City of Angels 25: Searching for Other Sunshines

Tuesday, February 7, 2023

Searching for Other Sunshines

I used to be called "Sunshine." From 1970-1976 that was my name. There were a handful of Sunshines floating around love-ins and communes at that time. I am now Searching for others who got that name in that era to compare stories, maybe write a book. Any Sunshines out there?

I got the name at the Holy Man Jam summer 1970 Boulder Colorado. The sky had been gray for hours, threatening rain. So I climbed up on the stage and did a "sun dance" that worked. As the sun broke through, people in the crowd called out "You are Sunshine" and for the next six years, that was my name.

(Photo above is of Holy Man Jam Boulder 1970 credit Lisa Law*)

After the festival I rode off in a car packed with residents of an Integral Yoga Institute ashram in Dallas Texas. I moved into the big old house on Lemon Ave where 2-3 persons shared bedrooms. In living / dining area, we held public meetings and taught Yoga classes. I soon became a Yoga instructor / chanting and meditation leader / and for a while "housemother" running the kitchen cooking vegetarian meals for as many as 30 persons a day. I planned menus, ordering bulk sized supplies of organic grains and vegetables.

At one point Swami Satchidananda who was CEO so to speak of the IYI came to "initiate" us. Everyone was given Indian names.

Except me.

The Swami said, "I can't change your name. You are Sunshine."

Soon the group as a whole adopted more rigid rules and practices such as bramacharya, which is renouncing all pleasures of the flesh including sex. I did not want to take that step.

So I ran off with the guy who delivered 50 pound sacks of brown rice once a week.

I ended up years later in Austin, a single mother, going to college. I gravitated toward Journalism as a major and my junior year became a reporter for The Daily Texan. I wrote a few articles with "Sunshine Ebeling" as my by line. But that just did not work, being Sunshine did not give me the credibility I needed to be an effective newspaper reporter.

So I became Kay Ebeling then.

Now I often look at myself and wonder, whatever happened to Sunshine? I am not mellow or even very spiritual today. I carry a lot of stress and internal rage, especially about politics, so no one would think of calling me "Sunshine" today.

I've often wondered whatever happened to the other Sunshines? I know there were others in that strange period of U.S. culture history who got that name.

Where are they now? How did they get named Sunshine?

Email me please at cityofangelslady @ yahoo . com with your story of being called Sunshine, or that of someone else you know, so I can post a series "Searching for Sunshine" here on my blog.

Or DM me on Twitter

KayE of Tahoe

@CassandraofTro2

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