Yesterday, during the date with the “sweetwater” man with no underwear, we had a short discussion on what a hippie was. He said he always associated it with a look. Long hair and tie dye. (Told you he was a bit shallow.) I said for me, it was more of a life style, free-thinking, a search for enlightenment. He said, “Really?” as if that were an incredulous idea to him, lol. It probably was….

That also made me remember when Scott told me I wasn’t a “real” hippie because I never lived “the life”. I don’t know what he meant by that really. Number one, because he never asked me how I lived, back then, so I don’t know how he could make a statement. But if it meant, I did not live in a commune, I did not take part in indiscriminate sex, I did not become some drug addicted wasteoid, then he was right. I was not that kind of hippie.

I think, looking at it now, that it’s fairly shallow and egoic, to believe unless you did those things you were not part of that movement. In fact, the people who were part of that, and use that as their basis for defining what a hippie was and is, have added very little to raising the consciousness of the world. Or of themselves. They were wild, they were a little crazy, but they were feeding their egos. Some still are.

That’s not what it means to me to be a hippie. Me,and the people I hung with, were looking for enlightenment even then. We experimented with drugs, fairly intensely, for a couple of years. Marijuana, LSD, Peyote, mescaline…. not hard addicting drugs like cocaine or heroin. Mind altering, not mood altering. Anyway, I found out that no matter how high a drug could take you, eventually you would come back to earth, and have to deal with your life here, and that there wasn’t much to be gained by the experimentation.

Then, as with many of us, I got caught up in the quest to accumulate things. A house, a yacht, we had a business, we bought things…. We lived by the motto “he who dies with the most things wins.”

Not very enlightened.

When my ex’s abuse and alcoholism got into full swing, all that we had accumulated found itself on shaky ground. It couldn’t solve or resolve the issues, and slowly it began to fall apart. When I left him, I renewed my quest of old, to become enlightened, to try to understand what had happened to my life. I was at the bottom. The quest for accumulation of things had not worked. When I moved out of our family home, I owned nothing but a small bit of furniture and a 10 year old car. (The rest of our accumulated wealth was in my husband’s name, and I would fight an epic battle to claim the part that was mine.)

My search this time did not take me to drugs. It took me to some great teachers who, thankfully, have written books teaching that all we seek is within us. Then the search took me to gong bath meditations and other types of deep meditation, where I began to easily, seriously, explore the great universe within me. I have been able to work through so many things on this path, and discover so many universal truths. And I’m just starting out…..

Anyway, I just thought about these two men, and their definition of what it was to be a hippie. One never was, one believes he was the quintessential hippie. Me, I float somewhere in between, but I believe that I was. I had the look, God knows. Long hair, bell bottoms, no bra….But I didn’t have the burning desire to be crazy, to have sex with as many men as possible. I still don’t, lol. I’ve really only had 3 men in my life. My high school boyfriend of 3 years, my ex, and Scott. This man I met yesterday was married once for 4 years and said he had a couple of long term relationships. (Though he was so strange, I’m not sure what he thought that meant.) Scott….well…I don’t know if anyone will ever know the truth. I know when I was with him there was the prison whore, who he did easily, unconscionably. And then there was Betty, and he did us both the same way, easily, without conscience, despite knowing that neither of us wanted to share him with someone else. It was about his ego. There was no love. And to be truly honest, I think if he had his way, he’d still be doing us both, based in recent history. 

(Thankfully, I said no no no. I love you, I’ll always love you, I forgive you, but no…you have to stay out of my life.)

That’s what the “free love” thing did for him. Cheapened the sexual experience. I always thought of free love as free UNCONDITIONAL love. Just loving every one, seeing the good in all people. I never equated it with sex. Indiscriminate sex is just a way to feed the ego. For me, it has always been a celebration of the feeling and relationship I’m in, an expression of the love I feel. Just thinking that ego is not what being a hippie is about. When “free love” is reduced to “free sex”, it’s just a physical outlet to feed the ego.

There is so much more to life, when you can let go of what your ego tries to tell you you need. I hope some day he find that. But time is not his friend at this point. He’s 68. It’s never too late to become all that you can be, to look within and find out that you have worth, even if no one lets you into their bed. My wish for him remains that he finally seek the light, not continue to hide in the darkness.

Which is why I disabled my dating profile. I think that if I’m ready to have someone in my life, the universe will make sure we meet, the old fashioned way. Man meets woman, woman meets man. They talk, they hit it off, they fall in love. And then the magical things happen.

In the end, I stand by my statement that I was a hippie, and still am. I’ve evolved enough to know that drugs are not the way to find enlightenment. Though, honestly, I have to admit that I’ll take a hit off a joint on the odd occasion, though it’s not to seek enlightenment, lol.

Peace and love everyone.

Night air bathes bare skin

Raising consciousness of love

Tenderness is new.

It was a perfect day at the beach. Stellar. We talked, rested, read, laughed, went in the ocean. It was mid 80’s and a slight sea breeze, so we never got hot. I will miss my friends here when I move to Florida.

I wrote that Haiku “Just Love” this morning. I had a follower who disliked it, apparently, and left me a rather vile comment, “Fuck love. *leaves your blog upset”. Well, I’m sorry they’re upset. I can’t imagine the dark world someone lives in to react to that post the way she did. I didn’t approve the comment and trashed it. I can only feel sorry for anyone would would think it’s ok to comment on anyone’s page in that manner.

I was checking out my FB page, Living Like Water tonight. I haven’t been on there to actually look at it in a very long time. I don’t pay as much attention to it as I should. (Too busy writing, lol)

But I was looking at the feed, and I follow Liz Gilbert on that page, and also on my own page. I found a couple of posts she’d made, which are always thoughtful, and thought provoking, and shared them. I commented on one of them, about Ketut Liyer dying. 😦

I later was looking at my stats, checking to see what posts are being read, etc. And two posts I wrote that had to do with Liz Gilbert were read by someone today. They are obscure and kind of random, and written some time ago, one in February, and the other last November. But it seemed so coincidental that I was looking at her page tonight for the first time in ages and ages, and two posts inspired directly by her were in my active posts from today. I can’t help but wonder if that’s not a sign pointing me to something. But I guess I will see. I feel like that kind of sign might be something good heading my way!

I’m looking forward to my lunch date tomorrow. I got some good color today at the beach, so at least I’ll look healthy, lol. I think it will be fun, I think I’ll like his sense of humor.

About to watch the latest episode of Outlander. Hope I can stay up for it, lol. Nothing makes me sleepy like sitting at the beach all day doing nothing, lol.

Love and light, everyone.