The Chris Moeller Archives

Meditate on this, bitches

I spent a charming day and night in Fairfield, Iowa on Friday. A birthday getaway for a friend allowed a first chance to see-- in-depth-- the small-town Midwestern home of the Maharishi University of Management.

I suspect that an elapsed quarter century of co-habitation in Fairfield between the longer-residenced Western religion adherents and assorted heretics, and the more recently arrived "Eastern mystics" has not erased all of the cultural cleavages that one might have expected to have developed initially, but the current product of township is one hell of a nice place to visit. (About one-quarter of the village's 10,000 residents are meditators.)

I had driven through Fairfield numerous times en route from Des Moines to St. Louis, and had witnessed the town's "turn-of-the-previous-century" town square and the unusual concentration of vegetarian restaurants from along the main thoroughfare, but a longer inspection, as is always the case, revealed surprises and much intrigue. The university is located on the northern part of town, and just beyond that border by a mile or two is Maharishi Sthapatya Vedic City, which has the look of one of those upscale housing developments whose leadership board wouldn't cut you much slack if you decided to let a family of goats take over the property lawn maintenance.

In Vedic City, all of the homes have trim ornamental fences, and steeples atop. Each and every building faces east because the Maharishi believes that is the best way to catch the energy of the rising sun. An incidental result then is that all of the homes are also located on the north side of the street. Two "Golden Domes of Pure Knowledge" are located in Vedic City, allowing for each gender to have a place to meditate for up to four hours a day. (Which must cut down a lot on the "Jerry Springer.") We were free to explore the Domes quite freely, and if one had been so inclined, could have made off with a fair number of tennis shoes found resting comfortably and unsecure outside the meditation rooms.

The followers of the meditation movement in Fairfield appear to be, by and large, financially well-to-do. It stands to reason that people who pick up stakes and move someplace for the purpose of spiritual enlightenment would have the monetary freedom to do so. It's been that way in America ever since the days of the Great Hobo Migration in the late 1940s. (I made that up.) As a result, there are a number of high-tech firms and businesses located in Fairfield, and that's where the trendy coffee shops and tofu restaurants come in. (I think we only had one meal in town that wasn't ordered off a behind-the-counter boarded menu written in colored chalk.) Fairfield claims more than 25 art galleries, more restaurants per capita than San Francisco, and not one domestic car registered to the residents of Vedic City.

Our Friday evening was wonderful. There were near-record high temperatures for a November 24th, and the town square played host to the unveiling of the civic holiday lighting display. Hundreds gathered downtown, many of the teenagers in their Fairfield High letterwinner jackets. (They think they're so cool.) The school chorus sang by candlelight (mostly the girls, it seemed,) and then a 50-year member of the local Lions' Club flipped the ceremonial light switch. A Nativity was illuminated, along with one of those Jewish multi-candle thingies, and Santa's reindeer raced in circles inside the park's central gazebo. The Kringle, himself, arrived shortly after to indulge the whines of petulant children, and then there were three hours set aside for horse-drawn wagon rides around the square.

It was a very "Currier and Ives"-like, traditional event in a very non-traditional city. That owes, I think, to both the meditators and the non-meditators. It was that fusion of cultures that created such a memorable visit for us. It was the organic health-food store standing across the square from the local pizza house, where a serving staff of high school kids pimped artery-choking pizza pies and burgers. It was a sort of "Pottersville-meets-Cicely, Alaska" hybrid. Without those descendents of the area's early settlers-- which is, in essence, what Vedic City is all about-- we would have only experienced that development's ultra-modern, very uniform and very antiseptic community. And without the meditators, we'd have been left with just... well, Mount Pleasant.

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If you decide to heed my advice, for once in your life, and visit Fairfield, stay at the recently-renovated Landmark Inn. Formerly the Fairfield Inn, it rests just a block from the Amtrak rail, and is within walking distance to all of the action downtown. At just fifty bucks a night, it makes it easier to afford all the five dollar coffees.

posted by CM @ 7:21 PM