During preparations for the first edition of the “MetaViews – Blueprints for Life“Moments from the infinite reservoir of the soul once again penetrate back into the fleeting surface consciousness and find their voice.”
No, I've never actually been to Big Sur, California, but I have in spirit. It wasn't so much the "Endless Summer of Love" that drew me to the Pacific coast of California as a teenager, but rather Henry Miller's "Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch," his literary exploration of those very intense events when electricity wasn't yet commonplace in homes there. In what is perhaps their most beautiful song, "California Saga, Part III," the Beach Boys sing of that "Big Sur Congregation," where the still-living bard Country Joe filled his niche in space and time.
“And the people there
in the open air
need no electricity”
Henry Miller's highly autobiographical account still breathes that American settler spirit, which then had to flee from the supposed paradise when the destroyer came and called into question everything beautiful, true, and good.
But I'd like to linger a moment longer in the time when Big Sur hadn't yet lost its innocence. In his book, Henry Miller pays tribute to a woman who helped him in life—apparently a being who was, and still is, called an "angel in human form." Anyone who has seen Wim Wenders' film "Wings of Desire" knows what I mean.
Jean P. Wharton was a truly unique personality. She came from the Christian Science movement, but had long since broken away from the church organization and undertaken the life experiment that Mary Baker Eddy called "Stand alone".
“Blueprints for Living” – that was the name of the book by Jean Wharton that I got myself at the time and which should still be available somewhere in my library as a reprint (?).
Source: Text and stage, YouTube channel
