Fault of the Earth

Proto Faerie Gathering
at Fault of the Earth, 1972

My first lover, Guy Mannheimer, attended the first Radical Faerie Gathering in the Arizona desert in 1979. I got to thinking of those days--and the start of our "gay spirituality movement"--while reading the article "Diggers, Free Land and Diablo Canyon: A story of Faeries and Reclaiming" by Covelo in the last issue of RFD (Spring 2009 #137).

The article was a wonderful reminder of how what we call Gay Consciousness arose in harmony with the hippie counterculture of the 1960/70s. Covelo's article recounts bits of gay history that are practically lost. I want to add a few details to his recounting.

Covelo's interesting--and nostalgia-inducing--article begins with a report on the idealism and communalism of those times, particularly associated with the Haight-Ashbury collective known as The Diggers. The name derived from a 17th C English utopian movement which "had promulgated a vision of society free from private property and all forms of buying and selling." That communtarian/"hippie poverty" ideal gave birth to the Free Land Movement and the dispersal of many of the first Summer of Love participants into rural communes mostly in Northern California.

As Covelo begins to focus on the gay community that evolved out of those ideas and ideals, he mentions a gay/straight consciousness raising retreat in 1972, commenting that it "had all the markings of a faerie gathering--heart circles, mysticism, nudity, vegetarianism, neo-paganism." The gathering was held at a ranch owned by singer/peace activist Joan Baez called "Fault of the Earth"; it was in the mountains above Palo Alto, CA, located directly above the San Andreas fault.

I attended that gathering. Though, of course, the 1979 Spiritual Conference for Radical Faeries in Benson AZ was the actual start of the Radical Faeries, I have always thought, as Covelo commented also, that that retreat in 1972 was really a sort of Proto-Gay-Consciousness-Fairy gathering. It was my own introduction to Gay Consciousness as a spiritual phenomenon.

I was actually part of the organizing team from the San Francisco end (or, at least, as a newcomer, a tag-along). Covelo mentions the Fault of the Earth Retreat was organized by Randy West in Berkeley, Lucky Mollin and he in Palo Alto. In the City, it was promoted as a follow-up to a gay-straight retreat that had been held a few months before at a building called Alternative Futures (on West Pine St near Laguna in the neighborhood known as the Western Addition.) Alternative Futures was a former boys' club/youth recreation facility that had been transformed into a countercultural community center. San Francisco Gay Rap met there once a week.

Gay Rap was a consciousness-raising meeting for gay men. It had original started in Berkeley in the mid-60s. John Newmeyer, renowned for his work with the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic, brought the Gay Rap program to the City. The building where the meetings were held had a large gymnasium and many small meeting rooms. The weekly events began with a plenary session in the big room; there was almost always a relaxation/guided meditation exercise. Then people spontaneously suggested topics for discussion and the assembly would break up into small groups. This was peer psychotherapy/encounter group at its most egalitarian. There were no leaders (though, of course, there were a few people who took responsibility for leading the relaxation exercises, for instance, and putting out snacks at the end of the evening).

One of the outgrowths of Gay Rap was The San Francisco Gay Counseling Service. Another was the Gay-Straight Retreat(s). There were two such retreats, as far as I remember: the first at Alternative Futures, the second at Fault of the Earth. I'm sorry to say I don't remember names of any of the organizers other than Cliff Kraus whom I had a passing crush on and who was my introduction to the organizing committees for both the Counseling Service and the Retreats. I might be wrong about this, but I think I met Ron Lanza and Hank Wilson (who is eulogized in this same Spring 2009 issue of RFD) at Gay Rap. Many of the original Gay Rap people later joined Bay Area Gay Liberation (BAGL). Other names I remember from that time are: Jim Garver, Gary Titus, Howard Wallace, Cosmo the Massage-therapist, Mark Freeman, Michael Feri, Tom Fry, Gary Freeman, Bill Paul.

I started attending Gay Rap just after the group had been approached by a "Men's Movement" Consciousness Raising group of straight men whose female partners were Women's Lib Feminists and wanted their men to experience similar C-R. Even then--or maybe especially then, in those psychologically sophisticated days when group encounter and psychological marathons were so popular--the straight men wanting to raise their consciousness on gender issues understood that meant getting the help, wisdom and understanding from gay men. So they'd come to Gay Rap to seek assistance. During one of the Gay Raps, I elected to go to the small group that was meeting with the straight men to organize a retreat. That certainly proved to be a life-changing choice for me.

At that first retreat, I met my first partner Guy Mannheimer. As I mentioned, years later he attended the Benson, AZ gathering that birthed the Radical Faerie Movement. At the time of the gay-straight C.R. retreat, Guy was involved with men in Palo Alto centered around the group practice of the first openly gay psychologist Don Clark. Several members of Clark's circle of psychotherapy clients, peer counselors, volunteers and professional psychologists came to the Alternative Futures retreat.

Through my association with Cliff Kraus, I'd stayed on the organizing committee for Gay Rap and so helped get Gay Rap people to the Fault of the Earth event.

I remember driving down in a carload of gay men on an advance mission to inspect the "facilities" at Baez's property--really just a big dilapidated barn with space for bunking indoors in sleeping bags and a kitchen and dining area. Stretching out around the barn was extensive acreage with lots of room for camping and "camping."

A few weeks later, we were back there for the retreat itself. I remember sitting in circles in that big barn sharing life history stories. I remember dancing. And I remember participating in some sort of creative ritual to honor our spiritual identity. I have three very specific and vivid recollections.

The first is of washing carrots in the kitchen and laughing with the other men out of such deep friendship and trustful interconnection. The second is of wandering out along the trails and discovering some of the guys had erected wonderfully decorated bowers with streamers of fabric draped around camp tents; several of the men were dressed in hippie genderfuck drag. This was a revelation to me. The genderfuck sytles were not shocking or surprising because they were hippie and obviously derived from the styles of countercultural idealisms and utopianism. And the neo-pagan/nature rituals that were scripted and performed during the event showed we were creating our own religions, clearly a sign that we were on the "cutting edge" of consciousness evolution.

My main recollection was that a private space had been created in the very middle of the barn by hanging parachure silk to form a sort of cube. Inside were massage tables. In the night, the "cube"--reminiscent of the Muslims' Kaaba, I think--was lit from within and glowed magically. I remember making love with Guy on one of those massage tables, right in the middle of everything, but hidden in that sacred space. There was such innocence and positive embrace and celebration of sexuality--yet another sign of evolution at the level of spirit.

Around that same time, at Cliff Kraus's urging, I attended one of Don Clark's weekend encounter group marathons in the City. Together, the Don Clark Weekend and the Gay Consciousness Retreat were the introduction to me of gayness as both a sign of psychological maturity and of spiritual vocation.

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Over the next fours years or so, by the way, Guy and I dated and lived together (for a time while I was living in the building at the southeast corner of Haight and Ashbury, next door to the apartment Arthur Evans would move into a year or so later), worked at the Mann Ranch in Mendocino County, and then lived in the little rural town of Napa and trained as psych techs together at Napa State Hospital

Here's Toby Johnson at the Mann Ranch circa 1973

In 1975, we returned to the City and found an apartment on 18th and Noe. I got a job at Mount Zion Hospital Crisis Clinic and started down the path of professional gay mental health, eventually completing a PhD in Counseling Psych and working at The Tenderloin Clinic that had indirectly evolved out of S.F. Gay Counseling Service and Cliff's lobbying efforts. Guy didn't like psych work and for a while took a job cleaning houses with a gay male maid agency. It was through that job, I believe, and/or through his friend, Sam Blazer, that he learned about BAGL; we attended a meeting at Arthur Evans's on June 19, 1975, and so, after our 2 year absence from the city, we reconnected with friends from the Gay Rap days, now more radical "gay libbers."

toby in 1979

After Guy and I broke up, we moved in different circles. I was part of D.A.F.O.D.I.L. and gay mental health activism. In '79, Guy attended the Benson, AZ event.

More recently, as an editor for Lethe Press/White Crane Books, I had the honor of assisting Don Clark in publishing his memoir Someone Gay.

Googling keywords, like Gay Rap and Fault of the Earth, bring up virtually no hits. This history is being slowly erased by time.

I would love to hear from others who remember.

Here's Toby in 79 in gay hippie clothes: the outfit was
white linen, the shirt was embroidered in bright pink
and the web belt was pink. He's standing on the
back porch at 87 Fair Oaks.

Proto Faerie Gathering Fault of the Earth, 1972

Proto Faerie Gathering
Fault of the Earth, 1972