My good friend, Lloyd Agte, has
been trying to encourage me to write an article about how we “old geezers” who
experienced the birth of the New Age are viewing those experiences today. In our correspondence I have been sharing how
what I am reading in Ernest Callenbach’s book, Ecotopia, corresponds to many
of the principles that were the basis of the Whole Life Learning Center, (WLLC)
the non-profit wholistic education and counseling center I founded in 1973 in
Denver, Colorado.
Mr. Callenbach recently passed
on, perhaps to Ecotopia in the great beyond!
Just before he passed he left on his computer a last article on an
America in decline. I posted a link to
the article on my Facebook page at the time.[1] It seemed like every news feed of any
importance at all was also posting that article. It definitely was getting the attention of so many of us who are
profoundly frustrated with the direction the policies and functions (or lack
thereof) of government are headed. As I
am reading the book I am re-identifying with the principles and functions those
of us involved with WLLC shared. Ecotopia
was about the hypothetical secession of Washington, Oregon and Northern
California from the rest of the United States and forming a “stable state”
society. The United States was becoming
more and more polluted and more focused toward profits than concern for what
was happening to Mother Earth.
Of course, any utopian society
would probably not work. Interestingly,
that is precisely how the story unfolds in the book. A reporter from the states visits Ecotopia presumably to write an
expose’ of how it wasn’t working, only to discover day by day how it actually
WAS working! (Personal note: I think each of us at one time or another
has thought about what a utopian society would be like, and maybe even wished
we could be part of developing such a society.)
One of the activities many of us
in the New Age Movement seriously considered at the time was the development of
wholistic communities. Some looked for
land in the Colorado Mountains. One
group, from the Denver Free University, with which I was also involved, charted
out an area just east of downtown Denver and began to plan buying up a number
of contiguous blocks of homes, closing alleys between homes, taking down fences
and making community gathering places with grass instead of asphalt. With my realtor’s license I managed to
handle the purchase of one piece of property for a young couple.
Here I include a comment from
Lloyd on his perception of New Age and community.
“As to New Age and communal
living. I see the New Age ‘children’ (which I define as those under 40 at
the time and most in mid-twenties to mid-thirties--if my sense of the
demographics of the times is accurate), and there was no real provision in
their utopian dreams of caring for old people and especially there were no dreams of
themselves ever becoming old. In fact, one function of the New Age was to
preserve youth forever (‘May you be forever young,’ Dylan sang). So the
utopian communes had no built-in provision for aging or caring for the
aged. There was a lot of reaction in the hippie movement growing out of the late 'sixties to the selfish individualism that was
becoming rampant following the U.S. global dominance following WWII.
Now, it seems, nearly all have capitulated to it and capitalist indulgence
for self-pleasure seems to the many to be the pinnacle of achievement.”
I have flirted with the idea of
community a few times since the heady days in Colorado, but the more I believe
in the values that could be realized, the more I feel that perhaps my time for
that has passed. In my aging process,
particularly in these latter years where I have lived alone, I have developed
my own living rituals. I realize how difficult
it would now be to make the changes anyone would have to make were I to seek to
live in a communal life style. That is
not to say that I do not believe there is a wonderful opportunity within that
life style for growth and a satisfying sense of productivity and
well-being. I believe I could support
such a community even if I could not live in it.
In 2007 when Barack Obama was
running for President I strongly felt there was light at the end of the
treacherous tunnel of the Bush/Cheney years, which led us into deep debt and
depression, losses of life and limbs in useless wars, and a general malaise
bereft of hope for many of us.
Unfortunately, in Obama’s successful election there immediately was the
beginning of entrenchment of many who could not accept his win. So continued the downward spiral
economically and socially that were the results of the prior years of
calculated neglect of prudent financial and social policy. We now find our country in the midst of
chaotic divisiveness where there are no winners, regardless of who gets
elected. The two party system is now in
complete disarray and dysfunction.
You say I am simply exaggerating
the problem? That things will work out,
because “they always do”? Maybe. I just do not see that view out my window on
the country. In defense of your
possible questions, I admit to having moved away from the philosophy of life
that I was brought up with, that I studied in seminary and afterward, and by
which I always sought to live. I still
believe in what I once knew to be true for me, but clearly I am too frustrated
to work on it for now. And I am aware
of what that means for me.
Another comment from Lloyd:
“ . . . a large part of the
mission of the New Age, at least as I experienced it, was to get beyond all
these manufactured, induced desires, beyond the false-self created by
advertising and the market as god and to get to the true self and true
inner desires coupled with an inner morality and a principled
ethics. It was a moral and spiritual compass in a time of empire
over-reach and a massive human sacrifice for an expanding capitalist
market. It's not so close to home now. We can get our sanitized news
about twenty people killed by an unmanned drone and not even blink.”
So what is the bottom line when
it comes to “New Age” thinking and living as one ages? Same as it ever was. Principles and philosophies are only as good
as their practice. If I do not practice
the values that have always been important to me, I will not enjoy the benefits
that they offer. Even when enthusiasm
wanes and frustration sets in, the ideals are still as true as they ever
were. So, for me at this particular
moment I may see in a “glass darkly.”
But, when the light dawns again, when faith is restored by my desire to
believe, I will see clearly and once again enjoy the fruits of my practice.
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