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. . . utopia is a living, breathing, imperfect thing that expands and grows with us. It’s always a reflection of our individual selves, of the larger communities we choose, and of the time and place we are born into.
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The story of Rajneeshpuram is told in a series of events and everything within it is true. But it is not real. It does not come alive.
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I used to play a game with myself: who should die first, me or daddy? When I was very little, I could never come up with a good answer.
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Your Storming Bohemian is emphatically a child of the early 70s. At fifteen, I lived in a hippie commune under the guidance of an eccentric psychologist, later diagnosed as bipolar. All I knew is, he was hella fun. Dr. Bill wasn’t the sort to make a fuss about school attendance, regular hours, pot smoking, or […]
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Our house, we believed, was a microcosm of that country. Every month, we’d gather at the kitchen table for our house meeting, where we, like politicians, unveiled our big plans for change.
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Aside from defecating or having sex, giving birth is one of the most common life experiences. Half of the world’s population is capable of doing it and every single one of us has been through it, even if we have no memory of it. But for all the comics out there that recount the tales […]
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Erika Anderson writes for Vanity Fair about growing up on The Farm, at one time the largest commune in the United States with 1,500 people. She shares not only its way of life, but how — and why — her parents made the decision to leave.
...moreIn the late 1980s, Terri Manning and her sister, Barbara, lived in one of San Francisco’s painted ladies near Golden Gate Park. This lady, a huge, rambling Victorian with peeling paint, opened its door to touring bands, local musicians, artists, and whomever else needed a place to crash or a home-cooked meal. The Manning sisters’ generosity […]
...moreThe residents of the Rancho Armadillo commune share everything, but soon discover that people, like chickens and pigs, are “not rational beings.”
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