Voluntary Peasants

Voluntary Peasants is a fun, hip, magical, mystical adventure, a Zen romp, full of humor, warmth and spiritual survival wisdom.

--published by Hot Button Press is scheduled for release this summer.


High Times calls Stephen Gaskin "the Gandhi of the American counterculture."

Stephen said:

This country needs in great numbers to become voluntary peasants. Being enlightened is a lot like being a grownup and taking responsibility.

Telepathy is evidence that we are all connected. We can get telepathic with each other, and we can get telepathic with God, with birds, trees, grass.

We can send energy to people who need energy by thinking loving thoughts about them.

By now, everyone knows how to get high, but if you want to stay high, you need moral structure.

Government does not have the right to dictate levels of consciousness.

The Farm began in 1971 as more than a commune, but as a dream-come-true adventure and all-out, put-your-butt-on-the-line, social experiment, political statement and attempt to create a gracious lifestyle the whole world can afford. Everyone worked to manifest a way of living that feels right, in touch with the earth, healthy, productive, fun and good for children. We built our own village, complete with school, clinic, doctors, midwives, lab, soy dairy, bakery, radio station, houses, roads, green, cutting edge, alternative energy, cottage industries, motor pool, laundry, canning and freezing operation, rock, boogey and reggae bands. We used horses, tractors and computers.

For thirteen years, I lived and worked at The Farm as a carpenter, farmer, chef, baker, gateman, news editor and mechanic. Like the rest of The Farm adult community, I considered Stephen Gaskin my spiritual teacher, my guru. We were all Stephen's students.

Stephen told us, “I’m trying to teach you to not need me.” It took me awhile. --Melvyn Stiriss

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www.thefarmcommunity.com
www.TheFarm.org

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A Is for Acid, G is for Grok

In John Bassett McCleary's book, "freak" is "a self-denigrating term used by hippies to describe themselves." And "flower power" is "pacifism, the turning of one's cheek."

That's because McCleary's book is The Hippie Dictionary, a 720-page archive of a now-vanishing lexicon.

"I started out carrying a pad of paper and pen, and writing down every word that came to me in a conversation, book, or movie. That took over five years," the author says. "I then started writing out definitions that I remembered. Later, I went to the library and dug into other slang and ethnic dictionaries to verify my definitions." That's when McCleary was startled to discover how many words on his list had never before been officially defined: "I also realized that much of the language of the time consisted of phrases — words combined to form new ideas or feelings, such as 'right on,' 'far out,' 'get it on.'"

via | link

I don't really know why exactly, but words from this era still make me queasy. Other people would have described me as a hippie. (It's hipp-IE, not hipp-Y.) I never uttered the phrase "right-on". And "far out"? -- maybe twice. "Get it on"? Ne-ver. We said "ball" which wasn't quite as crass as "fucking". ha!

In my opinion these phrases and idioms were repeated by the media and were used in movies and eventually perpetuated by weekend hippies or late bloomers but for some reason I found them cringe-worthy and embarrassing. To me, someone who hit on all the hippie slang was probably a narc; which reminds me of lots of fun stories for another time. Good times.

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Public Urination for Water Conservation

Public Urination for Water Conservation

This new PSA by MTV Switch takes an unusual approach at promoting water conservation by encouraging people to urinate in public.

Come to think of it, describing the approach as “unusual” might be a bit of an understatement.

The PSA, which is entitled “Slash,” consists of a montage of people urinating in public places set to the track “Miserere Mei” composed by Bouwe Dykstra. The ad ends with a messaging asking you to save water by flushing less.

The spot was created by Ogilvy Advertising London.

link

The hippies ALWAYS had the good ideas.

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Howl Festival

Howl Festival

is five days of dance, music, performance, poetry & writing @ Tompkins Square Park, Sept 5 - 11.

I was happy to see that the Cockettes are performing there Sept 6th. An outrageous gender bending legendary hippie performance troupe from San Francisco around 1969-1972. A recent Cockettes DVD has introduced them to a new generation. link


link

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Impending Films

Impending Films

Alice in Wonderland Adaptation - Johnny Depp to play the Mad Hatter. Tim Burton has once again chosen to cast Johnny Depp in one of his films, this time as the Mad Hatter in a new adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland". link

The Hippie Hippie Shake - Misadventures in London at the end of the 1960s from a Richard Neville book that is starring Sienna Miller.

Wax On, Wax Off. Sienna's nude body wasn't exactly "historically acurate", so she's got a computer-generated enhancement to reflect the look of the sixties. (Look at me being all delicate and shite.) Release date is this summer.

Dali & I: The Surreal Story (2009) with Al Pacino as Salvador Dali...? I'm sure he'll sell it like the big star that he is, but right now it's a little hard to imagine.

and all the Johnny Depp ones below... especially Shantaram. Synopsis: "A heroin addict incarcerated for a robbery escapes prison and reinvents himself as a doctor in the slums." He seems to always get first pick at the good movies or now with his production company, Infinitum Nihil.

FILM --- RELEASE DATE --- CHARACTER
* Sin City 3 (2009) (in production) .... Wallace
* The Rum Diary (2009) (in production) .... Paul Kemp
* Dark Shadows (2010) (announced).... Barnabas Collins
* Shantaram (2009) (pre-production) .... Lindsay
* Public Enemies (2009) (post-production) .... John Dillinger
* The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009) (post-production)

Owned by his production company, Infinitum Nihil.
Sasha's Story: the Life and Death of a Russian Spy
The Affected Provincial's Companion
Rex Mundi
The People's Act of Love
The Articles of War
A Long Way Down
Inamorata
The Bomb in My Garden
The Ballad of the Whiskey Robber
Shantaram
I, Fatty
Happy Days

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THE WALRUS SPEAKS

THE WALRUS SPEAKS

from sasha frere-jones...
This one is self-explanatory. Here’s the description included on the video’s YouTube page:

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon’s every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon’s boundless wit, and timeless message.

Lennon talks about his problems entering the United States and his general feelings about the economics of war. Levitan reports that some of his friends—Canadians!—don’t like the Beatles because they smoke marijuana and are “hippies.” Lennon suspects that “squares” are involved.

The animation is gorgeous, though not “terrifyingly genius.” And I recommend going to the YouTube page and clicking on “Watch in high quality.” via

I MET THE WALRUS

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Peyote to LSD: A Psychedelic Odyssey

Preview of a 2 hr Special airing on History Channel April 20, 2008. Travel adventure to the deepest Amazon jungles- this is the untold story of the psychedelic era. The story of hallucinogens: from jungle shamans to the hippie generation. Stars Wade Davis, Bob Weir- Grateful Dead, Dr. Andrew Weil and Dr. Albert Hofmann- the inventor of LSD.

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W E B T R A I L

W E B T R A I L

Prada Rehab Rock - Damien Hirst and his ex-junkie friend Antony Genn team up to rock out Fashion Week (soberly). link

Stripes, Harlequin, Rubber, Vinyl are themes of Designer Gareth Pugh. His creations are more akin to fetishwear than fashion, but that's a bad thing, why? The old guard aren't sure whether to salute him or shoot him. Fall/Winter 2007 collection hereand Spring 2007 here.

Big City Orchestrae will be heading to Europe in September for their first tour overseas in six years! Great news, Ninah Pixie! link

Dave Nitsche - Conceptual Photography link

This graying hippie makes the nightly, winding climb 18 feet to her cozy bedroom. She wakes to roosters' crows and the scents of dewy soil. Over breakfast, her view is a jungle of towering trees, no hint of hustle and bustle.

Shawnee Chasser lives in a treehouse above a secret garden in the middle of Miami. For 15 years, she has lived atop the 1.5-acre nirvana of green trees and farm animals behind a row of houses 10 minutes from downtown. And she advertises on Craigslist and rents out rooms for $380 a month. Really. link

Fuck the DNA - The evolution continues with the return of Genesis P-Orridge and Psychic TV link

Revenge of the Weirdos? The decidedly nonconformist Animal Collective takes New York. link

The intelligent want self-control; children want candy. --Mevlana Rumi (1207 - 1273)

***UPDATE: Wow! I had the title (W E B TR A I L) set on font 150 instead of 150%; hope I didn't make anyone go blind.

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The Hippie Narrators

The Hippie Narrative:
A Literary Perspective On The Counterculture

Mount Vernon’s Scott MacFarlane examines the key works of prose of the hippie movement of the 1960s and early 1970s and how the works are reflective of the counterculture.

He mentions that "Siddhartha," written in 1922, and "Stranger in a Strange Land," published in 1961, were very instrumental because these narratives shaped the formation of a hippie counterculture and were written before the sixties movement.

And he covers Kesey, Brautigan and Wolfe. Nationally influential. link


That leads me to the Foxfire Books, which is one of my favorite books of all time.

Regionally influential in the South were the Foxfire Books. Especially to those of us living on communes and/or outdoors.

Firefox has branched off to teaching and workshops now, but originally it was the communer's bible here in the South, where you could find sections on hog dressing, log cabin building, basket weaving, preserving foods, making butter, planting by the signs, snake lore, hunting tales, faith healing, and moonshining, which we left to the pros. We made blackberry wine.


Read FOXFIRE Series 1 - 6 (PDF)
**UPDATED: JUNE 22, 2007 - Caution: Not all of these are working links, but these are the only online FOXFIRE books I could find and for the links that ARE working you will almost certainly be able to get a feel for what the FOXFIRE series were about. Thanks. --Editor

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Rainbow Serpent Festival

Over The Rainbow by Rak Razam

"I'm here with my friends Matty from Byron and Kaptain Khaos from Paris and a slew of aging dancers that have come out of retirement to celebrate the 10th anniversary Rainbow Serpent Festival, a four day celebration of "soul and technology", according to the organizers. Here in Australia the outdoor party scene has been flourishing for over a decade at bush 'doofs' (named after the bass beat of the electronic music), where 'doofers' revel in Trance music, community and enhanced states of mind. "Since the first gathering in 1998, Rainbow has become a popular annual get-together for thousands of like minded people," says Frank Venuto, one of the festival's founders. Rainbow Serpent is a landmark of the Global Trance music calendar, where semi-retired doofers like myself mix it up with the young turks of the dancefloor and the old hippies that can still shake it."

Nice piece features the 4 day account in Australia with photos.

link

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Kombucha Tea

Kombucha - Soft Drink for the 21st Century?

Popping the cap off a bottle of Kombucha — or "mushroom tea" as it’s known by some — is a complete sensory experience. There’s the snap, crackle, fizz of carbonated bubbles, the mysterious slimy globules that slow-float like a psychedelic lava lamp throwback, and the sharp vinegary tang that hits the nose like a slap.

While fizzy, vinegary and slimy are not exactly the most tantalizing food descriptors, this trendy tea has a peculiar allure that’s winning devotees nationwide. At Google’s California corporate headquarters, the cafeteria slings upwards of 100 cups of homemade brew a day, and GT Kombucha, one of the most popular bottled brands on the market, reaps annual sales in the millions.

To clarify, Kombucha is not a mushroom at all, but a symbiotic colony of yeast and beneficial bacteria that grows in sugar-sweetened black tea.

Long used by bo-hos and hippies, mushroom tea finally reaching the Google cafeteria, but actually "jumped the bong" when it became corporate several years ago. This concept has a lovely synchronization widely appearing in the news.

Related:
The Hippies Were Right / via

link

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Where Have All The Hippies Gone?

Some local Atlanta folks are organizing an exhibit of Life on the Strip. They wrote they would like to hear from:

People who were hippies or are interested in hippies or this era (1967 - 1977) of great change in The South. Do you have some memories you'd like to share? Or some pictures of folks on The Strip or in The Park during those days of change for Atlanta and the world? Does your older brother or your parents? We are interested in anything. Posters, film, recording, anything you think should be shared. Let's get our story down right before "The Man's" official version is the only one available to the future. No one of us has the story. The story was all of us at once. Can you contribute your part?

Visit TheStripProject.com still under construction.

I had my picture taken all the time on the strip during this period; maybe I can find something of me and my friends. On second thought, do I want to see some of those pictures?

Related:

* Voices From The Underground (Press) - History and images, featuring East Village Other, Berkeley Barb, The Seed, etc.

* "The Summer of Love lasted three years in the South. I tried to capture some of that spirit in these photographs. They were shot over a 30 month period and many were originally published in The Great Speckled Bird, Atlanta's underground / anti-war newspaper." Photography by Carter Tomassi, Berkeley, CA, who has also worked on many major film projects. (let us not forget The Cockettes) link

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Down On Gaskin's Farm

Sex, Drugs, and Soybeans
In 1970, pot-smoking guru Stephen Gaskin, a former U.S. Marine, led his band of acolytes on a mystic trip out of San Francisco and into the American heartland. But a funny thing happened on the way to enlightenment: Gaskin's hippies learned the ancient virtues of hard work, good hygiene, and crop rotation. Deep in the Tennessee woods, they formed a spiritual commune called The Farm, which has morphed over its 36 years into a high-tech eco–think tank.

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WEBTRAIL

On Saturday, April 28th, tens of thousands of Americans will be making their voices heard by putting the word IMPEACH! in front of the public eye. (see www.A28.org).

Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the 14-hour Technicolour Dream, a marathon of 1960s films, 'full-on' lightshows, avant-garde theatre, Q&A sessions, and bands old and new. The line-up includes The Pretty Things, Circulus, Mick Farren, and The Amazing World of Arthur Brown. link

Fillmore East is now the Fillmore New York of Irving Plaza and opened last week with Lily Allen. Will that hippie feeling shine through at the new venue? It's doubtful. Livenation, monster concert conglom, has taken over the rebranding of all venues Fillmore. link

Sober Companion - Once they figure out the trigger, "It’s over." "It" is the drug craving. The businessman is a drug addict, and Mr. Kaplan is a sober companion, a combination big brother, baby sitter and spiritual guide who uses motivation, prayer and exercise to keep his clients away from alcohol and drugs. link

The Lizard Club by Steve Abbott, Released: 2007-04-16, "tells all" about the birth of San Francisco's underground club scene. But who's real and who's not? Abbott's novel suggests that in the '90s, we can no longer tell fact from fantasy. William Burroughs, Dennis Cooper, Robert Gluck, and Sarah Schulman praised the late Steve Abbott's first novel, Holy Terror. link

Germs drummer Don Bolles will be cleared of all charges after additional testing of his suspect bottle of liquid peppermint soap came up clean. link

Cheese kills. And I ain't talking grilled here. Cheese (or Cheeze) is a recreational drug that surfaced in the United States in 2005; predominantly in Texas. Cheese is formed by combining heroin and crushed tablets of certain over-the-counter common cold medication. Several young people have sadly overdosed and died in Texas from Cheese. wikipedia | link

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Utopian Bliss Balls

Utopian Bliss Balls is a product exclusively available at Azarius. They are derived from the real Bliss Balls from the sixties, made of psychedelic LSA seeds and bee wax. This modern variety contains Hawaïan baby woodrose (Argyreia nervosa), fo ti tien (Centella asiatica), damiana (Turnera diffusa), ginseng (Panax ginseng) and bee pollen.

Very popular in the sixties among hippies and artists in California. Azarius gives them a brand new look! Made with the traditional ingredients like the Hawaiian baby woodrose seeds and damiana. Gives you an LSD-like trip.

Never heard of them, but it's sure got a great name.

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THE UNDERGROUND PRESS

Did you ever read/see any of the great underground newspapers of the late 1960's - mid 1970's in the US? There was The East Village Other (NY), The Great Speckled Bird (ATL), Black Panther, Berkeley Barb (Berkeley, CA), LA Free Press, The Paper, of East Lansing, Michigan, and many more?

I was a faithful Speckled Bird reader. We bought these most of the time from people on street corners in Atlanta; on the corner of 14th St, where all the other freaks hung out. As surely as you'd see a Bird vendor around there, you'd also see someone selling flowers for a small fee to wear in your hair or wherever. And you knew who was selling "what" "where". And someone was in a doorway playing guitar; a few bumming spare change passing by. All waiting for the next musical, sexual, or pharmaceutical experience.

Receiving The Last Whole Earth Catalog was a spiritual experience. Sort of a hippie Sears catalog and was one of the very few books we had at Peace Tree (a lakeside commune in Tennessee) when we first began. It was all about survival, metaphysics, learning to grow organic, live natural, how to build a shelter-- how to build or make just about anything. Stewart Brand (Burning Man) was the founder. We've still got one around the house someplace.

Many college libraries have some of these newspapers on Microfilm. Some are for sale on Ebay. Why are there no equivalent newspapers/websites? "Where is that one great progressive balls to the wall website that has it all?" Music, protest and boycott info, in-depth interviews, sex (& relationships), drugs, literature? more»

from the archives

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From the website:

The Hippie Museuem's most cherished Fairy Godmother Alicia Bay Laurel, artist, musician, and author of "Living on the Earth", the more than famous Hippie "bible" of back to the land living, has just released a new cd, "What Living's All About". The description on the cover reads "Jazz, blues and other moist situations".. Read what Alicia has to say about it, and follow links to purchase it on her site, as well as listen to clips on cdbaby.com link

More News from the Hippie Museum...

What's Living in the Middle of America?
Hippie Museum member Alan SpringWind is about to embark on a 30 day bus trip to Ohio and elsewhere back towards the right side of Amerika. He used to hitch around the country back in the late 60's and early 70's. He's been in California most of the time since 1976., and is now going off to discover the current state of Amerika, from the perspective of his hippie roots and his anarchist-Christian perspective. He will be making regular reports here on the Hippie Museum. Stary Tuned! Check out Alan's blog ..... link

Shill Is A Shuck - A review by Pam Hanna
Some characters are undoubtedly modeled on real people, but even they are not fleshed out to resemble real human beings. I'm guessing that O'Bannon is Emmet Grogan, The Poet is Allen Ginsberg and the Riggers are most probably the Diggers. Tahiti was allowed to keep his own name but not developed as a character. I did recognize the man who lives near Silver City and makes his own beer but only because the author says it tastes like champagne and there could be only one such person. Otherwise, ... read more here: link

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SCENTS EVOKE SWEET MEMORIES
(or Incense, It's Not Just For Hippies)

Weirdpixie mentioned incense and I also began thinking about it -- the different types and scents, my favorites and where I was when I first smelled it.

It comes in sticks, ropes, powder, coils, dhoops, wood chips, cones. And comes from India, China, Japan, and all over the world. You can light it for rituals or light it 'just because'.

I've enjoyed many scents from the basic cheap to the handmade expensive and I always return to sandalwood. Or a sandalwood mix. It loyally permeated the sixties with me and followed me into the next century. Sandalwood has the history and the memory factor that none of the others have.

My first sandalwood incense experience began at a head shop in Daytona Beach, Florida. The 'after dinner' crowd was shopping and people watching on the sidewalks next to the beach. My senses were riveted with sounds of motorcycles, music by the Tams, kids screaming for snow-cones, Moms sipping on Singapore Slings and the freaks were stopping in the head shop to buy some new music or a peace sign patch. I could smell the incense long before I could see the head shop. I go inside and buy a ring with a large red stone. I hear Surrealistic Pillow on the turntable and we discuss the songs and talk about Grace Slick. I stood out like a sore thumb in my small town, but these were my people and I feel a real kinship with them.

Anticipation surrounded me that summer night and I felt I was in the midst of a beautiful memory that would last a lifetime. Permeated in a young girl's adolescence and the smell of sandalwood.

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Copenhagen's Hippie Haven - "Denmark's conservative government is gunning for Copenhagen's counterculture Christiania neighborhood, aka Freetown. But as history has shown, the challenge may just make that hippie haven a bit stronger."

That's a post from Oct 16, 2004 I wrote about Christiania, during the last uprising they had. The people in Christiania developed their own set of rules, completely independent of the Danish government and were founded in 1971, when a group of hippie squatters took over an area of abandoned military barracks in Copenhagen. Their main street is Pusher Street, which is self-explanatory.

Mooonna grew up in Christiania and has posted several pictures, including some of the Army of Clowns on her SU site.

Unused military land + squatter's rights = Christiana and I say why not? They're having way too much fun, so naturally somebody is trying to close them down yet again.

Link

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OFF THE GRID
In the early 1970s, more than one million young people stoked on hippie idealism and old copies of Mother Earth News went "back to the land," choosing to homestead as their pioneer ancestors did in rural cabins, often without running water or electricity. Unfortunately, most of them came right back to the cities and suburbia after an uncomfortable few years.

But what if you could go "off the grid" and still have all your "stuff"? That’s the premise for many of today’s back-to-the-landers, who are building more comfortable retreats from civilization, complete with electricity courtesy of solar panels and windmills.

A Few Off-Grid Links
* Getting Green Off The Grid is a good site.
* Friends of the Earth
* Daryl Hannah on being off-grid - (via beetwist) - Link
* Environmental News Network
* E, the Environmental Magazine

Sure would be good to have some type of solar panel or windmill setup. Living on a houseboat would be ideal. Have a beautiful Friday. It is such a glorious day so I'll be out in the yard digging and weeding and mulching.

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