The Living Planet’s Beat : Nature-Minded Coffeehouse Hosts Sierra Club Bookstore

Sunday nights are known as drum Sundays here at the Living Planet coffeehouse.

Pulsing to the beat of a dozen drummers seated in a circle, mug-sipping patrons unconsciously tap their feet to the relentless rhythms. Outside, a crowd of teen-agers attracted by the music ride skateboards back and forth along downtown sidewalks. And in a far part of the room, a group of young women sporting long hair and tie-dyed skirts stand undulating with closed eyes as if moved by spirits all their own.

Then, every once in a while, someone ventures over toward the bookstore in the corner dedicated to preserving the Bolsa Chica wetlands.

Living Planet--described by its owners as an organic coffeehouse--is host to myriad colorful events. There are yoga classes, Tarot sessions, poetry readings, live concerts, and the ever-popular “women’s spirit night” during which women are encouraged to literally beat their own drums. Recently the establishment sponsored an outdoor poetry reading by Allen Ginsberg, the archetypal beatnik poet, and next year organizers hope to hold a “goddess weekend” for those so inclined.

The place is also the home of something to which nature-loving goddess worshipers might well relate. It is the Sierra Club Bookstore, the environmental group’s only store in Los Angeles or Orange counties and the major source of income for the organization’s Preserve Bolsa Chica Task Force. Its mission: to help save from development the approximately 1,700 acres of the famous wetlands near Huntington Beach.

Bob Williams, a spokesman for the Sierra Club’s Angeles Chapter, which runs the bookshop, says marrying the store to the coffeehouse has worked out well. “There are always lots of people coming in there who are environmentally conscious and supportive of saving the planet from exploitation,” he said. “There’s a lot of commonality between what they’re doing and what we’re doing.”

Said Tony Moss, co-owner of the coffeehouse: “This is a way for our regular customers to know where their dollars go.”

The partnership between the two entities began earlier this year after the Sierra Club hired Moss, who is also a dancer and singer, to do a benefit performance for the Bolsa Chica wetlands.

“It’s one of the few remaining open spaces,” the 31-year-old coffeehouse owner said of the wetlands, stretching along Pacific Coast Highway between Huntington Beach and Newport Beach. “We feel that it’s important to preserve.”

From there it was a short step to agreeing to make the coffeehouse the bookstore’s permanent home.

Occupying a corner, the bookstore--which has been operating since August--sells mostly books, calendars and greeting cards, all consistent with the organization’s environmental theme. Immediately adjacent to it, the coffeehouse’s regular gift shop offers candles, incense, drums, pottery, backpacks, T-shirts and wind chimes. And beyond a small wooden bridge lies the coffeehouse itself, a large airy room providing patrons with an opportunity to relax amid art-decked walls, hanging plants, a koi pond built into the floor and a stage complete with another pond for turtles.

Moss estimated that the bookshop generates about $460 a month for the Sierra Club’s efforts to preserve Bolsa Chica. “It’s been very successful,” Williams said of the venture. “It’s become our major source of income.”

All of the money, Williams said, goes toward supporting the task force’s campaign to prevent development in or around the wetlands. The Koll Real Estate Group, which owns most of the land, has proposed building 4,286 homes there--a project the Sierra Club opposes.

Among other things, Williams said, the money generated by the bookstore helps pay for flyers, postage, information packets for government officials and the publication of a newsletter explaining the task force’s positions.

During the recent election, he said, some of the bookstore money helped pay for mailers announcing the Sierra Club’s endorsements for seats on the Huntington Beach City Council and the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

“We’re looking forward to the income getting better and better,” Williams said. “We’re hoping to start organizing one big (fund-raising) activity at the coffeehouse each month.”

During the recent drum Sunday, environmental consciousness seemed much at the fore--and that mind set provided fertile soil for both venues.

“I come here to feel free from the pressures of life,” said Malia Ribeiro, 16, a high school student from nearby Lakewood. “It’s like an escape; the drumming makes me feel free and in touch, it symbolizes giving to the Earth.”

Meegan Connolly, 24, an art student just “passing through” from Missoula, Mont., expressed similar sentiments. “I love this,” she said of the jungle-like rhythm. “It gives you a beat inside yourself and makes you want to do something.”

For many, “doing something” ultimately means contributing to what they perceive as an environmental cause by spending their money at a place like Living Planet and its bookstore.