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Communes
After the Second World War many freedoms, legal rights or just practices, such as nudism, which had been accepted or tolerated, were abolished and persecuted in its aftermath. Nudism was, then, looked down upon in some cases, if not entirely banned, as it was in others, by the new rulers who did not have better priorities. And so, after the war, a wave of Puritanism spread all over.

It was not until the mid 60s, when the Hippy Movement was born, in the United States, in opposition to the Vietnam War, that we see a crack in the system of values of the consumption society and the traditional family. This movement kept evolving, embracing Eastern Philosophies and concepts, and global pacifism. The hippies and later movements prepared the ground
for the rebirth of naturism and nudism.
By rejecting violence, the hippies preach harmony, mainly between human beings and the environment. This harmony is translated into their life styles: they live in communes where the material goods and work are shared among their members. They do not kill animals, and many become vegetarians. Also, traditional marriage is replaced by love, which means that this new relation is based on the so called ‘free love’.
Hippies are, therefore, pacifists; love, nakedness and respect for nature, thus living in a natural environment, are other features of the movement.

Hippy communes became alternatives to the traditional family

Although the hippy movement, (albeit very different in ideas amongst its followers), brought about an increase in the consumption of al kinds of drugs, it also made a crack in the traditional values of a puritan world, by openly trying out alternative ways of living.
Vegetarians and nudists gained ground and now they are respected alternatives,
although there is still a long way to go until the latter may be considered socially accepted as normal.

In Spain, the last years of the Franco’s regime coincided with the hippy movement, which may explain its weakness. However, wherever there were hippies, nudism was practiced, (even though they had to keep hiding from the Guardia Civil, the paramilitary police).
Probably we owe it to these forefront pioneers having set up the basis for what the nudist movement in this country is, as we see it nowadays.
-Carlos Ortega.-

A commune is a kind of intentional community where most resources are shared
and there is little or no personal property (as opposed a community that only shares housing).

Benjamin Zablocki categorized communes this way:

* Eastern religious communes
* Christian communes
* Psychological communes (based on mystical or gestalt principles)
* Rehabilitational communes (see Synanon)
* Cooperative communes
* Alternative-family communes
* Countercultural communes ("hippies")
* Political communes
* Spiritual communes

Of course, many communal ventures encompass more than one of these categorizations.

Some communes, like the ashrams of the Vedanta Society or the Theosophical commune Lomaland,
formed around spiritual leaders; while some communes formed around political ideologies.

For others, the "glue" is simply the desire for a more shared, sociable lifestyle.
Moreover, some people find it is just more economical to live communally.
Many contemporary squatters pool their resources in this way,
forming urban communes in unoccupied buildings.
Although communes are most frequently associated with the hippie movement--
the "back-to-the-land" ventures of the 1960s and 1970s--
there is a long history of communes in America.

'Plowing New Mexico' © Robert Altman

Hippie Communes
Local Hippie communes and communities
By Jai Cross For The Taos News

In the late 1960s, a significant number of young Americans became disillusioned with the Vietnam War and the establishment’s crass commercialism.They called themselves hippies and flower children, and they were frustrated with conventional answers. In answer to the society then in place, they developed and initiated a surge of unrestrained experimentation with lifestyle and living arrangements.The natural beauty and simple land-based culture of Taos attracted waves of hippies to the area in the late 60s and early 70s. Many of them sought simpler lives, which they found by establishing alternative communities — communes such as New Buffalo and Morningstar in Arroyo Hondo, the Hog Farm that appeared in “Easy Rider,” The Family in Ranchos de Taos and Lama Foundation in Lama.

Until that era, the villages of Northern New Mexico were chiefly populated by traditional, religious and conservative Hispanics, who felt that the hippies constituted a dangerous invasive force. Most local Hispanics were deeply offended by the newcomers’ perceived filthiness, frequent nudity, practice of free love and rampant drug use.The majority of these alternative communities soon disintegrated, mostly because their members personal goals frequently conflicted.

Issues among communes included whether their members should raise families or simply stay high on drugs. An outstanding exception, however, is the Lama Foundation, which has been in existence for more than 35 years and continues to thrive. Its longevity is undoubtedly due to its longstanding anti-drug policy and commitment to personal spiritual practice.
And, by the way, many of the so-called invading hippies grew into productive and respected citizens who are now mainstays of the multifaceted Taos community.

"Taos, N.M. (New Buffalo)" by Robert Altman

New Buffalo
Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico

"In the spirit of the one-world family, friends, acquaintances, people on the road were living together.
There was a magic to it, and I found a group of people that became my new family.
At the start of one of the communes, a group took the idea of the buffalo providing for the plains people.
To this they added New to create a name.
The New Buffalo was to be a new way of providing for the people."

"The idea of violent revolution must be supplanted. We cannot build a successful movement by adding to the anger and finding reasons to throw more bombs. Eco-villages are a perfect modus operandi for the re-emergence of a powerful progressive force. Add this to our culture, make it shine. This is the antidote to terrorism: good works. Here is the sharing, the volunteerism, the community that is defied by the present culture of each individual family accumulating as much of everything as it can imagine. Here is the vehicle to change the culture of selfishness. Add economic equality to complete the democratic revolution. Here is a way to help the dispossessed, break the cycle that is destroying nature. Add something to our culture that reinforces our faith in human nature and you will have a profound effect.

Nurture an overt concern with how we survive and prosper.
If enough people make a success of this movement they will have a handle on all the issues that concern us.
So what is the power of ideas?
The time is upon us for something clearly positive to give us promise,
to help us in a time of need. Remember that phrase of John Lennon?
“You may say that I’m the dreamer. But I’m not the only one."

xcerpts from New Buffalo
Art Kopecky 1972

"Marriage at the Hog Farm" © Lisa Law

The Hog Farm
Llano, New Mexico - Tujunga, California

The Hog Farm is an organization considered to be America's longest running hippie commune.

The Hog Farm started out as a communal pig farm in California; its members eventually bought land next to a Hopi Indian reservation in New Mexico. Its leader was a skinny, toothless hippie whose real name was Hugh Romney. He was a one-time beatnick comic who had changed his name to Wavy Gravy and held the wiseguy title of "Minister of Talk".
With beginnings as an actual collective hog farm in Tujunga, California,
the group, founded in the 1960s by Wavy Gravy,
evolved into a "mobile, hallucination-extended family",
active nationwide in both music and politics.

'The Hog Farm Kitchen-Woodstock 69' © Lisa Law

The Hog Farm is perhaps best known for their involvement with the Woodstock Music Festival. While lodging on Manhattan's East Side from 1968-69, the Farm was approached by Woodstock Ventures with a proposal — participate in a planned music festival in upstate New York.
Woodstock Ventures billed the concert as a "weekend in the country" - temporary commune. The ads ran in the newspapers, both establishment and underground, and on radio stations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Boston, Texas and Washington, D.C.

"We brought in the Hog Farm to be our crowd interface," Goldstein explained. "We needed a specific group to be the exemplars for all to follow. We believed that the idea of sleeping outdoors under the stars would be very attractive to many people, but we knew damn well that the kind of people who were coming had never slept under the stars in their lives. We had to create a circumstance where they were cared for."

Although the Farm had just bought land in Llano, New Mexico, near Truchas, New Mexico and the commune had plans to depart New York City and settle in Llano, they accepted the offer to become involved with Woodstock. Recruited to build fire pits and trails on the festival grounds at Woodstock, the Hog Farm convinced the promoter to let them set up a free kitchen as well.

"Yogi Bhajan-Hog Farm" Photo © Lisa Law

Just prior to Woodstock, the Hog Farm attended the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. At the convention, the Farm and Abbie Hoffman presented a satirical presidential candidate, a pig named Pigasus, who remained with the Hog Farm after the convention. Upon returning to New York, they were met by the world press at John F. Kennedy International Airport and told for the first time that they had also been assigned the task of providing security at Woodstock.

Gravy called his rather unorthodox security force the "Please Force," a reference to their non-intrusive tactics at keeping order ("please don't do that, please do this instead"). When asked by the press what kind of tools he intended to use to maintain order at the event, his instant response was "Cream pies and seltzer bottles."
Shortly after Woodstock, the Hog Farmers helped keep the peace between the cowboys and the hippies at the Texas Pop Festival,
where blues giant B. B. King gave Wavy Gravy his name.

Today, the Hog Farm is still in existence, with various locations including a headquarters in Berkeley, California, and a 200+ acre farm in Laytonville, California, known as Black Oak Ranch -- also home to Wavy Gravy's performing arts camp for children, Camp Winnarainbow. Black Oak plays host to several music festivals each year, most of which operate in support of charitable causes. One such event is the annual Hog Farm Family Pig-Nic, which has featured performances by artists such as Ben Harper, Spearhead, and others.

For more Photos of New Buffalo and the Hog Farm
Robert Altman Guest Gallery
Lisa Law Guest Gallery

~ AHIMSA ~
MORNINGSTAR & WHEELER'S
OPEN LAND RANCHES
Morningstar and Wheeler's Ranches where both in Sonoma County,
and where unique amongst communes, as they where declared
"Open Land" ranches, Access Which Was Denied No-One.
The main Founders of each (Lou Gottlieb, Ramon Sender and Bill Wheeler where also close friends).

Morningstar was open first, and started as a small family based community with Lou Gottlieb, the main Focalizer, and his colorful wisdom combined with his "onstage" presence (Lou was a member of the popular band the Limeliters) propelled him into the spotlight that the media had on the communes at the time. He and Ramon Sender became the main "spokesmen" to stand up for the land against the negative media frenzy and governmental manipulation of laws that eventually led to the bulldozing of the commune .

Wheeler's Ranch was open during the time Morningstar was going through it's hassles,
and of course , because of the "war on hippies" that was being waged by our government,
Wheeler's began to get the same kind of hassles as Morningstar.

After Morningstar was bulldozed, it's members scattered near and far.
Some going to live on Wheeler's, while others went to Morningstar New Mexico,
or just went their seperate ways.

Infinite Points of Time: Morningstar Chronicles
Part II (Morningstar in New Mexico)
By Pam Hanna

Ramon Sender was one who helped write the "Manifesto II on Wheeler's.
Wheeler's continued to fight "against the machine",
but the intent of the government at the time,
was to do away with the open land ranches,
and in 1973 Wheeler's ranch met the fate of the bulldozers too.

It is wonderful now, more than 30 years later, to see folk again speaking of "returning to the land", and folk coming together to live communally in the country and woods, as well as big citys and small towns. The system bulldozed open land 30 years ago - but the spirit and tribal truth of open land lives and glows brightly in the Hearts of the people. May we all find our way back to Tribal Unity, and the Land. In Peace. And Love. And find joy in the knowledge that we are helping to heal our planet and our lives, as we build our Brave New World.

Peace
Char

"It's call of freedom found it's way to the hearts of a variety of people seeking a way of being and living that was close to the earth ~
people longing to get "back to the land ".

They came from hither thither and yon, and were a *highly* unique tribe of people
that lived in a community of incredibly imaginative buildings ~

The people who were drawn to Open Land all had much in common,
one major thing being the desire -- for one reason or another -- to get "back to the land" and
live a life free of the rigidity of mainstream society, and to feel and live life in its more natural state.

There were sages and seers, gardeners and builders, lovers and musicians,
poets and orators, parents and partiers, geniuses and scholars, old soldiers and survivors,
hippies and trolls, mystics and drop-outs and a cowboy or two.

Most sported full tans, because clothing was always optional on the land.
People gravitated into groups, which became 'neighborhoods,' each with their own unique personality.
There were families of few and many, couples and singles. All these could change in a heartbeat, and many times did.

People visited, and shared, or stayed home in the woods ,
just "being" or performing and perfecting basic skills such as cooking on woodstoves, splitting wood , home improvement and "making do" .
Special occasions occurred often, and included steam baths, a feast -- and always music.
Much fun could be had by all -- and was!

-Ramon Sender-

'Living on the Earth'
by Alicia Bay Laurel

Excerpts from her biography at
Tao of Guides and Teachers

....When she gravitated to San Francisco in 1966 as a 17-year-old,
Laurel made the rounds of coffeehouses and small clubs and played
wherever and for whomever would have her, everywhere
from in the park to playing privately for friends,
writing her own original material all the while.

In the late '60s, she joined the Wheeler Ranch commune
and played in a group that became the Star Mountain Band
and eventually had its own commune next door.

Wheeler Ranch was written up in the June 1970 issue of Harper's.
The book "Living on the Earth", a best-seller in the early '70s,
was written while author, Alicia Bay Laurel, was living on the ranch.

BLACKBEAR RANCH


Some of the healers and systems of alternative medicine that have emanated from the late 1960's Black Bear Ranch in the Klamath wilderness of Northern California are among the top systems and leaders of the movement today. Michael Tierra cultivated his interest and career as an internationally acclaimed leader of the herbal renaissance at Black Bear, Belize herbalist of internationally acclaim, Rosita Arvigo, known in those days as Zura, also lived at Black Bear, Efrem and Harriet Korngold, together with Efrem's father, Murray, were among the first to promote acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine at Black Bear Ranch, Efrem and Harriet later went on to write the definitive introductory book on TCM, Between Heaven and Earth. Other members such as Yeshi and Geba were and continue to be in the forefront of the homebirth, midwife movement. Joyce Gardner author, herbalist and healer was also a member of the Black Bear Commune.

It was crazy times, crazy but inspired people, joined by their love of nature and service to humanity, that founded Black Bear Ranch. This book is for the connoisseur; don't expect to find it readily available. It is truly and underground classic. There are several articles by Michael Tierra in the book and others who lived together, sharing the vision, the energy, their bodies and minds with each other, somewhat naively and unashamedly exploring the paths of human experience to ultimately instill a spark of new life and vision that subtly and not too subtly permeates our present world. You have to read this thoroughly enjoyable book. You won't be sorry you did and by the way, Black Bear Ranch is owned as a trust by its original members and still lives on with new young members living communally together in the wilderness, exploring natural lifestyles similar to the original group of more than two decades ago.

Michael Tierra



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Food Not Bombs
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