WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWER CHILDREN GONE?Rad!cal Vision 2
Howdy,
In 1981, I heard Eric
Severeid comment, on his last broadcast before retiring from
C.B.S. News, following Walter Cronkite. I always
liked Eric Severeid. I listened in. Eric
was doing what could best be described as an
Ode to the Hippie or Hippie Lament. Eric
was lamenting that the Hippies were gone. He
said, "it is too bad the flower children are
gone, they might have hadsomething to teach us"!
I looked in the mirror, wondered where
I had gone to. I been a hippie before being called
hippie was cool.
Many years later,
at the University Theatre, Missoula, I listened, Winter 1987, to
Abbie Hoffman, speaking: "the '60's are gone,
dope will never be as cheap, sex never as
free, and the rock and roll never as great".
He also said "three movements came out of the
'60's: anti-war movement, civil rights, and the
student movement". I wondered what had
happened to the "hippie movement"?
"Where Have
All the Flower Children Gone" is my effort to enlighten folks to the fact
that there still are folks called"hippies", Living
on the Earth, actively living the
lifestyle.The News of our Demise has been greatly
exaggerated. Why this was such a
surprise for me, I don't know.
Recently, my son,
in the 6th grade at school, heard his teacher say that the hippies
were gone now, during a lecture on the '60's.
My son raised his hand, spoke up about the
fact that his dad and mom and many other folks
he knew were hippies, still around. He
talked about the gatherings etc. and how proud
he wasof us. If nothing else, this action on
my son's part gives me incentive to produce this
book.
"In the beginnings,
we sprung as "flower children" upon the
winds of
the Earth,
Our roots were deep
in the her-story, his-story, of the past,
Our presense,
our stem, our mingling, our friendship,
To the skies,
to the Earth, to all relationship, full flowering,
"From a
flower to the garden" (Donovan, '67)
Onward to the
Frontiers of Consciousness,
Lotus,
Homes, families,
neighbors, friends,
children,
Seed, flower,
lotus, bud, seed, new flowers,
Life flows
on,
Generations of
humanely interested people with friendly eyes,
HIPeyes.
This Hip-story, as I
call it, is written as "truth in fiction" :end result of many days of my
participating/observing these last many years.
It all began for me in the Early Days, of
theHaight-Ashbury, 1966. I hope you enjoy this.
Early Days
Let me take you
down to 1966, the year of the birth of the Media Hippie, the year
the label was coined, the country was conned,
the new age conceived.
Before there were "hippies",
there were handfuls of people, boy-men, girl-women, who
often walked along Haight Street in San Francisco
in the evenings of January 1966.
They were clad sometimes
in cloaks, togas; some wearing bells, beads; some long-haired
despite their gender, they walked as if they
had not a care in the world.
Wandering out
of Golden Gate Park came another boy-man, shorthaired,
beardless, an off-duty U.S. Navy enlisted man,
out looking around. Me.
I entered San
Francisco that evening on a song. "Stanyan Street" by Rod McKuen,
sung by Glenn Yarborough, had intrigued me and
drawn me down from my station north
of the city. I found the street, which crosses
Haight at the edge of the park, and was
rambling along Haight when I bumped into, was
engulfed by, this handful.
Almost in unison
they smiled and called out greetings. Startled by their strange
garb, I Howdied back like it was the most normal
thing in the world. I wasn't called
"Plunker" then, and introduced myself as Barry;
these folks went by different names:
Cheshire Cat, Lady Jane, British John, Deena,
Gandalf (who later would offer you a trip to
see Frodo, in Hobbit-land, holding out his hand,
with a "tab" in it, "guiding" you into
"Golden" GatePark).
They expressed
a point of view that caught my mind: they liked everybody, liked
everything, life to them was beautiful, especially
so if you were living life and sharing it.
These folks treated
me like I was their "long-lost cousin." They made me feel
welcome. (I had a friend, just the other day,
riding on a City bus, Haight Street, Spring
'87, he said he'd grown up in San Francisco,
he wanted to know, what was the Haight like
in early days. I told him "it was the feeling
of welcome, of friendly". This acceptance is
the basis for "free love".)
They asked if
I needed a place to sleep, food, bread. I had nothing better in mind
and tagged along to their home, a "crashpad."
They called their home the British
Embassy, so-named because John was a Briton and
displayed a British flag. The building
was condemned, said so right on the front. There
was no water, no electricity. The group,
if it was cohesive enough to becalled a group,
lived in one room and barred the door for
safety.
Most of the charm
of living in the Haight area then was practical -- low rent or no
rent. Golden Gate Park added to the charm because
by 1966, there were "Trip Schools",
with"principles" helping folks use LSD. In New
York City, League for Spiritual
Discovery, operated by Tim Leary, others, and
Nina Graboi ("One Foot In The Future")
Acid was legal (note: illegalized Jan. '67) and
hadn't attracted much attention yet.There
was no word "hippie", such folks if heard of
at all wereconsidered beatniks or hipsters.
Hipstorian Jody
Bateman traced the word, "hippie", back to jazz and blues clubs,
in the late '40's, early '50's, mainly in Los
Angeles, white music enthusiasts and students
would be called"hips" by the black people, who
were the main patrons of such places.
These were people
who had started settling in the Haight areaaround 1962. Artists
(like my friend Malcolm who turned me on to the
I Ching, Tarot, Bible, 'Gita, Books of
the Dead etc., reference works, he called them)
musicians, spiritualists (one friend claimed
to be from Mars, not so usual in those days,
folks admitting to being Space Beings - today
- "Out on a Limb" (Shirley Maclaine) poets, beatniks
forced out of the North Beach area
by nude dancing, hustling and rising rent.
By 1966, the Haight
scene was still subdued. The Diggers,documented in
"Ringolevio" by Emmett Grogan, were just getting
started, (Samaurai Bob and Jane, two
friends of Emmett, Diggers themselves, gave me
many insights to this whole scene. Many
stories have been written of the Diggers. Bob
has gone to the skies, Bob and Emmett, in
the Panhandle in the Skies, "freefood"). There
were few of the young street people, just
handfuls of youngsters mixed in with the steady
population of artists,beat-poets, residents
of the area (mostly of Russian descent), older
winos, "street people".
Some neat places:
Tracy's coffee shop on Haight Street "early hangout",
Doughnut Shop, on Stanyan, near Frederick, "all
night hangout", I and Thou, early
coffehouse, a story goes thatAllan Ginsberg,
beat poet, stood on a table, recited poetry, in
the nude; Blue Unicorn, on Hayes Street, across
the Panhandle, Print Mint, later home of
the H.I.P. Job Co-op, Psychedelic Shop, Russian
coffee shops, "pirogees", hmmm!
Of course, there
was Golden Gate Park. Hippie Hill, just inside the Park, off
Haight street, still rings with drums, laughter
of people playing in the meadow.
Avalon Ballroom,
off Van Ness, operated by the Family Dog,early
commune-rock-tribe, and the Fillmore East, operated
by Bill Graham. San Francisco
Sound was born in these places. The Doors,Grateful
Dead, Jefferson Starship (nee
Airplane), 13th floor elevator, Moby Grape, Buffalo
Springfield, Big Brother and the
Holding Company, Steve Miller Blues Band: "the
Hills of San Francisco were alive with
music".
The winos and
the younger street people, perhaps we could call them
proto-hippies (Frodo), got along just fine. The
winos hadn't yet realized the youngsters
would soon be competing with them, arriving in
such overwhelming numbers as to drive
them out.The winos felt sorry for the kids, and
helped them learn the waysof street life.
Many's the time
I sat on the North Beach around a fire, now banned, sharing a
bottle and listening to the stories of the older
street people.
The only real
difference was that the winos generally were going nowhere while the kids
were eager to go anywhere, do anything new and
different.
I mostly drank
water. Listening to these fellas, tending afire, on the beach, on the
Bay, all night long, nice. Sometimes in the mornings,
these guys would need some
"maintenance", they'd ask me to "help them out".
I'd go behind the saloons, pour what I
found into one bottle, they'd share it around.Learned
"dumpster diving" from these guys.
Political "free" radicals
In 1966 another
type of kid started hitting the streets, not to live there but to
march and protest the war in Vietnam. They were
an offshoot of a long tradition of
marching and protesting, and many brought with
them the lessons of the Civil Rights
Movement.
"Free Speech",
was the cry, "peaceable assembly: able to be peace or whatever it
took", Peoples' Park... Mario Savio,arrested
for "speaking on the steps of the University
of California, about the War in Vietnam, and
Peoples Park, a place for people to "express
their lifestyle". Bitter struggles, heavy, great
stories, needs a seperate hipstory all its own.
Pieces of this story are in all the books mentioned
in this book. (Oct. 17,1909, Missoula
Mt., first arrest for "free speech", Elizabeth"Gurley"
Flynn, I.W.W., "wobblies")
The Movement against
the war centered more around Berkeley,called Berserkly by some,
than around San FranFreako. Activism was the
dominant value of a growing subculture
just across the bay. In the anonymity of the
crowd, you could sense the pulse of humanity
and by demonstrating, could show your values,
your worth as a human being. It was also a
means of survival: The movement took care of
its own. There was food, shelter, and
society there.
That society was
flawed, certainly. In particular, the movement failed to treat
women righteously, a failure which, as we shall
see, had repercussions for the entire
country and world.
Mustard Seed
I was not the
only one called to the Haight by a song, and McKuen's was not the
only siren song of the new culture. "If you're
going to San Francisco, you'd better wear
flowers in your hair", went the Animals' song,
and thousands of folks took the advice.
In January 1966,
author and adventurer Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters he
rode with, organized an event at Longshoreman'sHall
in San Francisco. Thousands came,
many in the beads and bells and capes and wild
garb that was later to characterize the
"counterculture". First of the "Trips Festivals".
A San Francisco
Examiner reporter wrote about this event. In the article he
referred to the people attending this "Trips
Festival"as "hippies". Months later, it's widely
believed, this reporter walked into the Haight,
visited Ron and Jay Thelin's Psychedelic
Shop and the offices of the Oracle, maybe the
Haight Independent Proprietors HIP Job
Co-op, and walked back to his office to write
of the "hippies", in their "homeland" the
"Haight-Ashbury". Thename stuck.
Soon, the media latched onto what it thought was happening.Reporters, editors
and
cameramen began to see the Haight as an easy
place to find some color.
Then the touristas
came. It was, to my memory, the Sunday after the San
Francisco Examiner's article, about the Haight,
in November 1966. There were by now
hundreds of people on the streets, and somehow
we knew something was coming.
Around noon, a
line of cars started up Haight Street from Fillmore. These were
pure middle Americans, their windows rolled up,
cameras clicking, the kids in the
backseat. They frowned, they looked, they photographed
and commented, they drove
away again.
Some of the street
folks started trying to slow them down, sparechange them or
just speak to them, but the people in the cars
just wanted to gawk.
The kids in the
back seats were seeing fantasyland turned real, people dressed in
wild and adventurous costumes behaving in fairly
unusual fashion. Some of the kids
flashed peace signs and smiles when their parents
weren't looking. The bigger kids were
out on the streets, eating from Digger lines
or dumpsters, protesting, draft dodging,
watching their parents drive by slowlooking for
them.
At first this
action was a joke, that people were "stalking thewild hippie."
("Stalking the Wild Hippie") Lots of wild hippies
got a kick out of putting on the
touristas, telling them bizarre stories. Most
anything would be believed.
The Haight by
now had head shops, coffeehouses, music joints -- the beginnings
of the hip bourgeosie now known as the Hipeosie.
It was a very livable place, if you were
willing to sacrifice a little in creature comforts.
But to the media
and the nation, the Haight had become an outlaw zone of
disillusioned youth bent on moral suicide, riding
out lives of horror in the crash pads,
tripped out on drugs manufactured by the arch-villain
Owsley and pushed by the High
Priest Timothy Leary. The hippies played into
this myth-making.
Part of the myth
involved "Free Love", which to most hippies meant loving all
people as sisters and brothers. To Middle America
it meant constant sex.
Well, let's be frank: There was a lot of
sex, and a lot of it very open, dynamic, in a way
honest and free. Maybe it turned too loose. As
with drugs, there were tremendous health
and social implications. ("Love Needs Care")
The hype in the streets
was incredible. Loveburgers were sold for a dollar by
December 1966. The Haight, called Love by now
began to move from being a place where
seekers could live freely to one where "beasts"
preyed on the sheep.
There were lots of sheep,
too. Touristas, journalists, sociologists, runaways, preachers,
anybody with a dream or a scheme started hitting
the streets.
The Haight st.
movie theater marquee read, "Haight is Love". This theater later
was used by the new "hippie" people, changed
its name to Straight Theater.
The police found
new ways to deal with the Haight. I remember Christmas Eve,
1966, a mellow evening on the street with folks
drifting along, listening to the Salvation
Army band, enjoying the life. As I watched, a
couple of men walked along the sidewalk--
short hair, no beards. The shorter one held an
empty wine bottle in his hand. I watched
this dude throw the bottle into the air; it rose
and arced like impending doom, then
smashed down onto the hood of a police car that
had shown up.
The cops jumped
out and started grabbing people. Instantly, more cops showed
up. Down at the east end, where Masonic hit Haight,
a line of vans stopped and a whole
new kind of police force hopped out: Lines of
cops in helmets with glass visors, long billy
clubs with lead tips, weighted flashlights, bullet-proof
vests and squadrons of dogs.
This was, I believe,
the first use of new Tactical Squad strained in mob control. In
about an hour they arrested over 130 people,
including the Salvation Army band. The
band was released the next day, the other folks
were held for three days chanting."Om".
I saw these two dudes
start one other "riot", and I believe they were police or
government agents. It took a lot of energy to
start a riot; people hanging out having a
good time aren't inclined to start hassles but
can be led into it by provocateurs.I have seen
this happen so many times in the past two decades,
and the government has been forced to
admit it.
I remember one
afternoon, in early '67, folks were packing the sidewalks, walking
up and down, up and down, going in and out of
shops, full spectrum of humanity. All of a
sudden, it seemed miraculous, spontaneously people
walked out into the street. Cars
stopped. This was it, power of the people, in
action.
Everybody, after
a while, would walk up and down the street. Cops would show
up, go into long discussions about what to do
about the people. After a time, enough cops
would show up, people would move back onto the
sidewalks, continuing to go up and
down the Street.
A few times, when
this happened, it had been planned by some set of people,
guerrilla theater. If this happened, often-as-not,
some band/s would pull in on trucks,
amps would be turned up, impromptu concert, in
the street. Grateful Dead, Moby
Grape,13th Floor Elevator, maybe member-groups
of the loose "rock-tribe", Family Dog.
(Chet Helms-still "cooking")
Sometimes these
impromtu actions would be beautiful! Goodvibes, music,
laughter, everything! Once, to show the difference
between "dirty hippie" and "people",
we organized a Sweep-in. We swept Haight Street,
cleaned it one day. This made National
Media. Anything hippies did was interesting,
at that time.
One time, the
cops showed up at one of the "street demonstration", a scene
developed (seemingly started by these same
two characters), cops began to "bust heads",
It started at Masonic and Haight. Thousands of
folks were in the street. Up ona roof a
persona appeared in "archangel" clothes. Robe,
wings.Things got unreal!
Things got out
of hand quick! I got up in one of the buildings. My experience with
"riotous" events is to "watch your topknot".
Cops rioted. Moved up and down the street,
grabbing people, beating on them, dragging them
to the "big wagon".
One cop, carried away in blood-lust (no
doubt) grabbed an obviously pregrant
woman, by her hair, dragged her to the wagon,
beating on her womb. People went crazy,
in the street, up on the roofs, out of the windows
of the building, people began throwing
things at the cops, yelling, freaking!
The only people
left near the cops were the"straights", touristas. Normally, the
cops left these folks alone. But the energy got
too much for one guy. In a business suit,
tie, balding head, (an Iowan or Kansan, middle-class,
middle-west), this guy stepped out
onto the street, walked up to this cop, dragging
this pregnant woman. He says something
to the cop, about the woman. The cop turns around,
sees this guy, lets go of the hair of
the woman, nails this guy right in the forehead
with his loaded night-stick. You could see
the dude's head split open. Blood everywhere.
Cop grabs the
dude's feet, drags him to the paddy wagon.Goes back to the
woman, grabs her hair, finishes dragging her
to the Black Van. People are freaking out!
Sometimes, things
were "heavy" in the Haight. "Heads and Feds" was a game you
had to play, if you wanted to "talk the talk,
walk the walk" (Full Metal Jacket, movie
quote). Still true.
A famous poster
of the time was of a dozen people standing in two rows, in front
of the Print Mint, on the sidewalk. Underneath
the picture were the words "Join the
Army", meaning the "army of the people", struggle
in the Haight wasn't only to open your
mind: it was, with a dash of justice blended
in.
Relations with
the cops were always weird, and remain so. I spent some time at
1090 Page, a famous crash pad. One night the
cops raided the place five times, and I think
they were after"speed freak" named The Shriek.
This Shriek wore
a hooded black cape and black pants. When the cops came, he'd
run through the place's three floors, occupied
at ground level by speed freaks and smack
junkies, on the second by folks doing downers,
and on the third by acid heads and
potsmokers. The Shriek would alert them all,
then jump out an upstairs window. He was
amazing!
His warning would
be followed by generous amounts of drugs/herbs being thrown
out windows. It was like a comedy routine, but
too often the joke ended in a bust. Then
folks would rally around, raise bail, and work
to get each other out.
People were always
working to free each other, even to free people they barely
knew. Nobody wanted the cops to have anybody.
It was an outlaw society.
Blacks and Hippies,1966
With all the mix
of people, some of whom I have neglected to record, because I do
not know about them or some other reason, I could
say a lot about the relationship
between the Fillmore District folks and the Haight
District folks, which worked out to
mean the blacks and the hippies. Before
the hippies came to the Haight, the Blacks in the
Fillmore would pass through on their way to different
places, along Haight Street, as they
would any other neighborhood. With the
advent of the hippies, and the many comparisons
made by media journalists, about Hippies (who
threw all of America's advantages away)
and the Blacks (who were doing their best to
acquire all the advantages living in America
can offer). It became difficult for close
communications to develop between these
"dissident" white youth (for the most part hippies
are white) and the striving minorities.
The other major
reason why hippies and blacks had problems was because the
hippies were into "peace and love" and the blacks
were into "black power, black pride"
which often meant packing weapons (defense weapons
like M-16's) and violent struggle
with the white authoritarian police etc..."Ramparts"
mag, "Soul on Ice", "Malcolm Xî) I
have one observed relationship of this period
that will point out some of these problems.
We were in a basement
apartment, on Masonic Street. It was early 1967, and we
were waiting for a meeting to start. In
the room were three Ethiopians (working to
change the government in Ethiopia), two whites
(myself and my friend Keth) and four
other Blacks from San Francisco and Oakland.
We were about to continue our discussion
of the next steps we could perform to help American
people, particularly the "leftist
elements" know aboutthe plight of the Ethiopian
people, under Haille Selassie and the
United States. Keth and I had met with
the Ethiopians a numberof times and we were
impressed with the sincerity of their cause.
As the meeting
was about to begin, one of the blacks from San Francisco or
Oakland spoke up and said he did not feel good
that Keth and I were in the room.
Immediately the
entire group gathered around and we had a conversation about
who we were (Keth and I), why we were there,other
questions. At the end of the
conversation the American Blacks were insistent
that we leave, and the Ethiopian Blacks
had to agree. We agreed to leave in Peace
but we felt that the colorline was being drawn
against us, and that this was a drag. One of
the arguments that was used to convince us
that there was a difference between us and them
was this:
"If your own blood
white brother was out in the street and he was shooting at us
and we were shooting at him, whose side would
you be on?" I replied that I would try to
intervene,act as a buffer and try to make peace
between them. They felt that this position
would be too difficult for us to maintain so
they still asked us to leave.
These American
Blacks were in the process of joining with a group they called the
Black Panther Party. These Blacks said,"when
you want out of the struggle it is easy for
you. All you gotta do is cut your hair,
change your vibe... we are black... we have no
choice, we are always going to be in a struggle!"
Considering what has happened since,
for the most part he was totally correct.
Sad to Say!!
Of the well-known
Blacks that came to the Haight, "Superspade" stands out in the
crowd. A very well-known and infamous (drug
dealer) Superspade, as he was known on
the Street was a daring, adventurous person,
riding a motorcycle up and down the Haight.
He was known to the cops, the Street People,
bikers, the bad guys and some of the good
guys. And he was murdered, execution style.
I knew this brother only slightly but he
was"good people." I would be very
surprised to learn that he wasanything but what he
always seemed to be, good people, but in the
Haight you never know. And I would be
surprised if anyone was ever brought to justice
in the matter of his death; the Haight was
like that too, very anonymous
In the '70's, in the
Haight area, two churches were started, both honoring what I
would call "black hippies". One, was John Coltrane
Church, still cooking, feeding folks,
helping folks out and keeping the good vibes
of John Coltrane alive, on Fillmore street,
near Haight. These folks feed street folk, help
the needy, good things.
The Other was the Jimi
Hendrix Church, off Haight Street,where the ole Funky
Features Studio was located in the early'70's.
This church was really dedicated to Hendrix,
with a life-size moving figure in a glass case
playing rock and roll.Upstairs, a video
machine played Hendrix tapes and movies. I saw
parts of the movie "Rainbow Bridge" at
this place. If youremember the movie, it took
place on Maui. During a feast the folks sat in
a circle around a pool of water, meditation.
These folks traveled together in this
meditation to the sea, onto a ship, into the
Sun, greeting a being coming from the Sun.
Years later, at a Gathering, this meditation
was done, to welcome a child into the world
(girl). Hendrix, will always be remembered.Janis
Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison,
Lenny Bruce, all passed to the sky. You know
the Sky is COOKING!
Indians and Hippies
In this particular rap-song,
I take full responsibility for the terms(words) I use. As
you read this story, Please Visualize, if you
will, sitting with friends around a fire in the
mountains somewhere. Nearby, there is running
water. You are feeling good with life. One
of Your People begins this Story. Warmth, friendship,
good vibes abound. Among your
People there are many different Races, Creeds,
Inter-mingling. All Different People Live in
Harmony, Peace, Justice. Gladness opens your
ears, your eyes tothis Story. It is the
Future. It's Happening:
In the very earliest
days of the Haight-Ashbury, people began thinking, talking in
terms of "Tribe". Wearing long-hair,beads,
feathers etc., combined with spiritual search
lead many folks to check out various cultures,
particularly "NativeAmerican Lore".
People did not
like the idea of a nation-state -- too impersonal.
Folks began to
talk, live in small "bands, clans,communes".
A personal way to live with many people.
Eventually,the concept of "tribal hippie" came
to the foreground, where it has remained.
A tribe is composed
of many "individuals", sometimes tribes have strong
leader-follower relationships, generally speaking,
most folk/freak people regard tribe as
being a way that individuals live, work, be with
one another without superimposing any
strong authoritarian presence. The Nation-state
has a strong authoritarian presence.
Strong authoritarian-anything does not work well
on most hippie. Tribe, translated as
Large Extended Fami ly, large, personal.
Teachers had come
into the Haight area from all over the Planet. Eastern Asian
Teachers, Europeans. One friend I met, a Tibetan
Monk. A few Teachers started up out of
the Haight, notably: Stephan Gaskin and Allan
Noonan, "One World Messiah", Love
Israel.
A few Native American
Teachers, Rolling Thunder, Shoshone (for one) made
contacts, shared teachings with the "new, flowering
tribal culture".
The key element,
in all this, is the idea of the brother/sister-hood. Hippies, (by
whatever name or no name) sensed,experienced
"real, spiritual Unity". Hippies, humanely
interested people, with friendly-eyes, Saw the
inter-relationshipof the Universe, Creation.
So many "fresh,
young minds" opening to the "Truths of the Universe," drew
Teachers, drew Aware People. Some came to recruit
these "new" people, others came
only to share. Some folks came to confirm what
they knew from their Prophecies. These
Flower Children, "long-haired people of every
race, new people", are in songs, prayers,
old writings that tell of such people appearing
upon the Earth, to help with the Changes.
Some of these
Teachers, when they saw what the FlowerChildren looked/acted
like, turned away, disappointed. Many of these
Teachers "recruited" into their Schools,
Teachings, as manyof these "new-age minds" as
possible.
Flower Children,
Hippies, New Age Tribal Brothers and Sisters, Open to Learn,
Ate from the Cornucopia of Spiritual Paths. It
seemed natural to Drink of the Wellspring
of Lifestyles, Taste of the Spiritual Fruits
offered here in this Country, this Land. Tribal
Hippie-type folks/freaks felt strong connection
to Native American Tribes. "Imitation is
the sincerest form of Respect".
Listening to a
Teacher Share a Truth, Practicing this Truth, Living this Insight is
Strong Learning. Seeing or Accepting the Spiritual
Essense of Native Tribal Cultures
became commonplace. Hippies, "gone tribal" wanted
to know how other tribes lived.
Hippies have "poked
into" every space/place on the Globe.Freshly Aware Minds,
(newly opened), are fully inquisitive.Curious
to the point of distraction. Wanting to know,
Willing toknow. Eager to Know. "We Want The World
And We Want It
Now!"song-shouted Jim Morrison, Doors (1967).
It must be understood
that most hippies were/are much too individual to follow
any teachers. One could learn from anyone you
met, with or without portfolio. On the one
hand, the respect of someone learning from someone,
on the other hand, "question
authority" was the watchword of the day. What
you had to offer,was important, how you
offered it was likely to be just as important.
One of the Major
influences in Hippie life has been Native American Tribal
Culture. Diffusion of culture ( exchange of practices)
is common among differing peoples
who come into contact and communication with
one another. Among Native Tribes,
sharing of ways/practices took place over the
centuries. Many Tribes have unique,
individual ways. Learning these Ways requires
deep exchange.
Hippies (other
people) could Learn these Ways, if they learn to approach with
Respect. Over the passage of years, hippies (among
other people) have cleaned up their
approach alot. Early Days, hippies and Indians,
were more part of a confusing process
rather than a diffusing process. Stories abound
of hippie/Indian days. Good stories, some
bad, a few ugly.
Where things are
at now, is a growing acceptance of one another. Hippies, who
live their lifestyle, and Indians, who live their
lifestyle, tend to get along pretty well.
Cultural interchange has brought about a
growing respect.
Weekend hippies,
"wannabe Indians", have a harder time being accepted. If you
approach with respect, respect is returned. Learning
how to inter-relate culturally, without
losing one's own identity becomes an art. Anglo-hippies'
ancestors were tribal people in
Europe. At some developmental point all people
have been tribal. Nation States are
relatively new features.
Fully acknowledging
that Native Tribes have lived on this continent for thousands
of years, while the American Tribe is only 200
or so years on this continent. American
Tribe is composed of hundreds of smaller tribes,
bands, groups, communities, communes,
co-ops.
Among Native Tribes,
hundreds of Tribes lived separate,distinct cultural ways.
However, living on the Earth, close to Nature,
all people live nearly the same, i.e. chop
wood, carry water. This commonness, recognized
by various people, has led people to
unite, over the passage of time, to chop wood,
carry water together.
Among early Native
Tribes, there were some far-sighted people who recognized
the common humanity of other people. These people
met one another, united, became
comrades in war, traders in peace.
In modern days,
at the same time young whites "turned" hippie, young people,
from a variety of tribes, met one another, in
the streets, some in the mountains. In unity
they became Red Power, they wanted to know their
own Tribal ways. It took these people
a long time before they could "walk tall in Peace."
(read "Look! A Nation is Coming,
Native Americans and the Second American Revolution,"
by Robert Mendoza c.1984)
So many of these
people were from many different Tribes. The blend of people
from all these Tribes are sometimes called Native
American, sometimes Indian. I take my
cue from the persons I meet, individually, if
they are touchy about what they are called, I
show proper respect. This extends to whomever
I meet.Most hippie folk feel the same.
In 1985, after
the Missouri Gathering, some of the Rainbow Outlaw Coaliton,
hippie rabble, rode into St. Louis, Missouri,
at the request of Leonard Peltier (American
Indian Movement spokesperson, in Federal jail
for many years, listed Amnesty
International political prisoner). We were support
for a Prayer Walk and Vigil, sponsored
by his relatives, friends, people. This walk
lasted for two months, walking up and down, in
front of the Federal Courthouse, a prayer for
an appeal--later denied.)
We made strong
agreements. Smoked their pipe. The agreement was this:
(1) Peace,
no weapons, we ride as Peace people, highest coup,
for our hippie
affinity group, was "to meet the armed enemy,
dis-arm the armed enemy with light and
laughter, make the armed enemy our friend",
it was agreed, Peace, no weapons!
(2) We serve
the Spirit, the Cause, we are not servants to anyone. We ride as
Friends and Allies. We have our own security,
shanti sena. A.I.M., Peltier's people would
have their own. Any problems, we would work it
out together. It was agreed, We ride as
friends and allies!
(3) No Rah!
Rah! no putting each other down for being different. Hippies are
hippies, Indians are Indians, different people
with different ways. Similar but different. It
was agreed No Rah rah!
In St. Louis,
things worked out to some degree. It was not perfect. Our peoples
supported each other in the struggle to acheive
the goal of a place for the Vigil People to
Camp/gather.This took real "peace effort."
We all were very successful. The story about
this trip, I call "St. Louis Blues". It
is a good story to tell around a fire.
Hippies and Indians
rubbed on each other. After a while, a form of "tribal cabin
fever" took place. Most of the Hippies moved
on, a few stayed through the whole Vigil.
When our tribes
rendezvous with one another, if our respective people stay
centered, things tend to work out better. If
things get "ragged" on either peoples' part,
friction ensues.We worked it out in St. Louis.
Eventually, we will work it out at Big
Mountain, Four Corners region, Navajo, Hopi,
other persons from varying tribes, other
people, hippies, working it out while struggling
against the CorporatePower Structure.
Indians, other
minorities and Hippies have common points of interest, common
struggles. We must, we will learn, to work it
out. For many of us, friends from meeting
each other through the years, we recognize
our common humanity, we see ourselves,
individually, part of hippie tribe, or Sioux,
Flathead--Salish or Chicano/Chicana, or La
Raza, and collectively, as part of the human
tribe.
The goal for us,
is to realize we are Human Beings. Medicine Story, Wampanago
people, Mass., and a longstanding persona in
the Rainbow Tribe, has a great prayer-song
called "O Hear me Oh Humankind". It is
a prayer for the recognition of "all our
relations": winged creatures, rock creatures,
grasses,wind, sun, moon, stars, insects,
animals, people, Indians, hippies etc.. It calls
upon us to recognize our place in the
Universe, and for us to do better toward one
another and "all our relations".
Hippies, Native
Americans of many tribes, people, people, people, if we give each
other a place on the common ground, accept those
who come, making people feel
welcome, sharing what we know, all people will
triumph!
In the streets
of the early days of the Haight, the folks meeting there, including the
peoples from many tribes, had the barest glimmer
of this "all our relations", but they
were/are eager to learn.
People stew, so
many different flower children, "mental vegetables", herbs. A mix,
to go with "stone soup" (hobo stew: place one
clean stone in bottom of pot, invite others
to put in whatever vegetables/meat they got or
can find. Voila, stonesoup!). In the
Panhandle, everyday, for a long time, Diggers
madea version of "stone soup" or "potluck".
On the Street,
the People Stew, began to "cook". Many kinds, types of people
showed up on the "scene". It thrived.
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