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:48.280 There were a lot of strong personalities out there, you know, 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:50.160 people who want to get away from it all. 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:52.880 I think have some strong reasons sometimes. 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:55.520 And I didn't realize that my friend Cole's parents actually 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:57.800 met when his dad was handing out pamphlets for a 0:07:57.840 --> 0:07:59.160 cult in San Francisco. 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:00.480 I don't think lasted. 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:03.880 It didn't last, and it's like, hey, let's build a 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:07.640 spaceship form much into the eighties. It was called Stell 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:11.520 and they had a charismatic leader that was quite questionable, 0:08:11.880 --> 0:08:16.480 but the plan was to build a spaceship to escape 0:08:16.480 --> 0:08:18.640 the end of the world in two thousand and four. 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:24.680 Obviously it came and gone, but I'm pretty sure kind 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:28.160 of folded up when it realized that rocket building was hard. 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:32.160 I'm just assuming. I'm just assuming that like a bunch 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:35.680 of people out in cornfields just realize their limitation about 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:36.559 building rocket. 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:39.800 The tender hearts weren't that unusual for the area. But 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:43.599 of course, once Anna disappeared. There were a lot of 0:08:43.679 --> 0:08:44.520 questions about them. 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:48.400 A big part of the problem was they were just secretive. 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:50.959 They didn't want to talk to the cops. I mean, 0:08:50.960 --> 0:08:54.440 they didn't trust anybody, but they really didn't trust authority figures. 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:57.760 They had been targeted before by Maldon Auto specifically. 0:08:57.960 --> 0:08:58.160 Yeah. 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:00.760 Yeah, we had them up on a few violations. They 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:02.320 had problem with one of their neighbors, had to do 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:04.600 with with a truck or something. 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:06.920 There was some argument over noise and they took the 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:08.280 tires off a neighbor's tractor. 0:09:08.600 --> 0:09:11.040 That escalated to some incidents with animals. 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:14.520 They had lamas. Oh that's right, I remember them. 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:16.599 Yeah, Well, some of those lamas would get out and 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:18.280 then they'd get sick. 0:09:18.480 --> 0:09:22.160 At some point, there were accusations about poisoning. Well, I 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:24.840 just remember, you gotta understand. 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:27.080 I get out there and I'm just I'm there to 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:29.400 calm the situation, you know, cool it down a little bit. 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:33.000 But you got a group of women, very very angry 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:37.400 women in there. They're topless, some of them even buttoning. 0:09:37.920 --> 0:09:40.680 If there was a confrontation or if someone walked on 0:09:40.800 --> 0:09:43.559 to the property. The women of Tender Hearts liked to 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:46.440 enact what they called a skin bombing. 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:50.199 They'd go out and nake it. I kind of love 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:53.600 the It was a very specific, non violent tactic. 0:09:53.960 --> 0:09:57.480 It throws you off, you know, put you on guard, 0:09:57.480 --> 0:09:58.960 and I'm not talking about it in a good way. 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:01.600 One thing about growing up in West County, if there 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:04.640 was ever a gathering of some sort, there was always 0:10:04.720 --> 0:10:07.960 at least one person naked. A lot of confusing messages. 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:10.840 A lot of it was like, you know, people are swimming, 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:12.839 or you know, like you got a pool and people, 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:13.800 you know, we were in the. 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:14.840 Hot tub pool or whatever. 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:18.959 My parents' friends were definitely hippies and of the casually 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.120 nude variety when there was any call for it. 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:24.400 It was part of the culture, a general belief in 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:29.000 who needs clothes? Be natural. It wasn't threatening or anything, 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:32.160 but still as casual as I think the adults wanted 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:34.280 it to be. When you're a kid, you could never 0:10:34.440 --> 0:10:36.600 not notice it. If Will and I went to that 0:10:36.760 --> 0:10:40.160 like main area, the kind of deck that wasn't finished, 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:43.760 that with the boards laid on the ground, there might 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:45.640 be someone naked because. 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:47.800 They had an outdoor shower that was right there. Yes, 0:10:48.120 --> 0:10:50.160 And I always felt like it was a little weird. 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:52.800 But I didn't feel like I could say it was weird. 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:54.440 You know, because if you did, you would be lame. 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:58.120 But beyond the skin bombing and fights with neighbors, I 0:10:58.160 --> 0:11:01.720 wanted to know what they were all about. I found 0:11:01.760 --> 0:11:06.480 a historian who specializes in intentional communities, which I learned 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:09.080 is the newer preferred term for a commune. 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:11.600 Hey, how great. Thanks. 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:14.959 Howard Tripp is the author of two books, counter Topia, 0:11:15.040 --> 0:11:17.640 which covers the communities of the nineteen sixties and seventies, 0:11:17.840 --> 0:11:20.600 and West of Eden, which chronicles the rise and fall 0:11:20.679 --> 0:11:22.600 of small religious sects in the area. 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:24.880 I hope you don't mind my little friends. 0:11:24.880 --> 0:11:25.520 You are right with that. 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:26.160 Oh yeah. 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:29.600 Howard's other hobby is ants. Yeah, so, how long have 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:31.960 you been farming them? 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:35.160 It's been I mean it's been over a decade. 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:37.080 He has an entire wall of his house that is 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:39.640 a series of ant farms, or, as I learned, they're 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:41.080 called former carrea. 0:11:41.160 --> 0:11:44.880 But one of the things I've always been fascinated by ICs. 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:48.319 Oh like, that's like pheromones, right, right, exactly. 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:51.599 But you're talking about how an individual ant senses the 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:55.280 world around them, the perception of what's real, what's happening. 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:57.760 It can be altered completely like a drug. 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:01.440 Even more than that, it's it's their actual sense of reality. 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:03.520 It's not you'll have like a colony, right thin get 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:07.119 invaded and they start working for another species. 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:09.520 They don't even know why, and they're just as happy. 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:13.120 They just just want to do Tripid research tender Hearts 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:15.440 for his books, but they ultimately didn't make the cut. 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:19.599 Well, if we're talking about the major communities from Sonoma County, Headwinds, 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:22.959 morning Star, the Farm before they went to Tennessee, you're 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:26.000 talking about these are much bigger operations groups that were 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:28.439 formalized in ways that Tender Hearts they could never really 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:29.400 get it together. 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:33.120 Well, how many people were in it? It's like, oh wow, yeah, 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:33.839 very small. 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:37.120 But then for your second book, wouldn't they have counted 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:38.480 as a spiritual group? 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:41.400 You yeah, you would think that's uh, that's the sixty 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:43.080 four thousand dollars question, isn't it meaning? 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:46.560 Were they even technically a religion? Did they have a 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:47.280 belief system? 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:48.520 I know, I know what this looks like. 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:49.559 These don't judge. 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:51.920 Trip has an entire guest house behind his main house. 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:53.400 It's full of books and papers. 0:12:54.400 --> 0:12:56.199 Okay, here are some of Elerick's newsletters. 0:12:56.800 --> 0:12:59.600 Cool, we have these signs they put up. 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.520 Yeah, and there are tapes of this lecture series. 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:04.359 Oh wait, what really recordings? 0:13:04.960 --> 0:13:06.520 Yeah, yeah somewhere. 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:07.760 Oh my god, I would. 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:09.640 Love to hear those, Which is how I got ten 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:11.640 hours of el Ric light talking. 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:13.640 Well, let's just jump into it. 0:13:13.760 --> 0:13:17.040 We'll start with our invocation. 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:17.920 As we always do. 0:13:18.840 --> 0:13:20.360 I am of the Earth. 0:13:21.840 --> 0:13:27.120 From the earth. I burn with a fire inside that 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:33.200 I promised to maintain, with the thick skin and a 0:13:33.320 --> 0:13:34.040 tender heart. 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.720 I actually found the tapes kind of soothing. There's definitely 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:40.120 a lot of jargon. Elrick liked to make up his 0:13:40.160 --> 0:13:40.840 own terms. 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:45.320 This is what we might call skymine is not the 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:52.400 only directo. Locusts and arrive at the choiceless awareness. 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:54.480 Elric is earnest, thoughtful. 0:13:54.840 --> 0:14:02.160 We can absorb energetic facts by existing in in what 0:14:02.320 --> 0:14:10.240 Castanano would call the the kernel of non ordinary reality. 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:12.560 And he goes out of his way to reject his 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:13.360 own authority. 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:16.880 No, I am not York or. 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:21.240 I am not anyone's savior. 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:23.800 One of the most exciting moments is when he gets 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:25.720 frustrated with his recording equipment. 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:36.400 My ankles burst under the weight of ill consumed mother 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:43.880 fucking dammit. Really, Mike was off the whole time. My 0:14:44.160 --> 0:14:53.080 ankles burst under the weight of ill conceived compulsions, and 0:14:53.280 --> 0:15:00.040 I limped my way, like the hurried hair past Alice 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:06.360 into wonderland where only those with thrones and axes reigned. 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:11.960 What are you living for? Where are you going? Late? 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:12.560 Late? 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:14.520 Always late for? 0:15:14.720 --> 0:15:16.080 What? For? 0:15:16.280 --> 0:15:16.360 What? 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:20.560 For what? It's not real? 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:25.840 None of it is real. 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:32.280 You have been tricked, You've been lied too. 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:36.280 This section, like when he says he's going to do 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:42.200 it again, feels raw, emotional and personal, but otherwise for 0:15:42.360 --> 0:15:47.640 ten tapes, Elric is a teacher. He stays abstract and philosophical. 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:53.880 A unique worldview does evolve a metaphysics. He's inspired a 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:57.680 little by Krishna Murdi and a lot by Carlos Castanetta. 0:15:58.080 --> 0:16:02.400 There's this belief in the positive power of psychedelic drugs 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:07.280 and something he calls tree Time, which begins with the 0:16:07.320 --> 0:16:09.560 story of him being high on mescaline. 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:21.080 Minutes can feel like hours, seconds could be a lifetime. 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:24.560 But it gets somewhere kind of interesting. A baby cries. 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:30.360 She cries if she's hungry or stared, and in that 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:36.880 moment she might think this feeling will never end. 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:46.200 But as we grow, we grow into a different time consciousness. 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:50.280 Oh my gosh, so time moves faster as you get older. 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:56.360 Listen, if you consider a human life and you put 0:16:56.360 --> 0:16:59.680 it on a scale of the semper baus. 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:02.200 That's what he called redwoods, Of course he did. 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:06.720 That's from their scientific name, or their Latin binomial sequoia sempaveerans. 0:17:07.080 --> 0:17:09.760 We're talking about three thousand years. 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:11.880 And in that context, what's a day? 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:13.880 What's a day? 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:14.680 What's a year? 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:21.399 In three time seasons? Last three days. 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:28.240 All of American history would happen before you were eight 0:17:28.359 --> 0:17:33.359 years old. A child who would be born grow to 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:37.480 be twelve in the span of a summer vacation. 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:41.200 What is dude talking about time perception? 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:44.080 He's scaling a human life up to a redwood tree. 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:48.360 And look, I did the math. Of course, he's actually right. 0:17:48.680 --> 0:17:52.880 If you take one hundred years or the best human lifespan, sure, 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:55.320 and you stretch that over three thousand, it's thirty times. 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:58.680 So one hour is thirty hours. Just over a day, 0:17:58.760 --> 0:18:01.960 that's one point two five days. And yes, a month 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:04.520 would go by in a day, winter would last three days. 0:18:04.520 --> 0:18:08.800 So all of his comparisons are exactly right. You need 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:11.280 a break, probably, Yeah. 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:26.240 Imagine wisdom that scale the inside. 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:34.600 Well, from the outside, it looked like your classic guru 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:35.720 cult situation. 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:39.880 Yeah, well, I mean if it's all the tropes, right, Oh, yes, absolutely. 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:44.240 You've got a charismatic leader, he's got a new spiritual 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:47.840 take on life, and he runs off. He has a 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:48.359 bunch of. 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:52.640 Whys, right right, right right, Except none of that, none 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:55.040 of what you actually just said was actually true. 0:18:56.200 --> 0:19:10.399 Those are all lies. When I started this podcast, one 0:19:10.440 --> 0:19:13.360 of my main questions about Tender Hearts, which was kind 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:16.520 of naive, was was it a commune or was it 0:19:16.640 --> 0:19:20.959 a cult? It turns out neither, and those categories are 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:22.080 kind of fuzzy to begin with. 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:26.760 Had ideas later on, it's not how it started. 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:31.080 It turns out Tender Hearts didn't begin as a religion 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:34.000 or a political movement or even a philosophy. 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:35.639 It grew out of a woman shelter. 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:38.800 Really before he found a Tender Hearts, Eric Letsky was 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.960 an employee of the Pavilion House. Pavilion was at the 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:44.119 forefront of a wave of shelters that sprung up in 0:19:44.119 --> 0:19:47.040 the late seventies with what was then a pretty radical 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:50.879 idea that women might need their own place, a designated 0:19:50.880 --> 0:19:52.200 shelter away from men. 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:56.440 He helped run the whole thing until eighty five eighty six. 0:19:56.760 --> 0:19:59.960 They were your classic San Francisco liberals, in your face 0:20:00.320 --> 0:20:00.960 and aggressive. 0:20:01.040 --> 0:20:02.920 Eleric got into trouble with the city officials. 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:07.480 Four protesters were arrested today outside city Hall amidst ongoing 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:11.080 tensions between the city council and the Pavilion House. 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:15.080 The distinction between a homeless shelter and a domestic violence 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:18.120 center was a blurry line that was still being worked out, 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:21.920 and in the early eighties, the owners of Pavilion wanted 0:20:21.960 --> 0:20:25.320 to expand the shelter by allowing men to join, but 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:29.480 for some of the women and Elric, this was anathema. 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:33.560 It was a split in the Pavilion organization. There was 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:36.879 Elric on one side and the owners and city officials 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:40.880 on the other. Around the same time, Elrick came into 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:41.359 some money. 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:44.400 The assumption is that maybe one of his parents or 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:48.040 perhaps grandparents passed away, but nobody knows for sure. 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:50.800 So he pulled up stakes, left the city and bought 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:55.120 fifty acres in West Sonoma County. The fifty acres right 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:58.439 next to my parents, and so the women were. 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:01.159 He got them off from the shelter, them personally and 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:03.760 their kids to come live off the land. 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:06.200 Besides Anna and Willow, there were only a few other kids. 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:10.280 I remember a boy named Josiah and a girl named Francis, 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:13.680 and maybe one more. We called them grammets. 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:16.480 I felt antagonized by them. I felt like they were 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.720 actively annoying to us. I think we might have just 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:21.879 been hating on younger kids. 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:24.960 They were wild, right, I mean, you know, it was 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:29.080 like they were just kind of roaming free, and they 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:31.760 were a pack, like I definitely remember it being a pack. 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:35.280 It's like just a group of like loud, dirty kids, 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:39.359 like and they had attitude, like they were strong. Basically, 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:41.760 it's like an outdoor version of a women's shelter. 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:44.000 Yeah, it was like a camp or a farm for 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:45.600 women escaping domestic violence. 0:21:45.720 --> 0:21:49.120 Everything I learned about Tender Hearts, but especially this, made 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:51.280 it even more important that I get in touch with 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:56.119 Anna and Willow's mom, Laaney. I'd always thought of her 0:21:56.160 --> 0:22:00.159 as some sort of New age counter cultural seekers her, 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:04.200 But if she came from a women's shelter in San Francisco, 0:22:04.520 --> 0:22:07.879 if she was escaping an abusive situation and brought her 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:10.960 daughters to raise them in the woods. That's a very 0:22:11.000 --> 0:22:14.639 different person, Laney, Hi, it's rather or strong. 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:18.119 How are you. I hope you're doing all right. 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:23.320 For weeks I'd left messages. Weirdly, this new understanding of 0:22:23.359 --> 0:22:26.960 the tender hearts was more radical and ahead of its 0:22:26.960 --> 0:22:32.119 time than any of Elric's professed insights like tree Time 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:36.720 or Directo Locust. He was actually creating what nowadays you 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:40.640 would call a safe space for women. But we didn't 0:22:40.640 --> 0:22:44.480 know any of that. Anybody local just saw a polygamous cult, 0:22:44.760 --> 0:22:48.560 and interestingly Elrick and the women let that happen. 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:53.479 So these, if you could see, they would post these 0:22:53.480 --> 0:22:54.080 all around the town. 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:57.879 Oh wow, Elric started spreading his teachings. So I'm looking 0:22:57.920 --> 0:23:03.280 at there's a drawer of a kind of elephant plant person. 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:03.920 What else? 0:23:03.960 --> 0:23:04.480 What do you see? 0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:05.760 All right? 0:23:05.840 --> 0:23:06.919 Well, there's text. 0:23:07.119 --> 0:23:07.840 No look closer. 0:23:07.920 --> 0:23:10.600 What are you missing? I don't know what is it? 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:11.600 It's a lotus position? 0:23:11.720 --> 0:23:15.040 Oh yeah, all right, so it says you are a 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:19.360 goddess Gaya shakti terra isis what do you see all 0:23:19.400 --> 0:23:23.200 around the world? Women of sounder minds and tender hearts 0:23:23.440 --> 0:23:28.320