1978 Taste the Soup!

My friend Mary Lee Chapman encouraged me to go to the Temple of the Universe, "a yoga and meditation center where people of any religion or set of beliefs can come together to experience inner peace." It was founded in 1975 by Mickey Singer. I met people there who became forever friends, like the famous Walter Busby whom I met in January, 1978. I credit Walter with teaching me what it means to "be here now." I once wrote an article explaining how he accomplished it using a bowl of cucumber soup as an example. If you would like to read it, it's at http://mysticplanet.com/BE/BE-contents.htm. Click on "Taste the Soup."

Soon I was driving back and forth from Gainesville to the Temple three times a week. I decided I'd prefer to have a house near the Temple in the quiet little town of Hague. I guess I was in the flow because a man, a surveyor by trade, popped right into my life. His life-long dream was to build a house from scratch, all by himself. He called it his "mountain to climb." So Ray built me a beautiful two-story house of wood. When it was done, he moved away and fulfilled another dream of his, to buy a big sailboat and take off by himself for wherever the wind took him. A few years later, he died. Rest in peace, Ray.

The Temple of the Universe's website is at   http://www.tou.org/. While you're there, you may want to read an excerpt from Mickey's new book,"The Untethered Soul:the journey beyond yourself."  It's from Chapter 15: The Path of Unconditional Happiness.

In 1978, devotees of Baba Muktananda Paramahansa had an ashram in town, the Gainesville Siddha Yoga Meditation Center at 1000 SW 9th Street, managed by Udaya "Biff" Pherigo.  They invited me to join them for chanting on March 7th. It was a celebration of Mahashivaratri, the Great Night of Lord Shiva, a holy day in the Hindu religion. We chanted the mantra Om Namah Shivaya very slowly for 12 straight hours. It opened me up to a personal experience that is one of the defining moments of my life, though not one I share often. Some devotees had met Baba when he made his first trip to the United States in 1970. Gordon and I would meet him in Miami in 1981. He died in India in October, 1982. 

Around that time, I left my job as Office Manager of Shands Hospital Blood Bank to be part of a team of eight whose mission was to organize a community blood bank. It felt like right livelihood to me. Civitan Regional Blood Center (now LifeSouth Community Blood Center) is a hugh success story. From the original eight serving our local hospitals with blood and blood products, it has grown to be the blood supplier for hospitals in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. It was the most challenging job I ever had and the only one I ever got fired from. That's another story about how astrologer David Cochrane taught me how to withdraw my energy from the blood bank that I was so attached to, so I could move on to the next step of my spiritual growth. It worked and only took a couple of weeks. Thanks, David!

During the time the LIST was published in Gainesville, it was easy to find the people who offered products and services that were still considered outside the mainstream. After the 1980 issue, I can't find any new age/holistic newspapers in my collection until 1982. I know that during the missing years, Gainesville was an overflowing melting pot for spiritual exploration. Was I too immersed in my happy new life with Gordon to notice anything else?

Were there other papers then?

Seeds of Awakening

My intention was to keep this historical blog in some kind of chronological order. However, I find myself longing to tread the far corners of my mind, once more repeating my meandering search for the seeds of my awakening to this new way of being in the Universe. Have you done this too?

I think, yes, that was the very beginning, the book/people/event (fill in your own word) that started my spiritual search. Then a prior experience surfaces in my mind and I recognize it as an earlier herald of change. I just didn't know it at the time. This exercise invariably takes me all the way back to my childhood. If you will allow me this self-indulgence, perhaps writing it down once and for all will unearth something I've missed before. It's important to me, yet I know it doesn't matter at all. That strikes me so funny and I'm LOL.

Yes, in 1977 the Temple of the Universe played a major part in my growth. The aroma of incense took me back to Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Catholic Church where I was sent (not taken) to church in my youth. The chanting at the Temple felt familiar too. It reminded me of the haunting melody of Tantum Ergo which we sang in Latin at Mt. Carmel's. But I don't want to go that far back to a time when I was not allowed to read the Bible or basically think for myself.

Before my 1972 divorce, there were the magical years at Santa Fe Community College. In my Italian-American family, going to college was not an option. I was expected to graduate from high school with perfect grades, work at a job, but not a career, until I was married, then continue working until my first child was born. After that I was expected to stay and home and raise my family. Kids were obedient then, at least in my family, and so I did as I was told. Out of respect, they said.

I loved being a mother of four amazing children, two girls and two boys. I still do. By 1969 when my youngest was entering kindergarten, I finally had an opportunity to start college. I felt excited and scared. My then-husband took me by the hand to register at Santa Fe Community College. I will always be grateful to him for that. I felt awkward being an older student at the ripe old age of 33! How surprised I was that there were others my age there, not too many, but we found each other and watched each other change and grow.

I can't find words to explain how that nurturing environment was exactly what I needed to open my mind to new ways of thinking. The other day I found this poem I wrote in 1969 for Ms. Arena's writing class there. I was still Patti Wilson then, a few years away from being single again and taking back my maiden name of Normandy.

The seeds of change were crystal clear in this poem I wrote when I was thirty-three. I was surprised I mentioned zodiac signs, bell bottom pants and love beads. Middle-class Mom was morphing and didn't have a clue.

Springtime, '69
Opening buds, opening minds
Flowers unfold; theories take shape
Grasses grow green. Read Naked Ape
Push up the clock; midnight oil burn
Days getting long; so much to learn

Essays are due--Locke and Rousseau
Papers to write (mind's gonna blow)
Rosenblum, Darwin, empirical proof
(Time out for Trader's, let's go raise the roof)
Permutate, computate, logic obliterate
(Dishes and ironing and sewing all gotta wait)

Erasthenes Seive, Venn Diagrams
Chew it all up and then take the exams
Maslow and Perls (and don't forget Merrill)
If you don't know yourself, that is the peril
First we must actualize, then time to theorize
(Have to economize, that's what I realize)

Lucy and Sharon, Pat and Charles, too
Eating at Anthony's Tuesdays on cue
Haikus are fun: 5-7-5
(Plant's gonna die. Why'd I pick chives?)
Finger arithmetic--zodiac signs
Atlas revisited. (Try Mateuse wine)

Mechanical Boy finally grew up
(Dog had a litter. Do I want a pup?)
Blackfoot and Cheyenne didn't turn me on
But for all the rest, thanks, Mrs. LeBron
Cultural activities--more papers to write
Is Rand just like Nietzsche? (My house is a sight!)

I.Q.s and Haikus; Fregley and Ford
Always the project, never get bored
Bell bottom pants, love beads to match
(Moth in garage is ready to hatch)
Dexedrine, Methedrine--can't go to sleep
Quarter is OVER--collapse in a heap!

The last LIST

A funny thing happened when I checked my blog this morning to edit the next installment. This one was never published after I edited it. Maybe it will show up somewhere else, maybe not. So much for keeping this in chronological order. Linear thinking is vastly over-rated anyway.

Issue #6 of the LIST took me to a natural food restaurant called The Magic Mushroom at 1800 NW 23rd Avenue. It was run by Gloria Brown and Scott Davis.


Paul Hoffman worked there when he first came to Gainesville in 1978, a few years before he published Gainesville's first new age directory. Paul once told me he remembers phoning Hazel Henderson to welcome her to Gainesville. We were excited about her choosing to live in Gainesville because she was a well-known futurist and had just been on the cover of New Age Journal.

There was a 1978 special edition of the LIST called Gainesville People's Pages #7. It cost a quarter. It included the first listing I've found for Mother Earth at 604 NW 13th Street. It was the first health food store I'd ever been in.


Under "Listings" there was another first mention, Flash Silvermoon, who offered Tarot & Astrology Readings, and lessons. Our late son, Joseph, was one of her tarot students who went on to be a great reader himself.  Joe often credited Flash for teaching and inspiring him. Flash arrived here from New York City in 1975 where she had started a Women's Cosmic Consciousness Raising Group and gave readings professionally. I could write a book about the amazing Flash and the good work she has done in our area!


An ad for Duck Stop used comics at 617 W. University reminded me that there were many places I never knew about. I married into a family of guys very much into comics. I'll have to ask if they shopped there.


When I grew up in Brooklyn, comics were big. The boys on the block bought Captain Marvel and Superman (which my mom would not allow me to read because, in her opinion, they were not for girls). The girls bought Pep comics to catch up with Archie and Friends, who were Betty and Veronica and the annoying friend, Reggie. I never could get into them. I only loved Mary Marvel, alias Mary (Batson) Bromfield, twin sister of Captain Marvel. When she arrived on the scene in 1942 in Captain Marvel Adventures #18, Fawcett Publications, she was the closest thing to a heroine the comics offered little girls of my generation. Shazam! But I digress, again.

By 1980, Andy (Astra) Lopez had a Coconut Grove address. I never saw another copy of the LIST.


Years later I asked people for their earliest memory of any publication about anything holistic in Gainesville. Someone told me the first natural food newsletter was called Our Daily Bread, published around 1965 by a family who owned a store by the same name. In time, someone surprised me with an old issue they had saved to add to my growing collection.

Cathy DeWitt added, "Our Daily Bread was a great little store--kind of behind where Mother Earth is now--a lot of musicians hung out there, with occasional jams." Her comment is full of wonderful memories.


Around 1969-71 there was a "Free University" here but I'm not sure if that was its official name. Free classes without grades were held in people's homes and other free locations. Everyone was a teacher and a student and none of the teachers got paid. I remember Hank Gooch teaching a class in Love at my home once. I had taken his popular class at Santa Fe Community College called "Contemporary American Religions" that introduced me to Eastern religions, but that's another subject for a future blog.


In the '70s, devotees of Eastern gurus founded spiritual centers here that offered meditation, chanting, yoga, and other types of instruction. We had the Divine Light Mission (Guru Maharaj Ji), Gainesville Siddha Yoga Dham (Baba Muktananda), the Rajneesh Meditation Center, the Krishna Center, and groups that studied the teachings of Meher Baba and Paramahansa Yogananda, and later a Kripalu Yoga Center (Amrit Desai).

Mickey Singer's Temple of the Universe was already in nearby Hague where it is still a peaceful haven for spiritual seekers of all paths. My friend Mary Lee was watching my interests change and one day at work she told me she thought I was ready to read Mickey Singer's book and check out the Temple. By then, no longer a stranger in a strange new age land, I felt a strong need to meet like-minded people. I went, and it changed my life forever. I loved the meditation and chanting and Mickey's talks. After the Sunday services everyone gathered in a circle outside for tea and sharing. It took no time at all to realize I was a not solitary searching weirdo after all. I had found a spiritual home.


The Transcental Meditation Center was here early on at 1125 SW 2nd Avenue, and the Gainesville Zen Circle (Jan Sendzimir) was already meeting weekly for meditation, chanting, and lessons.


That's just a small sample of the '70s taken straight from the pages of our history books, the new age publications of that time. If this reads like a deja vu, it's because some of it is taken from a series of articles I wrote in 2001. In my incarnation as Patti Normandy, I wrote about this subject for The Lightworker: Gainesville's Visionary Network Paper, published by Cheri Stewart. Cheri was the owner of The Dream Zone store at 4000 Newberry Road.  

I apologize for not including so many people who were doing good work back then. Please know that I honor the work you did, and are still doing, and appreciate the part you played in holding the Light and bringing us to this place in history.