by Nikki Everett

Created on: December 25, 2009

Have you ever stepped into a shop that sells incense, natural oils, crystals and general hippy – like attire? You know, where the music is about groovy ideals and the salespeople look like they still grow bean sprouts under their kitchen sink? Well, anytime I want to reminisce back to my beginnings, that’s where I go to hang out with my inner flower child.

You see, my family are the tree hugging, long haired hippies of the late 60s and early 70s – As a matter of fact, they owned one of those little shops at the height of the Woodstock era. They held protests in the parking lot and painted the building as an American flag before hosting music festivals for the likes of Janis Joplin.

It was a time before Reaganomics and Bush Doctrines shoved America further into the abyss of global warming, widespread polluted water and food sources, and of course, the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Weren’t those the very things that should have stopped by now had all that peace, love, and self enlightenment of the Woodstock era worked?

Well, maybe my fellow hippies couldn’t change it all – however, without them it is debatable whether buzz phrases like “being green” and “sustainable living” would currently be mainstream at all. We were already growing our food organically and cooking macrobiotic style and invented organic advocacy without coining the term . We were vegetarians and only  shopped in the natural food markets which were hard to find. We did yoga and studied Eastern philosophy before doing it meant being the status quo at the local Pilates studio. Being hippies meant making love, not war and believing in things like karma and expanding our minds before they called it New Age.

And whatever happened to good music – the kind that inspired people to stand up and talk about what really matters? The music artists of today leave me longing for the more prolific time period of Woodstock and the Summer of Love. The sheer number of socially active issues in those days made for a breeding ground of political frustrations expressed through lyrical genius way beyond what any Rap artist can chant about. But clearly, smoking blunts and surviving a drive by shoot out with the homies just isn’t inspirational like 400,000 people travelling to a farm in upstate New York to protest a war waged half way around the world in Vietnam.

So give me back peace signs, tye-dye and patchouli essence. Play me some Joni Mitchell, CSNY, and John Lennon. Let me relish in the innocent ideals like love will overpower war and the establishment can be broken – Even if only while I shop for my incense.

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