where have all the flowers gone?

[TreeLove]

I was born in 1983, long after the summer of love. Born to parents who didn't love each other, the youngest of three confused, fearful children.

Today my mother calls me her free spirit. Without any background I found my own way into "hippiedom" and I was not the first person to call me that.

I will never forget the first time I heard the Grateful Dead- Estimated Profit was the first song played for me, I remember the street we were driving on. I was 14. I hadn't even heard Jimi, Janis, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Simon and Garfunkel until I was 12.

There are days when I feel like I would give anything just to be able to walk to a park on a sunny day in 1968 or 1972, just to see beautiful, colorful folks playing games, singing, making music, discussing philosophy, politics, spirituality.

Today our world has become so much like my childhood family, maybe it has been since the Roman Empire. But how much longer can we survive, struggling over the petty things, before they really tear the whole world apart?

[Shydog]

[quote=TreeLove;41711]

There are days when I feel like I would give anything just to be able to walk to a park on a sunny day in 1968 or 1972, just to see beautiful, colorful folks playing games, singing, making music, discussing philosophy, politics, spirituality.

So I'm packing my bags for the "Misty Mountains"....

Our world is what we make it?

I'm a dreamer and you are the painter of word pictures.

The parks in those days must have been some fun!

[TreeLove]

don't we tend to paint what we do not know directly with the colors of our own dreams?
honestly I have been at parks like the one I described, but it seems its all college campuses, though it probably was back then too.

I guess, there's this child inside me that is just kicking and screaming about the state of the world, just for wanting other people to acknowledge what's going on and I don't know how to calm her down, or if I really want to.

The war for example, there is majority support for an end to the war, I believe there was enough of that support not to even start it. But the media today is owned and they inaccurately portrayed the protest numbers in D.C. (I was there) and probably New York and San Francisco too. They didn't show any graphic scenes of children and farmers and innocent poor being slaughtered like they did during Viet Nam. and I'm sure Bush got some good advice to use advertising instead of a draft to up recruitment, because forcing college students and the children of the middle class to go to a war zone they're not sure if they believe in is also a good way to lose what support you had for it in the first place.

so we just forget there's a war going on, that an entire country is being blown apart. all because we were led by a false connection to an act of terrorism in our own country. . . (sigh). . . but we don't have to hear missles and bombs whistling and screaming through the air before they explode and tear our families, friends and communities from our lives.

anyway, I guess all I'm really saying is all the indifference in our society is slowly killing me, especially when passion does arise it tends to be emotionally attached to specific ideas instead of open, yearning for more truth, whole truth. . .

[PEACE FROG]

I was born in 1983, long after the summer of love. Born to parents who didn't love each other, the youngest of three confused, fearful children.

Today my mother calls me her free spirit. Without any background I found my own way into "hippiedom" and I was not the first person to call me that.

I will never forget the first time I heard the Grateful Dead- Estimated Profit was the first song played for me, I remember the street we were driving on. I was 14. I hadn't even heard Jimi, Janis, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Simon and Garfunkel until I was 12.

There are days when I feel like I would give anything just to be able to walk to a park on a sunny day in 1968 or 1972, just to see beautiful, colorful folks playing games, singing, making music, discussing philosophy, politics, spirituality.

Today our world has become so much like my childhood family, maybe it has been since the Roman Empire. But how much longer can we survive, struggling over the petty things, before they really tear the whole world apart?
Wow what a beautiful thought. Try Oregon. Alot of kynd folk, as long as you do not have Ca. plates on your car. Alot of hippies in the Eugene/ Springfield area of Oregon.
One problem is drugs. People like to put a buzz on, feel good and mellow out. But with that alot of times comes a bad element. That's what happened to the movement in the sixties in my opinion.
Nice post, welcome to the board Treelove!!!:hb:

[Shydog]

You paint, I'll enjoy, what a gem!

"We paint reality with the color of dreams." TreeLove.

[PEACE FROG]

What a gem indeed.....:D

[Shydog]

[quote=TreeLove;41829]

I guess, there's this child inside me that is just kicking and screaming about the state of the world, just for wanting other people to acknowledge what's going on and I don't know how to calm her down, or if I really want to.

I just go with it sometimes.

[Shydog]

The media today is owned.

So we just forget there's a war going on.

I'm really saying all the indifference in our society is slowly killing me.

Agree.

[TreeLove]

the smile on my face is a rainbow of joyful awakening
you are the sun breaking apart this cloudy world
and I will reflect your radiance back to you
multiplied through the prism of each rain drop

and soon we'll all be smiling and shining through the rain
a hand to help another
a step to ease the pain

I'm not looking for a hippie community. I'm looking for community. the dream I have, of walking through a park, the most wonderful part about it is that I would feel welcome, and be welcomed to join any of the games or discussions around me.

I feel like our society, especially mainstream America, is becoming so selfishly self-involved, so dangerously indifferent to other people, this is what hurts.

on the bright side, I learned this past fall that it hurts not to give love. Marianne Williamson reminds us that it is the mind that thinks of what it is not getting, it is the heart that thinks of what it is not giving, and it is Bob Marley who lets us know that amidst so much trouble in this world we can get by if we give a little, take a little, and give a little more.

peas, whirled and wasabi ;)

[Gary Blanchard]

We may never see a community the size of that in the 1960's, but there are wonderful people all around us. Nowdays they may dress like freaks or like bankers, but the heart is open and free. It takes a little more effort to find the beautiful people now, but they are out there.

There is a lot that is wrong in the world; this is nothing new, though the threats change with time. We need to remember one of the key ingredients of the 60's hippie movement - hope. As long as we hold on to hope, we can make the world a better place. Once we lose hope, we lose everything.

[Shydog]

The smile on my face is a rainbow of joyful awakening ;) Hope is alive and well!

[shooter]

the smile on my face is a rainbow of joyful awakening
you are the sun breaking apart this cloudy world
and I will reflect your radiance back to you
multiplied through the prism of each rain drop

and soon we'll all be smiling and shining through the rain
a hand to help another
a step to ease the pain

I'm not looking for a hippie community. I'm looking for community. the dream I have, of walking through a park, the most wonderful part about it is that I would feel welcome, and be welcomed to join any of the games or discussions around me.

I feel like our society, especially mainstream America, is becoming so selfishly self-involved, so dangerously indifferent to other people, this is what hurts.

on the bright side, I learned this past fall that it hurts not to give love. Marianne Williamson reminds us that it is the mind that thinks of what it is not getting, it is the heart that thinks of what it is not giving, and it is Bob Marley who lets us know that amidst so much trouble in this world we can get by if we give a little, take a little, and give a little more.

peas, whirled and wasabi ;)

I also wish I could walk in a park in 1968 like I did so long ago and hear the music and talk with other guys with long hair and see the pretty girls again, dancing in their summer dresses and smell illicit weed in the air. And like you I wish I could find "community" like you long for. I wish I could find all my friends I used to hang with but it seems they all sold out and joined the corporate world. Now I'm just an older guy with long hair and I sit alone and paint and listen to music from the 60s. I guess I'm just as much of a dreamer as you are but you long for the day to be a part of your life now and I long for a day I lived so long ago and to find all my friends who couldn't be true to themselves. It's tough for someone to be alone in their thoughts. I guess that's what I am. Maybe you too.

[shooter]

I also wish I could walk in a park in 1968 like I did so long ago and hear the music and talk with other guys with long hair and see the pretty girls again, dancing in their summer dresses and smell illicit weed in the air. And like you I wish I could find "community" like you long for. I wish I could find all my friends I used to hang with but it seems they all sold out and joined the corporate world. Now I'm just an older guy with long hair and I sit alone and paint and listen to music from the 60s. I guess I'm just as much of a dreamer as you are but you long for the day to be a part of your life now and I long for a day I lived so long ago and to find all my friends who couldn't be true to themselves. It's tough for someone to be alone in their thoughts. I guess that's what I am. Maybe you too.

I might add, I'm new here and my tag is "shooter". I was a photojournalist 30 years so I was a "shooter."

[Unkle_John]

Good to see you around Shooter! If you have any photos ready to upload, please share them with us in the art/photography section. I'm interesting in seeing you "eye".

[shooter]

Good to see you around Shooter! If you have any photos ready to upload, please share them with us in the art/photography section. I'm interesting in seeing you "eye".

Thanks, I have some of my drawings I can post as soon as I figure out how and a few photos but I'll have to dig them out of boxes. I worked for some medium to mega papers and some magazines and did a lot of work for AP. My stuff ran on the AP wire in papers all over the world so you may have seen something I did. I had to get off my feet so left the profession in 2001.
It was a great career but I'm kind of crippled up now so I don't shoot much except for some fun stuff with my little point-n-shoot.

[wandering_okie]

One of the great "hippie" (for lack of a better word to describe it) behaviors that I miss, is the barter. We used to make things from simple materials and loving care. For instance, I might just find some materials that would make a great macrame. Then I would craft it. Someone else might do the same with a choker, or decorate some jeans etc. We turn up at my place for some reason or another, and they say "that hanging is awesome man, it is so unique". I notice their item and say the same. Then we trade. Maybe he gives me the choker and a little bit of weed or vice versa. We both have something, even without handing cash around. I could go around all day, and have very little money, yet I could get stuff that I liked. I was always walking around looking for materials to make stuff. It was like finding money on the ground. I'm telling ya, their are a million ways to make a cool keychain.
That part of our culture has atrophied beyond belief...sad
The subtle beauty and grace of everyday life seems to be pay for view now. Everything is a commercial interest. Anywhere you look, the places that used to take our breath away are populated by condos or estate homes. I look out my window and see a blight on our beautiful foothills. Where have all the flowers gone? They were crushed into nothingness by the treads of a D-8 cat dozer. The casual bartering of everyday artisans...replaced by get rich quick scams and need for enough cash to afford your cell carrier's "data plan".

okie

[Pedata]

Quote by Okie- The subtle beauty and grace of everyday life seems to be pay for view now. Everything is a commercial interest.

It's just sad how many people, these days, stay stuck inside their homes, watching tv or playing video games and buying all the advertized products they can, or can't, afford. They are shutting out the real world and becoming robots that imitate the boob tube.

[Hippieinthewoods]

How many of you go to drum circles?