I can’t think of a better time to reflect on the schizophrenic nature of humanity than the current wave of nostalgia for that famous August forty years ago. People were still glowing with amazement and pride about the moon landing a few weeks earlier. 500,000 people converged on Bethel, New York, to Max Yasgur’s farm for three days of music (and nights! Good grief! The Who went on Saturday night at 4:00 a.m. and played 25 songs). The great music vibe kept all those people remarkably happy and peaceful, all the more amazing because of the lack of porta-potties, food, places to bathe, and the downpours that turned the entire area into a sea of mud. A certain Swami Satchidananda had given the “invocation” at the beginning, and it seemed as though the Age of Aquarius really had dawned.
Joni Mitchell wrote a song about the event:
“We are stardust; we are golden; we are billion-year-old carbon,
And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.”
However, just a few days before Woodstock, as sound technician Bill Hanley was building the gigantic speaker towers that could push the music out to hundreds of thousands of people, it was not the Age of Aquarius in L.A. Charles Manson gave orders to the twisted members of his “family” that the time for “Helter Skelter” had begun. They broke into two different homes, casually murdered innocent people, including pregnant Sharon Tate, and horribly mutilated their bodies. Incidentally, one of the most violent, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, just got released from prison.
This is who we are: gifted, golden, artistic. This is who we are: cruel, selfish, and manipulative. Alas, we are not capable of getting ourselves back to the garden. But here’s a happy thought—Jesus is.
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Straight talk. Real hope.
