Voluntary Peasants Labor of Love, Parts 1, 2 & 3: Genesis, Year One, Pioneer Days of The Farm Commune

Marijuana. High Consciousness. Good Vibes. Peace. Love. Art. Music. A Joint Venture and stoned journey. And it’s all true! Living communally, searching for enlightenment, trying to save the planet at America's biggest commune, The Farm, up Moonshine Alley near Summertown, Tennessee.
“Imagine all the people living life in peace.”—John Lennon
That was us! We had it going. Over the collective’s 13 years, thousands of people lived and worked together as “voluntary peasants” sharing a path with heart—working for free—to create a low-budget, grassroots, 24/7 peace demonstration—an eclectic, agrarian, egalitarian, fun lifestyle.
Cool, fun, weaving of journalism, pathos and humor transports the reader on an entertaining, mind-expanding, psychedelic odyssey. Entertaining, insightful, fun classic tales of the Sixties as a young UPI reporter follows the story and energy of the time over the edge. A portal into magical psychedelic times—LSD, peyote, magic mushrooms, marijuana, telepathy, energy, spiritual hippies, gurus, pioneering midwives and enlightenment quests.
Psychedelic genesis of The Farm commune—one of the most significant experiments in back-to-the-land, collective living—a remarkable, eclectic, spiritual, community, village, back-to-the-land lifestyle and cannabis church in rural Tennessee—with 1,500-members and humanitarian projects around the world—America’s biggest commune—awarded the “Alternative Nobel Peace Prize”—the Swedish Right Livelihood Award—“For caring, sharing and acting with and on behalf of those in need at home and abroad.”
Samplings of the San Francisco spiritual smorgasbord of 1969 and an outrageous group adventure—Stephen Gaskin's round-the-country, save-the-world school bus caravan—landing up Moonshine Alley—FBI, KKK and Tennessee vigilantes all watching.
Pooling resources, working together, we built our own town—complete with farming, construction crew, motor pool, soy dairy, clinic, lab, doctors, midwives, bakery, cottage industries, FM radio station, solar-heated school, a dozen satellite communities and humanitarian outreach projects around the world.
At peak—1,450 people enjoyed Zero Unemployment, Universal Healthcare, and all necessities on $100/person a month!
I was a founder, builder, and 13-year resident of The Farm. My jobs included farmer, carpenter, mason, miller, baker, vegan chef, gateman, newspaper editor; earthquake reconstruction worker and photographer in Guatemala. After the devastating Guatemala earthquake of 1976, with a team from The Farm and Mayans, I built rural schools, clinics, houses and a clinic for Mother Teresa.
Writing this book has been a 30-year, literary labor of love, dedicated to report and honor the tremendous group labor of love—labor dedicated to making the world better.
Originally, The Farm was a hippie spiritual cult formed around charismatic guru Stephen Gaskin, High Times dubbed—“The Gandhi of the American Counterculture.” Stephen was a self-proclaimed “spiritual teacher” and “spiritual revolutionary.”
In time, The Farm evolved into “Community as Teacher,” with Stephen serving as minister, adviser, life coach as well as spokesperson for The Farm—touring with The Farm Band. Stephen’s wife, Ina May Gaskin, was the community’s first midwife who became a major force in teaching and popularizing home birth. Ina May is now in the Women’s Hall of Fame and is known as “the mother of modern midwifery.”
One level to this story was my extraordinary relationship with the Gaskins—a far-out, flawed-yet-effective, guru-student trip.
Voluntary Peasants Labor of Love is a six-part series available as Kindle e-books and pdfs at www.voluntarypeasants.com. The complete book will be in print and all formats this fall.