by Polio Joe

Full house

“I went to where it all started, where the music spoke only to the woke, and the flower was power
where something exciting happened every hour
I even took a sip and let me tell you it was trip, the people marched to there own beat, while the world watch from front row seats.”

I suddenly realised the other day that it is finally happening, a new summer of love is coming and we can all be part of it.

In the 1960s, political and racial assassinations, racism and bigotry, and the Vietnam war (amongst other reasons) led to the rise of a new movement based around love, togetherness and community, the forming of the original hippie movement came out of a dark period in American and world history.

Decades later the world is in a dark place again. Islamic terrorism, Donald Trump, Brexit, the immoral British government led by Boris Johnson, the Covid pandemic and the Ukraine war, to name but a few, has meant that the world has felt like a dark and unloving place.

The new hippie movement has been rising for a while now but after recent events it is stronger than ever and I believe we can make a better society.

The pandemic is now becoming something we have learnt to live with and the vaccines mean we are no longer dying in our thousands. The war in Ukraine rages on but it has shown us that people power wins through. The power of kindness and humanity in the way nations have reacted to this terrible horrible war, a war that belongs in the dark ages.

Its times like this that we must truly embrace life and go out there and really live!

This summer there are some wonderful festivals coming, where we can celebrate community and love. Psymera, Noisily, Whirly-Fayre to name but a few. Nightclubs like Whirl-y-Gig are due to return and the hippie vibe can glow strong once again; lets show the world LOVE wins through.

India and the rest of the world are finally opening up again and this season we will all be returning to the beaches of Goa to dance until sunset. Once again we are free to have some amazing travel adventures all around this beautiful planet.

Lets build on this and make this truly a Summer of Love!!

For me, this wonderful year has started with the release of my book, which was, and still is, a very exciting time and it seems to be doing well. Lots of people sent in pictures of themselves with a copy and feedback has been fantastic.

I also have the possibility of a radio interview on Riverside radio (a South West London local station). My second book is also now with the publisher. So its all really uplifting and it paves the way for this wonderful. upcoming summer of love that’s about to begin.

Woodstock

Joni Michell

“Well, I came upon a child of God
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, “tell me, where are you going?”
This he told me

Said, “I’m going down to Yasgur’s Farm
Gonna join in a rock and roll band
Got to get back to the land
And set my soul free“

We are stardust, we are golden
We are billion-year-old carbon
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden”

So, why don’t you too become part of this wonderful hippie movement and embrace this summer of love, a summer of hippie happiness.

Its time to be the beautiful butterfly you have always been inside; accept your inner hippie and embrace it!!

HOW TO FIND FREEDOM PEACE AND HAPPINESS

From my book hippie Kushi Waking up to Life, book one:

Bravery = Happiness

“We have no reason to mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors, they are our terrors: has it abysses, those abysses belong to us; are dangers at hand, we must try to love them…How should we be able to forget those ancient myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave.”

RAINER MARIA RILKE, LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET

Happiness = Bravery

Why do I say this? Why do I believe this with all my heart; because this is how I completely turned things around for me.

I’m happy!! Yes, I am finally happy and content, deep in my heart. I can actually say I have fallen back in love with myself again; something I thought would never happen. I have been able to achieve this through the recognition that I had stopped being myself; that I was pretending to be someone else and it was that which was making me unhappy.

I am aware from talking to other like-minded people that I am not alone in this; I think many of us are living a life of conformity, of doing what is expected from us by our peers, our employers and by society in general. My happiest years in the past were when I was living a crazy life in my youth. My hair was all the colours of the rainbow and my clothes were flamboyant and eccentric. I frequented clubs full of hippies and world music fans and I saw lots of live music. I was comfortable being ‘me’.

But as I grew older I started conforming to society and I cut my hair, shaved off my beard and started wearing conservative clothes. Over the years I had become lost in work and forgotten about who I really was.

It has only been since an enlightened moment in India that I was able to say to myself “what happened to you? Where has the real you gone?”

“Doing what you like is freedom. Liking what you do is happiness.” Frank Tyger

I realised that for the last few years I had been trying to be another person, listening to my mother and my colleagues who would say “I prefer your hair short like that” or “your beard needs a trim” and I would think, oh yes I will do that when I get home. I stopped going out because the places I was going to were simply not who I really was; I was bored with them.

Then one day I found myself in a hippie club in Goa and felt a wave of happiness; I was amongst my own and it felt right. I danced all night and I met some amazing people. For the first time in decades, I felt that warm glow of happiness and elation.

It felt so right but there was something very wrong. Everybody there, of every age and race, with their beaming faces and warm embraces, were dressed in flamboyant garb, beads and colourful clothes, their hair long and wild; they were being their true selves. And in the centre of it all was me, dressed like an American tourist, in chinos and a blue suit shirt and smart shoes: who the fuck was that?? Not me, what the hell had happened to me? What in god’s name had I been thinking all those years?

I felt angry at myself. It was a true awakening!

“Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.” James Dean

At 52 years old I decided from that day on I would go back to being the person I really was and I don’t just mean looking how I wanted to look, but also to live the life I wanted to live; to grab that dream of living on a canal boat six months of the year and living in Goa for the rest of the year. To embrace the hippie I always was and stop being somebody else. I stupidly thought I was unhappy because I was overweight, old and unattractive, but it simply took my accepting who I really was to make me happy.

Now, I don’t give a shit if I’m a bit fat or older because I am being real and true to myself and I feel great! But this transformation from a grey moth to bright butterfly can involve a lot of bravery.

So, if you have ever wished you could be the person you really want to be but don’t because of work, or family or peer pressure; heed my words, this will only lead to unhappiness. If you secretly wish you could have a Mohican hairstyle with a stud in your nose but feel you can’t because the world would call you weird; tell the world to go to hell and just do it. If you want to grow your hair and beard long and take off on a motorbike around the world; just do it. If you want to move to a hippie commune in a forest and live off the earth; just do it and stop conforming.

So, my answer to how to find Happiness, Peace and Freedom is to find the ‘true you’ and to be that person, not society’s version of who you should be. Once you are being true to yourself and living the life you really want to live, happiness will follow.”

LIFE IS FOR LIVING!!