One thing that frightens me about the age we are living in is our seeming inability to think outside the box-the box being the electronic one with the remote control. Our ideas and views seem to be created for us by media corporations. The masses go along like sheep, or more accurately lemmings, having their opinions, even their MEMORIES altered or molded by the current mores and values as decided by the government and Ted Turner.
It amazes me that people my age, in their forties and older, so many of them, look back on a previous era, the sixties and seventies, with embarrassment or shame. Because the current politically-correct attitude is anti-smoking, anti-drugs, anti-sex, anti-drinking, anti- oh hell, anti- LIFE, most of the former "hippies" and Wild Thangs hide or never discuss their histories and the things they did in those days. As Don Henley sang, we live in a graceless age. We live in a crass, vulgar time where the things we stood for, the ideas we shared, and the actions we took, have been twisted into something base and dirty. But my memory is clear, and that isn't the way I remember those days.
I think it is sad, a human curse, to forget. Our attitudes and ideas of the era changed the world forever, in my personal opinion, much for the better, and I feel no shame for the things I did. But then, I won't ever be, don't ever want to be, politically correct.
I recently enjoyed the movie The Banger Sisters, that told a story comically and without judgment of two old hippie chicks, and the courses their lives ran after their separation. Whenever I meet someone my age who vehemently sits in judgment of those days and uses the old worn-out cliches (slut, bum, druggie, loser, blah, blah, blah...) handed out generation after generation to those who were free spirits, I find them pathetic and depressing, especially if they were once free spirits themselves, even if only on the surface.
So it is that I feel no regret that at 15 I found myself in the Haight Ashbury District of San Francisco, staying in a sort of mini-commune near Cole and Haight, in an old Victorian 3 Story home, narrow and deep, with little furniture but lots of people crashed in the wee hours on open floor space.
Everyone had a nickname in those days, one of the ways we rebelled was to throw out the names our parents had given us. I got mine eventually directly from Yogi Bhajan at summer solstice in Taos, New Mexico. But that is another story for another section of this website. Let it suffice to say I went by Deva for years.
So green little Deva found herself, decked out in bellbottom jeans, a multi-colored blouse from India, and a prized fake fur jacket, (pretty much how my daughter looks now, 30 years later) in Golden Gate Park, in a circle, sitting lotus on the ground, with her housemates, meditating while the sun set. Some of us were chanting but not in unison, as we came from various backgrounds and histories; some ex-Maharishi Mahesh orgyites, some ex-Krishnas, a couple Jesus Freaks, one or two hardcore Deadheads, and me, a peapod as yet unpicked, doing my Ong Na Mo's. No, not like that, not that unpicked, or green.
It was the Spring, still cool at nights, but there were flowers everywhere and the grass was the brightest green. I loved Golden Gate Park in those days. It was an oasis separated from the real world. Once you walked into it there was no 9-5, no weekdays. It was a Summer Saturday every day of the year. No responsibilities, no head games, no facades, just cool, man, far-out. And it really was true, we wore flowers in our hair, and in our guitar straps, our wrists, and stuck into the waist of our jeans.
There was always music, impromptu jam sessions that sprung up like weeds and the pigs, um, police, never harrassed anyone much in the daytime, when "respectable" folks might see them. You were pretty much free in the park and there were so many alcoves and grottos where the trees gave you semi-privacy, that you could trip or talk, or even make out a little, without fear. But you didn't want to get caught in the park at night, if you were a long-haired man, or a girl with your navel showing.
But we were all sitting deep into our chanting session, some of us holding hands around the ring and all of us tripping on something, so the sun went down and we really didn't notice until...FLASH! God came to visit. Our circle of friends lit up brighter than daylight and for a moment reactions ranged from, "Wow! Man! It's Jesus man, cool!" to "Beam me up Scotty! I'm out of here!"
But within seconds the beating of the helicopter's blades and the wind caused by the approaching chopper aroused even the highest of us to our senses. "Split, man! It's the pigs!" As we scattered to the wind the police loudly commanded us to stop where we were. Yeah, right! ALL of us were holding something or other.
Four of us, Siri, Amric, Deel and I ran at what seemed like lightning speed across the park toward the Fulton Street exit. It seemed to take forever but we didn't stop running. It was pure adrenaline and mescaline as it somehow got firmly fixed in our minds that we were the new Public Enemy #1 (2, 3, and 4). We didn't stop running until we were halfway toward the Presidio, but even in our youth and good health we eventually got tired and out of breath and ran into this little coffeehouse. We burst through the doors out of breath and flopped onto some cushions on the floor, disrupting the mellow vibes of the place entirely. Everyone turned and looked and Amric just gasped, "pigs," and everyone kind of nodded, mumbled and turned back to their own conversations.
Coffeehouses were great in those days. After sunset and even sometimes in the days, there were always people in there sitting on pillows on the floor talking and listening to someone up front with an acoustic guitar or harmonica. They usually had tables made of old painted electrical spools, decorated in psychadelic colors and symbols; doves, peace signs, and of course, "God Bless Children and Other Living Things." That one was sooo popular, almost as popular as "Make Love Not War."
Coffeehouses always had incense burning and served things like alfalfa sprouts, tofu, and cucumbers on sunflower seed bread or homemade soups and yogurts. Of course, sometimes it was like Crocodile Dundee said in the wilderness, "Well, yeah, you can live on it, but it tastes like shit."
Have you ever had an experience with someone so dramatic and emotional (like running from the police) and also while all parties were tripping (that had to be a factor) that the experience itself becomes the dictator of your actions? At that point in the coffeehouse, whatever different universes we had been in tripping and meditating in the park, we were then brought together in unison on the same wavelength. We were extremely glad to still be free, to be alive, to be young, to know love.
The mellow vibes washed over us in the coffeehouse. Some guy with so much hair on and around his face I couldn't see his face was singing about love being the way to heaven and to find God. The four of us looked at each other silently and the vibes took over, or the hallucinogens did. We started making out, as they once called it. People started looking at us and the air was thick with herb scent so I guess that had something to do with what happened next.
When I came up for air, I had been kissing Deel, EVERYONE in the coffeehouse was making out! Something like 50 people were all kissing people around them, some, I thought, that they hadn't come with or even known already. No one was talking or playing the mating game, no come ons, just a lot of kissing and touching.
Amric reached over then and started kissing me and I looked over and noticed Siri had switched over to Deel. But there was no negative vibes in that coffeeshop that night. No one was a possession of anyone else. It wasn't even really a sex feeling so much as just expressions of love. I am not a fool, I know a LOT of people left there and had sex, but that wasn't the vibe at the outset.
It was a unique experience I have never known since. There was this free, unpossessive, random love vibe there in the coffeehouse, flowing all over us with everyone kissing everyone. Well, actually, we weren't so liberal as now-males were kissing females, and females only males. BOY! has San Francisco changed!
Episode Two Congas in the Park
Coming Soon!
Episode Three Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair
Coming Soon!
Episode Four Victory Garden
Coming Soon!
Episode Five Santa Cruz Communal Life
Coming Soon!
Episode Six Airplanes and Starships
Coming Soon!
