Tag: History

LEGACY FROM THE ’60S AND ’70S

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

One of the lingering questions asks, “Just what happened to the hippies in the end? Where did they all go?”

It’s a complex question, of course, which in turn leads to a range of possible answers.

One of them, though, would say that hippies never actually went away, not entirely.

Yes, many donned business suits or the like and were submerged into the broader economy. I’m hoping that as retirement hits, many of them will return to their idealistic and communal roots, especially in the face of the financial realities of living on Social Security, shrinking pensions, and meager investments.

Many others, though, despite their more conventional attire these days, have focused on a particular strand of the hippie legacy.

Among them:

  • Peace and nonviolence witness.
  • Racial and sexual equality.
  • Environmental and “green” concerns.
  • Back-to-the-earth living, including organic farming, natural foods, and vegan.
  • Alternative economics, including sustainability, co-ops, and nonprofits.
  • Music and the arts, often including folk traditions.
  • Healthy exercise, from hiking and camping to bicycling and cross-country skiing to contradancing and yoga.
  • Educational reform, including charter schools and homeschooling.
  • Spirituality, including meditation and chanting or Spirit-infused Christianity.
  • Boho fashion.

You can add to the list. While I touch on many of these as they were unfolding in my Hippie Trails novels, there’s no way I could capture everything, much less discuss the current incarnations.  For example, every time we see a Prius, just think: it’s what the Bug was back then.

I’m curious, though, about which ways you find the hippie experience echoing in your own life. What issues and themes are you continuing? And which ones do you miss? I bet you’re still wearing those blue jeans, too … most likely without the bib.

Me? It starts with being Quaker. And stretches through much of my work as a poet and author. Or even my focus when I was still in the newsroon.

AN ILLUMINATING DIALOGUE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

I’ve suggested meeting with some of the historic Friends sitting on our meeting library shelves, and mentioned the possibility of finding one or two who converse intimately with you, usually in the English of another era. (I’ve seen this happen rather frequently, even if it takes time to find the unique voice.) In this sense, one or two may become timeless companions in your inward growth. Or maybe an old Quake is simply a mentor along the way.

Knowing them can also help us as a PEOPLE of faith. Their range of experiences and concerns provides insights into other streams of Friends today, as Dover Friends have found in our relationship with Cuban Quakers. It also gives us a basis for renewed dialogue on everything from worship and teaching to outreach and social justice issues. We quietist Friends have as much to learn from Evangelical Friends as they do from us – even as we explore our branching out from the same powerful roots.

I’ll leave this for now, saying only that in digging for Quaker roots, it’s possible to find yourself jolted, like grabbing onto a live wire. And who knows where that will lead.

*   *   *

Now, for an update. For ease of convenience, let me point you to overviews of these earlier Friends, all at my As Light Is Sown blog:

MEETING WITH HISTORY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

Some have observed that Friends look to their history more than most other denominations do. They say a group that lacks dogma, creed, or liturgy will by necessity rely on its tradition for its guideline and authoritative reference. Well, maybe so. After all, to function as a Society of Friends, we need a common language that enables us to convey our diverse experiences, insights, desires, and needs in ways that knit us together. English Quaker Caroline E. Stephen (1835-1909) was amazed that any group of mystics could actually operate together at all, yet Friends do – and have. Eventually, I think, that functioning becomes part of the attraction early Quakers, especially, extend to us.

While much can be learned by exploring the history of Friends, there’s even more to be gleaned by uncovering a historic Friend who resonates especially with YOU. Sometimes these appear in the published journals, which relate inward and outward journeys through life (a gem may pop up in the middle of an otherwise tedious stretch of travel). Other times, they’re in memorial minutes, letters, or tracts. Sometimes, the words of an obscure Friend begins a lifetime dialogue. Ask around meeting, and there will be many suggestions. Or simply delve into the meeting library (the leatherbound collection holds many surprises, too).

In my experience, I can say that in actively invoking these ancestors, we cross a point where they’re no longer quaint (that nostalgic view of the smiling Quaker Oats man or people in some country meetinghouse) but instead astonishingly revolutionary. Their struggles and discoveries may suddenly speak to our own, even if what erupts is a loud argument – like the one Lewis Benson and John Curtis had in the mid-20th century before concluding that George Fox meant exactly what he was saying, scriptural citations and all. To speak of walking cheerfully in the face of brutal oppression and imprisonment is startling – and a starting point for transformation. It’s beneficial, too, when we discover we don’t need to constantly reinvent the wheel in our practice of faith, but also disconcerting when we realize how much of the work they began remains for us to continue. At least they stand ready to help us.

WHEN LEADERSHIP GOES WRONG

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

Leadership is a fascinating subject, not just the source of many intriguing biographies but also corporate case studies and political histories and military campaigns and religious movements and … well, feel free to add to the list. We’ve all been in places where we’ve worked with admirable leaders, as well as places where we’ve suffered – perhaps even leaving in despair.

Outstanding leadership is, of course, a rare and wonderful occurrence. Mediocre is, by definition, the norm. And then there’s the kind that worms itself into position and sets about doing destruction.

Lately, I’ve been reflecting (again) on the last one. Not just inept, but destructive. I can work around one, but the other one makes for an impossible situation. Think Moby Dick.

It doesn’t always start off as badly as I’ve portrayed. Sometimes the individual begins gangbusters, doing everything right, before something goes seriously wrong. The person may simply burn out or lose interest. Conditions may change, so that the fit no longer works to the organization’s advantage. (Corporate organizational consultants have elaborate charts of the qualities needed for a startup versus a maturing company, or one shifting from private ownership to a public stock offering or the reverse.) Sometimes the person is fine for when everything’s going smoothly but has no ability to adjust for necessary – and often painful – restructuring, especially when layoffs and shutdowns are involved. Or there may be a buried demon that is let loose somewhere along the way, perhaps triggered by a divorce or death or temptations such as greed or power-hunger or sheer arrogance or flawed leadership techniques such as bullying and abuse or deep-seated insecurity or an untamed ego or, well, again the list goes on. Feel free to add or amplify. This, too, is a source for many great works of literature, operas, plays, and movies. The dark side comes forth.

My big question is whether an organization reacts in time to save itself, and what steps can be taken before it’s too late.

One of the first signs of trouble is the departure of key personnel, often lower-level individuals on the front line – or at least a failure to hear their complaints without retaliation. Sometimes it’s flight at some of the highest levels. After all, their jobs are at stake.

Usually, however, the awareness comes later.

The New York City Opera, for instance, appointed a new CEO whose brief tenure was disastrous. His flamboyant, extravagant vision for the company sent it straight for the cliffs, and the trustees’ decision to terminate his reign ultimately came too late to prevent the train wreck. This was a company, we should note, founded by visionary leadership that continued through several administrations. RIP.

I’m thinking, too, of situations where one of the top leaders engages in clandestine conflict – often backstage, one-on-one building alliances – that’s ego-based to the detriment of the organization. Commonly, the player lacks an appreciation for the culture and values of the organization and seek to turn it toward his or her own goals, including self-power enhancement, regardless of the trustees’ projections. Removing such a toxic manager, however necessary, produces ill feelings and misunderstanding all around, especially when the others are prevented by legal constraints from speaking openly of their underlying reasons.

Sometimes I think it’s a miracle organizations get anything done, top to bottom or, more accurately, bottom to top. There’s far more to leadership than barking orders, for sure, or undue frugality. I’d put mutual understanding high on my list of leadership qualities.

How about others?

~*~

I looked at something similar – good bosses and bad – back on June 28, 2013. To take a look, just click here.

LITERATURE ACCOMPANYING THE HIPPIE EXPERIENCE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 25 Comments

A shelf of books was often part of the hippie scene, and I suppose many of the novelists and poets were technically beatniks, but they shaped our journey as well. I think, especially, of Richard Brautigan, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Richard Farina, and Gurney Norman, as well as the German Herman Hesse of an earlier era, and Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid Test Acid Test. There were also many non-fiction works of influence, including the Whole Earth Catalog, and the Lama Foundation’s Be Here Now.

Which authors and volumes would you add to the shelf if you were trying to give a fuller picture of the experience?

I suspect there are some fine reads that need to be recovered, and blatant self-promotion is also welcome.

This book swap’s open!

HOMAGE TO THE BEST … AND BACK TO THE SCREENING ROOM

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

We sometimes express a yearning for the return of the Renaissance Man – the individual who could be conversant on all fronts of intellectual inquiry – but the reality today is that it’s impossible even to stay abreast of the developments in one’s own field, much less other more widely shared interests.

Just ask folks who read if they’ve read your latest hot discovery, and you’ll likely get blank looks. It’s just a fact of life, even for works that are in the basic canon.

It extends to the other arts, too, and we won’t even raise the frontiers of science.

That reality hit home the other night when we sat down (finally!) to view Citizen Kane. I knew from my cinema studies (uh, 44 years ago) that the work was then considered one of the four greatest movies ever made, but somehow it had slipped through my viewing. Yes, I’d seen Birth of a Nation and the Battleship Potemkin and likely the fourth work on that tally, though I can’t remember what it was.

And now? I’m in the camp that considers Kane the most important movie ever made. Period. And, as my viewing companion said afterward, “I was ready to respect the movie, but I didn’t expect that I’d enjoy it as much as I did.” Which was immensely.

If you want to know how Orson Welles and his team changed the face of movie-making so utterly profoundly, go to the Wikipedia entry for the movie and then watch Peter Bogdanovich and Roger Ebert’s running commentaries, which are included on the Netflix DVD. Apart from the advent of color, there’s really nothing they didn’t revolutionize. (If you see something they missed, speak up.)

I’m glad we saw Kane after we’d watched The Grand Budapest Hotel. For all of Wes Anderson ‘s wonderful quirkiness, we could now appreciate the ways he and his team paid homage to Welles and the incredible cinematographer Gregg Toland at the head of that list.

We’re now going to have to watch both movies again.

SPRING MILL

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

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Streams that could be harnessed for water power were prized in earlier periods of American history, perhaps nowhere more than in New England. Here are views of a mill on the Great Works River (fittingly named by Quakers) in South Berwick, Maine.

The leafing trees will soon obstruct this view of the mill perched on the edge of the falling water.
The leafing trees will soon obstruct this view of the mill perched on the edge of the falling water.
Houses, too, perch at the edge of the drop-off.
Houses, too, perch at the edge of the drop-off.

HOW DID THEY AFFORD IT?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 9 Comments

Viewing several documentaries on the writing life in Manhattan in the 1950s leaves me wondering just how anyone could afford it. Yes, the world was quite different then and, if we can believe their arguments, the written word was king the way it would no longer be by the late ’60s.

Still, it’s hard for me to believe that writing would have paid that much more in the era than it did when I entered the profession. How many plum magazine assignments were there, anyway? Or how many lucrative book advances?

The argument that rents were low, especially in Greenwich Village, is hard to believe for anyone who tried to find a decent place upstate in the early ’70s, as I did. Even for a full-time journalist working for Gannett, the best the pay would cover was a slum where a heavy rain would leak on my typewriter.

And that was without the heavy drinking that we’re told was required of the New York literary set, as well as the psychotherapy, sometimes daily. Plus the heavy smoking. Did I add, all the men wore suits and ties. (And all of the writers and editors, it was emphasized, were males. Women were employed as “fact checkers.”)

Still, when I run the numbers, they don’t add up. Can anyone tell me what I’m missing?

 

SPIRITUAL ENCOUNTERS FROM THE HIPPIE ERA

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 9 Comments

Nowhere do we see a bigger before-and-after contrast of the hippie impact than when looking at mainstream religion in America.

The idealized smiling family of father and sons in suits and ties and mother and daughters in their hats, dresses, and heels – maybe even with gloves – was once a common image with the church and steeple in the background. But that has become a rarity, and even at funerals and weddings the dress is likely to be casual. Intact families are a minority – weekends are often custody matters – and going to church or temple is a low priority.

Before we blame it all on hippies, we need to look at other influences from recent decades, including the elimination of blue laws, and the expansion of weekend job demands and children’s soccer leagues and the like.

Still, I see a few glimmers where the hunger many hippies felt for a spiritual connection has taken hold.

First is the practice of meditation, which is no longer considered exotic. Even health providers are urging people to turn to it daily, maybe not as a religious pursuit but at least for letting go of some of the daily stress.

Second, yoga studios are everywhere. It may not be with the strong spiritual teaching I feel is essential, but it is another way of opening ourselves to inner awareness and peace.

Third is a recognition of the feminine side of the holy, including the Jewish and Christian traditions. For that matter, think of all the women pastors and rabbis now found across the continent. Others will point to Native American, Wiccan, and other teachings with feminine components that now proliferate.

Fourth is a sense that faith is not an obligation, to be performed as a social requirement, but rather a relationship that includes hands-on, sensory experience. As the axiom went, “If it feels good, do it,” extends to religion this way.

As a fifth facet, I’ll point to outdoors encounters with their Transcendentalist streak. God, as you’ll be reminded, can be felt keenly when you’re close to nature.

Look closely and you can see the hippie influence working. There’s a desire for community and caring, on one hand. And the mega-churches with their rock-concert emotions, on the other, as well as the praise songs with their repetitions function more like Hindu chanting (kirtan) than the motets and hymns of Christian tradition.

But there are also examples of shoots gone astray. I keep thinking of Jim Jones’ Peoples Temple and its cyanide-laced Kool-Aid, especially.

As we kept watch in the ashram, the warning was this: “You’re on a false trip.” No matter how exciting it might have felt at the moment, there was always the danger of ego-based excitement rather than a deepening surrender to the Holy One.

For me, then, the most crucial part of the legacy is in having a circle of others committed to the practice, to encourage one another and keep each of us on course, as best we can. This form of discipleship is rather communal, actually – and far from what I saw growing up in the pastor-and-sheep model.

So what are your spiritual encounters these days? And how’s the “inner hippie” responding?

GARRISON HOUSE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment
The distinctive overhang design allowed for self-defense from within.
The distinctive overhang design allowed for self-defense from within.

From the outbreak of King Philip’s War in 1675 until the conclusion of the French and Indian War in 1763, much of northern New England was under an ongoing threat of violence along its frontier. Nearly all of the English settlement in Maine was pushed back to a few towns nearest New Hampshire, and many villages, including Dover, suffered devastation and massacre.

Indeed, officials ordered many residents to construct fortified garrison houses, like this reproduction along Cider Hill Road in York, Maine, where families could retreat for armed protection when an alarm was sounded.

The site overlooks the inland tidal salt marshes that give rise to the York River. The hay from such spots was prized, even though feeding it to cows would produce a distinctively salty milk.
The site overlooks the inland tidal salt marshes that give rise to the York River. The hay from such spots was prized, even though feeding it to cows would produce a distinctively salty milk.
Also on the site is a more traditional New England style of construction -- shingle siding that weathers to gray.
Also on the site is a more traditional New England style of construction — shingle siding that weathers to gray.