62. COMMUNE

well..........finally back at it.  a 2 wk vacation for a trip to alaska and then all the time it took to get back to normal means that my documentary viewing is somewhat delayed.  i started back with a topic i always find intriguing........the hippie life.......and, in this case, a commune established in 1968 at black bear ranch in northern california.  the film combines vintage footage of the nude young residents living and loving and working it out together with current interviews of both the adults who established the first group family, as well as some of the children raised in that setting.  the motto of black bear was "free land for free people", and the property was originally financed by hollywood stars.  social issues beget the origin of the group living, but even in the remote woods of the klamath forest, there were issues to be resolved......the role of women in the society; the fbi who contended this was an anti-american cult; whether there should be rules and what the rules should be; and, a particularly troublesome "invasion" by the shiva liva "cult" which worshiped and apparently stole children.  for many, the communal life gave way to parents with children leaving to find schools and more normalcy; many of the adults moved on to jobs using skills they learned in the commune.  many became artists, activists, healers.  interviews with the children born and raised at the height of the black bear experience portrayed that many were, and are, conflicted by the group parenting and the social "dis"order of the living situation.  the black bear ranch continues today and is legally protected as a place of communal living for perpetuity.  if i were older during this time, would i have considered a form of living as this? is free land for free people a motto that i would have embraced?   i often wonder.  i think the person i am now might, but the younger me would most likely have been too afraid.  and, it's really hard to imagine raising my children as part of a group of parents.  it seems that for most who left, it had to do with children and the desire to raise them in a more typical form.