Some time ago, on the old forum, I posted a piece written by author Alicia Bay Laurel that I think is worth reading. I think what she said is absolutely true http://www.thefarm.org/museum/intimacy.html We wanted intimacy--not a neighborhood where you didn't know anyone on the block, or you competed, kept up with the Joneses. A hunter-gatherer or early agricultural community meant that people lived, worked and sought deeper contact with the holy spirit as a group, and they all knew one another, from cradle to grave. I used to call my hippie friendships "a horizontal extended family," as opposed to the ancient tribal extended family, which was multi-generational, and therefore, vertical. We wanted a culture which acknowledged the human body, not just for sex, but to hug each other, to be naked without shame, to revere the body with natural foods, beneficial exercise, herbs, baths, massage, deep understanding. This was not part of the culture from which we came. We wanted a culture that thrived on gift-giving. We hitchhiked, shared our food and drugs, gave away our possessions. People who could afford to buy land invited others who could not to live there. We opened free stores, free clinics, free kitchens, not just in the Haight, but everywhere we went. We wanted be living proof that God was taking care of us and therefore there was no need to hoard. We wanted to live without the constraints of time. We wanted to wake up each day and decide what would be the most fun to do that day--or just find out as it went along. We wanted to go with the flow, follow our bliss, be here now. This was in complete opposition to the culture from which we came. We wanted new ways to value one another, rather than by wealth, status, looks, achievements, machismo, as our culture of origin had taught us, and continues to teach us through the media. We wanted to value one another for being lovable and real. We valued spiritual depth, which we referred to as "heavy." We admired one another for being happy. We admired those who offered selfless service or peaceful resolution of conflict.We wanted a spirituality that actually caused you to grow as a person, not one in which people attended religious gatherings for social status. We wanted to be guided by our own Inner Spirits, rather than by priests. We thirsted for the spiritual awareness and grace we experienced on psychedelics, without psychedelics, or in addition to them. Many hippies would spent their last cent on a weekend workshop that promised to "change your life forever." That was how so many gurus found followers in those days. We wanted to live in harmony with the earth, the plants and animals, the indigenous peoples of the earth, with each other, with ourselves. We were the fuel behind the rapid expansion of the environmental movement. We experimented with living arrangements that we thought would harmonize with nature. We sought out indigenous tribal elders as our teachers. We wanted to make the things we wore and used with our hands, grow our food and medicine, feel all kinds of weather--all the experiences our modern urban lives had excluded in the name of convenience and comfort. We wanted to live on the road, have adventures, build things that hadn't been built before, and live in them. We wanted to live our mythic selves, give ourselves names that resonated with our souls, dress in costumes that expressed our dreams, do daring deeds, dance as if no one was looking, decorate our homes with magical things, listen to music that took us out of ordinary reality into altered states of awareness. We wanted to see life without violence. We wanted media that contained truth. Some of us risked our lives to find out what the government was doing and let the underground press know. We wanted to talk about things in print that we were not allowed to discuss in our culture of origin. We wanted to live without stupid, arbitrary rules, either for ourselves or for our children. Some of our children, as adults today, say they wish we had been more protective of them, or offered more structure. We only knew what we endured, being as culturally different from our culture of origin as Chinese are from Italians, and punished for it, and wished to spare our children these experiences. However, some portion of kids raised by hippie parents grew up to be hippies themselves. At that point, one can say, a new culture was born and continues.
i agree 100%. it was more than sex drugs and rock n roll. i was freedom to be what you want and thise is what was apealing to them then and to alot of people know. most of all i just wanted to say i digg it.if any one has these same thoughts e-mail me at ccrcrazy@yahoo.com
Yea i tottaly agree! aw i feel so sad reading that because it sounds so nice. that opene my mind even more!
wooooow....... (speachless) nicly written I've taken a look at the site, there are photo's from some festival in Montreal. I think I'm gonna go there sometime
I agree with that document very profously. It definetly described a culture down to a key. I still don't feel it's necessary to set guidelines for anything. We do live freely, open-mindly, and beautifully. You don't have to wish you were a certian way. Just experience. Just be. Follow your dream. Do what you want. Just because a bunch of hippies say it's bad to eat meat, don't stop eating meat. It's good, you know it is. I'm just trying to say live life as you want to live it. Don't go by a set guidelines because that's "your culture". Do whatever you feel is right, to yourself.
Thanks for posting the article... a lot of people (esp folks who haven't lived in the 60s) think that hippies are just big pants and pot, when it's certainly not...
Thats defiantly it, thankyou for putting that up thats so cool, its great the someone put it into words and so well
Man I have to say that one went straight to the brain.Just to be left alone to smoke the erb and grow the hair.What did they want?What's anybody want?I don't want a damn thing.
WOW. I am speechless as well. That describes it beautifully. But, I must say, its do, not did. The hippies arent gone. See me?
Miss Laurel, was "right on" with her artical.. as one who was there and shared the experiance. It was the times.. or I should say the "Time" of changings to be sure. All the restraints of middle armerka had broken loose with the comming of the Age of Aqurius. The beat generation broke the seal and let it all out.. they were the thinkers not much on "doing" they were but a small band, but with from came the youngers like me and they paved the path for the origanal hippie to occure, where we were free to express ourselves and our oppions of what was taking place on "our planet". With the discovery of LSD and other mind expanding drugs, we saw a different view of the world and how we would like to live, as a freedom of choice.The philosophy of being totally free to choose what to belive opened the door for the masses to get it together. The problem to why it didn't work was the drugs over powered (cloged up) the right of passage to the Source.. to reach true enlightenment the mind must be clean and healthy as does the body.What distroyed the hippie movement was heroin and other hard drugs that clouded clear thinking. This is only my observation. Peace to All Living Things
Exactly! That's why I'm against any drugs, including weed. Only the path of clear and healthy mind can lead you to true happiness. Only true love and joy can light up your life to be a bright star of eternal sky. No drugs can ever carry you to the place of neverending happiness and joy. Go without drugs! Quit smoking, quit drinking and look around! Life IS!
i dont belive that true i have not smoked pot in 17 years or any other controled substance. my hair is short. and i chop down trees all the time. i think its more about personal freedom. so if you wanna hug a tree and smoke pot and twist knotts into your long hair fine more power to you. and if i wanna wanna have short hair and a huge bonfire on the beach jsut cause fire is pretty i should be left alone aswell.
