Peter, Paul & Mary: Voices of a Generation

"one thing amazing about that time was the optimism we shared.  we were absolutely certain that the old order was fading and the new order was arising. "Then you'd better start sinking or you'll sink like a stone for the times they are a changing."

I will be 77 this summer.  Strange sometimes to realize I've even managed to live this long.  I'm glad, very glad, to have lived when I did.  And of course, being born in New York, my citizenship was American, and, for all the faults, I was glad to be an American, living in that hopeful, innovative time. I was fortunate, true:  I lived in California, where, in 1971 you could attend Berkeley for 150.00 a semester, thanks to Governor Brown Senior, who believed that higher education should be available to all young people.  He also believe the schools needed to be integrated, and he did just that.

We were the largest highly educated generation this nation had ever had; indeed, we were probably the largest educated generation the world had ever seen.  And look at the innovations of all kinds that flooded out of California!  

As an adolescent I learned about the newly formed Peace Corps, and dreamed of joining it.  As a teenager I saw Neil Armstrong walk on the moon.  In my 20's I became part of the 2nd Wave of Feminism, and marched, and attended Consciousness Raising groups, and talked of Sisterhood, and saw the first Women's Shelters, and Rape Crisis Centers come to be.  I saw women demanding entry into professions from which they had been banned, and I saw them get credit cards as well.  I also saw the Civil Rights Movement change America,  and later the Gay Rights movement.  I saw the beginning of the Environmental Movement.  I saw Universities open Consciousness Studies departments, and I saw the evolution of the New Age movement as well, with its introduction to metaphysics and world religions.  We talked about, and practiced, Communalism, "living simply so others could simply live", and we became Vegetarians, demanding humane alternatives to factory farming of animals.  We practiced re-cycling, and many of us "went back to the land" to learn about creating communities and growing our own food.  Many of us returned to the cities eventually, but not all.

Yeah,  what an optimistic time, and generation!   Do I need to say how saddened I am by what I see has happened to my country now?   Well, I'm saying it.  Do I believe that even in the face of the corruption and disruption, there is still hope for change?  Yes, I think it's possible.  The country was created as a revolution against TYRANNY - an oppressive empire exploiting the people of its colony, and a mad, tyrannical King.  And ........ here we are again.  A tyrannical Oligarchy with utter disregard for the common good and the people, indeed, even for the planet.  And a mad "king" as their figurehead, corrupt and destructive as they come.  Maybe it has to get this bad before change can happen.

And there's a lot of joy I still feel, when I remember Peter, Paul and Mary.

 https://youtu.be/lZiHXKggD_c?si=0w_LMdoGQ_22ue9V

"For a Dry River"

 FOR A DRY RIVER

You walk out under an old cold moon

to call for vision.

You'd settle, on nights like this, for less.

You beat the drum, 

but there is no heart rhythm

to follow or find. Dry.

All you hear is the litany of your mind,

traffic, a dusty haze obscuring the distance.

Your time is eaten by lists

of little things to do.

 

The sounds of discord ring

where lucid air once whispered

among the stones, voices

voices where once a river ran.

 

Even here, a river, once.

Before too many cattle, too many cars,

too much thankless taking

in this age of blind entitlement.

As if the waters would always flow

to green the waiting desert, monsoon,

Chubasca coming…………

as if the breast would never run dry.

 

As if, as if there none

yet unborn

to hunger and to thirst.

The river is dry.

 

And you hold your hands to the mountain.

You ask, "Whose hands are these?"

Am I not also this land?

One small and moving piece of it? 

Are there any to remember?

 

Where have they gone, the friends of my youth?

Coyote moon celebrant, singing in the canyons,

Saguaro, the Fingers of God

pointing to the stars,

Loba, Puma, Roadrunner;

even Snake and Scorpion,

(who leave all stones best unturned.)

 

Gone to postcards,

kachina dolls made in China.

 

I sing to the ghosts now.

Spirals are written

among the holy rocks

mute remembrance even here

where once a river ran.

 

Lauren Raine  (2002)