As I’ve reviewed the counterculture history through the lenses of the out-of-the-way places I inhabited, there are those who ask if I was ever really a hippie.
Usually, I finesse an answer – nobody really fit the stereotype, not on all fronts. And I certainly felt more at home in that circle of identity than any other at the time. Yes, I did live pretty much as a monk for a stretch through there, but that was followed by a return to a college campus and all of its action. Maybe I was in that world but not of it. My music, after all, was mostly classical and opera, along with some folk and jazz. Only now am I coming to more fully appreciate the sounds that identify the era. As for sexuality and caring, well, there’s much more to evolve there. Maybe even some radical political and social activism.
My Hippie Trails novels reflect the times, even though I keep wondering how much of the story I could recast as ongoing today – especially when it comes to physical desire and fulfillment or the simple matter of earning a living.
What I am experiencing as I dig through the encounters, though, is a sense of release – these are events that have been entrusted to me, and now that they’re published, I can move on. No matter how mundane and minor they might appear, contrasted to Haight-Asbury, say, or the Black Panther and Weathermen struggles, they were what many of us experienced, pro and con – and much of what we left unfinished. It’s no longer in my hands but rather in the wind.
This release, I’ll admit, is accompanied by an anticipation of a new phase, one adding disciplined faith to the path of renewed personal growth and service. So much of the dream awaits fulfillment.
Jnana's Red Barn 
although I pre-dated the hippie era by a couple of decades, much of my core beliefs and attitudes were honed then.
I always considered myself as a bit of a hippie. A nonconformist long before it became popular, I knew I didn’t ‘fit in’ and most of the time that’s how I liked it. I must be the oldest hippie in my neck of the woods, as they’re all a bit staid around here!
Reblogged this on Anita Dawes & Jaye Marie.