I was 11 years old when Woodstock happened in the summer of 1969. Now in the summer of 2014 I am still a hippie who misses not wearing a bra and songs containing full sentences.
If you have ever ridden a horse with no bra, you know the risks I took.
I knew the hippies would fail and become the very same people they despised, because for starters they came from a different dimension. Science and energy workers tell us there is no such thing as Time. In fact, everything is math. The equations are insane unless you are my Dad, who knows what they are. For me, all I know is that group consciousness is easily manipulated and even when a million souls tune into a different dimension at the same Time, in the next moment of Time, they forget where they just were.
And so the hippies had to get jobs.
Forty-five years after Woodstock, I found myself explaining to my son how I preferred a pipe to rolling joints and then gave the whole damn thing up because pot put me to sleep. As a hippie child, my parents were far and away and even farther away from Woodstock. They had jobs, which is saying a lot since in the 60’s and 70’s mothers did not work full-time. Mine did. They were aliens who I didn’t understand. That they outgrew being square is proof to me that while most of the hippies left their communes and put away their headbands, their Spirit leaked into the atmosphere.
Communes still exist. In fact, so do flower children. When our local Panera Bread first opened up, the only customers who came in were long haired skinny people with no makeup wearing all organic clothing. We would stand in line, our spirits dancing in joyful greetings as we ordered our bread and wholesome salads. Today, everyone goes there. When Fresh Fields, now WholeFoods, opened up in the 1980’s, the same thing happened, although I marveled at how the new bohemians could afford to buy organic grapes. Now, everybody shops there. Everybody wants to be healthy.
In the 1960’s, the drum beats that drove the inner workings of the minds of young people were tied to LSD but once the cat was out of the bag, the whole point changed. For starters, kids were tripping in school. Native Americans and many cultures in Australia, Asia and South America use plants that help expand their minds during ceremonies and rituals. The process was governed by principles and guidelines, with a focus on purpose, such as healing, bringing rain or talking to the ancestors. Even a sweat lodge had to be done in a set way to avoid hurting participants.
Whenever a good thing is taken and performed out of context, it is doomed to fail or becomes something completely different. As a race, humans keep relearning this lesson. It is one of the reasons we keep killing each other. Jesus, for example, never demanded that countries bomb other countries. Nor did the Buddha. In fact, if you were to manage to get a newborn baby to talk to you, they would also say that people killing people is crazy.
But we do it anyway.
When I was in my late teens, Life magazine came in the mail in a gigantic size with a cover page that often portrayed scenes from the Vietnam War. One day I got the mail, only to find the picture of a naked girl fleeing for her life at a war I didn’t understand. I sat and gazed at her picture for a long time, trying to imagine what horror surrounded her. We got the Readers Digest in those days too. One day I read the entire story of the Kent State killings from the Readers Digest. I knew about it through Neil Young, who sang of the “four dead in Ohio”. He also sang of the “needle and the damage done.” I would lose many friends to heroin in the years to come. We not only kill other people. We kill ourselves on purpose.
I would watch the news and read the magazines and wonder if I was really here. I could not possibly be part of what I was seeing.
When the story of Woodstock is told, we are reminded that there was no violence. Two babies were born. One boy died in a tragic accident. There was no food, water, or clean anything. Thank heavens for pot. Even the town soon discovered they did not need to be afraid of the hippies who spent 3 days in their town looking unwashed, sweaty, tired, hungry and blissed out happy. Woodstock was never repeated. Not at the same half million people strong, best music ever level. Nor did those half million attendees, staff and musicians manage to save the world from itself. Though I know they wanted to.
My entire being was shaped by the people who wanted – no, demanded peaceful ways of living. They planted the seeds and I grew them in my cells. In my life, I often chose painful lessons that meant I would not fight a battle because I refused to let myself go there, and yet my father once told me I was the angriest person he ever knew. I marveled that he figured that out.
The anger is because people forget to love each other.
If I only had the nerve to tell the people who used me how I really feel…those who abandoned me when I thought they were my friend…managers who did not let me do my job…companies that did not value me…all the people who wanted me to do or be something I am not. When I think of them, I stop breathing.
Breathing is life.
I can still hear the hippie heartbeat, although the hearts belong in places that are not always human. Anyone who loves living things can hear it. The beat is steady and calm. When you feel it, your arms rise up, you lose 50 pounds immediately and your Soul lifts itself in a gentle dance. We connect with our grace cell. We hold onto our hope cell. We are nurtured with acceptance and unconditional love. I think that if we were all suddenly striped of every possible sign of our religion, race and gender, so that all that is left of us is Light, we would have no reason to die.
I still look around for signs that the planet knows I am here.
Originally published Aug 15, 2014 in Medium
I made the headband.
