Late for Dawning of the Age of Aquarius

It was Thursday morning and I was seeking my place in the space-time continuum that is Ventura Boulevard. The digital clock on my dashboard flashed 9:35. I was late.

A block past my destination, if not my destiny, I pulled up to a curb and fed the meter the only change I had--a dime and nickel, good for 36 minutes in Tarzana.

In front of the Imagine Center, I encountered a middle-aged man wearing a baseball cap turned backward who was kneeling in prayer. Through the storefront windows, I could see a room packed with people sitting quietly. On the door was a sign: “Meditation has begun. Please join us through the back door. Walk though the Love Boutique.”

The Love Boutique, one door west, is physical yin to the metaphysical yang of the Imagine Center. Inside the latter you’ll find crystals and incense and spiritual guidebooks. Inside the former you’ll find scanty lingerie, adult videos and products politely referred to as marital aids.

Kim the clerk smiled and I think I managed not to blush. She knew I was just passing through.

The meditation, she told me, “is good for world peace.” Then why aren’t you meditating? “Somebody’s got to run the store.”

The Imagine Center was jammed all the way to the back exit. It wasn’t easy getting in the back door. A woman who’d been praying for world peace gave me an irritated look.

Soon the man I’d seen praying out front was crowding into the door behind me. “Is there anything you’d like to know?” he whispered.

How about the meaning of life? I didn’t say that, however, because I could sense more bad vibrations.

“You know,” the woman said moments later, “we’re going to meditate now. If you’d like to join us, that would be nice.” Then she turned to a companion. “Is that subtle?”

Maybe I should have known that punctuality would be important in the Age of Aquarius. This cosmic moment is what this event--this happening, if you prefer--was all about. Judy Levy, the proprietor of both the Imagine Center and the Love Boutique, had already explained it all to me.

High up in the heavens, our sun and our moon and several planets have converged harmonically inside the constellation Aquarius. This “Aquarian activity,” as astrologers call it, will last about three weeks. But 9:35 a.m. Thursday Pacific Standard Time was considered especially “powerful,” because the sun and the moon and planets were forming a six-pointed star.

Now, astronomers may not see it that way, but what matters here is that astrologers do. And so to commemorate this event and put all that cosmic energy to good use, some true believers conceived of something called the GaiaMind Project, in which people around the world would engage in simultaneous meditation to promote peace, love, harmony and other wonderful things.

So that’s what was happening at the Imagine Center, which Judy Levy says is the San Fernando Valley’s premier gathering spot for New Age types. (Actually, Judy tells me, many people now prefer the term “New Thought,” because it seems more apt and less of a cliche. Also it would make nonbelievers less likely to roll their eyes.)

The believers held each others’ hands. I’d have joined them but needed one for my pen and the other for my notebook. From the front room, the sound of song seeped back toward the exit:

I am a circle

I am healing you

You are a circle

You are healing me

Hey, whatever works.

Before long the session was over and soon I found that not everybody seemed bothered by the sound of a ballpoint pen on paper. Most of the people here--there were about 70 in all--were friendly and eager to share their spiritual understanding as I worked my way up the hallway.

An astrologer named Gigi explained how, even before she learned about the GaiaMind Project, her mother, “a powerful psychic,” had been receiving powerful messages that January would be an important month. A Swedish native named Nancy, a “colon therapist and massage therapist,” told me how she had called friends back home, asking them to light candles and pray. Computers are making the world race so fast, she said, that it’s important we make the most of the celestial moment. “It’s powerful stuff,” Nancy assured me.

Corey Leland introduced himself and gave me a star-spangled business card describing him as a “singer-songwriter extraordinaire” of “cosmic folk rock.” He explained how “the peace, the beauty, it’s all around us like radio waves.” A lyric to one of his songs: “You are like the radio. Love wants to turn you on.”

An Imagine Center employee named Joanne had me drop my notebook so she could take my hands in a demonstration of reflexology. It felt fine, mighty fine. Judy Levy pulled a small bottle from her aromatherapy display and sprayed a pleasant scent over my head. She said it would clear my aura.

The last time I’d seen Judy, she was hosting a “pleasure fair” next door featuring lingerie models. She was selling massage oils and objects that vibrate. I was dutifully protecting the people’s right to know. Judy, now on the cusp of 50, told me that the Imagine Center, which she opened two years ago, more than a decade after the Love Boutique, reflects her personal growth and evolution. She introduced me to the new man in her life.

She knew I had arrived late and, unlike the others, had yet to choose a complimentary crystal from the heart-shaped tin. I did so. Now Judy asked me to select my very own O Wa Ka card. It’s some sort of Hawaiian thing Judy had picked up at a Whole Life Expo.

Pick a card, any card. Fate or random chance guided me to a bright turquoise card that said FUN, for Feeling Union Now. It was, Judy said, mine to keep.

Outside, I found another kind of card, this one pink, tucked under my windshield wiper. I was One with a parking ticket.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to Harris at the Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, CA 91311. Please include a phone number.