A Beautiful Letter About Life and Freedom.

This is a letter that I got in an Email that is so beautiful and descriptive and it reflects the life of a Free Soul who has followed her Bliss, through the years, beginning in the wonderful ’60’s to present. She has become wise in the interim and has something to say. She represents, I think, the individuals with the vision to help us keep our heads in these shocking times and may have more to say as we gain a new Positive Future.
She gave me permission to publish her letter. I am going to edit it slightly and leave names out.

Haven't you noticed the news, and media in general focus on the negative aspects of the past, present, and future? For whatever reason, bad news travels faster and is more widely read, they say, so if it bleeds it leads. It's all about selling advertising. These young people who weren't around then have mostly news from that time for a reference, and of course it was negative.
Don't let anyone convince you that your memories of joyful expansive times were wrong!
I feel so fortunate to have been a teenager and young adult during those years, as it was a spiritual and cultural renaissance period. Music flowered with The Beatles and many, many, inspired bands and Folk Singers. Bob Dylan's poetic songs inspired us, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, The Allman Brothers Band, Buffy St. Marie, The Grateful Dead, The Rolling Stones, Elton John, John Denver, Sly and the Family Stone, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Motown music, the Incredible String Band, Harry Nilson, and on and on....
We were idealistic, committed to positive change in the world, full of love and joy and placing more value on human beings, than on money and things. The enthusiasm of Woodstock was duplicated on a smaller scale all over the world. My friend watched the movie of Woodstock with her college age daughter, who said,"Oh, I wish I had been around then! If it happened nowadays, there would be fights and somebody would have been killed." I do think the world was different then, unless you had the misfortune to be in the war in Vietnam, which was quite the opposite.
But there was a great awakening stirring, in part perhaps, due to the news of the horrors of the war, which seemed endless. Opposition to the war brought young people together emotionally, grieving for friends and brothers killed, and galvanized in us a determination to exercise our rights in a democracy to demand an end to the war. Young people gathered peacefully for concerts, and lived in Provincial parks in Canada up in the Rockies every summer. We gathered in great numbers in Banff in a meadow full of wild flowers provided by the park service as a free youth hostel, and put up 100 large teepees in Jasper, Alberta every summer in the early 70's, and hundreds of tents. We lived there all summer, sharing food and sweat lodges, learning from Native Canadian and Native Americans how to re-connect with the Earth, and live in harmony with ourselves and others. Many of us had profoundly positive, life-changing mystical experiences with psychedelics, peyote, etc.
Adults told us that our generation only criticized, but had no solutions for society's problems. We listened, and tried to prove them wrong by doing something. Some of us got tired of rejecting material wealth and became yuppies, and some of us moved to the country and tried to return to farming the land and living without modern technology. Some of us tried living communally and found out how difficult it is living with a bunch of other egos. Gaskin's farm in Tennessee developed great skill in natural Childbirth and midwifery, and traveled with a video teaching other communities. Now natural childbirth methods are taught everywhere and people have returned to nursing their babies instead of bottle feeding. Lama Foundation above Taos, NM is one of the few communities from those days that is still going strong, and offers classes on permaculture (living ecologically), and alternative building workshops among others. Some of us started collectively owned and operated businesses to try to develop new models for friendly workplaces. Some of us explored ways to communicate more honestly and in a way that respects all people involved. Gestalt psychology, EST, ARICA, and many other personal Growth schools sprung up. The New School For Democratic Management began in San Francisco, and collectively run businesses all over the West Coast sent delegates to be trained in mediation and conflict resolution, and learn models for business other than the traditional heavy top-down management. We studied less-toxic methods of agriculture and started the return to organic foods. We started food banks to solve the problem of hungry people in our own country. Some of us joined the Peace Corps. Some of us went to India looking for a Spiritual Teacher, or a monastery or ashram where we could learn how to find mystical experience without drugs, and how to become strong and balanced and better able to serve our fellow humans. Some of those people succeeded and are teaching students today. Some discovered that miracles are real and became healers in various traditions.
The Arts were everywhere, Alvin Ailey Dance troupe, Martha Graham, murals on City walls, we embroidered our jeans, our blouses, we danced, we painted, we sang and chanted. Sometimes we were foolish and spent years re-inventing the wheel, but we believed in our ability to change the world for the better. Some of the things we proposed were considered impossible or impractical, like widespread recycling, but now it's become accepted as not only workable, but financially wise, and ecologically necessary, and most churches in Atlanta now have recycling bins in back, as it provides income for the churches, and is considered the moral thing to do. Massage schools became popular, like Esalen style Swedish Massage, which helped many people relax and feel more comfortable with their bodies. There came a heightened sensitivity, and with that we looked at how people treated each other. Less ethnic jokes, more tolerance for other races, handicap access to buildings and transportation, gender-inclusive language, rights for women, many men moved toward more openness, less need to hold up a "John Wayne" tough guy mask, allowing themselves to express emotion, and cry if that was how they felt. Women began wearing comfortable shoes, abandoned girdles and uncomfortable clothing. We dressed for comfort and beauty, but didn't feel the need to wear alot of make-up to be loved or "acceptable".
Of course I left out the downsides, the casualties, but that has been thoroughly covered.
When the rest of the world returned to business as usual, the idealism was still going strong in some areas like Vancouver and Bellingham Wash., Eugene and Portland in Oregon, and towns here and there where dedicated "flower children" went to retire and quietly put their inspiration into practice. For me it lasted from '68 to '79, where by '76 I was working in a collectively owned restaurant, writing a manual of policies and procedures and job descriptions, and learning how to chair an effective and efficient meeting with parliamentary procedure, and a prioritized agenda with time limits. Portland now has impeccable city planning to make the city people-friendly, efficient, livable and un-polluted.
In Eugene, OR, I really had the sense that the world was changing for the better, faster than it had. When I moved to the south in '82 I was in for severe culture shock that the same old worn-out attitudes were still around. But humans are slow to change, and growth doesn't proceed steadily but in spurts and zig-zags and pendulum swings, and a slow spiraling. I still hope that that window of kindness and cultural growth in the late 60's and early 70's is a precursor of more to come on a larger scale. The Age of Aquarius, sung about in "Hair" actually starts, astrologically, in 12 or 13 years. The Mayan calendar says we'll all experience a heightened sensitivity to other people, and a sense of oneness, being part of a larger community which will expand our outlook, as a new cycle begins in 2011.
I hope so.