Where Have All the Flower Children Gone?

3. Communes and Former Radicals: Selling Out or Stuck in Time?

Communes and Former Radicals Selling Out or Stuck in Time? Introduction Except this wedding wasn’t Anywhere, USA. This was the Farm, in Summerville, Tennessee, one of the oldest and, during its heyday, the largest Vietnam-era communes in the United States. The bride and groom were offspring of the original followers of Stephen Gaskin, a former English professor from San Francisco. Gaskin’s Monday night classes on psychedelic experiences and world religions had developed quite a following in the late 1960s. This was further boosted by what can best be described as a “fleld trip” in every sense of the word, when Gaskin and two hundred of his closest friends organized a brightly painted caravan of school buses, VW vans, trucks, and campers to preach his back-to-the-land gospel across the United States (their motto was “Out to Save the World”). They picked up more young people along the way and decided to pool their money, purchasing a thousand acres of land in an undeveloped area south of Nashville, Tennessee, helping to flnance the venture with a homegrown rock band, among other enterprises. Stephen’s wife, Ina May, a success on her own due to her books on and work with midwifery, remembers helping birth the groom 3 105 Communes and Former Radicals 106 and many of the other young people at the wedding. “When we flrst moved here,children were delivered in a school bus in the parking lot,” she recalls.Although the offspring of some Farm settlers chose to stay, a greater number—like the newlyweds—elected to rebel in the classic manner of youth and go for the opposite lifestyle of a suit and a paycheck. Yet the counterculture still permeates.True to the stereotype, there is a lack of personal hygiene and modesty among some members. Body odor and public breast feeding are commonly accepted, as is smoking marijuana. Although the latter may not be out in the open due to legal considerations, its unmistakable fragrance is often apparent at gatherings. But there is more to these communes—and even the huge, hippy-dippy group known as the Rainbow Family of Living Light—than meets the eye. This chapter will discuss the history and development of communes ,before and after the 1960s,as well as some of the higher-proflle intentional communities such as Twin Oaks and the Farm. The much more loosely organized Rainbow Family of Living Light, which also developed during the Vietnam War era, will be included. Interviews will highlight how individuals in these groups relate to life today. Farm founder Stephen Gaskin (left) and the father of the bride, in full hippie tuxedo regalia. Photo by author. Image Not Available Communes and Former Radicals 107 “Let’s Start a Commune!” Actually, “intentional communities,” as they’re called today, got their start long before the 1960s. According to the Communities Directory: A Guide to Intentional Communities and Cooperative Living (2000), the flrst such group occurred around the sixth century BC, when Buddha’s followers “rejected wealth, turned to meditation, and joined together in ashrams to model an orderly, productive, and spiritual way to live.” One might argue that the early Christians, the Puritans, the Amish, and the Israelis (with their kibbutzim), among others, had a similar setup; the modern “co-op” was established in 1937 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which still has one of largest concentrations of intentional communities per capita. The Colorado range, the San Francisco Bay area, Seattle, parts of Virginia, and Asheville, North Carolina, also harbor clusters of these communities as well. The Ann Arbor group eventually became a network of nineteen student-run houses and formed the International Cooperative Council (ICC),a forerunner of the current Fellowship for Intentional Community (FIC), which fomented in the late 1940s in Yellow Springs, Ohio, yet another hotbed of dissent. Today the FIC serves as a clearinghouse for information, publishing the directory and a magazine and offering referrals and services for everything from a co-housing group of a few families to an ecovillage of thousands to networks of like minds who lack the means to share actual living space. A much smaller organization, the Federation of Egalitarian Communities (FEC), was founded in 1976 and provides a hands-on network of support to groups throughout North America. It would be nearly impossible to track the number of intentional communities today because of their often ephemeral nature. The Communities...