Holy Rollin': BOTS Invades Salvation Mountain

Salvation Mountain is Instagrammer's ecstasy.

A much-revered landmark for IG users, Salvation Mountain is a checklist destination perfectly prohibitive in its desert geography (close enough for social media sojourners to get there and back within a day, distant enough to give every picture pilgrim the appropriate amount of cool cred for making the otherwise desolate journey).  As evidenced by the thousands of carefully-filtered photos bearing the eponymous hashtag, Salvation Mountain is a place for disingenuous youth to affect the poses that have become so subconsciously familiar (those characterized by the subjects' well-studied stare as they regard the horizon with an expert combination of anguish and apathy).  A colorful, if slightly sun-blistered backdrop, Salvation Mountain's unqualified Judeo-Christian ethos can be tolerated in the name of post-ironic photo gathering.  A surefire "heart" magnet, Salvation Mountain elicits envy and scorn in equal measure.  In short, it is Instagram.  The veneer protecting my contempt for social media sociology may seem perilously thin, yet there we were excitedly making the trek to a destination every bit worthy of its celebrity.

Get a load of this!

Music and video by Mary

I refuse to insult anyone's intelligence by pretending that a profundity greater than the average mountain climber's motivated our visit.  Yes, the wacky tacky adventure team, in our quest to storm America's greatest trash castles, was there to document the divinely-inspired folk art of Leonard Knight...but not before procuring some ultra-hip photographic evidence of our own day trip.

Blazing our trail, we began to spitball a few ideas for heightening our experience at Salvation Mountain; as we flew past a discount store, I suggested that it might be fun to arrive in white sweatsuits and drugstore flip flops, giving the appearance of a cult pilgrimage.  Call it pretense, if you must, but I was looking for a way to add a layer of humor to our visit (after all, the ten sexiest Instagram poses lose something in translation when applied to a fat man on the cusp of middle age).  When the elusive white sweat suit became our proverbial white whale; we were forced to settle for the offerings of the paint aisle, leaving the hardware store in crisp, white coveralls and a trio of matching safety goggles.

Introducing BOTS (Brotherhood of Terrestrial Salvation)
Like a mess of meth-making Mike Teavees

Salvation Mountain is the lifework and ministry of Leonard Knight.  What started in the 1970s as a proselytizing mission via homemade hot air balloon (seriously) evolved into an '80s-era devotional of straw, clay, found objects, and countless coats of house paint.  It took two tries and many years for Knight to master his signature mountain-making technique; through it all, his faith, love, and generosity never wavered.  Expansion and maintenance of his passion project continued until his health began to fail in 2011.  In the years since his subsequent death, local volunteers have lovingly preserved Knight's masterpiece.

Love is all you need.  You may quote me.

This legacy of love is the true message of Salvation Mountain.  Christian and nonbeliever alike are reminded at every turn that the purpose of our existence is love.

Just in case anyone missed the literal writing on the wall,
these two BOTS brethren demonstrate how to get a heart on.

It was unclear whether other Knight devotees were feeling the love of the BOTS' presence.  Despite a woeful lack of purpose/planning on our part, many videos and photographs - surreptitious and otherwise - were taken as we silently marched our way up and over the mountain (with un-swinging arms for that authentic touch of cultish weirdness).

She's still wondering if the label on the coveralls was accurate - "One size saves all."

One confused Brit was brave enough to approach me and inquire after our presence; struggling for a clever response, I instead feigned a vow of silence, trying and failing to communicate with meaningless hand gestures.  When the BOTS did speak, it was a practice in improvisational call-and-response between Sister Siusiak's Polish and our semi-Slavic gibberish, punctuated liberally by the Polish slang for wiener.

Starting to question our own bizarre behavior, all we needed was to turn a corner for a loving affirmation.

Things reached a new pinnacle of strange when we formed a human triangle (facing inward with our hands on each other's shoulders) and began to vocalize in unison.  I'm willing to place a generous amount of accountability upon our choice of ensemble; with temperatures upwards of 110 degrees, the internal temperature of our space suits might very well have been delirium inducing.

You could say that we were getting carried away by the spirit of the Man Upstairs...

In the end, we couldn't decide if we were the lighthearted antidote to the hordes of picture pilgrims or ourselves symptomatic of the devolution of weird roadside in America.  As the conflict rages on, we are seriously considering making BOTS official.

We are mobilizing.

And Brother Cyrus says the reaping is nigh.

Resistance is futile.

If you don't want to get left behind, all you must do is "Jump in the Line."

"Jump in the Line" - Harry Belafonte (1961)
This video has been brought to you by Fartco, Inc.

Salvation Mountain

Beal Rd

Niland, CA

salvationmountain.us

Cheers and Amen!

Mr. Tiny
(Brother Diminutata)

Holy Rollin': Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine

After many seasons of unfulfilled promises to get myself there, I finally made it to the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades, CA.  And you know what I self-realized?  I'm kind of a jerk.

Like this, for example:

My sister-in-law, Erika, was trying to capture a serene moment of the Shrine's lush gardens on camera;
instead of taking a cue from her, I just stood there trying to capture awkward shots of her trying to
capture those serene moments.

Incidentally, this was the picture she took.
Pretty pretty, huh?

Growing up in a household with five boisterous kids and two very outspoken parents; it was anything any one of us could do to sustain the floor for more than seven seconds.  In that type of environment, whispering was just not an important skill for survival.  Consequently, I continue to lack in that department, particularly when I am excited about something cool (see: I'm a noisy jerk)!  The Lake Shrine is very cool!

Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine - Pacific Palisades, CA

Just off bustling Sunset Boulevard, the Lake Shrine feels miles away from the real world.  The shrine's centerpiece is, of course, Lake Santa Ynez, the only accidental, spring-fed lake in the city of Los Angeles.  Surrounding the lake is about a half-mile trail that encourages visitors to stop, meditate, and and appreciate the beauty of nature in respectful silence.

The Lake Shrine began life in the 1920s as "Inceville," the movie studios of producer Thomas Ince (you know, the guy who was allegedly murdered aboard William Randolph Hearst's yacht).  After his death, the land was mostly ignored, changing hands a couple times before being being brought to life by H. Everett "Big Mac" McElroy.  He and his wife transformed what was essentially overgrown swampland into a tranquil oasis.  Mr. McElroy developed the property with several buildings before selling it in the late-1940s to an oil company executive who had intentions of turning the land into a luxury resort.  What followed is the stuff of hippy-dippy apocrypha (see: I'm a cynical jerk).  Apparently, the executive was woken from his sleep multiple times by a dream that instructed him to turn the land into a church of and for all religions.  He wrote a letter to Guru Paramahansa Yogananda, the founder of Hollywood's "Self-Realization Fellowship Church of All Religions," (an unusually on-the-nose find for a perfunctory search through The Yellow Pages) and had no sooner licked the stamp than he received a call from the good guru inquiring about the land's potential as church headquarters.  Talk about timing!

  

The Self-Realization Fellowship is dedicated to fostering the common principles of the 

world's five major religions: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and....and...and Buddhism, and 

Hindu (I couldn't find those pillars of faith to photograph).

Needless to say, Lake Santa Ynez and the surrounding land, dedicated for Fellowship service in 1950, are now in the hands of the Self-Realization Fellowship.  The property also houses the Fellowship's large temple; as it was closed for tours on our adventure day, we joyfully resigned ourselves to touring the "big three" landmarks of the Lake Shrine.

We went that-a-way!

Traveling counterclockwise along a freshly-mulched redwood path, our first encounter was with the World Peace Memorial dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi.

I can't think of a more peaceful place in Los Angeles for for the World Peace Memorial,
its gleaming, golden lotus a symbol of the soul's awakening to the notion of world peace.

Entombed in an ancient Chinese sarcophagus at the heart of the memorial, rest
a portion of Gandhi's ashes, (the only place outside of India with that honor).

Built under the supervision of Paramahansaji, the memorial is a "wall-less"
temple whose archways perfectly frame the Lake Shrine and its landmarks.

Directly across the lake is the mill home of Mr. & Mrs. McElroy, the second of the Lake Shrine's major landmarks.

Enchanted by the architecture of 16th-Century Holland,
Mrs. McElroy insisted that a home be built in the style of an old mill. 

To complete the look, a functional windmill was added following the home's initial construction.

The windmill now serves as a sanctuary for meditation where complete silence is enforced.
Erika got in trouble for the noise emanating from her camera's shutter when she took this
photo.  I'm just glad she captured the Lake Shrine's giant waterfall and that I wasn't the
one collared for the camera caper (see: I may be an opportunistic jerk but I'm no patsy).

We tried pinning it on the swans but as trusting and peace-loving as the Fellowship folks are, they were not buying it.
As it turns out, swans are incapable of operating a simple digital camera.  And everybody loooves a swan.

Dismissed from the mill house, we continued on our path to self-realization and the third of the Lake Shrine's major landmarks (watermarks?), a houseboat.

The Adeline

I have spent years laboring under the delusion that the houseboat harbored in the calm waters of Lake Santa Ynez was the very houseboat used in the 1958 Cary Grant/Sophia Loren vehicle Houseboat. (How's that for using "houseboat" three times in one sentence?)

Obviously not.
But what about if you removed some of the gingerbread and painted it and...?
Nope.

I blame this misunderstanding on Huell Howser.

The Adeline is actually the original home in which the McElroy's lived during construction of the mill house.  Moving their Streamline Moderne houseboat from its mooring in Lake Mead to Lake Santa Ynez, the couple eventually turned it into a guest house for visiting celebrities and dignitaries.  So, potentially, Cary Grant could have stayed there...but probably not (see: I'm a snobby, Hollywood history jerk).

"Keep calm and KEEP QUIET!!!"

Even if you don't go in for that meditation jazz, it is nice to know that a sanctuary like this exists right in the middle of Los Angeles.  It is a rare treat to find a space where one can just go and be quiet - or the closest approximation to quiet that a noisy, cynical, snobby jerk can achieve.

Don't wait go to take your own journey toward self-realization at the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine or you just might end up as jerky as I (see: I am a grammar jerk - who is often grammatically incorrect).

"The Old Mill" (1937)

Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine & Temple
17190 Sunset Blvd
Pacific Palisades, CA
(310)454-4114

lakeshrine.org


Cheers!

Mr. Tiny

Holy Rollin': "La Casa de Azúcar," The House of Sugar

Sometimes the most holy ground upon which one may tread is most wholly unconsecrated by the church - any church.  To wit, La Casa de Azúcar.  To stand witness at the grounds of  "House of Sugar" in El Paso, Texas is to be transported to a sacred place.

From the minute we rolled up, we were overcome by holy rollin'!!!

A tribute to faith and to the people of El Paso, La Casa de Azúcar is the creation of retired garment worker, Rufino Loya Rivas, who in 1973 began transforming his modest desert home into a folk art fantasy.  Styled after the traditional churches of his childhood village, La Casa de Azúcar also employs similar design elements to those found in Mexico's famous sugar skulls.  Elevating humble materials into a spectacle most sacrosanct, Rivas' "House of Sugar" is as ornate as any cathedral we've ever come across.  In fact, the extraordinarily-detailed craftsmanship makes it hard to believe that this is a private residence.

And yet there is the front entrance in all of its candy-coated splendor!

The stunning beauty of La Casa de Azúcar's intricate design is a challenge to capture in photos.  It kind of has to be seen to be believed; so just believe that I'm prepared to show you about one million photos, encouraging you to make the pilgrimage and go see it for yourself!

¡Bienvenido!  Welcome!

Highly decorated on nearly every inch of available space, Rivas' deft hand and understanding of balance has resulted in a sanctuary that is subdued, restrained, even reverent (when it could have so easily strayed into corny, Hansel & Gretel territory).

The symmetry and and use of color create a simultaneously dynamic and restful environment.

The only churchy-type architectural terms I remember from Art History 101
are "nave" and "apse," I'm sure neither of which apply here...I think.  The
well-placed altars/shrines(?), however, are breathtaking. 

The patience and care it would take to produce just one of these pillars would be
enough to scare any ordinary person away, let alone the tricolor paint scheme.

So many layers of texture and depth are achieved with the most accessible mediums (concrete, paint,brick, etc.) 

One pillar, five colors!

My road trip buddy and I kept repeating our mantra for the day, "Just
look, don't touch," as we tried to remember that this was someone's home.

Again, if there was any doubt that this was a tract home, the aerial evidence is on the roof

"Jesus said into[sic] her, 'I am the resurrection and the life.  He that believeth
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and
believeth in me shall never die.  Believest thou this?'"

Each sign and every Bible passage at La Casa is
conveniently presented in both English and Spanish.

It's not just the hardscape that is so expertly preserved, the landscape is precisely cultivated as well.

I'm not up on all my saints, but I'm pretty sure this is one of the good ones.

Occupying the better part of an entire neighborhood block, the breadth of La Casa de Azúcar's displays is staggering.

According to locals, the full "sugar house" makeover was complete by the late '90s...but who are they kidding?!!  Giving new meaning to the words, "labor of love;" one look at the expansive beauty of La Casa de Azúcar is to realize that maintenance is a job never complete.

Luckily, they have La Virgen on their side!

My wacky tacky spirits are lifted by the serenity of La Casa de Azúcar.  And while the welfare of my eternal soul is in great question, I can yet find some earthly comfort in the faith, dedication, and artistry of a man on a makeover mission.  If his "House of Sugar" is not registered as a sacred site of the Catholic Church or at the very least an historic landmark, then it darn well ought to be.

This placard, placed unceremoniously in the back alley leads me to believe
that, as of now, La Casa de Azúcar's historic status is rather on the unofficial side.

Don't be scared away by our "Holy Rollin'" adventures; we are certainly not in the business of Bible-thumping.  For we probably feel even closer to the Divine in a sunburnt, El Paso housing tract than we might in the peace of a quiet chapel.  Smitten with one man's mission to honor his beliefs, his geography, and his wacky tacky artistry, I can say that, "Out in the West Texas town of El Paso, I fell in love with a Mexican [house]."  I feel a song coming on.

"El Paso" - Marty Robbins

La Casa de Azúcar
4301 Leavell Ave
El Paso, TX

Cheers!

Mr. Tiny