November 7-14

The meadow map board has been taken in for the season and life at camp continues to flow on into the generally quieter rhythms of late Fall. Tiffany and Maia ended their fellowships last week, while Crystal is staying on through the end of the month.


Meanwhile, it is quite busy on the building maintenance front, as Mike and Thea settle into their jobs. The interior work at the RMC also continues to move along as Gregory Reboulet prepares the walls for a coat of mud. Greg and his wife Janie live here on Orcas and have been involved with the camp for nearly fifteen years. They’ve attended family camps, Jamal’s gatherings, interfaith weeks, Sacred Sound and Deep Singing programs. Greg is an accomplished musician and producer. For several years now he has helped prepare recordings of the Deep Singing program. He is also adept at Feng Shui and is utilizing the insights of that practice in helping us choose appropriate colors for the RMC walls.

Signs and Portents

Earlier this year, Rick Crease prepared a yet to be published article for Meadow Musings (the next issue should be in your hands soon!) on Indralaya’s signs. In the following excerpt, he shares some of his insights about the “SOUND” sign that has been visible along the road into camp for a number of years:

The first sign you see after you arrive on the other side of the camp gate is the slightly eerie and mysterious “SOUND”. It is painted on a weathered and bowed old board that is attached to a large tree about fifteen feet above the road. The sign warns you of oncoming traffic yet seems also to speak of something less apparent and more layered in significance. The Sound of Silence? The Sound of God? Evidently, the driveway was once marked with three signs some fifteen yards apart. As you progressed towards camp, the signs read “SOUND MIND”, “SOUND BODY”, and then “SOUND HORN”. Weather and neglect have caused the disappearance of the original three signs, but somehow the first half of the “sound horn” sign managed to survive...

Until recently. For now the SOUND sign has mysteriously disappeared. The tree is still there, but the sign is gone.

Where's the sign?

Just below this bend in the road is a modern day midden deposited by past generations of Indralaya’ites, back in the day when it was commonplace to simply back the truck up to the edge of the road and dump refuse over the side. In looking for the missing sign we were drawn to the refuse piles and came across this ancient relic, probably left over from sometime in the 1950’s or 60’s.

In those days, Shasta soda drinks were very popular. This is a can of "True Fruit" Black Cherry Flavored Soda, with the well-known (to people of my generation anyway) 'it HASTA be SHASTA' tag line added just below.

Yew Too

In a previous entry (October 25-31) the demise of much of the yew tree overlooking the stairs to near east beach was discussed. The question was raised of whether this was the only lonely yew to be found at camp. In the interesting way that these questions sometimes answer themselves, a second yew has been found ... this one overlooking the stairs to far east beach! Coincidence or intelligent design? Yew be the judge.