Winter retreat on Great Barrier Island Not much happening on the Barrier, and I like it that way! We live on the main road, but entire evenings go by, sunset to bedtime, and not one car comes past! Winter events were the usual poker and darts leagues, the Winter Wonderland Ball fundraiser for St Johns, and a learn-kapa-haka group, plus the Monday night movie, but none were our thing, so we mostly stayed home and pursued our own projects, very content with visits from friends, and of course, daily swims! “Three Days of Peace and Music” – Woodstock 50th on Aotea FM 15-17 August 1969. 400,000 people were there, and I was among them! It was one of the biggest rock festivals of all times and the way it all panned out, with harmony, good will, love and drugs, it became a symbol of the 60s. Ever since I started my radio show I knew that when August came around I’d be doing some all-Woodstock shows! What fun they were to plan and present! I was living near Boston. No internet or cell phones in those days. I can’t even remember how we found out about anything! But I do remember that we heard about the festival on the radio and saw notices in Rolling Stone, which had started a few years before in San Francisco. But mainly it was this eternal poster. “Three days of peace and music” sounded idyllic, but often, in this case to an extreme, the vision in one’s mind is quite different from the reality! White Lake is in the Catskill Mountains of southern New York State, actually 70 km from Woodstock. Tickets were $18USD in advance and intended to be $24 at the gate (for all three days!). 186,000 were sold and the organisers expected about 200,000 people – but in fact it was at least double that! The venue was decided late, the fences weren’t finished and people just walked in. After tens of thousands did, it was announced that it was a free festival, that the facilities weren’t going to cope with so many people, and everyone better look after one another or they would totally blow it. The traffic jams were legendary, with traffic at close to a standstill for hundreds of kilometres. Some performers driving to the festival had to be airlifted or they never would have made it! By the time I got there, like many others, we had to park in the next town several miles away and walk in. The scene walking in and at the music venue was mind-boggling. Several hundred thousand young people just letting loose, being into the magic of what was happening, tripping and otherwise getting high, getting into the music, into loving one another – and coping with rain, mud, not enough food, water, toilets or sleep! But these tangibles were secondary. The music and the experience were the focus, and the ideal of coming together in harmony – a moment we wanted to last forever. Because of the idealism, despite everything, it was a very peaceful festival featuring cooperation, generosity and good-natured young people. For a long time afterward, I had the old white cotton sunhat someone handed to me as I walked in. I was seven months pregnant, so Paul went to Woodstock too! In fact, two babies were born – one in a car caught in traffic and one in a hospital after an airlift. For two Sundays in August, Can’t Live Without Music was an all-too-quick chronological recap of the greatness of the music and the phenomenon of Woodstock. 32 groups performed hundreds of songs. Just after 5 pm Friday, Richie Havens opened the festival with a 10-song set – remember his “Freedom”, sung with full passion? Swami Satchidananda gave an invocation and the nearly round-the-clock line-up of music began. After the likes of Arlo Guthrie, Country Joe and the Fish, John Sebastian, Canned Heat, the Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival and many others, the festival started getting into the serious psychedelic and guitar rock groups – Santana, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Sly & the Family Stone, the Who, Joe Cocker, then – thunderstorm! And Ten Years After, The Band, Johnny Winter, Crosby, Stills & Nash (and a bit of Young), Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and more. It was 7:30 Monday morning. The next group was from an alternative universe. Sha Na Na was (and still is, kind of painfully) an American rock-and-roll doo-wop group who revived and parodied dance song hits from the 50s. They were totally incongruous, between Paul Butterfield and Jimi Hendrix, with their 50s haircuts, get-ups and (more or less) precision dance moves, considering where they were, the kind of music that had played before, and the time of day, and everyone who was left at the festival basically passed out. You really gotta find a video online! Sha Na Na – At the Hop The last performer was Jimi Hendrix. He played for over two hours, ending just after 11 on Monday. Perhaps you’ve seen him in the Woodstock film, soloing the Star Spangled Banner and segueing into Purple Haze. He played an encore, Hey Joe, of all things, and that ended Woodstock. At the time, Woodstock was the largest peaceful gathering in the history of the world. We were children of the peace movement; peace and love were our ideals. Imagine, the chief of police of a nearby town said, “Notwithstanding their personality (!), their dress and their ideas … they are the most courteous, considerate and well-behaved group of kids I have ever been in contact with in my 24 years of police work.” That was a group of nearly half a million kids! I was a bit Woodstock-crazy for those few weeks last month. Why was it so significant to me and hundreds of thousands of others? It wasn’t only the scale of it or the greatness of the bands, though the music of the time was a phenomenon as well – in my opinion, never seen since. But mainly I think it was the idealism that was realised there, if only for three days, symbolising the whole 60s dream of freedom, peace and cooperation. Nearly half a million young people in trying circumstances, truly maintained peace and love for three days, with virtually no security as we have now, shared food, shelter, drugs and cared for one another, as part of one big counterculture organism with a different vision for society. We succeeded at doing Woodstock, we felt strong, that our vision was in reach – as Joni Mitchell put it in her song Woodstock – “I dreamed I saw the bombers riding shotgun in the sky and they were turning into butterflies”. Even Jimi Hendrix, with his Star-Spangled Banner – what the US could have been. But the world is what it is, and the forces are what they are, and Woodstock turned out to be the peak of a youth movement whose potential wasn’t fulfilled. It seemed like we were about to change the world, but it stopped right there, For those two Sunday afternoons, my body and mind were more or less in the Aotea FM studio, but my heart and soul were at Woodstock! That music is part of who I am. Livestream Can’t Live Without Music Sunday arvos 3:40-6 pm at aoteafm.org I hope you’ll be tuned in! Send a comment about who or what you’d like to hear and I'll be overjoyed to play it for you, even if you’re not listening! I love to get suggestions to keep the show fresh and unique! Spelling mistakes A ways back, a week or two before Matariki, this notice was posted on Barrier Chitchat. Have you ever heard of such a thing! How’d they every think that up? Regardless, I was ready to take on the challenge! I found the mistakes, sent in my video … and … I won! I was probably the only person who entered! I donated the $50 back to the marae, and a few months later connected with my T-shirt. By then it had multiplied to a hoodie and cap as well, but everything was too big so we gave them all away! We meet our 600th person Here’s lovely Charlotte, happily receiving her choccie bar in honour of her status as a multiple-of-100 person! We weren’t flying off anywhere, that’s for sure!, just picking up something that came over by plane, and we found someone new at the desk. (For those, like us, who like to keep track of these things it took 9 months to meet another 100 people. The most was a year and the least was 7 months.) Now we’re at 608. Only 192 more people to meet before we reach our goal of 800. Some say the population is 900 (given the disarray of last year’s census, we’ll never know!), so we’ll just keep on meeting! Bella the Barber was #597. We first met at Aotea FM, and before long she came round to give Ro a haircut. “Let's get the Aotea men looking sharp!” writes Bella on Barrier Chitchat. Barbering isn’t what it used to be! She offers Traditional Barber Cuts, and…. Buzz Cut with Cut Throat finish $20 Standard No. 2 back & sides scissors on top $25 Fancy Fades $30 Scissor Cut $25 Beard Trim $15 Kids $20 Designs $5 - $10 e.g. Lightning Bolts Cut Throat Shaves $20 Restyle $30 Beard trim and fade $50 Beard trim and standard cut $40 Braids $5 per braid Women's Short Hair Scissor Cuts $30 to $40 Hair Jewellery Extensions and Hair Wraps $20 - $40 depending on length of hair I’m keen for one of these closer to summer! Samples of Bella’s barbering Get ready to grab and go June 15th's magnitude 7 earthquake in the uninhabited Kermadec Islands, 800-1000 km northeast of New Zealand, triggered a warning that was soon cancelled, but islanders’ realisation of the potential for a wipe-out, usually suppressed, was brought back into our consciousness. Thank goodness over 80 percent of earthquakes and volcanoes occur on the sea floor. But though a shake may be far out at sea, if it’s violent enough, the gigantic waves caused by a sudden huge displacement of water can travel as fast as a jet and surge up to 16 km inland! We were always glad to know that Farewell Spit protects Golden Bay. But here on Oceanview Road, not so good! People need to be at least 33 m above sea level when a tsunami strikes, the higher the better. The incredible power and destructive potential of tsunamis is so far out of our experience that I think it’s hard for anyone to imagine. Tsunamis aren’t massive quantities of water travelling at great speed. The water is a medium for mega amounts of energy traveling through the entire depth of the ocean, sea floor to surface. A tsunami at sea is a slight swell, but its energy is moving up to 900 km per hour! Each cubic meter of seawater weighs just over a tonne and when the wall of water reaches shore.... The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed nearly a quarter of a million people in 14 countries had a force of about 200 million tonnes per kilometre on the coastline, though yachts anchored offshore experienced only a quick steep swell. I remember reading that people out in fishing boats had no idea anything was amiss until debris began floating toward them from shore. Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis (DART) is a worldwide tsunami monitoring system. Seafloor devices transmit earth movements and wave heights to surface buoys which send warnings via satellite to the Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii, where tsunamis are traced to their likely landfall. Boaties know that when they hear a warning they should leave the harbour immediately – though it may seem safer than the open ocean – lest they’re annihilated along with everything else on shore. New Zealand is at particular risk and Great Barrier Island even singled out! We’re in the Pacific Ring of Fire, exactly between two of the deepest and most earthquake-active trenches in all the oceans: the Tonga Trench and Kermadec Trench, both of which stretch from northern New Zealand to Tonga. Put it all together and you can understand why we don’t loan our car out overnight and why we put together our grab & go bags using these helpful reminderst. Twists and turns of fate I wrote last year that biodynamic grower Peter had blessed our land and garden with a biodynamic gift of love and well-being. Again this year he again “sprayed” (with bucket, paintbrush and flicks of the wrist) our land and garden with a dynamised preparation of plants, quartz and manure to bring holistic elemental energies to the soil and plants. “Dynamisation” means he stirred it rapidly for an hour, reversing directions each time a vortex formed. The vortex adds oxygen and energy to the water as it “links the solid and the subtle”. But he didn’t do an hour of stirring just for us! He’s the gardener at the community gardens, paid from the koha box – a great system that works well all around, and he made enough preparation to spray not only the community gardens but the gardens of some other friends as well. Kale, New Zealand spinach and broad beans at the community gardens Peter and his partner Helga have a vast and beautiful biodynamic property at the south end of the island. Originally from Switzerland, when they came to the Barrier 30 years ago they bought 620 hectares way up on Rosalie Bay Road, established an biodynamic organic farm and large macadamia orchard, landscaped it beautifully, and set aside large areas to protect flora and fauna. They may have protected them too well for their own good! Their orchard and their macadamia business were thriving until kaka arrived some years later and began knocking macadamia nuts off the trees. Like wood pigeons, they’re legally protected, even though their population is out of balance, and netting hundreds of trees isn’t feasible. To Peter and Helge’s life-changing disappointment, their macadamia dreams could not be sustained. Here a kaka is harmlessly enjoying kowhai flowers, as well it should, but on the Barrier and elsewhere kaka are notorious (i.e., loathed) for decimating fruit. They’re at it all hours, day and night, and stop at nothing, even lemons. Peter and Helge still sell small quantities of yummy macadamia nut energy bars on the island, and they carried on with their large garden and huge compost piles and created a market garden and a homestay. It’s a beautiful destination for anyone and particularly interesting for those wanting to learn about organic growing and Rudolf Steiner’s teachings on biodynamic agriculture. Perhaps you recall Peter from a second post last year! He was the first other human voice heard by the four guys who survived 119 days adrift after their trimaran capsized three days out from Picton, 30 years ago, a story told in John Glennie’s The Spirit of Rose-Noelle. Their upside-down craft crash-landed on a reef at the foot of a steep densely bush-clad slope, they knew not where. They thought they might be in South America! After a rough night in the bush, they climbed up the slope, found a road and a bach to break into. Next day they heard a phone ringing in another bach and broke in to use it. A neighbour happened to be on the party line, their first human contact. That was Peter. Only then did they learn they were on Great Barrier Island! Step by step, truckbox becomes sleepout Morgan and Dean build the “profile” Truckbox in place, Morgan takes in the view Morgan and Maddie make a temporary walkway and deck before leaving for two months Morgan’s father, Fraser. They’re cousins of Tessa in Golden Bay! Santi helps Ro paint the outside Step by step – as much as possible – we're turning a sow's ear into a useful silk purse! Look what washed up on Medlands beach It’s a snake (or serpent) eel, 2 metres long, which you can usually find at the bottom of the ocean up to 300 m deep! Whangapoua Beach, North Barrier, taken by Caity Kaitoke Beach from the north end Big waves at Kaitoke Blind Bay from Okupu Ridge Funky-edged kumara in the pan, grown by Darren at Palmer’s Beach Our tulsi plant from Caity (sacred basil) formed a wee tree Cherimoya of love 5G Space Appeal The GBI local board, communities anywhere, countries, or individuals for that matter (though we’re usually overlooked) may try to say NO! to 5G towers, but if it’s raining down on us from 12,000 satellites, our powerlessness is total. People could no longer even move to one of the few places on the planet still safe from electromagnetic radiation. For whatever good it may do, please read and sign! https://www.5gspaceappeal.org/sign-individual Meanwhile, on Earth as it’s meant to be, the Southern Hemisphere spring emerges bringing light, warmth, colour and renewal.
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