Just who are these Zendiks?
by Joe Tarr
They call it the "rub of life," and when they explain it they usually rub the palms of their hands together, emphasizing both the connection and friction the phrase implies.
Right now, I'm feeling a bit more of the friction end of it from Bear. He's a big black dog, and he doesn't seem to think much of me. He follows me down the dirt road of the Zendik farm, growling steadily whether I ignore him or gently volunteer a hand for him to sniff. Suddenly he erupts in full bark, and then trots down the road, apparently having decided once and for all that I'm trouble.
The "rub of life" is just one of many catch phrases used at the Zendik commune near Asheville, and it basically means human contact—working together, communicating, hashing out differences, and calling each others' bullshit—an honesty and compassion so lacking in a world steered by commerce, money and power.
I've been here a couple of hours, but at the moment I'm not so certain how I rub against these folks, who number around 50. Oh, everyone is nice enough and I agree with a lot of their philosophy. It's the questioning smiles I can't take. The eyes that probe, the mouths that eagerly ask, "What do you think?" I think, "Jesus, stop looking at me like that."
What I do is smile back politely. "It's cool. I like it a lot," I tell them. Which is mostly true.
I sense they find me insincere.
The Zendik commune is located on an old 100-acre farm in the mountains of North Carolina, west of Hendersonville. There's a good chance you've seen Zendiks selling their magazines or CDs on the streets of Knoxville or some other city in the East or Midwest.
One young woman bought one of the magazines at the Bob Dylan concert at Chilhowee Park and sent this email to the group: "I'm very sick of all the double standards everyone has, and the way society judges and condemns everyone for mistakes made. I'm sick of the bullshit of it all, I need a breath of fresh air."
Another man, a former police officer who now works with juvenile offenders, stumbled across them in the Old City and sent this message: "Why should I trust what you are saying in your magazine? All your stories talked about a group of people living together without having violence that has become such a part of our living here in 'society.' All I know is that I want to believe there is more to this world than predator vs. prey. For most of my adult life I have had to play the role of predator in order to hold my ground and keep from being run over by people. I am tired of living like that."
Years ago in California, Lore was living with her husband, and she was pretty damn miserable. "I was doing the starving artist number and finding it very lonely. I was finding life very unfulfilling," she says.
When two of her dogs wound up dead from poison a farmer had put out, she really lost hope. "Nothing seemed to add up anymore."
Shortly after that she met Arol and Wulf Zendik and visited the farm, which was then in California. She also read an essay Wulf wrote about a dog of theirs—Quince—who was poisoned. The essay vowed to fight against all of man's poisons.
"It made me feel a purpose," she says of the essay. "There was something you could do. You can change the world."
Lore ended up moving onto the farm, where she's had a son and raised him. He's 17 years old now, and has no desire to leave the Zendik Farm. "It's given me hope. Before I moved here, I never wanted to have kids," she says. "To me the sign of successful culture is when none of the kids want to leave."
The stories of the people who live here are similar to Lore's. They're disillusioned with the world and looking for a meaningful life.
There are now about 30 core members, with another 20 who are visiting or giving the farm a try for a short period.
Most of the residents are in their late teens to late 20s, most come from white, middle-class backgrounds. A lot of them come from troubled families or with drug and alcohol problems.
"People show up here a hopeless bag of depression, anger, drugs. Pretty quick—a month, a few weeks—they lighten up, reflecting the atmosphere," says Shey, who came here after she graduated from high school in 1986. Still, many come with their family's blessing. Shey's father visits often and has helped the farm in many ways, such as donating computers.
Vong came shortly after high school five and a half years ago. He grew up in Chicago and a friend who had been down to the farm told him he had to see this place. "My curiosity made me wonder how people really live with each other without fighting and arguing," he says, on the porch of the commune's office. Fresh from a trip selling magazines in Pensacola, Fla., he's sorting through his gear. "Having someone here happy made me want to see what made him smile." Now he dances, edits videos, sells the magazine, cares for animals and keeps bees at the farm.
His Asian parents don't quite get it. "I don't talk to my parents very much...They're having a hard time with it," he says. "They left the farm life to come to America. It's a little hard for them to understand why I'd want to come here."
The first version of the Zendik Farm was founded in 1969 in Southern California by Wulf and Arol Zendik and group of friends. A chosen name, Zendik is a Sanskrit word that means to live outside or in rebellion against the established order. The first attempt at communal living lasted about six months.
"It turned into a total disaster. A house burned down, no one wanted to work," Arol remembers.
After the initial failure, the ranch became an artist and musician refuge, with no real guiding philosophy. Drug and alcohol use were heavy.
Things began to change in 1976, when Arol and Wulf had their daughter, Fawn. "We started thinking, 'What kind of world is she going to live in?'"
The two began studying other cultures and theories on community. They decided to try to create their own community that would nourish their daughter. The emphasis shifted toward cooperation and building loving relationships.
The group moved to Austin, Texas, in 1990 to escape the smog and development of Southern California.
In the late '80s, with Wulf's health failing from emphysema, the group decided to give up all drugs, including pot, alcohol, tobacco, caffeine and other stimulants. It wasn't easy, and some left the commune because of the decision. The place remains drug-free, although alcohol and caffeine have crept back in.
Although they liked Texas and were well established in the community (even having a weekly cable TV show), the Zendiks moved when an airport was built near their ranch and development encroached again. They chose North Carolina because they wanted to be in the mountains, and on the East Coast—because it's in the midst of the country's population base and makes it easier for them to hawk their magazines and CDs.
After a temporary stay in Florida, they moved to North Carolina in 1999. Wulf Zendik died shortly after the move and is buried on the farm, near a sandlot playground.
The evolving Zendik philosophy is probably too complex to do justice here, but it draws on a number of different beliefs and theories: environmentalism, anti-consumerism, humanism, New Age spiritualism, sensualism, alternative medicines, metaphysics and the existential acceptance that the world is shit but everyone has choice.
"We're basically trying to design a culture. How do we live together and make life more fun? We try to unplug from the robotic aesthetic of corporate culture," says Chen, who has lived at the farm since 1981. A writer, he's picked up some of the philosophical musings Wulf was following. "You can test your philosophy through life. If you're a jerk to women, you're going to be lonely.
"We're agreeing about cooperation. We're agreeing we're a highly social species whose structure is community," he adds.
Two ideas seem to pulse through the commune more than the others. One is an emphasis on building strong human relationships through honest communication. Members are openly confronted or praised for their behavior and are expected to do the same in return. (A couple of times during my stay I see people in heated, personal discussions.)
Chen says it's important to confront each other about problems because everyone shares in each others' successes and failures. It has the feeling of an intensive, large group therapy session, and the Zendiks find it liberating, if at times difficult.
"There are times when I've felt enormously unfulfilled," says Shey. "In living therapy, the idea is to find out where is your lie. Where is your philosophy not working. Maybe I'm still looking for Mr. Symbol. It takes my friends around me to point out where I'm full of shit."
The second main goal is expression through the arts—stressing improvisation. There are many visual artists, a dance troupe, a comedy improv team, and the Zendik band, with Arol on lead vocals.
If you look hard enough you'll find some incongruities in the Zendiks' ideas: If they're so averse to development, why do they keep developing land? And letting 32 dogs and countless cats roam free is a poison to their surroundings, as potent as the one that killed Quince. But it's probably impossible to live without hypocrisy in this world, and the Zendiks admit they don't have all the answers.
"We're all neurotic nuts. We have ideals and we want to live them out. But we're never going to have a perfect community," Arol says. "First of all, we don't live in an ideal world. How uncontaminated are we supposed to get?"
"How are we going to have an ideal community if babies are starving to death [in the world] and kids are shooting each other in school?" she adds.
Nor do the Zendiks see themselves as cutting themselves off from the world. They say their magazines, videos and CDs—aside from supporting them financially—are an outreach to the world about their ideas. They are big believers in volunteering with various groups and causes throughout the community.
It's also why they try to host sporadic musical festivals, like this weekend's, at their farm. "Whenever we've had festivals, it's just a good feeling. You have punk, heavy metal, folk, jazz, bluegrass bands," Arol says. "It's just a lovely feeling to be part of something. I think that's the way life should be."
Of the dozen or so buildings on the farm, Arol's house is probably the coolest looking. Built partially of wood recycled from old structures, it was designed and constructed by the resident architect, Chazz (who also performs in the comedy troupe). There are no right angles and the walls turn and bend according to the trees and land around it.
The other living quarters aren't so roomy. The residents sleep in bunkhouses, maybe five or 10 to a building. Eventually, the Zendiks hope to only have three or four to a building.
What about sex? There are a couple of small "date houses" for lovers to spend the night together.
There are common bathhouses and outhouses. A large dining hall is under construction. There are also a few small art studios, a dance studio, metal shop, a recording studio and an office for publishing their magazine. Chores are divided and rotated.
The original farm house has been converted into a community house of sorts. Part of it is the farm office, another section is a kitchen, and there's a living room where everyone is supposed to take off their shoes before entering. Meals are usually eaten here, and there's a large TV with a VCR. The night I'm there, a few of the guys sit around watching one episode of Ken Burn's jazz documentary.
All the philosophical talk is starting to wear me down. Everyone seems sincere but they also give off a whiff of artifice (as I probably do myself). So in the farm's book and video library, I peruse the fiction section, and they've got some gems: Conrad, Celine, Faulkner, Camus, Nabakov. I pull out one of my favorites, Dostoyevsky's Notes From Underground, and read the tortured first lines: "I am a sick man...I am a spiteful man. I am an unpleasant man. I think my liver is diseased. However, I don't know beans about my disease, and I am not sure what is bothering me. I don't treat it and never have..."
It tastes like honey.
That night, many of the Zendiks I've met appear in a dream. They want me to come work with them. Only, in my dream they don't live on a commune farm and practice art and music; they all work at the Nashville Scene. Vong tells me one of the cute Zendik women likes me and he winks and nods good naturedly.
But I also have a dream that I'm in one of Mel Gibson's Lethal Weapon movies—we're buddies and we're trying to break into a skyscraper to get info on the bad guys, but first we have to get by an innocent but determined security guard. Mel keeps shooting his gun trying to distract him. I'm a little nervous because I don't have a gun.
On the way out of Zendik Farm the next morning, I give a boy named Bret a ride to the gas station about 20 minutes down the road. He's going to catch a cab to Spindale, where he'll board a bus to his home in Jacksonville, Fla. After visiting the farm for a few days, the 19-year-old is certain this place is for him. He's going to gather a few things and will be back within the week, he says.
Fashion-wise, he doesn't seem to have the Zendik look: his baggy jeans and short cropped hair seem more suburban skate punk than long-haired granola hippie. But the Zendik ideas of consciousness touched something in him, he says. Most of his friends share these ideals, but the world messes them up, teaches them that money and status and power are what's important.
He doesn't like seeing what's become of his friends. One has killed himself, others are alcoholics. He craves the togetherness, compassion and openness of the farm.
I drop him off at a convenience store where he's going to call a cab to take him to the Greyhound Station. His bus will stop in Knoxville later in the day and I consider giving him a ride back to my hometown. A sense of community is something I've always sought out, and certainly value. And even if you don't believe a lot of what the Zendiks do, it's hard not to be encouraged by their efforts.
But at the moment, I'm a little exhausted by the rub.
May 31, 2001 * Vol. 11, No. 22
© 2001 Metro Pulse
| 
