Hippie
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, lovers, and embrace nakedness
and respect for nature,
thus living in a natural environment, are other features of the
hippie 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).
* 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.
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 San Criustobol,
New Mexico.
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.
"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."
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 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.
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.
~ 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.
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!
....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
Black Bear Ranch is an intentional
community located in Siskiyou County, California,
founded in 1968, with the slogan "free land for free people."
In 1987 they adopted the Black Bear Family Trust,
which limits development of the property and established trustee
s
to oversee various specified duties.
Black Bear Ranch was the subject of the 2005 documentary Commune
by Johnathan Berman.
The commune still exists as of 2010 and continues to thrive with
the basic ideals created 41 years ago.
It is tucked away in a valley of the Siskiyou Mountains.
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.
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.
Food
Not Bombs
is one of the fastest growing revolutionary movements and is gaining
momentum throughout the world.
There are hundreds of autonomous chapters sharing free vegetarian
food with hungry people and protesting war and poverty.
Food Not Bombs is not a charity.
This energetic grassroots movement is active throughout the Americas,
Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Australia.
Food Not Bombs is organizing for peace and an end to the occupations
of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.
For over 25 years the movement has worked to end hunger and has
supported actions
to stop the globalization of the economy, restrictions to the
movements of people, end exploitation and the destruction of the
earth.
Online
Communities Directory:
a searchable online directory of intentional communities from
North America and around the world provided by the FIC
1966-2006 What Did The Hippies Want?
by Alicia Bay Laurel
November 19, 2001
"We wanted intimacy--not
a neighborhood
where you didn't know anyone on the block,
or you competed, kept up with the Joneses.
A hunter-gatherer or early agricultural community
meant that people lived, worked and sought deeper contact with
the holy spirit as a group, and they all knew one another, from
cradle to grave.
I used to call my hippie friendships "a horizontal extended
family,"
as opposed to the ancient tribal extended family,
which was multi-generational, and therefore, vertical...."
We wanted a culture
which acknowledged the human body,
not just for sex, but to hug each other, to be naked without shame,
to revere the body with natural foods, beneficial exercise,
herbs, baths, massage, deep understanding.
This was not part of the culture from which we came...."
The
60's Communes: Hippies and Beyond (Peace and Conflict Resolution)
by Timothy Miller
Miller has done a great service: there are precious few scholarly
treatments of the movement--
nearly all the existing material on 1960s communalism was published
before 1975.
An important acquisition; recommended for academic and theological
libraries.
