Michelle Leopold grew up in Alameda and graduated from UCLA. After a marketing and advertising career in San Francisco she teamed up with her husband, Jeff, to operate a small family chain of local hardware stores.

On November 17, 2019, their elder son, Trevor, died of an accidental fentanyl overdose in his dorm at Sonoma State University. He was 18. Their younger boy, Parker, is a 17-yearold high school student.

Michelle, a lifelong volunteer currently battling breast cancer with chemotherapy, is deeply committed to drug and gun violence education and the 12-step programs related to addiction. We sat with Michelle, surrounded by Jeff and their two big dogs, Maverick and Bowzer, and many family photos, for a poignant conversation in their living room.

Common Ground: Just before Thanksgiving, I witnessed you at a burial ceremony lowering Trevor into the ground, something I will never forget. I can’t imagine what you were feeling.

Michelle Leopold: Disbelief. Heartbreak, agony, pain. Just so much heartache. It’s inconceivable still, two weeks later.

What happened to Trevor?

The toxicology report from the coroner’s office revealed that he had ingested Xanax laced with fentanyl, a street drug he purchased from a dealer.

The irony is that we were sitting next to each other this summer at a service for another local boy who died from an inadvertent fentanyl overdose. It happened on his 19th birthday. He was just having a night of partying.

You would think that Trevor would’ve learned a lesson from that, and we’ve heard that multiple friends warned him not to buy street drugs, especially after the other boy’s death.

Until Prince died from fentanyl I’d not really heard of it. What’s your take?

It’s an epidemic. Ten thousand people in the Bay Area have died from overdoses, mostly because of the fentanyl addition happening in black market drugs. [Starting to cry] It’s horrific and something needs to be done. It’s pervasive and being added without people’s knowledge to black market drugs. A lot of it is found on the so-called dark web. Who knows how people are getting it. Just a couple of pieces of fentanyl the size of a sugar granule can kill you.

We all knew Trevor. He certainly didn’t have a death wish.

That is what we truly believe, that it was not intended.

What was Trevor like growing up?

Full of heart, a nature lover. He was in Little League, he was a Cub Scout, Boy Scout. He did a huge [crying] fundraiser for the Humane Society for his bar mitzvah. He had a big heart and since his passing, several girls, especially, have come to us saying he was such a good listener, helping his friends help each other out of their problems. He was a bright boy. When he applied himself he could do amazing things.

You’re simultaneously battling cancer, undergoing chemotherapy. It’s an absurd question but how are you holding up?

I don’t really have any idea how I’m standing.

I know you and Jeff have a hardware store business, but it appears that your life purpose is educating people about the drug epidemic—and gun violence.

I am a serial volunteer, always have been, particularly with the kids’ schools and for things like Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. When I got breast cancer, I offhandedly mentioned to my best friends, “Breast cancer’s not gonna be my thing.” They all started laughing, saying, “No, you’re not going to be vice-president of the Susan G. Komen Foundation!” I’ll help other women get through cancer, but I have had the privilege of working five years with gun violence prevention and have a lot of friends that have gone through horrific experiences, losing their own children and loved ones. I’ve seen their strength and ability to persevere through adversity. I am doing my best to emulate these role models. Some moms lost their babies to gun violence. Some were killed in shootings like Las Vegas. Such amazing women [starting to cry]—that’s where I’m going, okay! They’re doing it. I must be able to figure out something. The day Trevor died I turned to a friend and I said, “This is my thing.” I had been protecting Trevor’s story as it was his to tell. Now it’s become our story to tell.

Everyone knows that when you’re fighting cancer the best antidote is a stress free life.

[Loud laughter from Michelle] Ha! Tomorrow’s my last chemo. Then I have three more weeks of shitty side effects, but I am going to survive cancer. Yes, it’s horrific that my son died at 18 and I don’t get to watch him fall in love and maybe have children, but this is our new life and we can’t change that. I choose to move forward, even though it’s really stressful.

Trevor had a Jewish service, so I assume that’s how you were raised. How does faith help at this time?

Jeff was raised Jewish. I was raised in multiple different Protestant churches but at but at 16 I decided I was agnostic and have been ever since. I consider myself spiritual with a strong belief in a higher power because of my 12-step work. Before we got married, we went to an interfaith counseling group to create a path together. I decided not to convert though our boys were raised Jewish. The congregation has been a huge support for us, and especially Jeff.

How does spirituality look for you?

I’ve a 17-year yoga practice and have a daily gratitude meditation practice. I am very big on the Serenity Prayer. I believe in a higher power and that I don’t have a lot of control over my own life—that if I turn my ways over to that higher power or whatever you want to call it—that life will unfold the way it’s supposed to. I get a lot of indications and coincidental sightings since Trevor passed. These are comforting. I like to think that Trevor’s spirit is trying to say, “Hey, I’m here. I haven’t gone very far.” I’m just trusting that there is a reason, a path in all of this. I’ve been practicing asking for help, which is a really hard if you’ve been a control freak and a perfectionist. [laughs] I’ve been practicing “Letting go and letting God.” It’s one of the things they say in 12-step groups.

What about how they say “God will never give you more than you can handle”?

[Loud] Oh, that’s such bullshit! What’s the other one they say? “That which does not kill you makes you stronger.” Bullshit. Those are just things people say to make you feel better. You could quote me on that.

Everyone knows you did everything in your power to help Trevor steer away from addiction. You must take solace in that.

Trevor knew every single day of his life that I loved him unconditionally, whether we were going to rehab or juvenile hall. I’ve no regrets for everything I have done as a mom and that gives me peace.

What’s your message to parents?

Love your children, number one. Trevor knew we loved him. And even though that didn’t prevent him from dying at least I don’t have any regrets. Parents need to get educated and make sure their kids are educated. With this epidemic getting bigger there’s going to be more emphasis in the schools. And parents need to be educated about marijuana, which I strongly believe is a gateway drug. A few years ago I started a website, MyKidSmokesPot.com, to create a research resource. Now it needs to be updated, but parents need to know that the pot out there is not like the stuff we had in high school or college, which was 2-4% THC. The crazy good stuff then, like Maui Wowie, was 6%. Street pot is now closer to 25-30% and the concentrates and dabs approach 90%.

Personally I think that legalizing pot is bullshit. On Trevor’s 18th birthday he got a medical marijuana card from a doctor in Malibu. The form said, “I have seen Trevor in person, and I do believe he needs medical marijuana.” Well, Trevor was not in Malibu on his 18th birthday, but apparently if you go on FaceTime with the doctor that counts. There are lots of issues! And there are good resources out there. Parents should not act like ostriches. Parents need to know their kids’ friends’ parents.

The weaker pot we smoked in our day maybe created some psychological dependence, but it seems these high concentrations are creating actual chemical dependence.

The human brain is not fully formed until you’re 25, so the more you load up those pleasure-seeking pathways, the more your brain is going to say, “I want more of that.” With greater access to this pleasure and stronger concentrations it becomes a neurological issue. And then there’s the social stigma of mental health issues and the normal teen challenges of fitting in. Trevor would use marijuana or drugs perhaps to self-medicate instead of going with the diagnoses and recommendations of medical professionals. That can lead to buying a pill laced with fentanyl.

You’re making a correlation between mental illness and the
drug crisis?

I’m not an expert but that’s my experience. Our country needs to destigmatize mental health issues. Trevor had anxiety but had difficulty owning it or saying, “I’ve huge anxiety and it makes me really uncomfortable.” And we’ve a very open, loving, and supportive household. Still, what are people going to say? He surely didn’t understand what was going on inside his own head and self-medicated instead—leading to addiction.

If we had been able to identify solutions for his mental health issues he might never have become addicted to marijuana and whatever else that followed. In this country when you’re dealing with health insurance and mental health it is an upward battle. Later on, when he was also diagnosed with Asperger’s, that diagnosis just about killed him when he heard it. He didn’t want to accept it. I think he struggled with that to the day he passed away.

Oh god! The destructive power of stigma.

Thank you for not sweeping this under the rug. We were likening this drug epidemic to the early AIDS crisis when people were dying and people were saying, “Those people deserved it.” We’re at the same level of history with people saying, “They deserved it; they were drug addicts.”

It just breaks my heart. What message do you have for teens?

Don’t break your mom’s heart. Don’t do this to your family. Know what you’re putting in your body. Don’t keep your feelings bottled up.

There are resources out there.

Rob Sidon is publisher and editor-in-chief of
Common Ground.

Carl Gustav Jung, the famed psychologist who ruefully parted from his mentor Sigmund Freud in 1913, wanted their psychoanalytic framework to include esoteric spiritual archetypes—something Freud dismissed. Deeply pained by the rift and the overwhelming violence of World War I, Jung retreated into a protracted introspection—a kind of controlled psychosis. His soul journey was meticulously documented via elaborate dream paintings and calligraphy that were compiled into a massive leather-bound book, the Liber Novus (the Red Book). Jung would later say of the Red Book, “All my works, all my creative activity has come from those initial fantasies and dreams.”

The unique manuscript was kept secret for decades and became available to the public only in 2009. The original document, vaulted for decades, rarely leaves Switzerland except for a recent trip it took as part of The Illuminated Imagination: The Art of C.G. Jung exhibition at the University of California at Santa Barbara’s Art, Design, and Architecture Museum.

We at Common Ground had been privately musing as to Jung’s state of consciousness. Was he a full-blown mystic? Who knows? But we seized the opportunity to make the pilgrimage to Santa Barbara for a firsthand view of the paintings and they were wonderful. As a bonus we were allowed to take photos of the exhibition and these are represented in this pictorial.

It’s impossible to summarize the impact of Jung’s life but we think at the minimum he deserves yet another title—the Father (albeit inadvertently) of Psychedelic Art. We hope you enjoy the images and become inspired to creatively unravel your own inner mystic.

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All photos by Rob Sidon from The Illuminated Imagination: The Art of C.G Jung, Art, Design, and Architecture Museum at UCSB. Page numbers correspond to the original Red Book pages.

Another Planet Entertainment is the third largest concert promoter in the country. Can you describe its unique niche?

The number one [Live Nation] and number two [AEG] are global conglomerates. We are a small local independent company not answering to Wall Street. We can take risks, like we did with Outside Lands, with less bureaucracy. We’re on the ground where we can work closely with artists and the community and offer more care. We all enjoy going to work every day.

How is Bill Graham’s legacy tied to Another Planet?

Bill is a legendary figure who was my boss’s boss. Gregg Perloff and Sherry Wasserman are the founders of Another Planet. They were trained by Bill, who was very concerned with quality control. Bill cared about the venues and made sure the ushers were kind. Gregg and Sherry bring that kind of pride, which trickles through.

I remember connecting with you as the first Outside Lands festival launched. How has it evolved?

In a very successful way! At the beginning it was Another Planet and our partner Super Fly just pulling this together, like, “How do we do this?” Now it’s so big, yet there’s acceptance in the community. We’ve tried to be a green event and the curation keeps improving. For example, our waste aversion rates get better and better. Over the years Outside Lands has generated millions for SF Rec and Park.

Outside Lands has a charitable arm.

Yes, those charities often contain a music element such as UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital’s music therapy program, which Gregg and Laura Perloff support. That program helps kids with physical or mental trauma through music. Others are Creativity Explored, Youth Arts Exchange, the Richmond Neighborhood Center, the San Francisco Community Music Center, Women’s Audio Mission, the Bay Area Girls That Rock Camp.

You’ve crafted a unique role for yourself in the music industry. Can you describe your work?

I find event opportunities where we can get involved, whether it’s for a company like Pixar renting our venues such as the Fox Theater for a premiere party or an expensive birthday with a name band. Or for fundraisers—we pull it together. We integrate our production skills, connections, and talent relationships to create unique events.

What do you love about the music industry?

The people. The common bond is that we love live music. For me a live music event is like church, where there’s an energy exchange between like-minded people. Everybody speaks a similar language. I still like finding out about new bands.

Did you really organize a party for Barack Obama?

In 2012 the DNC called me and ended up picking the Fox Theater to do a big multi-level fund raiser within the building. I was fortunate to be part of the organizing team. I love him.

What’s he like?

The coolest, nicest, most charming guy. I was bummed not to meet Michelle. She wasn’t able to attend. Everyone said if you like POTUS you’re really going to love FLOTUS. She seems amazing.

What’s another favorite event that stands out?

In 2017, after the North Bay fires, the Band Together Bay Area concert came together as a fundraiser for the Tipping Point Emergency Relief Fund. It was at AT&T Park with Dead and Company, Dave Matthews, Metallica, and others. We worked together with Live Nation, which was amazing, and Marc Benioff and the Salesforce team. It all required last-minute quick thinking for a greater cause that raised $17 million. Energetically it was very hope ful—about how we can work together to help our community.

You work with so many creative people, yet we’re all creative. What is your personal brand of creativity?

I have a sense of knowing how to pair other peoples’ different talents, offstage and onstage, to make an event come together—within a budget. That’s especially important for a fundraiser.

What are your creative aspirations?

I would love to write a book. I love stories. I’ve kept journals since I was six and have stories. [laughs] My kids are getting to reading age so I need to lock those up.

How do you balance work and being a single mama raising two kids?

Good question. I’ve got a great ex-husband who’s an amazing dad. Between kids’ birth day parties and then changing into heels and a blazer for evening concerts I am starting to show wrinkles from lack of sleep.

How did growing up in Oklahoma affect you?

I am proud of my Midwest landscapes. I went to college in Kansas. It goes a bit slower there. I really appreciate that in the fast pace of San Francisco.

You have a yoga practice.

Yes, it’s important—and meditation—and needs to be more frequent [laughs]. Yoga Flow on Ocean Avenue in SF is one of my favorite places to zen-out for 90 minutes.

Can you share a message, particularly to young people, who are trying to find their path in the arts?

You have to have tenacity—and patience. See where your passion leads and follow it. It’s not going to happen immediately but eventually it works out.

Rob Sidon is publisher and editor-in-chief of Common Ground.

In 1969, Mark Squire, then a precocious 16-year-old fascinated by Eastern philosophy and the nascent organic food movement, quit high school in Connecticut and found his way to Fairfax, CA. He negotiated a job (in exchange for two dollars a day and food) at Good Earth Natural Foods, which had been open only six months. He pitched a tent behind the original 123 Bolinas Road location and eventually became principal partner—now with Al Baylacq and Stephen Mitchell.

Over the course of five decades the iconic Fairfax store, known for being a uniquely happy community hub, moved only twice. A second store was added in Mill Valley in 2016. Within the same timeframe Mark has been intimately exposed to nearly every facet of the organic food system—of which he is a vociferous champion. He has also been a fierce adversary of genetically modified foods and was pivotal in starting the successful Non-GMO Project initiative.

Most recently Mark’s theoretical appreciation of organic agriculture became firsthand when he took up residence at Tara Firma Farm in Petaluma. This is where we caught up with him during the February rains amid muddy row crops and meandering livestock.

Common Ground: At 66 you’re the youngest old-timer in the natural products industry. Very few were doing this in 1969. How did you create Good Earth?

Mark Squire: I left my parents’ home in Connecticut on my 16th birthday. The Vietnam War was raging. I wasn’t happy about that, nor about what I was learning in school. My older brother Hart and I had been reading a lot about organic foodie stuff and came west looking to get involved in a food business.

Good Earth in Fairfax had just opened so we basically walked in and said, “We want to work here.” They said, “We don’t have any money to hire anybody.” We struck a deal to earn our food and a couple of dollars a day. We went and bought a tipi and lived on the hill behind the store. That was something you could do in the late ’60s. We didn’t know whose land it was. I was already convinced that organic food was very powerful for changing human health.

What was your childhood like in Connecticut that you had to bolt?

I grew up in suburbia. My dad was a journalist who took the train into New York City every day and my mom was a writer. I got high grades in school but the conventional idea of going to college and learning how to fit into society didn’t appeal to me.

You’ve been vegetarian for a long time?

Since I was 14. Throughout my childhood I had terrible nightmares and woke up in these sweats and full of fear. The day I became vegetarian was the last bad dream I ever had. Something about meat just never agreed with me personally.

What was your religious background or spiritual upbringing?

My dad was a devout atheist. He wouldn’t step in a church for anything. My mom was Episcopalian. I did go to church with Mom some times but it was always offered as a choice. When I was 13 I read Swami Vivekananda and that might’ve been what led me to leave school. I respected his teachings on the truth about the human mind. I also read George Ohsawa and Michio Kushi, whose teachings about whole foods and macrobiotics included a huge component of Eastern yin-yang philosophy. At the core this was a mixture of Taoism and Shintoism.

Because of the macrobiotic stuff I ended up being taken in by a couple in San Francisco, Cornelia and Herman Ihara, who were students of George Ohsawa. They really appealed to me because they were very much into studying and learning and not getting tripped out with the heavy belief systems that did turn macrobiotics a bit culty.

Rachel Carson was a big influence?

Oh yes. Her book woke a lot of people up to the dangers of pesticides and the craziness of putting poisons on our food. At Good Earth I was buying from all these farmers and learning about the system of organics and making friends in that community. Many of those old-timers I am still in touch with like Frank Ford who started Arrowhead Mills, and Arran Stephens from Nature’s Path. Bob Quinn is the kamut guy. Michael Potter started Eden Foods 50 years ago from the macrobiotic tradition. He is quite a character. I remember when he came out with soy milk, which was a new thing.

Your focus has been organic.

What I’ve learned over time is that organic farming doesn’t really work if you just remove the pesticides from conventional farming. The whole system crashes. Think of a drug addict going cold turkey. It’s about developing healthy soils that depend on an amazing sharing that occurs between microorganisms. For example, plants give sugars to the fungus and he fungus in turn dissolves minerals for the plants. In turn healthy soils create healthy plants that are more insect resistant. Getting good science that demonstrates such symbiotic functions has been a strong trend in organics.

You’re a longtime anti-GMO crusader.

Monsanto really did think they would be able to revolutionize agriculture through genetic modification but they were absolutely unable. I’m convinced that the damage done to the genome when they change those plants is actually causing a lot of harm to the quality of the food produced in that system. Organic is elegant and it makes so much sense scientifically.

I was involved in the Measure B campaign to ban GMOs in Marin, which won by 62 percent, and the Prop 37 campaign to label GMOs in California. We lost Prop 37 by only a point and a half, which, considering the magnitude of the dollars pumped in against that campaign, was pretty good. What I’ve learned is that these political referendums are nothing more than educational campaigns.

The most heartwarming David vs. Goliath success story is the Non-GMO Project, with its ubiquitous butterfly logo.

About 12 years ago Bob Kerner from Natural Grocery Company in El Cerrito and Berkeley and I along with The Big Carrot, which is this Toronto-based store that was also very concerned about the GMO issue, got together and formed a partnership of independent retailers to create the Non-GMO Project. We hired Megan Westgate, who’s still the executive director, and that was it. The verification is rigorous to prove that you don’t have GMOs but it’s caught on. The Non-GMO Project butterfly verification logo came out in 2010 and is now on 3,000 brands and 50,000 products, giving people a means of awareness about GMOs.

I love that it was driven by local independent retailers. Now that organic food is a $50 billion industry, that must shift the dynamic in Washington,

Night and day. It has everything to do with that 50 billion number. As little as five years ago you’d be talking to representatives in DC and be treated like weird hippies pushing fringy agriculture. Now even in Republican offices in the Senate and the House you show stats about the money the industry is generating in rural communities and they take you seriously. At its core organic agriculture is a conservative idea.

But industrial farming is far from dead.

If you break out human food, organic is actually growing faster than any other segment of the food market. Twenty percent of U.S. produce is now organic. It’s in the animal food market that all the GMO corn and soy is being raised. But I’m hopeful that Americans will to start to realize that eating animals raised with all those GMOs is a health and environmental disaster. But I have always been an optimist.

That’s the charm of Good Earth—it’s a magical place that epitomizes the progressive Bay Area. You’ve created something very special. What’s been the key to your success?

Thank you. We’ve always seen ourselves as a community store so we tried to make it a special place for people to hang out. I think that’s a big part of the charm—the community.

Agreed. I sometimes joke that it’s the happiest place on Earth.

Aww… thank you. So community is one part but I also think when people come to Good Earth they come to be connected with that bigger food issue—such as our commitment to organics. We’ve always prided ourselves on offering the best quality food based on health. Economics has not been the deciding factor. You know we have stopped selling certain things that were very popular sellers. The reason we pulled them is because we didn’t think that they were the best choices for people. I think our customers have come to recognize that when they walk into the store there’s a lot more going on that just selling food. We are driven by that idealism—the “food is medicine” philosophy.

If there’s any consumer pushback it’s the prices.

When you’re in the food industry you start to understand all the distinctions that make up food quality—they’re huge. For example, Good Earth could buy carrots that are produced organically on a big farm in Southern California that is using minimal inputs to meet that organic requirement. Or we could buy from a local producer like Full Belly Farm that has been growing organic for many, many years and has developed the soil health that I spoke of.

The carrots from Full Belly have a higher nutrient density that you can actually taste. They are simply a better product. There’s nothing airy fairy about it. The energy in those better carrots is profound and I believe actually leads to better health quality. You may end up paying more for your groceries now but your health costs will be less later.

Pay now or pay later.

I think so. Personally I never go to the doctor, and having raised two kids that are now in their 40s with kids of their own I can say my family has had almost no health issues. I have a lot of friends who believe the same thing—that nutrition is a good investment.

You’ve become something of a gentleman farmer having moved your home to Tara Firma Farm in Petaluma.

We took this farm over from a woman who had created what I call “a mixed operation.” We have cows grazing the hills, pigs, chickens, goats. I’m doing the row crops, growing squash, garlic, and pumpkins for our events. Personally it’s been lovely. I’m fitter and learning a lot, particularly since I’ve been so involved in these conversations about farming systems, soil health, tillage. Now I actually see it happen. Plus, I live with kids and grandkids, so that completes it.

What trends in the future of food concern you?

The world of genetic engineering and what some people are calling synthetic biology. It’s basically genetically engineering microorganisms—yeast, algae, bacteria used to produce proteins for human consumption. The Impossible Burger is the example already on the market. It’s basically producing this genetically engineered hemoglobin or blood-like compound that imitates beef. No testing. No health studies of any magnitude. To me it’s like you don’t just create completely new proteins and start eating them without doing a lot of analysis of the health implications.

Americans think the FDA’s protecting them from food additives but if you actually look at what is happening there is no meaningful regulation.

They’re looking at dairy proteins that will all be created not from cows but from GMO yeasts and stuff like that. There’s this other thing called a “gene drive” where they’ve basically learned how to genetically modify a living organism. It’s been done with mosquitoes where they make a mosquito that produces only sterile young to cause all the mosquitoes in a whole area to go extinct. None of us like mosquitoes but nonetheless you have to have some awareness that mosquitoes have this niche in the ecosystem. They’re looking at the small shortsighted profit to be gained.

They’re looking at doing the same thing with this cherry worm—to eliminate the species to have a more productive cherry yield. We’ll have more profitable production of cherries but what about the ripples in the environment? They’re thinking they can do it with weeds. It’s not long-term thinking.

It’s like artificial intelligence. Are the robots gonna win or the real organic crowd?

I’m optimistic it’s going to be the organic crowd. Organic agriculture is elegant and sustainable for a reason. It actually tends to get better and better over time, whereas the chemical systems and all these GMO systems tend to get worse.

Other things that tick you off?

It’s really hard for me to watch the PR machine of the pesticide and GMO industries because they keep coming out with these articles that try to paint organic as being this elitist system. It’s a lot of lies. They keep talking about how we need pesticides and GMOs to feed the hungry of the world and that the organic community is not scientific. If you actually look at their science none of it is true. But they have a big investment and those perpetuated lies keep a lot of people from really embracing organics and that’s sad.

What stuff floats your boat?

This feeling like that we do touch people’s lives sometimes. I always think of one young lady who came into Good Earth and started working for us as a cashier. She was in really poor health but after a number of years I remember looking at her and it was like, “Wow, this is a different person.” She transformed her health over time. We have customers who feel like they have transformed their health by eating natural and organic food. Or they have improved their kids’ health. That touches me.

After 50 years you’re not in this for the money but actually enjoy coming to work.

Good Earth’s got a great team so I could trim my hours back. Already I fill half of my schedule doing food activism. I’m on the Organic Trade Association board and I go to DC lobbying for organic causes. That’s my way of contributing to the store, so how can you not like that? Not to mention that it’s a great place to work, right?

You found your calling.

Yeah. Think so.

Rob Sidon is publisher and editor-in-chief of Common Ground.

Dr. Tae Yun Kim is a Great Grandmaster and the first and highest-ranked Korean female martial artist. Cursed for being born a girl, she was abandoned at 5 by her family during the Korean War and later at 8 was reunited with her grandparents—whose attempts to marry her off she cleverly thwarted with her own dreams of becoming a Tae Kwon Do master. She found a male teacher willing to break the 5,000-year tradition that forbade females from learning martial arts.

In 1969 she emigrated to the U.S., which became the stage for her unusual Horatio Alger trajectory—becoming a successful teacher, tech entrepreneur (Lighthouse Worldwide Solutions), and best-selling author, among other accomplishments. A peaceful—yet determined—warrior, Dr. Kim is based in Fremont, CA, where we caught up with her.

Common Ground: What was it like growing up as a little girl in Korea?

Tae Yun Kim: Nobody should go through what I went through. I grew up in a beautiful rural village with only 300 people and no electricity. Across the river there was one post office with one phone and one radio. In Korea the culture dictates that your first child must be a boy—cannot be a girl. A boy is good luck while a girl is bad luck. When a boy is born, they proudly put a hot pepper on their front door. When it’s a girl, they put charcoal. It’s symbolic. I was the first born in my family—charcoal.

How did that affect you psychologically?

My family always told me, “You are a curse; don’t shame us anymore.” During the Korean War, bombs were dropping everywhere and my village was evacuated. My family abandoned me because I was bad luck. I was so scared. I didn’t understand why I was left behind. I just cried, calling out to mommy.

Then a miracle happened. An older girl came and said sweetly to me, “You can’t stay here. Race with me!” I remember thinking, “Wow. What a beautiful voice. She is not cursing me.” I forgot my mommy and every thing and said, “Okay, I will follow.” With laser beam focus I ran as fast as I could to keep up with her. Then something happened—“Kaboom!” I have no idea what it was, a land mine or bomb dropping. All I know is everything went black. When I woke up, I was looking for her, crying “Where are you?” I finally found her. I remember shaking her, apologizing, saying, “I’m sorry, I will run faster.” She never woke up. I saw her arm was gone and there was blood all over. That was my very first friend and my first experience with death.

Wow. When did you discover martial arts?

After the war, my parents put me in my grandparents’ house, where I woke up every morning to the sound of my eight uncles training in martial arts, loudly shouting Ki Ups [loudly yells Ahh-yaaa!], an internal sound which brings the total vibration of mind body spirit forward.

I was not supposed to see them, but I made a little hole in the rice paper window to watch my uncles kicking, , and moving like a dance, a wave, the wind blowing. It so captured my heart. I begged my uncles to teach me, but they said, “Don’t you know that you’re a girl? You must learn to cook, sew, get married and produce twelve sons.”

I didn’t want to be like my mother and aunts. That was fine for some people, but I saw them working so hard every day and when they came home they would cook and clean and have their husbands beating the hell out of them for whatever reason. That wasn’t for me. I decided that I would train in martial arts and that I would teach. They said, “No, no, no.” I said, “Yes, yes, YES!” My youngest uncle finally gave in to my pleading and started to teach me, expecting me to give up early because of all the bruises, but I didn’t give up and got better.

How old were you at this time, and did your uncles capitulate and train you?

I was only 8 years old and no, most of my uncles didn’t help me at all. The youngest uncle who finally taught me a few moves now lives in America and many years later he apologized to me in front of all my students. He said, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know you were this special. I should have really focused on teaching you. I had no idea.”

My interest in martial arts became an urgent problem with my grandparents. The family got together and decided to contribute a big dowry to marry me off to anyone. They organized a meeting with a professional matchmaker. One day this strange woman came to the house, talking to my grandfather and glancing at me. I did everything in my power to make her not like me. When my grandfather asked me to serve her hot tea I deliberately poured it on her lap. [laughs]

[laughs] I bet your strategy worked.

Oh, yes. The matchmaker was furious, shouting, “I don’t care how much money you give me, she’s a tomboy, she’s bad luck! She’s clumsy! I will never find her a husband!”

So how did you come to be a Great Grandmaster?

My grandparents had given up on marrying me off after the matchmaker incident. They decided to send me away to become a monk. A famous Buddhist Ki Energy master would go around blessing homes in exchange for food. My grandfather invited him to our house.

When he met me, he asked, “Don’t you want to get married, little girl?” I said, “No sir, I want to be me. I want to become a martial arts teacher.” He looked at me and said, “You are very special. Someday you will lead many people on this planet.” Together when I became his student we broke the 5,000-year tradition that said girls were forbidden to train in the martial arts. I was only 8 years old.

My Master taught me in a very traditional way. He gave me many lessons and would teach me about life force and energy through my experiences with nature. In 1969, my Master told me I had to go to America. I didn’t want to go at first, but he told me that I must go. So I listened to him and went.

How did you begin teaching in America?

When I first came to Vermont, I didn’t speak much English. My first job was cleaning toilets at a Howard Johnson hotel. I was so excited because when I cleaned, I got paid! Back in Korea, I would clean and get beaten! [laughs]

I really wanted to teach so I took my Korean-English dictionary and notepad and went to the local high school. I sat in front of the teachers’ office and waited to be invited in. I didn’t know I could knock on the door and just go in. In my country, you had to be invited. So I waited every day for a month!

Finally they asked me what I wanted to do, and I told them “Teach.” They asked, “What do you want to teach?” I said, “Karate.” But they said “Oh, no! we don’t want our kids to break pencils or kneecaps!”

I expected this kind of response and I told them that I don’t teach how to break things, I teach how to have a positive character. They said they didn’t have any money, and I said I didn’t want money, just the opportunity. So then they said, “Okay.”

You moved to Silicon Valley. Can you describe how you became a tech entrepreneur in America?

At the time, I was having a challenging time teaching. People didn’t want to rent a school to me. When I finally found one, people threw garbage all over my school and eventually burned it down. I was very lost. So, I went up to the mountain with only my Bible, and no food or water.

After two weeks, Jesus appeared to me, saying, “You are my living daughter and I give you Isaiah 60.” He showed me a picture of technology helping people and I thought I was hallucinating because I hadn’t eaten for two weeks. It didn’t make sense to me. I came down from the mountain, and two months later, I had the same vision, but this time I wasn’t fasting so I knew it was real. I didn’t know anything about technology. One of my students was a design engineer at IBM so I approached him and told him that I needed to open a computer company. He said I was crazy because I was a martial artist, not a computer person. I finally convinced him, and we started Lighthouse Worldwide Solutions.

Yours is the ultimate Horatio Alger story. I don’t think readers fully appreciate the opportunities this country offers…

I love America. I love the US military forces that came to save me, my village, and my country. I came to America from a country that was devastated from a war and was recovering. As a woman in Korea, I had no freedom, no power, no ability to do what I wanted to do, say what I wanted to say, or even think what I wanted to think! Women were worse than second-class citizens, worse than pigs or cats.

Here in America I get paid when I work! I can go to the store and buy what I ant. I can wear whatever clothes I want. Here I can start my own business—America is truly the Land of the Free!

Whenever I see someone who throws trash or gum on the ground I get so upset. Why are they treating this land, God’s land, like a garbage can? They don’t appreciate the beauty of this land! I say to those people, “Go to another country that doesn’t have running water, or electricity, or any of the freedoms that we have here. See how you can live.” I think they need to go so that they can appreciate how truly amazing America is!

Korea was predominantly a Buddhist country, but you gradually shifted to Catholicism. Can you describe your spiritual journey?

My mother was a strong Christian. She took me to church and when we came home, my father would beat me and my mom. I talked to God all the time. When my father locked me out of the house or beat me, when my mother cut off my hair, I had only God to talk to. Even my Master supported me to follow Jesus. My Master was very special and different from everyone else in Korea.

I am nothing without my Lord, not even dust. But I am everything with Him. I believe we are all children of God. I don’t separate one from another. Whether you are Christian or Buddhist, Muslim or Jewish, everyone believes in the power of love, right? They use different words and different stories, but the message is the same!

What is the core message of your book, Seven Steps to Inner Power?

To me, this is not just a book. It is my heart, my breath, my spirit; it is the rhythm of life. My message is that no matter who you are, no matter where you are, no matter what your life situation may be, you have the power within you to rise above and overcome the challenges you face. You don’t have to settle for less in your life. With determination, with focus, with energy and spirit, you CAN rise above and break all the barriers that you face in your life. I did it! So can you! Don’t treat this book as just a book. This book is your best friend that you can turn to whenever you have questions in your life.

What is your ultimate message to Common Ground readers, particularly women?

The power is in you! What you do in your life is your personal choice! No one can eat for you, no one can sleep for you, no one can go wee wee for you! Stop letting what other people say about you define who you are. You need to look into yourself and discover the beauty that you have, that we all have inside.

If you want, you can break through to your awesome, but you have to take action to be the driver in your life. It’s up to you.

Rob Sidon is publisher and editor in chief of Common Ground.

BY ROB SIDON

Warren Thomas Farrell was born in New Jersey in 1943 and came to prominence in the 1970s as the male champion of feminism. He worked side by side with the likes of Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, and served on the board of the National Organization for Women (NOW) in New York City. His views have since evolved, and while he is known as the father of the men’s movement, he now advocates for neither a men’s movement nor a women’s movement but instead for a “gender liberation movement” that frees both sexes from their past rigid roles.

The author of many successful books including The Myth of Male Power and The Liberated Man, Farrell’s focus over the last decade is summed up in his forthcoming book, The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It, co-authored with John Gray (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus). Both writers live in Marin County.

Common Ground: You’re known as the father of the men’s movement. What is this movement?

Warren Farrell: It’s a movement that is trying to say several things. One is that for the last 50 years we’ve done a wonderful job expanding women’s options but not so much for expanding boys and men’s options. Often when I talk with a middle-class married couple and the woman is pregnant, the woman will ponder, “Do I wish to be a full-time mother? Or work full-time in the workplace, or do some combination of both?” Meanwhile her husband’s three options are: work full-time; work fulltime, and work full-time.

Another focus of the movement is to get men and boys to expand their emotional intelligence. We traditionally trained boys with heroic intelligence—to deny their feelings and to be disposable heroes that have short lives on the battlefield, so to speak. This tough heroic intelligence wreaks havoc on emotional intelligence. Boys and men need to develop the emotional capacity to get in touch with their feelings and cultivate emotional health. This will lead boys to have longer, more fulfilling lives and be better able to love our daughters.

In the ’60s you were at the vanguard as the one of the original men representing the women’s movement. How did that come about?

In the seventh grade, when I became class president, I said, “Mom, can I have a nice ironed shirt on the day I preside over the class meetings?” She said, “Absolutely,” and took out the ironing board. “Here’s how you iron your shirts.” She used to say, “I’m your mother, not your slave.” Also by the time the women’s movement surfaced, I had often heard my mother say that when she worked she felt she didn’t have to ask my dad for money “like a welfare recipient.” I saw that when my mom worked, even part-time, she was less prone to depression. She committed suicide when she was 48, so these memories resonated powerfully with me. Especially since the women’s movement’s principal focus then was on women’s right to work.

It must’ve been exciting.

Yes. I had relationships with leaders like Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem and as the women’s movement made headlines the media treated me seriously. My encouragement of companies to develop flexible work had translation in the real world and my opinions were frequently published in the New York Times.

Today is it fair to say that the men’s movement is at odds with the women’s movement?

Unfortunately it is, but it should be the exact opposite. One of my efforts is to say, “We are all in the same family boat. Men and women share the same goals of raising healthier and happier children.” It’s our job to help both sexes understand each other.

What is the “boy crisis”?

It’s happening in all 63 developed countries: Boys are experiencing a failure to launch—a lack of motivation, a greater tendency to be withdrawn. Boys fall behind girls in every academic subject, especially the two that most predict success—reading and writing. They fall behind in physical, emotional, mental, and psychological health. Boys tend to withdraw into excessive video games, online porn, and drugs. The gray matter in their brains has begun to deteriorate as a result of having their dopamine being routinely stimulated by these risky activities. In The Boy Crisis I define part of the problem as a “purpose void.” To explain: In the old days boys used to have a clearer sense of purpose as they prepared themselves to be disposable in war and to earn recognition as heroes or warriors. While it’s good that we have less need for boys to be disposable in war, the shift has created a purpose void.

What are the root causes of the crisis?

I define ten significant causes but the most significant is fatherlessness. When there’s enough luxury for society to allow permission for divorce there’s greater likelihood that fathers will be minimally involved or not at all involved in child rearing. This results in children suffering from about 70 different areas of deprivation. Conversely, the flip side is also true—where fathers are significantly involved and giving good guidance, children benefit in about 70 different areas.

Fatherlessness is the most important cause with the biggest ripple effect. Testosterone, which is a powerful force, when not well channeled is the world’s most destructive force. ISIS recruits and the perpetrators of mass shootings are almost uniformly fatherless boys.

Doesn’t dad deprivation happen too in non-divorced households where Dad travels a lot to make bucks and is checked out about child rearing?

Yes, but usually not as much. The stability of knowing that Daddy is successfully off doing something and will be coming back helps. The Boy Crisis makes clear that boys do best amid stable families that have family dinner nights and where boys have a lot of dad contact doing roughhousing and game playing and teasing. Dads tend to be firmer in enforcing boundaries, saying things like, “You have to eat all your peas before you get ice cream.” Whereas Mom might settle and say, “Eat some of your peas.” I am speaking in generalities but oftentimes the greater desire of the mother is to protect the son from uncomfortable experiences. A boy at school might complain about a teacher and the dad’s response is more likely to be, “You need to learn to get along with people you don’t like.” A mom is more likely to want to ask the principal to put her child with a different teacher.

Is there any benefit to a woman hitching up with a man for the sake of her boy in order to have a male influence around the house?

While choosing among men who are good potential fathers or stepdads is certainly important, if she’s sleeping with somebody for the benefit of the children she isn’t being true to herself and that makes her a bit of a prostitute. That sacrifice weighs heavy.

What recommendations do you have for single mothers struggling to raise a balanced son?

Try to understand men’s different styles of loving. For example, a man is more likely to tease. Yes, stop teasing when it goes too far but understand how some teasing contributes to emotional intelligence. Or if your son’s male guide lets him climb a tree, yes, intervene if the boy’s life is at risk but if the risk is breaking a bone, weigh that against how it teaches him to differentiate between safe and unsafe risks. It’s better he learn such skills while he’s young and has the protection of a male guide. This type of exploring increases intelligence.

It seems parents of modern boys find themselves helpless against what I call the P words—the phone, the pot, the porn.

Substitute those P words for two other P words: postponed gratification and purpose. As with the example of “You can have ice cream only when you finish your peas,” the parent who enforces the boundary of requiring the peas to be finished teaches the child to postpone gratification—to focus on what is necessary to receive the desired reward. In turn this allows the child to accomplish his purpose. This garners respect from peers and less need to withdraw into pot or porn—which is basically access to a variety of (virtual) women without fear of rejection.

You grew up in the ’40s and ’50s. What kind of relationship did you have with your father?

A lot better than he had with his father, who never said that he loved him. Not that I felt unconditional approval. I had to actively earn my father’s approval, whether by doing my homework or delivering papers to earn money. I also earned his approval by showing integrity—like by not lying. My parents’ core message to me was You exist therefore you serve. It was never You exist therefore you deserve.

There’s a spectrum from the old-fashioned stoic hero provider dads to New Age dads who maybe feminize their boys. What’s your advice along those lines?

Just “hanging out” with your son gives him opportunities to share what’s bothering him at his pace. We call that feminizing, but for him to repress feelings is to cut off part of the man he is becoming. That’s emotional castration. However, feminizing in a negative sense is rescuing him by saying, “Hey, son, I don’t want you to ever have to worry about breaking your leg skiing again. If you want to quit, you can any time.”

In schools the teachers are overwhelmingly women. How does this affect boys?

For example, when a boy goes from an inner-city environment with minimal or no father involvement into a male-deprived elementary school, is it any wonder he is vulnerable to the first male—who is perhaps also a gang leader—who tells him that he can earn respect by joining the group or by selling drugs? The ratio of fatherlessness in African-American communities is 70 to 80%. We need approximately 70% male role models in the classroom to rebalance the energy—and not just in high school but starting in kindergarten, first, second, and third grades.

You say “Boys who hurt—hurt us.” What is behind that statement?

Three sociologists who did studies of ISIS recruits found to their surprise that they almost always came from broken families with minimal or no father involvement. So those boys were hurting—and they hurt society. It’s the same for school shooters and serial killers, like the one in Las Vegas. Boys who are hurt by dad deprivation often hurt us.

What policy decisions do you recommend?

For eight years under the Obama administration we had a White House Council on Women and Girls even though boys were falling farther and farther behind girls academically, socially, psychologically—their IQs decreasing, their sperm getting weaker, their propensity for depression and suicide increasing. A White House Council on Boys and Men would begin a national discussion that would become an international discussion.

What was John Gray’s role in coauthoring The Boy Crisis?

John did five phenomenal chapters on health therapies and non-drug solutions to ADHD. His research helps parents resolve the ADHD predicament—“Do I give my son drugs to stop the symptoms, even though those drugs are highly addictive?” The array of non-drug and life-enhancing therapies John presents will be a blessing to every parent with an ADHD child.

This being the love issue, could you tell the story about how you helped John Lennon?

We met in 1976 at a party for Ms. Magazine. I rarely watched TV, so when John approached me and asked, “Are you Warren Farrell?” I said “Yes” without any idea of who he was. He said, “I just want to tell you that you started a men’s group that I got involved with and it had a huge impact in my life.” I had trained men’s groups to run themselves and then left them. Since I had already left this men’s group by the time he joined, I asked, “How so?” He said, “Because I decided to take five years off to take care of my son.” He elaborated: “Apparently one of the questions you have all your men’s groups ask is ‘What’s the biggest hole in your heart?’ When it got to me I said, ‘The biggest hole in my heart is that I was so preoccupied with my work that I paid little attention to my first son.’ That led to getting a divorce and still having almost no contact with him.” He went on to say that at the time he came to the men’s group he was expecting a boy with his new wife.

“Then what happened?” I inquired. He said that the men in the group asked, “What would you do if you could do anything you wanted?” His response was, “I’d love to take off four or five years and raise him full-time.” He added, “Rather than laughing at me, the group encouraged me to talk with my wife. When I did she replied, ‘If you want to do that I think it would be wonderful for the boy.’”

Since his son was almost two, I asked John, “Was leaving your work and raising your son a good decision?” He didn’t hesitate. “It was by far the best decision of my life. I never knew what love was until I raised my son. I had often written about love, but now I felt I was love.”

At that moment, another guest at the party approached our table asking, “Can I have your autograph?” Since I’d just returned from doing a lot of TV on my book tour I reached for his pen. The guy clarified: “Er… actually I want his autograph.” Embarrassed, I asked the man I’d been talking to for the last hour, “Who are you? You must be well known.” He hesitatingly allowed “John….” And then he added “Lennon.” Without a TV, I felt proud for recognizing his name well enough to ask, “Are you a singer?” When he smiled “Yes,” I said, “What is the name of your group?” It was only when he said “the Beatles” that my death-from-embarrassment was complete.

Then I said to him, “Well, it’s a lot easier for you to take time off because you have money.” He disagreed. “In some ways yes, but in many ways no. I had far more contracts and people depending on me financially. Many fans were addicted to me and I was addicted to being addicted to.” He was talking about the phenomenon of What you own owns you. Here was a man with one of the most enviable careers in history claiming his best decision was his plan to give up five years to raise his son, concluding that he never really knew what love was until he raised Sean. On their deathbed nobody says, “I wish I’d spent more time at the office.” Almost everybody feels, “I wish I’d spent more time loving my family.”

All you need is love.

All you need is love.

Rob Sidon is editor-in-chief and publisher of Common Ground.

BY ROB SIDON

Chris Coursey became mayor of Santa Rosa less than a year before the Tubbs fire struck his city and woke him out of bed at 2:30 a.m. on October 9. Collectively, the Northern California fires this October killed at least 43 people, the youngest, 14, and the oldest, 100. Approximately 200,000 acres have burned, destroying nearly 9,000 structures. Chris is a father of four and was a journalist for 30 years before he lost his wife to cancer in 2010.

Common Ground: It’s been a couple weeks since this tragedy devastated your city. Now that the fires are mostly contained, can you provide a snapshot of the destruction?

Chris Coursey: The destruction is mind-boggling. If you’ve had a chance to look at even the edges of some of these neighborhoods, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. I’ve flown over it and visited it with firefighters and it’s like nothing they’ve ever seen—and these are people who do wildfires for a living. It’s hard to get your head around.

Can you share how you learned about the fire and put us in that moment?

I got a call at about 2:30 in the morning on Monday the ninth from our deputy city manager asking me to authorize an emergency declaration. In my muddled state at 2:30 in the morning, I thought we had a wildfire on the edge of town and didn’t fully understand the extent of what was going on. I actually laid back to bed. I live close to downtown and sleep with my windows open and realized that the traffic outside my house was much heavier than during rush hour. I got up to look outside and smelled smoke and realized pretty quickly that this was more than a brush fire on the edge of town. I could hear repeated explosions all night long that I can only assume now were propane tanks, as people’s barbecues blew up in flames. That was the beginning of the fire for me.

Did you ever fear the whole city would be engulfed?

I didn’t. By the time I realized the extent of what had happened, the fire in the city was essentially out. The fire burned for a long time and spots of it are still burning as we speak, but within the city limits and within the more populated areas it was out pretty quickly.

What’s your life been like for the last couple weeks?

I’ve been doing a lot of interviews and going to a lot of meetings. I have spent very little time in my office. I feel like my role is to be out in the community talking to our residents—particularly those who have lost their homes and in some cases their loved ones and letting them know what we’re doing to respond. And to let them know that we want them to stay here. We want to keep our city whole and we’re planning to rebuild.

What’s been the most difficult part of this experience for you?

The learning curve. There’s never been a disaster quite like this in California and certainly not in Santa Rosa. So pretty much all of us are learning to be the victims of disaster. And we’re learning how to respond. Obviously, there are people who do this kind of work and we’re leaning on them. We’re talking to people from Lake County, which had their big fire a couple of years ago. We’re talking to San Diego County, which has experienced big fires. We had the city manager of Malibu on loan for a couple weeks. It’s a difficult subject to learn in the middle of the crisis.

How are you holding up emotionally and psychologically?

I am a pretty steady person. I don’t get too high or too low. That’s my personal theory of things. It’s a stressful time. I try to keep up my selfcare as far as starting the day by trying to get the fuzz out with some stretching and yoga on the floor. I have to admit that I haven’t been doing that as regularly as I was before. But I do realize that an important part of being able to support my city is taking care of myself.

I understand you lost your wife to cancer some years back. Did the loss of your wife somehow prepare you to better handle this situation?

[Long pause] That’s an interesting question. Somebody the other day said, “This must be the hardest thing you’ve ever dealt with.” I said, “Well, no it’s not.” I’ve had some difficult times in my life, including the death of my wife. Does that make me stronger? I don’t know. It does make me realize that there are a lot worse things that can happen than losing your house. And I don’t want to sound callous to the people who have lost their houses because I’m sitting here right now in my own house. I know that it’s a huge blow to these folks. But for me this is a challenge. It’s not the end of the world.

Are there any notable bright spots in this experience?

Absolutely. Our community is known for its volunteerism and its care for each other, and this has brought that more into the picture. From the moment the fire started, people were taking care of each other. Ordinary citizens were going through neighborhoods that were full of flames, with winds blowing 40 to 50 miles an hour, and knocking on neighbors’ doors. That probably saved a lot of lives. Since then, this community has raised over $12 million and counting in just one fund. There are many funds that have started. People were showing up at emergency shelters to volunteer everything from bringing their therapy dogs to bringing their nursing skills. Little kids on the corner in my neighborhood were waving signs and collecting canned food. So that’s been a very positive outcome of this.

Could you share an insight into the lives of the first responders you’ve interacted with?

I’ll tell you about two of them in the Santa Rosa Fire Department. One of them is a manager in the department who lost his house that night—yet I saw him every day doing his job. I didn’t know the whole first week that he had lost his house. He was just working hard like everybody else.

Our fire chief has been standing up in front of community meetings with several hundred people, and at times many angry people, who want to know why they didn’t get a phone call in the middle of the night to tell them the fire was coming or why there wasn’t some better warning system in place. He has stood up there and become very emotional and essentially said, “We don’t have all the answers; we don’t know everything that happened. That investigation will happen.” But it’s very clear that for him the loss of 23 lives in Sonoma County that night is a personal blow. He wishes that we could’ve done better. But it’s not just words for him. You can hear it in his voice and see it in his face.

You’ve been mayor for nearly a year. What were you doing before?

I’d been on the city council for three years. Before that I was semiretired, doing freelance writing and some public relations consulting. At the time my wife passed away, I was working for the SMART commuter train project, which just started running a few months ago. I was involved in that start-up. Prior to that I was a journalist for 30 years.

Has the cause of the fire been determined?

No, it hasn’t.

Where are we going from here? What’s the forecast?

Well we’ve got every alphabet soup agency from the state and the feds here in town helping with the cleanup. First, the debris removal job is enormous. The EPA is out now in the neighborhoods identifying hazardous waste and toxics that must first get removed. Then the Army Corps of Engineers comes in and takes away everything down to about six inches of soil to make sure that all the toxics are gone. And that’s expected to be done before spring. So come spring, we’re going to have 3,000 houses to build in Santa Rosa. And what we are doing now is trying to figure out how that’s going to happen. How we are going to handle all of the work that goes into building a house, from permits to pounding nails and putting roofs on. How to house the people who don’t have houses between then and now. How to house the workforce that’s going to be necessary to do all this. How to keep our city moving forward so we don’t end up at the end of this back to where we were two weeks ago. In 2020 or 2022 or whenever we’re done building all these houses, I don’t want us to be in I want us to be in 2020.

Any final comments?

Honestly, Rob, I can’t think of anything else, and I don’t want to just give a bromide of some sort.

Rob Sidon is editor in chief and publisher of Common Ground.

BY ROB SIDON

Judah Jones is Trinidadian by birth and makes a home in Glen Ellen with his partner, Giana Pla, and five children.

Common Ground: Can you tell me how it went down that night?

Judah Jones: I was asleep at around 2 o’clock in the morning when Giana came and told me she was smelling smoke. I thought she was overreacting, so I was like, “Baby, go back to sleep.” I went back to sleep but 30 minutes after started smelling smoke. When I woke up, Giana wasn’t in bed so I went outside and saw everybody in the neighborhood standing, and there was an orange ball of fire heading directly for us. Everybody started panicking and didn’t know what to do, so everybody just started packing up. Giana and the kids left for Petaluma by 3:30, and I stayed behind with my truck. I couldn’t pack my stuff in time.

Did the police try to evacuate you?

The police knocked on the door and told everyone to leave. I did leave, actually, but I didn’t go too far. I drove around the corner, and when I saw that the police left I came back. One house was already on fire and some of the backyards. I saw the fire coming up from the creek. By then I was the only one in the neighborhood, and it was thick black smoke. I already thought the house was on fire but saw it was the neighbor’s backyard, so I grabbed a hose and started wetting the fire, which was already burning the fence. The hose wasn’t long enough, so I decided to turn around and leave. I was in tears because I knew the house would burn. Just then I saw a fireman kicking down my fence trying to put out the fire.

Did he say anything to you?

He was yelling, “Yo, what are you doing here?” I said, “I am trying to save my house.” He said, “Leave now. This is really dangerous.” So I left again but again not too far. I drove away, and by standing on top of my truck I saw that the fireman put out the fire at the house so I came back. Some little parts were still on fire, so I got out the hose again—and also on my neighbor’s house.

You’ve earned a reputation as the hero in Glen Ellen who protected the neighborhood.

I didn’t save anybody’s house but my own. My hose wasn’t long enough. If that firefighter didn’t come, everybody would have lost their homes. It turns out that firefighter had been on his way home to get something and saw the fire when he passed. It’s not like anyone called him. We don’t know who he was, and we’re still trying to figure it out.

You must’ve inhaled a lot of smoke

Yeah, I actually have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow at 10 a.m.

You never left the fire zone and unfortunately experienced the looting phenomenon.

Yes, it started the day of the fire and lasted as many days as the power was out. We set up a neighborhood patrol with my friends Chris and Walter. Sometimes we patrolled together, at other times taking shifts. We caught several people. Once at about 4 a.m., it was pitch black and I was alone when I saw someone moving and then trying to run away when I shined my military flashlight in his face. He stopped and I walked over, pretending to have a gun behind my back and said, “I will shoot unless you kneel down.” The person kneeled down, which was good. But then I had to find a way to get him into the middle of the street so that I could get support. Fortunately, I could see he was obeying my commands, so I told him, “Stand up and put your hands behind your head.” He did. Then I said, “Start walking.” He didn’t know I didn’t have a gun. Unfortunately, that wasn’t our only experience with looters, but I think we stopped a lot of them by patrolling.

When I drove into this neighborhood, they were ready to pounce on me.

They didn’t know you were coming.

How has this whole experience affected you personally?

Not too bad, to be honest. I’ve been through a lot in my life. Even just with natural disasters—I was in a major tornado in Minnesota where the houses were obliterated. I was in Hurricane Sandy in New York. Even the Napa earthquake a few years ago—we could really feel that. In the grand scheme of things, there are people who lost everything, including their lives. I am okay. Giana’s okay. Our kids are okay. We still have the home. I have a greater appreciation of the neighborhood. Just to see other people suffering—that hurts. Some things are destiny. Some things are preventable. The heroes are the firefighters! My word for the year is gratitude. Just be thankful and make sure to look out for each other. We need each other in this time.

Rob Sidon is editor in chief and publisher of Common Ground

Tim Dale is cofounder of the Yoga Tree studios that included 10 Bay Area locations when it was sold in 2015. In the beautiful Sonoma hills area known as Stuart Canyon, he owns a private second home and retreat center known as Tara Bella. Nearly two weeks after the blaze he had yet to inspect the damage, so we arranged to drive there together in my car. It turned out that police were still keeping those particular roads closed, even to residents. They made an exception for us, given my press credentials. What ensued was a shocked and sporadic and sometimes teary dialogue as Tim discovered the charred remains of his beloved Tara Bella.

Common Ground: [approaching the canyon from several miles away] What’s going through your mind now that you can see the canyon?

Tim Dale: [mournful] I am witnessing a lot of destruction and burned-out woods. That whole forest is gone. It’s unbelievable. The power lines are down. I am looking up at the ridge where my house . . . oh no!

[Ten minutes later we arrive at Tara Bella. Tim is shaken up.] Wow! I am sorry for what you’re going through.

Nothing is left! Oh my God! Nothing is left. Holy shit! Unbelievable! I thought there’d be something left but there’s nothing. Nothing! Well, the beehives are still there. They’re home. Oh my God. The loss. It’s unbelievable. All those incredible trees that were so healthy and abundant. [For the next 20 minutes we walk around the collapsed rubble on the three-acre property.]

Can you talk about the memories that you had here?

There were so many souls and so many beings. My family, my children, my community [long pause].

What happened here in the yoga community?

It was the retreat center for Yoga Tree. The property was a place to nourish and grow the community. There were many teachers who were coming up the ranks and looking for a space to find their followers and spend time together, meditate, play music, dance, nourish each other through food and yoga and breath. It was a place for healing and loving. A lot of people met here. A lot of great Sun Salutations.

Can you tell the Yoga Tree story?

In the mid-1990s I needed a sabbatical from the restaurant-nightclub business so I took a break and started to embrace yoga practice. It was awesome. It was astronomical—the transformation and what it did for me in terms of focus and health and discipline. I also couldn’t help but notice that other people were starting to be attracted to yoga as well. I’ve always been a businessperson that connected my passion with my work, so in 1999 I decided to seize the moment and set the intention to start a yoga studio. I started to meet the people that would help in my mission, and one of those people was Tara, who later became my partner and wife, and mother to my children. Yoga Tree grew to include Tara Bella and 10 locations in the Bay Area. It rocked out, and the amazing community helped support a livelihood for so many teachers.

Then you sold it to Yogaworks.

I did. It was time. I had always wanted to prioritize my family, and I thought that would be the healthiest thing in that transition and Yogaworks came along. But I did not sell Tara Bella. In the sale contract I made sure to put an exclusion so that I could still continue to do yoga retreats at Tara Bella.

Do you miss running studios in the yoga world?

Yes, I miss my community. I miss my people. I felt like I was doing something very powerful and meaningful for a lot of people.

We’re walking around in all this rubble and soot—any reflections of gratitude?

Unbelievable what this property provided for me. I’m so grateful for this property. I’ve walked where we’re walking right now many times with my children and . . . [long pause as Tim weeps].

You’re going to rebuild?

That’s the plan. The lotus flowers will rise from the ashes. [Tim walks off, weeping too heavily to continue.]

Rob Sidon is editor in chief and publisher of Common Ground.

BY ROB SIDON

Katrina and Jonathan Frey met in 1976 while studying with the famous British horticulturalist Alan Chadwick and later married and in 1980 moved to Jonathan’s family property in Redwood Valley. There, they started Frey Vineyards, the country’s first organic winery. In 1996 they went a step further to become the country’s first certified biodynamic winery based on the principles of Rudolf Steiner. On the evening of October 9, the great Redwood fire ravaged their property. We spoke with Katrina to hear her account of that night and learned of the gratitude she is experiencing in the aftermath.

Common Ground: How did you learn about the fire?

Katrina Frey: It was 12:30 a.m. and I’m not sure what woke me up, but I quickly realized something wasn’t right. There was a strange orange glow in the sky, and I could tell that the ridge that separates where we live in Redwood Valley from Potter Valley was on fire. The high winds—it turns out they were 68 mileper-hour winds—were blowing directly away from us toward the fire, so my heart was in my mouth for our friends and neighbors in Potter Valley. But I had no idea that the wind would change direction and push the fire toward us.

After a half an hour we got calls saying the fire was creeping into Redwood Valley, so we evacuated by 1:30 a.m. I grabbed my passport and some family pictures and some letters. My husband, Jonathan, grabbed his guitar and he dog and we left. We were in the middle of grape harvest, so there were 64 people sound asleep on Frey Ranch, and everyone got out and joined a caravan heading north into the mountains toward Willits.

How is this experience affecting you psychologically?

I am profoundly saddened by the loss of life. I think it’s a miracle that more lives weren’t lost, given the fire’s rapidity and intensity. Cell phones helped. I’m counting my blessings. There were many acts of personal bravery. The wife of one of our employees realized her neighbors weren’t awake and drove through flames and kicked open the door and saved that family with a two-year-old. Then she ran next door and woke the grandparents and their friends. I never had to drive through flames, so I’m feeling lucky to be alive and extremely happy that the 64 people who ranged in age from my one-month-old niece to my 93-year-old mother-in-law were safely evacuated. I’m also grateful to have a piece of land to return to. This kind of experience makes me empathize with others here, many of whom are renters living paycheck to paycheck who didn’t have renter’s insurance and now are displaced. Now I sense what displaced people in Houston, Florida, and Puerto Rico are going through. And this makes me think about people in Syria who are refugees. We didn’t have to leave because of war, so I am very grateful.

What was your property damage?

Originally, there had been reports that the entire property had burned but that wasn’t the case. We had 10 family houses and 2 remained. Our office building and the building that contained our bottling lines burned, as well as various barns and outbuildings and storage sheds. We had a very old redwood grove, which was scorched, and many oaks. Some of those might survive. Being a biodynamic farm we had many animals, and mostly the goats perished. Our herd of sheep survived. They’re literally singed but they survived. We had a cow that was very pregnant, and my brother-in-law turned her out of the barn before we evacuated. When he came back he found mother and calf sitting in a field of ashes perfectly fine. One of our cats just returned after two weeks. The big historic house where my husband and his 11 younger siblings were raised survived as well, as did the metal warehouse where we store bottled goods. But in our little tiny town of Redwood Valley, 280 houses burned to the ground and eight people died, which is devastating.

Frey Vineyards was the first organic winery in the country. Can you tell the story?

Jonathan and I met in 1976 in Northern California, where we worked with the famous British horticulturist Alan Chadwick. Alan was a huge influence in the early days of organics after he started the agro-ecology program at UC Santa Cruz. After learning the fundamentals of organic agriculture, Jonathan and I moved to his family’s property in Redwood Valley and started planning to begin a winery, which of course we wanted to be organic. Jonathan and his brother had already planted eight acres of good-quality grapes in high school, and by 1980 we formed a bonded winery and made 2,000 cases that first year. Organics wasn’t popular back then, as we listened to jokes about apples with worms in them. To be an organic winery means that your fruit is grown without [synthetic] herbicides and pesticides, and the wine must be processed without synthetic additives such as sulfites. Over the years we’ve developed techniques to be able to make award-winning wine without using synthetics and last year produced 220,000 cases.

You took it a step further by starting the first biodynamic winery. Can you explain the distinction between biodynamic and organic?

The concept of biodynamics was started by Rudolf Steiner, who was an Austrian scientist and philosopher who lived in the early 1900s. He introduced the concept of the farm as a self-contained organism where you are meeting the fertility needs of the farm with the resources of the farm. So you bring in farm animals and make your own compost. Biodynamics is the gold standard of organic agriculture because it’s a more holistic imagining of what a farm is. Biodynamic farming is overseen by Demeter, which is the oldest certification system in the world. It was started in 1924 in Germany. Every year there is an international conference where people from over 75 countries come, such as from Demeter USA, Demeter France, Demeter Brazil, and they can introduce improvements to the standards.

There are hundreds of Demeter-inspected biodynamic farms across the country. While there had previously been Demeter-certified vineyards in this country, we were the first to become a certified winery in 1996.

What’s the ratio of biodynamic to organic?

Of our 350 acres, 300 are Demeter-certified. Of the 220,000 cases we produced, a third are biodynamic. We also buy grapes from 40 certified organic growers in Lake and Mendocino Counties for our organic product.

How do you think the fires will affect the overall wine market in the next years?

I think the overall damage to the vineyards is rather minimal. Vineyards don’t typically burn because there’s not a lot of undergrowth in vineyards, and they’ve been irrigated through the summer. It’s unusual to have vineyards wiped out, but that did happen because this was such a strong firestorm. For Frey Vineyards only about 4% of the 350 acres was destroyed. After replanting, it takes between three and five years for vines to produce. I have been so busy trying to pull the pieces together here that I have not read much about what the overall impact might be, but I know the greatest losses were in Sonoma County, where many vineyards lost important parts of their infrastructure.

Is worldwide demand for Northern California wine such that everything that is produced will be absorbed?

Yes, it’s a worldwide market and Northern California is utterly recognized as a world-class premium wine production region, so there’s always going to be great demand for our wines. In Europe, due to hailstorms in the early summer when the fruit was young and vulnerable, there were big losses. Then they also had bad weather during harvest. Parts of France and Italy have historic lows, like only maybe 40% of what they typically average. That will influence the market for California wines, as Europeans will not have enough to fill their typical pipelines.

How are you taking care of yourself personally in the aftermath of this tragedy?

Well, I just moved into a house, as we have some friends who have a bed-and-breakfast that they have generously taken off the market and rented to us—at least until the first of the year. Things change every day in terms of what our personal plans are. It’s a little overwhelming. Last night I was able to sit and read stories to my little two-year-old granddaughter and six-year-old grandson, so that was very comforting. Tonight there’s a big community meeting for the town of Redwood Valley, where we are very involved in relief efforts. There’s a huge outpouring of love and support ranging from cash donations to food and clothing. Helping each other is really beautiful. I don’t think I’ve ever hugged more people than in the last two weeks. I’m exhausted but realize ultimately that I have not lost anything truly important.

Any parting comments to our readers, many of whom have enjoyed your great wines for decades?

We so appreciate all of the concern that’s been flooding in from all over the country. We will soon have a mobile bottling line and be back in production. More importantly, let’s collectively continue to strive to convert more land to organic. There’s plenty of evidence that climate change can be mitigated by good organic farming practices, where we apply compost and pull carbon back into the soil where it belongs—and keep our planet from heating up.

Rob Sidon is editor in chief and publisher of Common Ground.