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The Vision of a Generation
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There
was a terrible war raging in Vietnam in the Sixties. We, the Woodstock
Generation, knew it was wrong and fought against it. We didn't
care what the social penalties were - we stood our ground and said,
"No, this is wrong. I love my country and will not participate
in this immoral action which destroys the principles our country
was built on."
At the same time, music was reaching us. It got us so excited that
we felt a deep part of ourselves which we had not been in touch
with before. It was wild, and its wildness freed us from cultural
restraints, from the uptightness that habits place on a human being.
So people were free to be naked in public, to talk about having
sex, to smoke grass openly with friends, take acid, have long hair,
dress any way they chose, to experiment and explore life freely.
I was a young photographer looking for a way to publish my work.
I was a human being, hurt and injured by the injustice of the war.
I was a person who smoked grass occasionally and loved to listen
to music. When I was stoned, I always wanted to take pictures. I
combined all these elements into an attempt to make my life good.
I wanted to earn money, make beautiful pictures, listen to music,
and help the world.
Everything seemed to be changing. Established ideas and institutions,
in every sphere, were being challenged. It seemed like the world
was about to change profoundly because people would not be able
to go on living the way they had been. It was a time of hope.
The frontiers of consciousness were being expanded. We were exposed
to Eastern philosophy, metaphysical books, psychedelics, rock music,
and grass.
Rock concerts were rites of passage, where people came to be together,
to see the bands, and to get high from the music, the dance, and
the drugs. The goal was to transcend the mundane vision of everyday
life by reaching an ecstatic state. We were unknowingly using methods
similar to those found in the traditions of indigenous peoples throughout
history.
Pop music had not yet become an international business and cultural
phenomenon. Rock
'n' Roll was outside the norm of society, part of the "underground"
culture, and to be involved with it made you an outsider. A new
group of people who believed in alternatives to the American Way
of Life was galvanized by this new, free form of raucous music.
A world of hippies, drugs, free love, metaphysics, and political
activism was born.
The musicians themselves could as easily have been members of the
audience as performers onstage, and often they did mingle with the
crowds after the show. There was a true feeling of solidarity, a
unity of purpose, and the purpose was to change the world. We want
the world, and we want it NOW! was the anthem sung by Jim
Morrison. We thought that the freedom to behave as we wished,
coupled with the power of music to liberate the soul, would emancipate
the world.
The Sixties were about trying to discover the truth about everything
and trying to live that truth in life. Discovering your inner self,
and being true to it. Doing what you really wanted to do, and trusting
that if you did the right thing, "your way" would be in
alignment with The Way, (as in the ancient Chinese text The Way
of Life) and the universe would support you by making the right
things happen for you. People tried to earn the money they needed
from "work" they loved.
The Sixties were also about looking for happiness and trying to
create perfection and justice for everyone on the planet. For the
first time a mass culture saw itself as totally interconnected to
all other beings and began to take on a global rather than a local
responsibility. The tools we used were love, freedom, spirituality,
music, and action. We demanded freedoms long held to be taboo-to
have sex at will, to use consciousness-expanding substances-and
we actively tried to change the establishment through righteous,
inspired action.
A lot of other things changed as well. Before the Sixties, men had
short hair and crew cuts and wore business suits and ties. Social
conformity prevented them from wearing frilly shirts and earrings.
But the Sixties emancipated men's creative and feminine side. Freedom
replaced formality. Men not only let their hair and beards grow
and put on more colorful clothes, they also smiled more lovingly
and became more accepting of others. So many people were naked that
men began to accept real women's bodies instead of focusing on Playboy
fantasies. They concentrated more on feelings and emotions than
on physical satisfaction-something only women had done before. Women
and men became better friends. Instead of guys just hanging out
together, talking dirty, and harassing women, a new situation arose:
men and women hung out together, smoked dope, had sex, and listened
to rock 'n' roll. A communal experience was born. Men began cooking
and taking care of children, while women got into rock 'n' roll.
Thus the education and upbringing of children began to change. Children
were carried around with their parents, brought to parties, and
learned to sleep in a car. Home was any place where the road stopped.
Children no longer stayed home with baby-sitters; parents started,
more and more, to bring their kids with them, and the kids were
much better off.
Drugs were a part of that interconnectedness, but they were light,
nonaddicting, consciousness-raising natural herbs, which helped
us attain higher states. Unlike hyperaggressive drugs, such as cocaine,
they made us more mellow, more loving, more sensitive, and more
open.
Grass was special - you shared it. We had been taught to keep our
possessions to ourselves, but when you smoked grass, you offered
it to whoever happened to be nearby, whether you were in the street
or at a rock concert. Being "high" opened people up to
themselves and to others. Smoking was a communal activity and often
created an instant bonding, even if it sometimes lasted only a short
time.
Since you were more mellow when you were "high," you were
able to listen and to perceive more. You could really 'get into
another person's trip,' sit and play with a baby for hours, or "see"
a flower for what seemed like the first time. In some ways drugs
worked similarly to meditation, reducing the perceptual blocks and
illusions of separateness we learned from our Western cultural upbringing.
One of the main visions which permeated the Sixties culture was
of the brotherhood of man. Many people were initially able to perceive
this truth because of grass and other consciousness-enhancing drugs.
The Woodstock Generation
rediscovered many ancient spiritual truths and gave the contemporary
world an alternative vision for living -to be loving, gentle, and
open all the time. Drugs were a window to that vision, but there
was a price to pay. When drugs are used to reach the highs, one
is less capable of dealing graciously with the lows and responds
negatively to situations that could be handled better. Reactions
such as anger, depression, physical depletion, and dependency are
common. The ultimate goal is to be able to experience and enjoy
life: the freedom and the ecstasy of being in a loving state of
mind, and the strength to experience the difficulties without being
upset, uptight, or anxious.
Now we realize that we must reach that state, not through harmful
chemicals, but through meditation and inner spiritual commitment
to joy and love, coupled with the hard work of getting through life
while maintaining our integrity.
We hoped to leave the existing society behind and do our own thing-find
our own truths and way of life. The Sixties culture called for a
rejection of material and traditional comforts. We no longer needed
beds to sleep in. The floor and a mat would do. Insurance plans,
new cars, new clothes, traditional ceremonies, nine-to-five jobs,
meaningless work done just to pay the bills-all were questioned
and discarded.
What was important was to get high, to feel yourself, to become
one with the spiritual forces in the universe, to communicate with
our fellow man. So what if we lived in houses that would never be
ours, drove cars that were falling apart, wore clothes that were
used when we got them? As long as we shared what we had with each
other, we would be all right. We felt we could live a nomadic, transient
life as long as we were loving and generous.
We also thought meaningless middle-class values would disappear.
Little did we realize then that in every historical phase there
is a dialectic in which first one, then an opposite action predominates,
followed by a synthesis of the two.
The yuppies of the Eighties, with their total focus on material
wealth and meaningless status symbols, were a reaction to the drop-out,
turn-on, tune-in hippie culture of the Sixties.
The energy created during that time is still with us, slowly influencing
us more and more. It has evolved into what is today called New Age
thought.
The inheritors of "Woodstock" are not only the tie-dyed
young people we see at concerts, but also the healers, the spiritual
practitioners, and the activists who support the diversity of planetary
life-forms. Many young people are intuitively drawn to the Woodstock
era, feeling a closeness they don't yet fully understand while taking
inspiration from its lifestyles.
Perhaps the Nineties will be a time of synthesis for the two ways
of thinking and being, for balancing a spiritual awareness of our
place in the universe with an ability to work toward making physical
life on this planet more pleasant for everyone. What we of the Sixties
generation have learned is that the material part of life is important
as well. As the I Ching says, the ultimate manifestation of Heaven
is on Earth.
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The Vision of a Generation
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