http://www.marinij.com/lifestyles/ci_12738352
Paul Liberatore
Posted: 07/01/2009
As Open Secret Bookstore celebrates its 20th anniversary, it's fair
to say that as a cultural experiment, it's been a smashing success.
"I joke that Open Secret is a cultural experiment that's 3¶ billion
years in the making," said owner Rob Calef, referring to his store's
emphasis on ancient wisdom and cosmic consciousness.
After experiencing what he describes as a spiritual "peak
experience," Calef opened Open Secret at 923 C St. in San Rafael on
July 4, 1989.
Like many baby boomer spiritual-seekers, the 53-year-old Calef was
enamored of the concept of right brain-left brain thinking developed
in the late 1960s by American psychobiologist Roger W. Sperry.
Sperry, a Nobel Prize winner, discovered that the human brain has two
very ways of thinking: the verbal, analytical and sequential process
of the left brain versus the visual, intuitive, holistic way the
right brain processes information.
"Based on my peak experience, I realized our culture was weak in the
right brain of its development, which includes spirituality and
religion," he explained. "So I decided I would create an environment
that was all right brain. The whole idea is that here is a place for
the right brain to express itself."
Consequently, he stocked his store with 80,000 books encompassing all
forms of religious and spiritual thought, books that you can't get at
many other places.
"When I'd go to the public library, I'd notice that there were never
the books there that I had in my store," he said. "People like Carlos
Santana would come in because they are alternative thinkers."
He also carried "right brain" items such as statues of Buddha and
other sacred art images, including the largest collection of Tibetan
Thanghka paintings in North America.
"What it's doing is uniting a community of seekers and finders," said
Gay Luce of Corte Madera, who has been a patron from the beginning.
"It's a place where you can find all kinds of resources, where you
can hear about things that are unheard of. And the beauty of it is
that people can go there and not feel self-conscious."
Twenty years ago, all this woo-woo spirituality sounded pretty far
out. Now it's entered the mainstream. And Open Secret, the largest
spiritual and metaphysical bookstore in the North Bay, helped make that happen.
"Things would appear here and then they'd appear on 'Oprah,'" Calef
said. "Eckhart Tolle was here when his 'Power of Now' book came out,
and then he was discovered by Oprah. We're this pipeline from the
neighborhood to the nation. We've been watching that cycle over the
last 20 years."
In keeping with the Open Secret philosophy that "undue stress is not
necessary," a room called the Universal Temple, a place for quiet
contemplation, occupies the back of the store.
"We've cultivated a real space for relaxation, where it's OK to go to
rest, to even go to sleep," Calef said. "It's devoted to peace and stillness."
For the famed beat generation poet Diane di Prima, who lives in
Bolinas and was recently named Poet Laureate of San Francisco, "Open
Secret has been an oasis-something that is getting rarer and rarer
anywhere. A place where you can browse, or sit and read, drink a cup
of chai and write in your notebook. The atmosphere there is always
welcoming. It is a place that fosters community. The temple there is
as rich and varied as a museum, a place for contemplation, or simply
to regain blance and tranquility.
"Even if I have nothing particular I need to do at Open Secret," she
added, "if I am anywhere in the vicinity I'll stop if I possibly can,
and take a 'time out.'"
In 1996, Open Secret expanded into a neighboring commercial space,
adding a stage for New Age musicians to perform - like Krishna Das,
Deva Premal and Marin's Jai Uttal, who will headline the 20th
anniversary party on July 4.
Open Secret has become a center for the practice of kirtan -
chanting, music and ecstatic dancing that comes from India's
devotional traditions.
Calef calls it "food for the right brain."
"Almost every kirtan artist has come through Open Secret," he said.
Barbara Framm, 55, who lives in San Anselmo, worked at Open Secret
for 15 years, and also produced shows and performed on its stage as a
classical Indian dancer.
"For me, it was my performing niche," she said. "It was a small,
local, sweet, intimate. There have been amazing performances there by
world-class artists from India. There aren't many venues like that
around, and it's miraculously still there."
Over time, a healing center emerged organically with practitioners of
massage, clairvoyant readings and astrology working out of the store,
which added Rainbow Body Cultural Center to its name.
It's all part of what Calef calls "the rebalancing of the left and
right brain."
While the store doesn't have a cafe that serves food, its thick
house-made chai tea has become an Open Secret specialty.
Calef, an Aquarius who retains the accent of a transplanted New
Yorker, hasn't gotten rich with his business, but he's made what he
calls a modest living at it.
But then he doesn't require much. He's single, lives within walking
distance of the store, doesn't own a car and cultivates what he calls
"the village lifestyle."
"We always ran Open Secret like a nonprofit," he said. "We put
everything back into our environment. You wouldn't necessarily go
into this to make money. But it needs to be here."
Like other retail businesses, the recession has taken a cosmos-sized
bite out of Open Secret's income. Rather than despair, Calef sees the
economy crashing in September as "the end of something and the
beginning of something else."
"We have a whole new economy," he said. "Retail is never going to be
the same. The adaptation seems to be less dependence on sales of
books and more on cultural participation, more events, more music.
It's not like this isn't healthy. I think it's good. We'll survive
because we're a cultural center."
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IF YOU GO
- What: Open Secret's 20th anniversary with Jai Uttal and Friends,
kirtan, dance and story-telling
- When: 6:30 p.m. vegetarian dinner, $15; 8 p.m. July 4
- Where: Open Secret, 923 C St., San Rafael
- Tickets: $25, $30 at door
- Information: www.opensecretbookstore.com
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Contact Paul Liberatore via e-mail at liberatore@marinij.com
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