"Since the future of both you and your family is at stake, turn on the immense resources of your mind. Find the ways in which you can flow your energy into increasing worldwide awareness that the nuclear bomb mentality must be eliminated. We are the bearers of a new vision. We can dispel the old destructive myths and replace them with the life-enriching truths that are essential to continued life on our planet. "

As people began looking for ways to become involved and help "Save the Earth," membership in such groups as the Sierra Club climbed, as people joined in the hopes of helping the plight of the World through direct action. In 1971 the organization Greenpeace was formed, to help put an end to nuclear testing and to help bring "Green Consciousness" to the Planet. Many Hippies began reading of the wonders of nature from the viewpoint of the renowned California naturalist John Muir, and Thoreau's Walden Pond gained a newfound following.

With the regained interest in nature there also arose a new respect for native cultures, whose ideals and ceremonies stirred the hearts of many as could be seen in the Hippie's Love for feathers, beads, sweats, tee pees, bones, drums and visions. At one point, during the years 1969-1971 Native American activists occupied Alcatraz Island, the famous San Francisco prison known as "the Rock" to "reclaim the island for the Indians." It was quite a powerful statement. Native American books were read and shared as Hippies felt a special kinship to a people that lived with such Consciousness of Earth and Spirit. One Native American book that enlightened many a Seeking Hippie during the time, which can be read here online, is Black Elk Speaks.

During the days of the New Awareness many members of the Hippie Tribe and others started changing their diets, and turning away from the meat, potatoes, white sugar, white flour, and canned food staples of the typical American diet. The knowledge that food was not only important in Healing and Well-Being, but also as Spiritual fuel, created an awareness of the body being the "temple of the soul," as well as a respect for food as being a direct product and gift of nourishing "Mother Earth." The phrase "you are what you eat" became popular, and while some began raising their own livestock for meat, dairy and clothing, many became Vegetarians and Vegans, and a new interest in organic, home-grown foods and healing herbs arose.

Books on diet and healing abounded, such as Jethro Kloss' herbal Back to Eden and Frances Moore LappÈ's "Diet for a Small Planet," which showed how meat eating was inefficient from an energy point of view. As the book stated, "Livestock eat over 80% of the grain eaten in the U.S. If Americans cut their meat consumption by just 10%, there would be enough grain to feed all the starving people in the world."

In 1962 Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" was serialized in the New Yorker magazine (and later published as a book). Most Hippies were aghast at how much poisonous pesticides were being dumped on our food crops, adding to the many reasons for people not only to protest the insanity, but to eat organically.

The popular book by Euell Gibbons on how to find and prepare wild edibles, "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" was studied and discussed, and many a times Hippie meals were comprised of such things as Miner's Lettuce, Dandelion Greens, fresh Watercress or assorted mushrooms. Herbs were also treasured by most Hippies as smokeable Bliss as Marijuana and Hash smoke drifted hazily through the years.

Many Hippies also found interest in the Eastern Diet of Macrobiotics, which included eating with a reverence for food and an awareness of the balance of the Yin and Yang. Two of the more famous and Loved Macrobiotic authors at the time were Michio Kushi and his friend and colleague George Ohsawa.

Health food stores and restaurants opened near and far, and many a home-cooked meal was not complete without brown rice, whole grains, and fresh vegetables. The Moosewood Cookbook , from the famous Moosewood Restaurant and the Tassajara Bread Book were some of the manuals found and revered in many a Hippie kitchen, as people learned about and delighted in a new way of preparing food with healthy, natural ingredients. It was in 1969 that the well known Celestial Seasonings company first got it's start, with a small group of hippies happily gathering and packaging herb teas for local health food stores.

As people began to take a really good look at the way the Earth around them was being treated, most Hippies were upset at the reality of the destruction of the rainforests and rampant extinctions of whole species of living things. Many cried out in horror and anger, sadness and disbelief as old growth redwoods were being destroyed, and forests far and wide were being leveled through the practice of clear-cutting, primarily to get materials for sprawling suburban homes which were being built without environmental concerns. Alternative forms of housing became popular, and it wasn't long before it was common to hear of Hippies living in such structures as home-made cabins, teepees, domes, yurts, and even converted vehicles.

The call for a natural way of doing things also resulted in many Hippie children being born outside the rules of the structured, doctored world of the hospitals. Instead, women were having more drug-free natural births, and home births, sometimes accompanied by warm audiences of family and friends, as midwifery schools and training were set up to assist the assisters. Women became empowered in childbirth and learned to alter the experience of hospitalized trauma and pain through such things as breathing exercises, yoga and herbs.

Today the children born then are grown and are adults of this world. Their lives, and the lives of the entire Planet were altered and transformed by the impact of the Hippie Way in those Earth Conscious days, and though there is no one explanation for the reasons for the Happening, one thing's for sure, no one can deny or ignore the fact that those days existed and that they were, beyond a doubt, incredibly Magical and very, very "Groovy" days. What a Divine Gift.

An Afterthought ~

Though the 60's were begun with a psychedelic revolution, an "opening of the mind to the wonder of it All" with a basic move "back to nature," things took an outwardly downward spiral as "the establishment" tried to put an end to the Hippie Lifestyle. Much of the freedoms, through such means as enforcing building code violations, limiting camping and cracking down on "hitchhikers" made it harder for hippies to thrive, as many got lost in other "highs" or the dramas they produced, such as hard drugs, alcohol, and the lure of material success. The revolution had gotten sidetracked.

Or so it seemed.

As we look at the world today, we can see organizations and individuals continuing to live "the Dream." And we can see all around us a resurgence of the spirit of the 60's . It's again become "hip" to be "hip" ~ and the thoughts and ideals that comprised "the days" are coming back in style. The spirit never left. It's been alive and well and growing all the time.