Zendik

Personally I wouldn't want to follow a group. Participate,share the same ideas,debate the ones we don't agree on,etc.that's what I like .But to follow and obey that doesn't seem like much fun. I like having my own opinions and being able to speak them.I have had times when I didn't have much emotional support from people so I know it's easy to want to "belong" when you don't have others around to support you.I know I read in one of the zendik pamplets that "conforming" to the evil society is death. What is it that people do when they go to zendik? They conform to what zendik wants them to be.......I would lose it in a place that put a lid on me.

 

hello to all that have posted on this thread and to all that have read it.
my name is kord i lived at zendik for about seven and a half years. i just heard about this site from some friends of mine and read all the things that were posted. and i wanted to give some of my own feelings and views about my stay with the people there. i moved in on my 21st birthday i just showed up one day out of the blue and told the people there that i was interested and they let me stay i was told by some people that i met in chicago that they were a group of artist and muscians trying to use there art to effect change in the world and received a magazine called "this is a statement of revolution" i thought it was cool as hell and the shit i spent the nights talking to my friends about was actually being practiced. i guess i put that in because i just get the feeling that some people were saying, or i just understood it this way, that they didn't know who they were getting involved with but up front i knew it was a place of artist, muscians, thinkers etc. wanting to do something about the world to live by there ideals and work to make a better world. i was definetely one of those youths fed up with society still am as a matter of fact. i felt that i had nothing to lose by going and seeing if the place was for real. i got there and i really liked it i thought it was pretty damn awesome i like most of the people that i met and i liked the way the farm looked i am not a very trusting person but upfront the people that i met that were the core of the place i felt very good with i liked and they were good to me. very quickly they started to explain to me what else was going on and what was going on behind the art and lifestyle that it was in fact an experimental community experimenting with different social concepts that basically boiled down to how the fuck do people live together get along and not have to bullshit each other to do it. i was let know that it wasn't always pretty or easy and that there were alot of dues to pay along the way that among the zendiks wulf and arol had been at it the longest and were the furthest along in the work and from my own experience i know that is true. i am going to jump around now to different things i guess all that long b.s. uptop there was just to say i don't think anybody shows up without a fairly good idea of what is up and i know that people take the time to explain things to people when they get there so as to relive as much confusion as possible as soon as possible. anyway i don't remember exactly what was said by anybody earlier i just remember some dissing on arol and i will tell you from my experience and i had a shitload with the lady that she is one on the kindest most caring and with out a doubt the strongest woman i have ever met. she is a strait shooter. i love her she never did anything or said anything to me that i don't think was out to help me or whoever i saw her in conversation with. i never once in seven and a half years saw her belittle anyone or try to pull any power trip b.s. she aint like that and anyone out there who thinks she is, is way off. she really helped me to become a better artist in my time there and to a larger extent a better person. she is genuine and i think her daughter is the same way i never saw the power trip stuff or the let's just take care of my family stuff someone was saying they felt because it doesn't happen. zendik farm does not run like that and in my time i held some responsibility so i was in on all the " behind the scenes" talks and meetings and decisions never once did i see some sort of sinister foul play going on to control or manipulate the "workforce" there is a genuine effort by the people at zendik farm to help everyone who is there to flourish and lead fulfilling lives. for the other people who wrote in i aint saying what you wrote isn't what you saw or felt or went through i don't know i came in late '94 i don't think that either of you were there when i arrived and from what i heard the older zendiks say about those times was they were the bad old days i like what siah wrote about i think that what he said is very true and sincere. i realize that what i have written here is sort of rambling but my experience with zendik farm was nothing but a positive for me and my life. there is nothing like zendik anywhere in the world. it is a place beyond imagining. i will say in all honesty that zendik is a place created by the people who live there they all make it what it is. and they have very strong egos and think highly of themselves and what they do, as they should. and of all the people i know who live there none of them would stand for cruelty or unfair treatment of themselves and they wouldn't allow it to happen to anyone else. zendik farm really is on the level. i don't know what else to say i would like to write again and clarify anything that i can i realize that this is rather messy it's my first time posting on one of these things so please forgive the shitty way in which i wrote it all belive it or not i actually do know how to use punctuation and things of that nature. so i hope this shines a little light on the subject of zendik farm. i may be a little before i have a chance to respond i have to go to court tomorrow and may have to go to jail for a few days to a month we shall see. laters . KorD

 

Kord, Why did you leave Zendik?

 

What a way to be welcomed back into the greater society, court with possible jail time.
Thanks everyone for this thread it is a really good look into how we live together and how we try to turn the worm I just discovered it and went offline with the whole thing, read it like a book.
So I've never heard of a public performance by Zendik artists. Where do they perfom and when, you know?
Why do people want to control a microcosmal society anyway? America is as personal as I want to get! I think it must get pretty claustrophobic when in essence your whole "country" is made up of a group smaller than my graduating class, most with strong egos. Do you ex- Zendikers feel freer or more confined now that your only allegiance is America?

 

Kord? Are you still out there? Why did you leave the Zendik Farm? Did you leave of your own accord?

 

Ahhhh.... Kord. I though you went off and joined the Army?
Hope you remember me, Kord as I am one of the people that You personally treated like shit. You talk about helping people flurish but this is not the case when I was there. I seen first hand how You and Kryo helped people flurish by putting them down and smircking saying we just don't get it.
Come on back, buddy. Lets hear YOU lie your way out of this one. Here's a hint for ya... My name is Jason. You know the long haired guy from New Orleans......
Here is what I got from Aera about whay Kord left the farm. She said that he joined the army because he felt it was the right thing for him to do being that most of his relatives were in some sort of armed forces.
Well... How was killing, Kord?

 

Either way, if you boot out the smartest or the stupidest it's some form of elitism as one part of society is not good enough for another. This is bad but it's human nature. Who's to say that Zendiks don't deserve to be the way they are? People that do the very same thing after being exposed to a society that hurt them so much are not any better.
What we must remember is what Jesus said about the Toe being as important as the Body, without it we are incomplete.
I took the experience as wanting never to be like them as far as not accepting people becasue they didn't realize the things that I do.

 

Zendik farm is not for everybody and yes there are nice people that live there and they have interesting philosophies -- ive heard mixed thoughts from people who used to live there-- my own personal one day visit was pleasant -- but then again ive heard many different things from many different people

 

Hmm, from Zendik to the US Army, maybe it's not as much of a leap as one would imagine: Zendik warrior, to
establishment warrior. Old habits die hard: maybe Iraqis'll pay
a couple greenbacks for the mag between firefights.

 

If I were to say I was recruited it would have been by Kord and Kyro that done the dirty to me. I remember it like it was yesterday talking to these guys on Decatur and Bourbon Streets. They were friendly and accepting at the time but when I got to the farm they were pretty distant which was confusing to me. I remember Kyro and Kord saying they had better things to do than help me make the change to the Zendik ways as Kord was in the band and Kyro I never really figured out. Me being a musician for the last 20+ years wanted to share my experience with the Zendiks but Kord who was never really a musician in the first place put down my music while calling Eric Clapton a hack, no helping to flourish then at all..... I remember letting them hear my old bands CD and they both laughed because it wasn't the howling of Arol or Wolf and actually had a melody, where was the helping to flourish there, Kord???????
If there was a model of Elitism it was with Kord and Kyro. Kyro didn't even want to wash his eating bowl as he stated he had far more important things to do and the new guys should have to do it for him. It was like in high school, Kord and Kyro and their buddies in one corner joking, laughing at us new Zendiks telling us we didn't get what Wolf was saying about the Truth Way, yeah right......
I wonder if Kord finished his time in the Army.... What were you, Kord, 11B? How many people did you kill? Did the Don't Go Vida not hit home for ya?
So here is the run down.... I get the Mag in New Orleans, can't put the thing down and always looking for that Zendik Van so I can talk to these guys. Kord and Kyro act friendly and spend some time making me feel better about coming there. I get to the farm and they basically turn their backs on me. Quite a funny feeling to say the least.
Siah. I liked Siah and still do. He was and is a good guy, good choice to try and repair the damage done by Rev but he's got some of it wrong. At the Farm they say that while moving it's the worse time to try and be a Zendik but now they are recruiting hard, I guess they need new people to build the place up while having no regard for their mental well being...
And what about people like Rev being somewhat new but having a special place because he screws Arol? Is that the key? Put out for the Elites and you have special privileges?

 

I recall having a similar feeling upon arrival at Zendik. The mag and the people I talked to before going there were so enthusiastic and supportive, but then when I got there, people in the "inner core" as it was called at the time pretty much ignored me except Chen, who was genuinely interested in new people. Otherwise it was pretty much a bait & switch.

 

Chen must have burnt out by the time I went to the farm.
Zara was making me feel at home at the time and told me of how Chen was good with new people and how we'd probally be good friends. NOT.
It was Chens ass I was finally going to beat. All I can say now is the dude does NOT want to knock on my door for any amount of help, ever.
Now Siah and Kord speak of Arol being so compassionate and nicey nicey... One day Kyro was having a hard time (according to her) so she was telling him to straighten up or get lost, being that I was sitting right next to him and he was taking a thrashing I told him everything was allright. Oh Boy! Arol jumped all over me trying to embarrass me by directing complete attention to what I said and why I said it, in the end she told Kyro he had a "Little Friend", funny being I'm over 6ft and 200 lbs.....
Out of all the times she could have looked at me while giving instructions for re building this or that she never did, even though I was standing right there she would say everything to Law who in the end took off with a bunch of their $$....
I've been a recording and live sound engineer but was not allowed to touch their sound equipment. I've been a Union Carpenter for over 20 years but had to have permission from Jyre to use a Skill Saw. According to Kord, who would never be considered a musician out here in the real world I was not a musician at the Farm.
I wanted no more but to give of what I was but I was not valid at the Farm. Even now that I've been to school for leadership and know a whole lot more Chey said living at the farm was "not an option".
Fool is a great artist from NYC. He came there with a beautiful girlfriend Melody I think her name was. They made this dude cry and feel like shit and passed his girlfriend around untill he finally left while laughing at him the entire time. Pretty sad.
I wonder where Siah and Kord are now. If they are reading this they know who I am and they know what happened.
Oh! The last time I saw Kord he was making stupid faces at me during Mardi Gras while I was trippin on acid with one of my friends. You see they think everyone is stupid while they take money from you. We used to go door to door and at the end of the night while driving back to the farm they/we would laugh about how stupid people are living in this world giving us money to live better than they were. So when you are approached by zendiks and they ask for money and you give it to them just remember they are talking smack about you when you leav your backs to them....

 

Let us hope that "This person (wanted as alive as possible) (who) may posess ideals often described as too idealistic by parents, friends, teachers . . ." reads this thread and goes somewhere other than Zendik. Although anyone reading this will realize that there are some personality conflicts mixed in, if you read this whole thread, a general picture is emerging about the Zendik farm, a disturbing picture painted as much by the posts of the Zendiks and their supporters as by the people criticising the Z.F.

 

This poor individual will have to of course pass the Zendik Litmus Test before their ideas are accepted by the Tribe or should I say Arol. Now there is a way around this and that would be by being the sex slave of one of the Elites, perhaps another reason why youth is solicited as long as you don't mind having sex with your Grandmother....
I wonder what happens to the folks that bring COB Building to the Farm? I have never seen a bit of true PermaCulture there and I must say they're gardening skills and knowledge has something to be desired. Sheet Muclhing, I'm sure is a mystery to them not to mention that they probally have left a much more negative impact on the land they have occupied than not.
Now I do wonder why they are advertising for new people knowing that during moves it's soooooo hard on the Newzendiks. They must have tons of work to do and that could be why Siah&Co. has been gone for a while. Not like they OWE us or anyone answers about their behaivior but I'm sure that Siah may be in the position of getting some callouses on his hands, if only they WERE open to others ideas.....
Speaking of which. There are no other ideas. Only Arol has ideas the rest echo every word Arol says in the first place even if they truley do not understand them which I think leads to a lot of their confusion. Oh well... Don't try and go there and understand to much to soon either! There are others before you that might resent the fact that you are "Getting It" before they did and Shiva help you if that happens!
Now the ones that left, Aera, Bugz, Kord, Chen and whoever else.... Area has taken the pain of being subordinate along with her so if you find yourself wanting to help out at Alpha Farm just remember that Aera now spells Arol just at another location. Yes I was there too.....

 

FNTW writes: "Only Arol has ideas the rest echo every word Arol says in the first place even if they truly do not understand them which I think leads to a lot of their confusion."



I think FNTW touches on a wider issue here. It's not just Zendik. Any person or organization that promises to SAVE YOU FROM YOURSELF and provide you with a formula for living based on Truth is bound to be flawed.



When you buy into the Zendik myth that they’ve got this program, and that if you follow it, you’ll somehow become an enlightened member of the “kosmos,” a noble warrior of the Zendik clan, you’ve already begun to trade your identity for one manufactured by Wulf & Arol. It only follows that, once you’ve subverted your individuality that the leader will work tirelessly to fit you more & more into her mold, her preconceived notion of what a person should be, and if you don’t submit you’re subjected to intense peer pressure, humiliation and eventual excommunication. Just look at Arol’s eyes in the pictures on the Zendik website: do they suggest acceptance or kindness? Even if you do submit totally, you’ll never be her ideal because it’s just a myth. People are people, not ideas.



So be warned: the problem’s not just Zendik, it’s any person or group that claims it can “save” you from yourself. While we can have teachers & guides in our life, we ultimately have to take a good look at ourselves and take responsibility for ourselves. Not to do so invites all sorts of evil.

 

Would anyone like to explain the name changes. Several new "names" on the website now. What is the meaning behind it and where do they come up with the names?
Anyone?

 

I think those that represent Zendik should PUT THIS F'N link on thier webpage!!
HAVE SOME BALLS!! after all.... THE TRUTH is the #1 priority..... RIGHT?!?!

 

Here's an Arol quote...

This is the Promise as I see it. A place where you can immerse yourself in your Art without the BS of living in this culture of bills, work and frankenfood.
Take a look at their art. Rev, Kyro even Zoe their art all looks the same down to the fonts they use. These guys are the ones being accepted. Why? Because it's Arols vision of Art it's what she is you see it's only the lives of a few that has become Art.
One would think Diversity would be welcome in a place that encourages Art and Freedom but people are not allowed to evolve in their own time and until they produce Arols vision of Art they really are not valid.

More from Arol...

You see it's Arol whos life has become Art she is the Creator and everything that is valid at the Farm is of Arols mind her standards. This is not a Promise for the people who donate or the people who think they have found what they have read at their site or Mag.. The Promise is for the people who conform to Arols vision and that too is limited the proof is is in the long time Zendiks leaving, Area, Bugz, Chen etc.....

Arol again....

I guess when one is in the position Arol is in when one has crossed the line it's easy to describe it as something great as Paradise, Nirvana... Arol thinks of Life as in her terms what she envisions and nothing else. Musicians are no longer are valid untill they sound like the Zendik Band like what Arol hears in her head untill that happens you are not valid you're just a worker.

Check out Arols work here and you can see that everyone elses is just a knock off. Your Art has to be inline with Arol period. Hows that for reaching your Genius Potential?

From the Zendik Site..

Arol wants so much honesty it's strange she doesn't show up here and and dose up on some but to Arol and her people there can't be honesty unless it come right out of her mouth you see she crossed that line, remember.... It's Her Art, Music and Life that the Promise is for. Intelligence? Remember this is an experiment a new culture so whatever you know from out here does not apply at the Farm what does apply is what Arol wants and knows. Beauty.. They say it's in the eye of the beholder. Well.... Again the beholder is Arol and Arol alone. Freedom, Compassion and Love. Like GreenHornet said, look into her eyes and tell me where the compassion is.

It truley says it all here, again from their site.....

Arol is the Standard for which all things Zendik are....
To bad for she's to far gone to see the truth in all of this and her people are way to desparate to bring this up or to even see it. I'm glad this has all come out here and I see other people creating places that hopefully will take the lesson to heart so as to not hurt others looking for sanity in this screwed up world.

 

Honesty - you've got to watch out for people who keep saying how honest they are. My ex-wife would always say "I'm an honest person" and she lied, lied, lied.

So when the Zendiks keep saying how honest they are, perhaps they 'protest too much.'

 

It says that this thread has been viewed over 10,000 times. Is there anyone else who has rewad this thread who has stories or impressions about the Zendik Farm? We've heard detailed and well written accounts by Red Lentil & others, but there must be more people who spent time or have otherwise dealt with the Zendiks. We'd like to hear your stories.