This is a reanimation of the Vicaribus blog as lived by Miro Kazakoff and Ehren Foss in 2004 and 2005. The photos may be spotty.

Finally, hard-core full-frontal nudity

Posted by Miro

You have to wonder about a place that explicitly has to forbid sexual activity in so many places. Harbin Hot Springs is a testament to the power of hippies when they organize. It’s run as a religious non-profit of the Heart Consciousness Church. Clothing is only required in the public indoor spaces, and I sexual activity only seemed to be prohibited in the following locations: the swimming pools, the meditation pools, the smoking deck, and the restaurant.

Ehren discovered Harbin on the Intentional Communities website (the most complete listing of communes, communities and co-ops we have found). All I knew what that it was old and big by commune standards (over 30 years old and with over 100 residents). I think he mentioned it was clothing optional.

We were hoping to stay overnight in their campground, but got rejected because the bus was too big. We ended up parking overnight in a turnoff down the road and hiking to Harbin. On the hike up I declared that if clothing was optional, I wouldn’t be wearing any. We didn’t come on this trip to wear trousers. We can do that anywhere. Ehren responded with the same bemused wariness that greets all of my minor and major insane plans.

We paid, got a gentle lecture on taking it easy in the hot and cold pools (rest between dips, drink plenty of water, don’t be a super hero; one’s very hot and the other’s very cold) and hiked up to the pool area.

Everyone was naked. We kind of shuffled around with our eyes on our feet. I was staring down so intently I quickly lost Ehren. I went to the co-ed locker room, stripped down and walked-out middle school style, holding my towel, book and a pair a swim trunks casually in front of my crotch. Not that I had anything to hide. Everything you’ve heard is true: nude beaches are not much of a turn on. Most of the people were middle aged or older and had normal bodies to match. Frankly, I was most uncomfortable about the lack of an ass tan: a clear mark of a newbie.

I settled into the warm pool and ended up chatting with a balding, grey-haired chiropractor I had met at the gate. He’d been coming to Harbin since the 60s (when one of the guys in the Grateful Dead owned the property). He was an old 60s guy by his own admission who’d recently moved to Missouri to take care of an aging mother. He hates it (“Some of those people have never left the state.”) and seemed to revel in being back in California with “normal” people.

I don’t make much of a nudist. Presumably I’ll get better, but frankly I still gawk a little. I had trouble not noticing that some of the women had hair where you don’t usually see it, and even more embarrassingly I noticed women without hair in places that it usually occupies. There were also a few men who … well, let’s just say, if I were them, I’d look for any excuse I could to hang around naked.

After soaking in the warm pool, being rejected by the hot pool (couldn’t even keep an ankle in for more than 10 seconds), shocking my system with the cold pool, I did a few laps in the main pool. Ehren was standing in the pool, reading a book on the ledge. His red swim trunks were tucked almost hidden under the book.

Feeling the need to escalate the nakedness level, I decided it was time to sunbathe. Several people had beached themselves on a sun deck near the pool. The visual similarity to the seal docks in San Francisco was unnerving. Before going out I slathered my untanned parts in enough SPF 45 to turn the hair down there grey.

After a brief time in the sun and a very gentle Yoga class, Ehren went back to the bus while I attended a dance lesson. I believe the lesson was called: “Reaching the 16 stages of Ecstasy: Uniting Your Masculine and Feminine through Breathing.” When I got there, about 15 people were all on all fours in a large room. A large man with a shaved head no shirt, one of several, was instructing everyone to breath through their roots. Everyone was slowly grinding their pelvises through the air.

I dropped down and began to grind with them. I looked around and felt ridiculous. Everyone else was either shirtless or wearing nature fabrics. I had a pair of shiny swim trunks on and a gap t-shirt. About this time, I decided to close my eyes for most of the lesson try to feel it like the others in the room obviously were.

Basically, the lesson focused on what I’ve already learned as the secrets of dance. 1) Feel the music in your hips. 2) Don’t be afraid to move your pelvis 3) Pretend no one else is watching. The lesson reinforced this by encouraging us focus on our breathing. It seemed to help distract me from feeling self conscious about movement. Beyond that the instructors encouraged everyone to just move as they felt like.

Like I said, I spent most of the time with my eyes closed. I flailed, I waved my arms, I swung my hips. It was nice, except I really had to pee throughout the water dance.

I did opend my eyes a few time, mostly to establish I wasn’t about to run into anyone. Most of the time I saw people swaying or flailing kind of randomly. The range of ages in the room were more striking that how people moved (but when you’re introduced to a group of people on all fours humping the floor, not many movements seem strange.

Here’s what I saw from the brief periods where I opened my eyes:

-One guy with no shirt playing imaginary drums while lying on his back -One women spent the entire hour and a half writhing on the ground -Dark, very large tufts of armpit hair on the blondest woman in the room -Two very attractive women (one shirtless), rhythmically feeling each other up during the dark fire dance -A man who looked disconcertingly like Willie Nelson flapping his arms like wings during the light air dance -A very cute blonde girl making out with a pudgy middle age man. After class I saw them introduce themselves to each other.