 
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 92 00:47:02 EDT
From: wce@hogbbs.scol.pa.us (Bill Eichman)
Subject: Zendiks
To: +dist+~js9b/Public/camc.dl@andrew.cmu.edu
Message-Id: <457yJB1w165w@hogbbs.scol.pa.us>
Organization: The Heart of Gold BBS, Lemont PA
Comments: Validated

Hello, Folks,                                       April 28, 1992

This past weekend I spent some time talking with Arol Wulf and three
other members of the Zendik Farm, a community that has been mentioned in
other letters here in this mailist.

I first heard about Zendik farm some 4-5 years ago, when one of the
people on my network passed on to me a package of Zendik literature and
a copy of a videotape, "Arol Wulf Raps", distributed by this community.

Some month's ago my beloved gave the videotape of Arol Wulf to some of the
women who were organizing the Earth Day celebration at Penn State
University-- and these women decided to spend some university funds
earmarked for Earth Day to bring Arol Wulf here and have her speak.
I guess because I am a person of some prestige in the ecology activism
groups here at PSU, when the time came it seemed to fall naturally on
my shoulders to take Arol and her friends out for dinner afterwards, and
I ended up being able to "interview" the visiting Zendiks for quite a
few hours, over a period of two days.

So, I'm going to try to encapsulate some of my impressions here, and
bounce them around to folks. Maybe it will stimulate some
possiblilities.

*********************************************************************
From their somewhat less funky flyer:

---------------------------------
ZENDIK FARM ECOLIBRIUM FOUNDATION
---------------------------------

What is Zendik Farm and the Zendick Farm Ecolibrium Foundation?

Zendik farm is a 21-year old intentional community of artists,
craftspeople, and organic farmers. We offer apprenticeship programs to
youth from all over the world. These young people live at this drug-free
community and can learn any art or craft, organic farming techniques,
as well as learning how to build alternative living structures and work
with appropriate technology. They also learn the art of cooperation
within a working alternative social structure.

Recently Zendik Farm has begun to work on amending the constitution
with an ecological Bill of Rights. We've contacted scientists,
activists, and artists throughout the United States to help us draft
this amendment. We feel the validity of this proposal is undeniable and
have found support from many of these people.

The Zendik Farm Ecoloibrium Foundation is dedicated to the
sustainability of the human species through the promotion,
demonstration, and practice of the socio/political philosophy known as
ecolibrium. Ecolibrium's central premise is taking responsibility on a
holistic level, i.e., socially, ecologically, and politically. The
foundation works from this open-ended philosophy as the viable
alternative to the oncoming extinction of the human species. Therefore,
Zrendik farm's primary function is to teach and help others practice
this democratic, ecology-based, and cooperative social structure.

The Zendik Farm Ecolibrium Foundation is committed to the survival and
well-being of all species and to the purity of the elements that sustain
life. A fundamental truth of our time is, that without a dramatic
change from the competitive consumer society to an ecological and
cooperative society, humanity will cease to exist. The technical
knowledge exists right now to heal our earth. Zendik Farm's work is to
pursue and live out the cultural philosophy that can implement this
knowledge. We communicate through numerous artforms such as literature,
music, theatre, dance, and video; and we work to make life Art itself.

We wish to work with as many individuals and groups as our time and
energy allows. We believe in cooperation, not competition. We believe
humans everywhere can get together and create a benevolent, pleasurable
culture.

ZENDIK FARM, Star Route 16C-3, Bastrop, Tx, 78602, (512)321-0604 or 0845


*********************************************************************
From their funky flyer:

                        WHAT IS ZENDIK FARM?

Zendik Farm is a cooperative community of artists, activists, and
organic farmers started 22 years ago by Arol and Wulf Zendik as a refuge
for artists and musicians to work out of the city and free of
conventional resraints. Over the years and through many changes, Zendik
farm has evolved into a radical movement for social and ecological
change. Through opur techniques and way of life we are building a strong
new culture based on honesty, cooperation, creativity, and universal
responsibility. Since our founding in 1969 we have drawn people from
aroundf the world. The group is constantly being infused with new blood,
mostly youth from the ages of 15-25, who are fed up with the way the
world is being ripped off and ruined.

Zendik Farm is a 300-acre certified organic farm outside of Austin,
Texas where we build and design our own housing, do our own mechanics,
and grow our own food without pesticides. We also raise animals, dairy
goats, horses, ducks, chickens, peacocks, geese, and a few dairy cows.
The community is intensely artistic; we do theatre, tattooing,
publishing, pottery, metalwork, music, video, fashion, amd dance, just
to name a few.

The Zendik farm zeen is the largest and most widely distributed
underground mag in the world. It covers the Zendik philosophical and
political stance on everything from ecology and sexuality to
literature, art, and science, and the occult. We distribute it around
the country ourselves at 'select' street corners, college campuses,
health food stores, and supermarkets. We survive financially from
donations brought in by our mag-zeen, music tapes and donations from our
apprenticeship program. Our TV shows are run in series on Access cable
stations in cities around the world, such as Austin, San Francisco,
Atlanta, Los Angeles, New York, Minneapolis, Boulder, and in England.

At this point in history, as humanity continues it's devastation of
nature, we realize it is our responsibility to change. Change ourselves
and everything before it is to late for us as well as all other life on
this planet. We believe that ecology is our only true religion, Truth
the only valid pursuit, and cooperation the only workable social ideal.
It's too late for everything else.

Zendik farm offers short and long term apprenticeships to people who are
looking for a responsible, funky alternative to the drudgery of life in
the DeathKultur. Apprenticeship tuition is on a sliding scale based on
individual situations and length of stay; we can also arrange for school
credit.

Call us for details: 512-321-0845 or 512-321-0712. Ask for Shey, Jinn,
Ix, Nom, or Nez.

************************************************************************

For all intents and purposes, Zendik Farm is a classic counterculture
commune. It has 45 members on a 300 acre farm in texas-- though, two
years ago, they were just making the move from their third farm, a 75
acre place in southern california. The members live in a relatively
intense communal style, six to a room in a rambling old farmhouse,
awaiting the construction of more living cabins which are being
constructed now, and several of which will be comnpleted by the fall.
For all their crowding, the people I talked to-- Arol Wulf, a 53-year
old woman and one of the defacto leaders of the community, Shey, a 23
year old woman, Zoe, a 20 year old man, and Geb, a 19 year old man,
seemed very happy with what was happening at the farm. They all
handled themselves very well, extremely well considering their 30 hour
drive and the nervewracking nature of coming to a strange town to give a
speech and distribute t-shirts and publications.

The Zendiks promote a distinct "Back-to-the-land" and local reliance
approach to communities, but they include computers and information
technology in their concept of community. Their magazine is
dtp'd/produced with a fairly hefty donated Macintosh system, and the
magazine (also called "Zendik Farm") is the primary income source for
the community. They claim to print 50,000 issues every quarter, and
that theirs is the largest-circulation alternative magazine published
in the world.

Apparently they're relative newcomers to the net. They've recently
gotten an Econet account, but while they vaguely knew that lower cost and
broadly based nets like internet and usenet, etc, etc, existed, and that
they should know more about them, not much had been done to get
connected. (Of course, they've only been in texas a short while, less
than two years, and are 35 miles out in the boondocks of Austin, and
probably had to worry about getting their farm going far more than about
being gabby on the networks...;-}. )  They didn't have their new Econet
address available when they talked with me-- maybe I'll be able to get
it sooner or later.

They're also pretty concentrated on farming the land, which is
supposedly certified organic ( The only way I can figure that is if the
Texas organic certification system is more lenient than the Cal or Pa
certfication, though maybe the fact that the farm was unoccupied for
seven years was factored in...). They're raising animals, many of which
they brought from Ca., and seem to have the classic grain and bean diet
with vegetables, eggs, milk from goats and newly-bartered-for cows, and
occasional meat from their fowl and purchases from neighboring farmers.
(When asked about aquaculture, they claimed to be planning to set up
systems after housing is built.) At least some of their income is
obtained through selling organic grain and nuts (from trees already on
the property) to natural foods stores in California.

They print and dye T-shirts, some of which are pretty fine if you're
into the tie-dye look. They've definitely got some fairly handy black
and white line-drawing artists doing designs for shirts, magazine illos,
and book and tape covers. They publish six or eight small press books,
none of which I got the chance to read. (some seemed to be poetry, some
philosophy.) They have enough of a recording studio to produce a
half-dozen tapes (none of which I listened to...), and maintain a band
which, through playing clubs and events and making tapes, is another
major source of Zendik income. They produce occasional videos of the
talking head or recorded speech sort, and Arol Wulf appears on a public
access cable show that Zendik produces.

This makes for a pretty complete media blitz, all things considered;-).

Well, I'm getting tired here-- I'll mail this and maybe write some more
in a few days....

Later, Bill

ps Rural texas has no building codes, they say. The IRS has never bothered
them, and by living at below poverty line incomes they pretty much don't
pay taxes (I wonder about social security?).


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