energy – Thank a Hippie

The First Earth Day – A mind Blowing Experience

April of 1970. I was only 16 years old at the time. The world was in turmoil due to the social and societal changes brought about by the 60′s. The Vietnam war, race riots, killings of Dr. King and Malcolm X, LSD and Woodstock were all relatively recent news. It was a time which is difficult to explain to those who did not live through it. The closest I can come is to say that it seemed like virtually everything was up in the air. Any day could have brought the “revolution” that would have split the country even further apart.

The “generation gap” was in full swing. The world that our parents were born into was formed by the relief they felt at the end of a World War and the pleasure they received as the emerging middle and upper class in a post-war American full of prosperity. We “baby boomers” felt that there must be more to life than having a nice spouse, home and car. Perhaps it was the closer communication with others brought about by television, satellites and other high technology. Whatever force was behind it, there is little doubt that our generation sensed that something was VERY WRONG and was attempting to learn and perhaps take action to help solve some of these modern problems.

Continue reading “The First Earth Day – A mind Blowing Experience”

Note – as is mentioned in some other posts here, my wife and I lived on a commune called The Farm for a few years in the mid-1970’s. I will write up some of my own stories and outlooks on the experience, but for those who want to know what we were about, the following story by a fellow “farmie” should answer….
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The Farm: A Case Study in Creating a New Consciousness and Culture
by Milt Wallace

In the dance between developing individual consciousness and a newly evolving culture, small groups that are in some way isolated from the larger culture can play an important role in creating, incubating and beginning to stabilize the new ideas and values. As the Post Modern paradigm emerged in the 70’s and 80’s, The Farm, a hippy spiritual community was one such group. Because of its size, outreach, and spiritual depth, The Farm’s impact was significant.

Post Modern Culture had its beginnings more than a century ago, but the turbulent years which included the Cold War, the Vietnam and Korean Wars, the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King, the Kent State killings, and much more ignited a cultural revolution that led many baby boomers to question the status quo, and to search for some new meaning to life. Travel any highway and you would find young people and some not so young along the road, leaving their middle class homes or aborting their college educations and looking for something new. Modern Consciousness and Culture had a long run with its roots in the 16th century, but as we passed the middle of the 20th century, many came to feel that things weren’t working so well any more.
Continue reading “The Farm – perhaps the most vibrant commune of the “counterculture” era”