Atisha

Atisha, the area of the Ranch where the chickens were kept, was named for Atisha, the 11th c Buddhist master Osho comments on in The Book of Wisdom. There were also some geese and, most special, a pair of emus named Ozzie and Harriet, there ostensibly to keep away coyotes, but they had other charms, stealing the hearts of many a visitor. Image right shows one of them with Sandesh, Atisha's co-ordinator.

The chickens were the main event at Atisha, supplying hundreds of eggs daily, until they didn't ... Somehow, late in the Ranch story, perhaps early 1985, they manifested an extreme dysfunctionality, a mass neurosis in which they plucked out each other’s tail feathers. That was the end of the Ranch chickens. One might speculate on the meaning of this, perhaps mirroring of the Ranch's increasing dysfunctionality but somewhere else, not on this page ...

Also worth mentioning at Atisha was the six-acre vineyard, in the lower image by the Atisha sign.

(This article about a work/"worship" department at the Ranch is a stub. If you have some info to add or stories to share, please contact the editors.)

see also

The City of Rajneeshpuram

Rajneeshpuram names