The Hippie Museum

Excerpts from The Book by Alan Graf, the Hippie Lawyer. The complete text, and more about Alan can be found on his site Hippylawyer.com The Farm The Farm Revisited The Farm For twelve years I lived in a community called "The Farm". The Farm was an outgrowth and the next step of the hippy revolution. The Farm was started by a bunch of hippies from San Francisco who had been following Stephen Gaskin, a hippy philosopher and self proclaimed spiritual teacher. Back around 1967, Stephen had been teaching his philosophy of life and way of living in San Francisco and was invited to speak at various colleges around the country by a group of ministers who were impressed with his peaceful ways. Many of his students followed him, forming a caravan of psychedelic painted school buses that traveled around the countryside. The caravan finally settled in the back woods of Tennessee where I later joined them. My first contact with Stephen and the caravan was at Stony Brook University, on Long Island, N.Y. I had been "going to school" there as an undergraduate. I put the term going to school in parentheses because most of the time I spent at Stony Brook had little to do with academics. A lot of my time was spent with experimenting and/or searching for answers to questions such as "who am I", "what am I doing here" and "why is there so much pain and suffering in the world," and "where can I score some good pot." I had spent many days at Stony Brook in various altered states of consciousness and I had come to the conclusion that, yes, there was one consciousness, one god, all interconnected and that I needed to follow a path and/or discipline that would lead me to that blissful and permanent state of realization. I had traveled through acid states of consciousness many, many times in which I really understood the nature of the universe and reality, the interconnectedness of the universe, the one mind, one spirit which was God. Then, I would come down and return to the dreary reality which was Stony Brook, Long Island, N.Y., when the LSD-25 wore off. I kept dropping again and again because I became attached to that state of blissful consciousness. The sign at the beginning of the path read "dead end". Two hundred or so acid trips later, I began to realize (it took me some time) that the whole psychedelic experience was bringing me down, and I needed to seek a spiritual path that shunned psychedelics but at the same time shared my realizations AND had some political/social consciousness to it. I was convinced that the path to enlightenment had to include everybody or the path lacked validity. I was not interested in groups or philosophies that said you must first get yourself together before you are together enough to help anyone else out. That approach seemed like a cop out to me and another level of "spiritual masturbation." Oh help me contemplate my great belly button. After trying out various "Eastern" disciplines, including shaving my head, wearing a white robe and hanging Krishna beads on my neck while I greeted everyone with a "namascar" and a beatific smile, I gave up pretending to be someone who I wasn't and settled back into psychedelic rock and roll, while my spiritual search retreated to the back burner. Around 1969, I was lying around on a bed in a university dormitory in a daze of orange sunshine watching the wall breathe because there was nothing else happening. I happened to look up and see two strange looking hippies enter the dormitory suite. They said they had just gotten into town and were part of a caravan. They talked about staying high by speaking the truth. Something about their talk and manner caught my attention and jolted my spine. They rapped about the level of consciousness within the room at that very moment and how each person in the room was contributing to everyone's high or taking away from it. Their conversation was so personal and relevant to the moment, that they soon attracted a crowd around them. They told us that attention is energy and if you pay attention to the here and now, you will get more energy from it. Their conversation seemed to center in the moment. At one point they started talking with each other about their own personal competitiveness for the attention of the group. Their remarks were the most personal remarks I had ever heard, but yet, neither appeared to take offense at the other's criticism. I was astounded. I had never heard conversation like this before. They invited us to hear their "teacher" speak at the college's meeting hall. I followed them to their buses that were parked in the parking lot. I felt like a lost sheep that had found its shepherd. Gathered in the parking lot were sixty or so psychedelic school buses, with all sorts of hippies, hanging out in them. It was very magical and different. I remember that none of them were into jive. New Yorkers, even New York hippies, love to jive, and when I tried to joke with them, they would get serious, telling me that there were no "jokes on the astral plane". That made me feel a little nervous about them, but that was the only thing that bothered me. Everything else seemed to say that his was my tribe, this was the spiritual path that I was looking for, this was IT! I stumbled over to the university meeting hall where the psychedelic hippies gathered. They all gathered on stage, but they left a space right in the center where I figured their spiritual teacher would sit. Soon a tall skinny older looking hippy with a fu manchu mustache walked on stage and sat down in the center space. He pulled out a conch horn, blew on it, catalyzing the hippies around him into chanting the "OM". The OM took on a life of its own as it reverberated around the walls of the meeting hall, echoing sounds and feelings that had never been felt within the confines of academia. "Stephen", I guess that's who it was, started rapping about their trip out here and how they had formed a community of sorts on the road just by "tripping together", which I took to mean traveling instead of dropping psychedelics. But I couldn't help thinking he meant a combination of the two. His talk was relevant politically as well. He talked about the Vietnam War and the political struggles of the times and suggested that WE needed to form peaceful communities where we could live our beliefs. That was what he said was the next step in the revolution. Some of my former buddies from SDS were in the crowd and they did not dig where Stephen was coming from. They started to taunt him, telling him that he was a tool of the pigs and that the only revolution that would work was a violent one. It got pretty combative between Stephen and the SDS'ers, until Stephen said to them, "If you think you can do this better than me, lets try an experiment. I will turn this meeting over to you and see if you can do it better." At that point Stephen became completely silent. One of the SDS'ers tried to run the meeting, but the meeting quickly degenerated into a shouting match between factions. The crowd at that point spontaneously asked Stephen Gaskin to step back in, which he did. You have to realize that I saw this whole meeting and all its interchanges go down, stoned on orange sunshine. It was as if I were seeing a drama played right before my eyes that symbolized the basic philosophical conflicts that I had internally fought inside my own mind and soul concerning what direction my life should take and what was the best way to empower the spiritual realizations of the sixties. Here it was. In psychedelic techni-color. Live the teachings. Live in community. Practice what you preach. Just Do It! (This was before Nike was even a word). This approach had such power. We had been talking for a long time about how everything in our civilization was so fucked up, how everybody was a bunch of hypocrites, how our culture was hung up in materialistic ways, but we had not taken the next obvious step. That step was to form the new society, the new community, one which reflected our ideals, the next big step towards a realization of our collective dream for the planet. A return to the herd. There was something else about Stephen Gaskin's trip that resonated with me: it was a hippy spiritual path. Stephen valued and articulated the hippy dream. I realized that day that I did not need to look for a teacher from another culture, who chanted in a language I did not understand, who taught that psychedelics were bad for the spirit. My own spiritual realizations, which had changed the very fabric of my life, were valid and were a valid foundation upon which I could now build a spiritual practice, which if followed correctly, could lead down the path to enlightenment. Whoopee! Now all I needed was the balls to make the break. I knew I wasn't quite ready to jump on the bus. As Kesey says, you're either on the bus or off the bus. I was still off the bus. I ended up staying around school to finish up my degree, without understanding why I was doing that. Years later, my degree came in handy when I decided to go back to school to get my l aw degree so that I could open up my own bat cave and go out and fight for truth, justice and not necessarily the American Way. The tribe is the essence of the spiritual path. The hippies are the beginnings of what may be a newly born tribe sprung from the ruins of a civilization, kind of like sprouts out of compost. The hippies have dispersed since the sixties. Some of us have put on ties and jackets and gone to law school. But despite the ties, in many of us, the fire still burns strong. We know what is going on. We understand the nature of reality, the sacredness and the interconnectedness of life, and we steer our ship accordingly. Its harder these days to recognize hippies, because many of us have become covert agents for the way. The tribe has also grown larger and more inclusive. There are many of us who care about the next seven generations. There are many of us who care about taking care of each other. There are those of us who recognize that trees, mountains and the wind, have consciousness, and might I add, "standing" as well (thanks to professor Christopher Stone). There are those of us who recognize and realize the interwoven and spiritual fabric of life, but have not necessarily come to those realizations through hippy consciousness. I have crossed paths with those sojourners and warriors. We are ONE tribe in the greater sense. I have met and worked with the Catholic nuns and priests in Guatemala, who practice liberation theology. These courageous souls have put their lives on the line so that their peasant brothers and sisters can have the basics: food, clothing, shelter, health care and education. These ministers believed that the teachings of Jesus were all about life on the planet, not about some mystical place that you go to when you die. The kingdom of heaven is at hand, isn't it? I remember years ago, when long hair wasn't as prevalent, some folks used to kid hippies, calling them Jesus. Jesus was a hippy. Around 1972, I finally jumped on the bus. I left my life in N.Y.. Gave up all of my worldly possessions to the Farm which included a new Dodge Van, my ES-345 Gibson electric guitar custom wired by Dan Armstrong and 10,000 dollars in cash that I had acquired through a settlement from a car accident. The Caravan by this time had settled in Tennessee on 1000 acres way out in the boondocks, and had called itself "The Farm" preferring a generic Zen label for its place on the planet. Before coming to Tennessee, I had settled for a few months on the West Virginia Farm, which was a satellite of the Tennessee Farm. I went there with my future wife, Jane. The West Virginia Farm was a small farm with about twenty folks, who were living way out in the hills of West Virginny. I got there in the middle of a harsh winter, moving into a school bus heated by a wood stove with two other men, who spent an inordinate amount of time "getting into my thing." The term meant that they were going to spend time dissecting my personality and bad habits until walla!, I had achieved Buddha consciousness. It was kind of like the hippy version of being born again. Being the macho, chain saw cutting dudes that they were, they lacked the delicacy needed to expunge and purge my poor neurotic Jewish soul, my present incarnation. In plain English, I was miserable. I was cold, I had to work hard physically hauling wood in the middle of West Virginny winter, there was no dope to smoke and my spiritual companions kept trying to cut me up for mental firewood. Plus, I missed my girlfriend. She was the one who didn't believe in all this commune crap, but was warm, cuddly and good looking. So after a week, I split back to N.Y., back to Miss Warm and Cuddly. However, like Siddhartha, a internal war continued to rage pulling me towards the path of comfort then pulling me towards the path of the spiritual seeker. Miss Warm and Cuddly did not offer me peace of mind. A few months passed and I heard through the grapevine that the West Virginny Farm was moving and going to join the larger Tennessee Farm. I thought that this was the sign I was looking for, and decided, once and for all, darn it, that I was going to move to the Tennessee Farm. After all, that was where Stephen was located, and that was who inspired me back to spiritual hippydom in the first place. So once again, I left Miss Warm and Cuddly. This time we both sensed that it was for keeps. I arrived at the Tennessee Farm, pulled into the gate and heard their rock and roll band practicing over by the barn which was just a few hundred feet from the gate. I listened for a while and decided that what the band needed was a good psychedelic lead guitarist to take them up to the next level. ME!!!! My plan was simple. I would approach Stephen, who I gathered made all the major decisions, and announce to him that I had come to the Farm to help the band sound REALLY good. After all, I had spent the last few years tripping on psychedelics and playing rock and roll. I had the Grateful Dead philosophy of music down. To me, this was a match made in heaven. I spent my first few days on the Farm in a large single men's tent. There were about twelve men living in a 16' X 32' old recycled army tent, with bunk beds, stove, sink and wood stove. The Farm segregated the single men from the single women. As I walked into the tent, the men were sitting around and one fellow was speaking about the "here and now". I noticed a fellow who I knew from Stony Brook and went over to him quietly acknowledging our past history. The fellow who was speaking at the center of the tent, immediately looked at me and publicly announced that I was a "rip off" to be speaking to my friend, because this meeting "wasn't a cocktail party," and that the energy needed to be focused on one speaker at a time. I assumed that meant we all needed to listen to him. I had a mixed reaction. I was kind of taken back by the fact I couldn't even talk to my friend, but at the same time I was some what in awe of the mental kung fu and personal nature of his remarks that I believed were intended to raise the level of consciousness to its highest place. I envisioned myself one day lecturing someone else like me about the spiritual nature of "my remarks". Later on the fellow who made the "cocktail party" observations was "busted" by Stephen for being "too conservative." The Farm developed its own language taken from Stephen's talks, that was used by its residents to address "energy issues." Examples of these expressions were: "up in your thing", which meant that someone was telling you really personal stuff about your neurotic nature; "into the juice", meant that you were doing something strictly for the attention; and "conservative" meant that they you were basically an uptight ass hole. The term "far-out" was used as an response to almost any communication like, "there is sugar at the store" --- far-out---, to, "the police are at the front gate," --- far-out! Now back to my plan, to become the Farm's next psychedelic lead guitar player. I knew that Stephen held what was termed "dharsan" at the main house, actually the only house on all of the 1700 acres that was the Farm. I figured I could go down there and wait till it was over and approach him individually about my idea, so that I wouldn't have to embarrass myself before a community I was just getting to know. Kind of like work out a deal on the side, if you know what I mean. I walked into the house, and immediately got hit with a huge cloud of marijuana smoke. I peered into this small room and there was Stephen sitting in the middle of some of the most gorgeous hippy women I had ever laid my eyes on. The sight was breathtaking, kind of like seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time. Stephen talked for a while, (I couldn't pay much attention to what he was saying with all the natural beauty around me along with my mental preparation for the launching of my proposal). After a while, the dharsan seemed to be over, but wait a minute, Stephen started to make out with one women, then another, then another. Oh my god, I couldn't believe my eyes. Maybe I was next (not with Stephen, you idiot)! I waited in anticipation. Anyway, no such luck, as all the women finally left the room and didn't even notice me. Finally, it was me and Stephen alone in the room. My first personal meeting with my new spiritual teacher! Time to put my plan into action. I jumped to my feet and said in a loud voice, "Stephen, I want to talk with you." He looked up. I then blurted out, "Stephen, I'm a really hot guitar player, and I want to be in the Farm band!" He looked up, leaped onto a chair so that he was towering over me, and told me "whoa------!!!!! You're way out into desire man, slow down and cool out." I said "but, but, but." He told me to get to know the Farm and learn something else other than guitar playing like tractor driving. I mumbled ok, and left the room with my tail tucked between my legs. That weekend Stephen talked to the whole Farm and told them how things were getting a little out of hand, because someone new had recently ambushed him, loaded with desire about being in the "Farm Band". He expounded on the zen art of non-attachment. My first "contribution" to the community was to be the object of a spiritual community lesson. A few weeks later, my guitar arrived from New York City. Dumb me, I bragged about how my guitar was a "Cadillac" of guitars. Stephen heard about it, and said "no Cadillacs on the Farm." The next day a guy from the Farming Crew showed up at my men's tent and told me that Stephen had said I had to sell my "custom wired by Dan Armstrong Gibson ES-345 guitar in mint condition", for tractor parts. These spiritual lessons were getting harder and harder all the time. What was next? The guy who took me to Nashville to sell my guitar was also a guitarist. I later found out that he had been booted out of the Farm Band because he had "too much ego." I resisted asking him about all the gory details of his super inflated "rock star ego", and instead confined my questions to farming. I was learning quickly. My next encounter with Stephen happened about a week later. I had brought a relatively new Dodge van to the Farm that I had acquired from a car accident settlement a few months before I came to the Farm. I had given the van to the West Virginia Farm some weeks ago, and hadn't thought much about it since then. It turned out, that a guy who had brought a similar van to the Farm a year before, was being booted off the Farm, and demanded his van back before he would leave. The problem was that his van had either been sold or had been used up by commune life. Stephen found out about my van, and asked to see me. I came up to the house, and Stephen was in the Farm's scenic-cruiser ready to take off with the Farm band on a tour. I stepped up to the bus, nervous as hell and he said to me: "do you want to be my student," and then without a pause, said "can I have your van." The people around him started to laugh as if this chain of remarks were incredibly funny. I missed the humor, but stuttered my answer: "yeh, uh, sure." He smiled at me, started up the bus, and then roared off into the sunset, with me wondering what had just happened. I didn't have long to wait. Leslie, the head "gate man" showed up at my tent to take me into town so that I could sign my registration over to the guy who was being asked to leave the Farm. I was told that the guy had been sunning himself in the nude in a public place while everybody else was hitting it. That was my next lesson in Farm spirituality: no nude sun bathing in public places, or you were toast. I quickly settled into my new role in life as single man, spiritual monk, tractor driver, farmer and of course, hippy. I landed in a smaller men's tent with some guys who were well versed in Farm ways. Because I was the new guy, who didn't know squat, they quickly educated me, informing me about every neurosis I had, or never even knew I had, till I was finally convinced that I was a pea brain inside a big clumsy body. In fact, the Farm had an attitude about academic education. I had just recently graduated from Stony Brook University with a Liberal Arts degree. My diploma arrived one day and I was feeling pretty proud of myself. I was at that point where I needed some ego reinforcement as everything that I did was being criticized by my tent mates as just another "ego trip." My tent mate Mark noticed the diploma in my hand, and grabbed it out of my hand. He looked at it and announced in a loud voice to the others, that he had some real high quality fire starter. My stomach dropped to my toes, and then lowered even lower. I was ready to cry. My tent mates danced around with my diploma like it was a dead buck that they had just killed after a long and protracted hunt. I was horrified. Then with great pomp and circumstance, they stuck my diploma in the wood stove and lit it on fire. Oh well, another spiritual lesson. At this rate, I hoped these new spiritual lessons didn't turn me into a basket case before my time. Now, I don't want to give you the impression that all there was to the Farm was a collection of head copped and crazed fundamentalist hippies living together in a commune. Although, especially in the first days of the Farm, there was a lot of dog crapma floating around. When I look back on the experience, I think we were all trying just a bit too hard to be as spiritual as we could get, and in the process we lost some of our hippy spontaneity. But along with the dogma, there was a sincere collective effort to do the right thing (to borrow a title from Spike Lee). We were living out in the woods tackling real life problems with life and death consequences and this shared experience of dealing with nature and survival on a day to day basis, brought us together in a way that us middle class college graduates had never experienced before. One of the things that the Farm did right was to value our neighbors and treat them with respect. Tonight, I was watching an older version of Oregon's Town Hall that was taped in 1991. The forum was a discussion between members of the Rajeneesh Ranch and the citizens of Antelope, Oregon. The folks from Antelope were very hostile towards the Rajeneeshies. I listened carefully to their complaints, and in a nutshell, the citizens of Antelope felt that the Rajeneeshies were arrogant, pushy and disrespectful of the ways of the inhabitants that had been there before them. The Rajeneeshies answered that "if someone tries to stop a river, it becomes muddy." After listening to the Rajeneeshies' spiritual gobbly gook, I realized why the Raj's were so un-liked. They were a bunch arrogant assholes and "spiritual" snobs, who thought they were better than the surrounding community. No wonder that the Rajeneesh community is a ghost town today, while the Farm still survives. The folks on the Farm made an extra effort to connect with their neighbors in a way that made for real communication. "Say Homer, how do you hook up this four bottom plow," or "Grady, when do we need to get the taters in the ground." The Tennesseans loved to be our farming gurus and we learned just a heck of lot of important stuff about how to survive the harsh Tennessee winters from folks who knew how to do it. Yeh, we were a new tribe, the tribe of the hippies, but we weren't exclusive, at least we tried not to be. Years later, we sent a group of carpenters down to Guatemala in 1978 after a devastating earth quake hit the country. Our first crew ended up working with and building houses for the Mayan Indians in a town named San Andres Itzapa, that had been unusually devastated by the quake. We worked side by side with the native Cakchiquel Indians building houses of wood that would flex in a quake. Their former houses were made of adobe, and in a quake, adobe would crumble in an instant burying the inhabitants inside. As we worked with the Cakchiquel Indians, we learned more about them. We found out that before the earthquake the Mayans had other long term survival problems as well, including lack of proper medical care, mal-nutrition, lack of proper water sources, lack of topsoil due to denuding of the local forests, and lack of education concerning the effect of improper sanitation practices. We had been on the Farm for about ten years. During that time we learned a lot of what it took to build a small community. We had developed what we called "small village appropriate technology." Here was a perfect opportunity to export our knowledge. Following the carpenters, we sent down a medical team consisting of Farm Midwives and a paramedic. We also sent water technicians, radio technicians, more carpenters, and finally a mechanic, me! As the newly arrived mechanic on the scene, I was supposed to bring a VW with a newly rebuilt engine to add to the fleet. On the way through Memphis, my newly rebuilt engine, blew up because when the fan belt broke, I kept running the engine so I could make it to the next gas station, forgetting that it was an air cooled engine dependant on the flow of air. That's what you get from a mechanic with a college diploma (burned to a crisp). Jane and I ended up flying in from Memphis to Guatemala City. Some entrance for the NEW Mechanic!! The Farm's Guatemala Story is many tales long. It was one of the high points of the Farm's work, and one of the high points of my life. The Cakchiquel/Mayans are some of the hardest working, humorous, soulful, and courageous people I have ever met. Their lives were filled with terrible everyday adversity, yet they met each day with a kind of resolution and humor that many westerners would never believe was possible given their circumstances. I divert Possibilities Imagination Stirs the mind the soul knows bull shit when it sees it so I hear the sounds on the radio say we can't judge tradition because we are white they have killed whales before we cannot judge we are white I scream, I am white but the whale lives, breathes and is smarter than us How about the traditional ways of the whale How about the thousand years of traditional roaming of the sea ------free free from the bipeds, free from their traditions Long live tradition, Long live life. The Farm Revisited Some of you may know that I spent twelve years on a community called the Farm. It was America’s largest hippy commune The Farm was an outfront religious community. We had our own hodge podge grassroots religion that had evolved out of the hippy visions and beliefs and we also borrowed a smorgasbord of ideas from all the major religions. Our guru, Stephen Gaskin used to say that our religion was like the old computer punch cards–If you lined up the precepts of all the major religions, where the holes when all the way through, that was our religion. At the beginning of the Farm project, Stephen served a very useful function. He was a visionary, utilizing the shared vision of the hippy community and bringing that vision together in words and in practice. I was particularly attracted to the Farm not only because of the grass roots ideology, but mainly because the philosophy of the sixties was actually being tried out in real life terms. In other words, the Farm was a community created by folks in an attempt to move from the visionary to the practicality of everyday living. The question was--- Could idealistic young people, actually live their ideals? The vision, the plan and the enactment of the vision worked to some degree. The problems that kept it from being the ideal society that we envisioned were two fold: 1. The first one was the pressures and ideology of the society that we lived in. We lived in a cloistered section of Tennessee out in the foothills away from the hustle and bustle of modern day life. Yet we had to deal with the outside world on a daily basis because we were not completely economically self sufficient. We also believed that we were Mahayana buddhists and could not reach ultimate enlightenment unless we brought everyone along–so we had an evangelical component to us- 2. The second barricade to achieving a modern day utopia or idealistic society was what I would term "monsters of the Id" –there is an old sci-fi movie, one of my favorites called the Forbidden Planet. The planet was once inhabited by creatures called the Krell. The qualities of the political nature of the tribe, also contained the negativities of organized religion and when we became more and more of an us versus them–a group ego formed, and if you were part of the group you were cool but if not you were an outsider- this is the key to racism----- the Farm was also a theocracy—the religious nature of the Farm inhibited First Amendment expression-----you were either on the boat or off. There was however a wonderful, miraculous phenomena that existed within the Farm. That was the phenomena of tribal consciousness or the extended family. Almost one thousand people really took care of each other in sickness, and in health. If you were sick, folks covered for you. There was no pressure to get back to work and pretty much everyone was a workaholic because we all owned the project–not just materially, but spiritually as well. The connections between folks were really close and were a tie back to some of the familial models of the pre-industrial age. Andrew Tofler in the book Future Shock, notes that the nuclear family, the one we hold so near and dear as the basis of "family values" is actually a creature of the need by factories to have stable and dependable factory workers. The old large extended family unit which would cover the sick and elderly was not a dependable source of labor so the nuclear family unit was created. With that understanding in mind, I don’t have as much loyalty to that outdated concept. What I do want to explore, is a rejuvenation of the tribal ways, and the formation of a new society that contains the valued principles of love and trust of each other, respect for elders, real respect for life, not just one part of it, and a constructive engagement with the society at large in formulating the building blocks of a new society through tribalism. I have recently talked with my friend and compatriot Ani Haines and we have both agreed to start a revolutionary forum, that will initially meet once a month where we will discuss between us the components of our idealistic society–what we want to strive towards. We will work to come to agreements about how we can be with each other. Based upon these agreements and shared visions, we will get to know each other better, work towards building our tribe and doing some constructive projects in the community such as a low income clothes store—possibly working with our brothers and sisters in the North Portland area. If the tribe reaches out and makes the human connections, it will prosper and grow. The vision will live. 4 Poems from the Ravages of Law School 1. We Share Blood I know you through time and space I can see your presence across the sands of the desert reach out to me with your gentle kindness and love there is a glow within your eyes that extends to the sun I know you so well and I will always know you and love you for who you are and who you will be we reach out across the distances hands touching, feeling presence we share visions, brotherhood, sisterhood, family and friends and we share blood the blood of our ancestors’s ways and the tribe still within its mother’s womb we create, we stumble, we fall, we laugh and we play with each other our toys are our emotions, our hopes for a new way of living, sharing and giving an evolution caught up in the thralls of the rapids of our times in another life, in another time I knew you so well and for now I will keep on knowing you and loving you. 2. The Edge Walking on the edge, living on the edge Yes I’m aware of it, but I don’t want to look I’m delicately balanced, but could fall at anytime Its uncomfortable, its tense is this life or some kind of sleeping sickness moments pass me by as I turn over in my dreams hoping to touch a piece of sanity as it passes me by There are voices that talk to me they inhabit other bodies and they assume other identities and they chatter at me, they talk at me and walk through me I must be invisible they ask me questions and they turn away when I answer is this unusual or is it customary is this me or is this ourselves monkey see, monkey do here monkey, hold the ball monkey smile for the camera ok, now back in line I said back in line you stupid monkey I said back in line you cute monkey you adorable little fellow won’t you be my love slave, monkey and shield my from the night or the edge it doesn’t really matter 3. beware of ice And the road still stays closed there is a sign up ahead and it says beware of ice and I wait in anticipation of what, I do not know I thought you understood the tribal ways ways of family and deep friendship ways of love, play and tenderness of the soul ways of rejoicing and firm bonds of commitment to the people who love you but the road still says closed and the sign says beware of ice up ahead and I lay here at the junction, in pain and bleeding hoping that my heart will cure my illness and I will be able to paint a picture in my mind of colors and fond memories but the road still stays closed and the sign up ahead says beware of ice There is a mystery that we share a cavern, deep inside the chasm of our souls where we link, a pool of eyes swimming in thoughtfulness and power he re is the essence of life and death here is where our meager existences become timeless emotions and logic are a soup of which we taste each other transcending culture and conditioning I know you and I have tasted you and I still don’t understand why the road stays closed and the sign up ahead says beware of ice 4. Promised Land A man wondered through the desert he came upon a ghost town no one was there to greet him and the wind came ‘round a corner and it blew right through him he shivered, cried and trembled he had never known the wind, never known the wind Footprints in the sky and on the windows reflections of a life come and gone dust settling on the doors of the promised land sun, burning through the fingers of his outstretched hand and he reached for memories of a future gone cold visions of his life that had grown too old all he could see was the mist from his breath a loneliness he could not accept and the wind came ‘round a corner and it blew right through him he shivered cried and trembled he had never known the wind, never known the wind < Epilogue: At the beginning of 2004, I met my the love of my life, Eleanor Ingram, who at that time was living on the Farm. After a coast to coast courtship and romance, Eleanor moved out to Portland where she resides today with lucky me in a house in Northeast Portland. We plan to return to the Farm someday soon to live in Eleanor's beautiful Farm house and to regain our connection with the community. The next book that I plan to write will be the story of the A-22 law suit. I will probably write it from the Farm. Alan Graf - Hippielawyer.com Excerpts from The Book by Alan Graf, the Hippie Lawyer. The complete text, and more about Alan can be found on his site Hippylawyer.com The Commmunes ~ Building The Dream Together ~ The Hippie Museum, with many grateful thanks to The Farm , and the support of one of our Founders, Albert Bates , is currently putting together a fundraising drive to help bring 4 of the originl buses from The Farm Caravan , to California, to become cherished exhibits holding other cherished exhibits. We're looking forward to chillin' with you ..... Peace out ya'll, .... Love... The Hippie Museum We know the magic of people sharing and caring. Let's work together and make this happen. .............. With Love and dreams of Peace on Earth......... ~Please Help The Hippie Museum ~ Click the support box to donate through Paypal Thank You. We Love You . Peace. The Hippie Museum Vision or send checks or money orders here: The Hippie Museum P.O. Box 7867 Santa Cruz California 95061 EMAIL hippiemuseum @ Yahoo.com

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