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22 O J AI M A G A Z I N E | WINTER ‘23‘23

EDITOR’S NOTE: SPRING 2024 Ojai is having an identity crisis. It’s complicated … Some see a quiet retired civic-centered community, with spiritual, nature-loving, hill-climbing, health-focused mindful progressives. Yet one can’t miss the truck-driving, straightshooting generational ranchers and townies holding tight to Ojai’s past “small-town character.” Are we rather a wealthy enclave of urban drop-outs and hipsters seeking their soul’s rest in the simple life. Or longtime residents struggling to maintain Ojai Valley housing and survive the cost-of-living-creep in a tourist town with a vulnerable economy. Others hang with a collection of artists, healers and life-coaches playing pickleball with post-radicals and progressive environmentalists. And there are those plugged into the discord over at City Hall — a riveting drama unfolding biweekly, and spilling ink on the front pages of newspapers near and far.

MAGAZINE E DITO R/P UBL ISHER Laura Rearwin Ward A R T DIREC TOR Paul Stanton A S S IS TA NT EDITOR Karen Lindell WRITERS Karen Lindell Perry Van Houten Kit Stolz David LaBelle Erin LaBelle Holly Roberts Tiffany Paige Kerstin Kühn Mimi Walker Alula Alderson

On the lips of these myriad cliques, clacks, and quacks are mutterings of the town’s cultural destruction — and the worst is feared. The reasons are diverse but always fearful, as an agitated mind grasping for disparate solutions. Maybe Ojai will seek its next version rather than a permanent identity. All about town I meet and hear from people with energy, intention, and plans to create — a restaurant, a healing class, an apartment complex, a mural, a movie theater, a park, a bridge, a book, a greenhouse — all to make Ojai an exceptional place to live. As I listen to the personal stories of pain and sorrow and hear the dreams, values, and beliefs described by my neighbors, I catch onto their enthusiasm for life. I trust that Ojai will keep transforming. Krishnamurti has taught me there is no right path. The Alexander Technique teaches that we never arrive, we only aim for balance on a moment to moment basis. Our goal to be happy, healthy, and with security, justice, and peace are common drivers. What if we realized we all are pulling in the same direction? It is for each of us to stay curious about the world and each other, to realize what we already have, then click our heels together and say, “there’s no place like Ojai.” Read on, and be inspired by our Ojai Magazine Spring issue story-makers and the enormous power of their believing: The regenerative way our planet may thrive into the future, and then the story of one farmer doing it: Common Ground the movie and Totem Biodynamic Ranch. Uncovering the toxic darkness of a past disaster, and the man who never gives up: Radioactive Rain, Santa Susana Field Lab. A voice for a different kind of leadership: RFK Jr. Stumps in Ojai. A pictorial memory of our heroes circa 1973: The Bionic Duo from a Simpler Time. Finding meaning through the threads of a personal journey of discovery: Six Degrees of Krishnamurti. A visit from world-class musician Mitsuko Uchida, and the local artist and Renaissance man, Jacey Clear, for whom “Every dream I ever had has come true.”

P R O DUCTIO N SUPPORT Tori Behar, Mimi Walker Georgia Schreiner A DVERTISING Linda Snider, director of sales Ally Mills, Kim Klester CONTAC T magazine@ojaivalleynews.com advertising@ojaivalleynews.com www.ojaivalleynews.com/magazine @ojaimag

Cover photo: Cynthia Lum @cynthia.photo