{"id":2956,"date":"2011-07-30T17:02:46","date_gmt":"2011-07-30T23:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2956"},"modified":"2011-07-30T17:12:35","modified_gmt":"2011-07-30T23:12:35","slug":"home-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2956","title":{"rendered":"Home Country: Remembering Gia-Fu Feng"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The South Hardscrabble Creek area. Click image to see it full size with labels.<\/h5>\n<\/div>\n

There really is a Hardscrabble Creek, and this is part of its watershed. (View is to the southeast.)<\/p>\n

The label “Stillpoint” marks the site of a therapeutic community started in 1977 by Gia-Fu Feng<\/a>, who taught a sort of Taoist (Daoist) philosophy mixed with Gestalt-style encounter groups in North America<\/a> and Europe through the 1970s and early 1980s. (He died in June 1985.)<\/p>\n

His translations of the Tao Te Ching<\/a> <\/em>and of Chuang Tsu<\/a> remain popular, in both sense of the term.<\/p>\n

Earlier incarnations of Stillpoint had been in Los Gatos, California, and Manitou Springs, Colorado, where M. and I first knew Gia-Fu and his followers as one of several large, communal living experiments. We had no desire to live in a therapeutic commune and do encounter group<\/a>s, however!<\/p>\n

This last incarnation of Stillpoint never became the “new Taoist village” that Gia-Fu envisioned, although the remodeled barn\/community building and various cabins and hermitages are still there.\u00a0 Ownership has passed through a chain of people connected to Gia-Fu.<\/p>\n

One of them, Carol Ann Wilson, wrote a good biography, Still Point of the Turning World<\/em><\/a>, but as so often happens with “crazy wisdom” teachers, I think that you had to have been there to really “get” Gia-Fu.<\/p>\n

My last sight of him came in the spring of 1985 when I drove past Stillpoint, bound for Boulder after turkey-hunting up South Hardscrabble Creek. He was strolling up the side of the gravel road in billowing, bright-yellow trousers and his padded jacket\u2014probably the one in the Wikipedia photo<\/a>. When I came back permanently, only his memory remained.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The South Hardscrabble Creek area. Click image to see it full size with labels. There really is a Hardscrabble Creek, and this is part of its watershed. (View is to the southeast.) The label “Stillpoint” marks the site of a therapeutic community started in 1977 by Gia-Fu Feng, who taught a sort of Taoist (Daoist) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[23,151],"class_list":["post-2956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-colorado","tag-daoism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-LG","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9005,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9005","url_meta":{"origin":2956,"position":0},"title":"A View of Hardscrabble Creek","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 23, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Last summer, when we had some flooding on Hardscrabble Creek, I sent a video to a friend in England, who replied that he had assumed that \"Hardscrabble Creek\" was a literary invention. Not so. I have a simple and literal mind, I will admit that. The green trees are ponderosa\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"The real Hardscrabble Creek","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/creek-at-64-gate2-FB.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/creek-at-64-gate2-FB.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/creek-at-64-gate2-FB.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4","url_meta":{"origin":2956,"position":1},"title":"By the banks of Hardscrabble Creek","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 7, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Since it has been several years since I have published any of the print versions of \"Letter from Hardscrabble Creek,\" I am creating this blog to talk about the process and progress of writing and also to comment on what I think are the best new books on contemporary Paganism\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5843,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5843","url_meta":{"origin":2956,"position":2},"title":"Yes, There Is a Hardscrabble Creek","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 15, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In case you ever wonder about the name of the blog, yes, it's a real place. Here is a fading-light photo from my pocket camera of one of the beavers. We are happy to see them, both because beavers are cool and because their dams might be keeping more water\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5843#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"hardscrabble 7-13_sm","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/hardscrabble-7-13_sm.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9050,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9050","url_meta":{"origin":2956,"position":3},"title":"Now We Are Fifteen","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 7, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"This blog turns fifteen today, which means that it is an adolescent who thinks that it knows more than it does. Sounds about right. Hey, here's an idea. Check out the archives \u2014 see the button in the right-hand column. By the Banks of Hardscrabble Creek Since it has been\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 4 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 4 comments","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9050#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2414,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2414","url_meta":{"origin":2956,"position":4},"title":"Riddle Me This","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 27, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"I have two blogs, this one and Southern Rockies Nature Blog, and I switch between them as the mood and topic strike me. The Truth Laid Bear \"ecosystem\" ranking of the blogosphere is long dead, alas. So now Technorati seems to be the winner in blog-ranking systems. This blog, Letter\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":937,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=937","url_meta":{"origin":2956,"position":5},"title":"A Splash of Fall Color","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Virginia creeper in autumn color, growing in the willows along Hardscrabble Creek.","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2956"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2975,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2956\/revisions\/2975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}