The curious case of Thinis II, Morningland Urban Monastery’s missing Russian tortoise

PHOTO by RUSS ROCA

MISSING: RUSSIAN TORTOISE
In Long Beach—a city of half a million people and one lousy animal shelter—lost dogs and cats barely stand a chance. After they’ve trotted out the door or gate left ajar, dug beneath the fence or jumped over it, they often join the living-and-breathing chapter of Things You’ll Never See Again—the estranged world of other socks, keys at the beach and couch cushion change.

So I can barely stand to consider the odds against a tortoise that wanders away from home, even when that turtle is actually a very spiritual Russian tortoise, even when the home it left behind is the Morningland Urban Monastery. Maybe you’ve seen the wanted posters that are plastered on telephone poles in the neighborhoods surrounding Morningland, which sits at the intersection where very busy Seventh Street meets not-quite-so busy Molino Avenue. Members of the monastery have put up more than 400 “Missing Russian Tortoise” placards, updating them weekly and recently printing them in color.

It’s been nearly a month since Thinis II—that’s the tortoise’s name—left the Morningland grounds. According to monastery members, he was last seen on June 11 in a courtyard behind the temple. He was sunning his eight-inch, green-and-brown self on the patio when, suddenly, he was off and sort-of-running—heading for the barely open back gate, where he somehow flipped sideways, slipped through and started tortoise-trucking it into the wider world. Besides posting their signs, monastery members have contacted pet stores, veterinary hospitals and animal shelters in East Long Beach and Seal Beach. Nonetheless, Thinis II is still MIA. There has been no response, save a few scent-trails by neighbors’ dogs.

The rather unfortunate story, up to this point, is still quite common: pet wanders off, owner searches. Everybody’s pretty sad. In fact, the posters asking for help finding Thinis II—“Missing Russian Tortoise, VERY VERY SPECIAL! REWARD”—share pole space with the pictures of other missing pets and the desperate pleas of their owners.

But Thinis II has something on these other lost four-legged friends—something like an otherworldly presence and a very, very special place in the Morningland Monastery’s history. And it’s not stretching things to say that the people of that monastery are yearning for his return with a religious fervor. In fact, it’s exactly accurate.

Thinis II’s life story has religious significance to the people of Morningland. Listening to it for the first time, it’s a little hard to believe—but maybe no more so than stories of a talking serpent or a virgin birth. That’s why they call it faith.

MORNINGLAND CHRONICLE
“Faith” isn’t the word that comes to mind when ex-members hear about Morningland. “It’s a New Age church based on astrology, give or take,” says Al Stone, who lived at Morningland from 1978 to 1982 and now runs Ex-Morninglanders.com. “They drew from Hinduism, Christianity, Buddhism, Taoism, whatever fit in. But ultimately it became a personality cult.”

You could say that the personality at the center was founder Donato (one name only), a member in the early 1970s of a Long Beach church called Universal Mind Science. Donato and his wife Patricia broke away from UMS and created Morningland in 1973. Following his death in 1977, power fell to Patricia, who then became known as Sri (it means “master”) Donato.

“That’s when the fun began,” said an anonymous former member.

Some former members say Sri Donato launched a series of evolutionary marketing schemes designed to draw new members and keep old ones. When films like Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind became pop-culture touchstones, Stone says, Morningland told its adherents that they, too, were actual aliens come to help suffering humanity. “If you followed the teachings of [Sri] Donato, you could be a channel of your true self, and your true self originated in another galaxy,” says Stone. Same thing with the use of the word “monastery” to describe the group’s headquarters today. “It’s a marketing fad. It’s no monastery.”

Sri Donato died in 2003, and Stone guesses Morningland is “more mellow now. I mean, they still act on the belief that Donato is coming back, and that in a thousand years we’ll all be wearing triangles around our necks.” He pauses for a moment, reflective: “But I don’t know. Maybe we will.”

Though his website attracts ex-members who say they “were damaged at Morningland,” Stone says he doesn’t “demonize Morningland. I certainly don’t distinguish between them and mainstream religion—‘do what we say or you’re not going to heaven.’”

Gopi Saravati, co-director of the monastery, says, “Don’t believe anything you read about us online; none of it is true.”

Criticisms of the group are “the result of a very old, bitter power struggle,” a power struggle that might have something to do with sexism and the female succession after Donato: “You can see where the hostility comes from when the leader’s gone and the young followers are upset with the appointed new leader, who happens to be a woman.”

“We have our enemies,” Gopi Saravati concludes gravely. “And we’d prefer their threats remain outside the walls of the monastery. But we’ve had to call the police before. We’ve had a few close calls.”

One ex-Morninglander said the claim of death threats is “laughable. It’s one of the tools of coercion,” a way to keep members loyal to the sect.

“They tell everyone inside Morningland that everyone outside is trying to get them,” the ex-Morninglander said. “It’s just about control.”

And even Stone—despite the mellowing of modern Morninglanders—sees some dark possibility in the missing tortoise. “I don’t know,” he says. “My impression is that it could just be a bait and switch, a way to get people talking about tortoises and then about Morningland.”

THE BOOK OF THINIS
A man with a long ponytail and kind blue eyes answers when I knock on the door of the Morningland Monastery, and I guess I’m not surprised. But the gust of quiet that hits me as I enter does catch me a little off guard, considering how close the monastery sits to the edge of Seventh Street. Just as most of the people riding the rushing waves of traffic probably don’t realize they’re passing Morningland, inside the monastery it’s almost as easy to forget all those people are blasting by.

I explain that I’ve come about the tortoise, and as Daniel Yoder guides me into the courtyard of the temple, he explains that he is a visiting member of the monastery. Yoder seats me at a plastic table with a chunk of jade atop it as a centerpiece. He leaves for a moment, soon returns with the latest “Missing Russian Tortoise” flier and a spotless glass of water, and asks that I wait until the abbesses can see me. Then, his blue eyes and ponytail are gone.

On my right, several women are painting a plaster elephant. On my left is a shrine, where Shiva and the Virgin Mary sit together in flowers landscaped with candelabras. It’s so serene that even the pounding of a renovating hammer in the back of the courtyard sounds spiritually rhythmic. I find my mind wants to attach a color to the experience: It chooses periwinkle, then adds little sorbet-hued flags hanging that read, “Shhh. Slow down. Breathe.” I can see how this could be a good home for a tortoise.

Moments later, three women in loose-fitted linen sail in like a light breeze, one holding a stack of photos, one holding a bowl of cherries, and one extending her hand in welcome. They know why I am here.

“So you’ve heard about Thinis,” smiles Gopi Saravati as she sits down on the other side of the chunk of jade. “Well, Thinis II, that is.”

Cautiously, Gopi Saravati proceeds to tell the back story of the first Thinis—Thinis I—a giant desert tortoise who showed up at the monastery back in the 1980s. Its timing was impeccable, arriving just as Sri Donato was writing down a vision she had. Of course, it was a vision of a tortoise.

In the vision, the tortoise was frustrated about his life as a ground dweller. He was envious of the birds, which could live in the trees. He was depressed because he did not have the physical characteristics to get him up into the trees, because he had neither wings to fly or legs capable of climbing. But Sri Donato told the turtle that he most certainly could climb the tree and be like the birds—that he could do it with his mind. All he would have to do is raise his consciousness, and up he would go.

As Gopi Saravati tells it, when Sri Donato began writing down her vision—that she planned to title The Book of Thinis—in sauntered a 15-pound Gopherus agassizii. That’s a pretty big desert turtle. The two hit it off. Portraits taken of this radiant white-haired woman and this enormous tortoise reveal a quite affectionate relationship. In the photo, Sri Donato is holding him as if he were as cuddly as a rabbit.

“Turtles are very affectionate,” Gopi Saravati informs me. “They have an intricate network of nerves along the inside of their shell. They love being touched and cuddled.”

Thinis I followed Sri Donato around the monastery until her ascension into the next life. Then, as mysteriously as he had arrived, he walked out—never to be seen again.

“And so you can see why we were so excited when this Thinis came to us in 2006,” Gopi Saravati beams through lit-up eyes. “A monk found him at the back gate.”

“It was unbelievable,” adds Gopi Ona-Ali, also known as “The Greeter” at the monastery. “An enormous sign when this little guy showed up one day, just like the first one.”

Except this Thinis had a big dog bite in him. Gopi Chokru, the other co-director of the monastery, nursed him through the injury. And, just as before, the two hit it off. Thinis II spent his days at the monastery cuddling with Gopi Chokru, meditating, eating cherries and living the sort of relaxing lifestyle most digitized humans only dream about in between conferences, e-mails and phone calls. Queue the sirens and car alarms.

STILL MISSING
The search for Thinis II has not come up completely empty. As of last week, the monastery has received reports of eight lost turtles found on the streets of Long Beach.

“We did find someone else’s turtle,” Gopi Chokru says. “It was an ornate box turtle. Steve and Bob’s turtle. A woman called us, thinking she had found our turtle, and when she dropped it off, it was nowhere near Thinis, but she asked if we could take it. We put up six 3-by-5 cards, and someone three days later called and asked, ‘You have Claudette?’ And that was that.”

Since their fliers went up, monastery members have heard nothing but stories of missing tortoises and concerns from the community. The phone has been ringing off the hook, flooding them with tales of “the one that got away,” “the one that dug under the fence,” and “the one that just dropped out of sight.”

“I’ve heard that tortoises are escape artists,” says Gopi Saravati, as she looks over my shoulder at a sort-of-running memory of Thinis. “But I had no idea he could move like that.”

What Thinis was moving toward may have more to do with his disappearance than anything: Gopi Chokru thinks he was following the scent of a lady tortoise.

“I called up a pet store and asked how far away a male could smell a female,” Gopi Chokru laughs.

Gopi Saravati finishes her sentence, smiling as she nods her head in appreciation of the power of sex appeal: “Miles and miles.”

But Thinis II affected a certain power within the walls of Morningland Urban Monastery, too, and the people there miss him.

“We hope he comes back soon,” sighs Gopi Saravati. “It’s not the same around here without him.”

If you have any information about Thinis II, the missing Russian tortoise, please contact the Morningland Urban Monastery. Don’t bother looking for an e-mail address or website; they don’t have one. They have an entire pamphlet on why they don’t use the Internet. Instead, call them at 562.433.9906.

Tags: Long Beach, morningland, russian tortoise, sri donato, thinnis II