Unless we keep our ears and eyes open surprises may not often come our way. So often the drudgery of daily lives keep our attention fixed on the road beneath our feet, so that we forget our past and neglect to look up towards our future. But if we allow, surprises may emerge from almost anywhere.
Owning three dogs I get out walking a lot. Each day I take them for a long ramble beside the Moravia river here in the eastern Czech Republic: it allows for some necessary headspace. In that time I've been able to listen to podcasts, audiobooks and lectures that have tickled my fancy. In 2011 I subscribed to the Psychedelic Salon (main website is here), a hotchpotch of podcasts that verge from the weird and wacky to the life changing. If nothing else they provoke thought, even on those well-considered opinions we may cherish or fiercely defend. Sneering aside, the main 'psychedelic' element is the acceptance that altered mind states (which can be simply dreaming, let alone acid trips) are something we should encounter and explore as a starting point towards an ever- expanding universe of intellectual and experiential knowledge: the world looks truly different once you have been to the other side.
Carolyn Garcia's talk at the 2008 World Psychedlic Forum in Basel consisted of personal reminiscences that included the birth of the West Coast psychedelic scene within which she moved and lived in the late 1960s. An associate of the Merry Pranksters, she was able to see and experience first-hand the way in which the stilted life of consensualist post-war America was shaken up by the inclusion of mind-altering substances. This scene developed its own new alternative and counter-culture lifestyle, specifically within the San Francisco Haight Ashbury area where hitherto much-maligned flowery term 'hippies' was coined; it really encapsulated an appreciation of all that was 'hip' or cool. Early on within that miliau she was given the moniker Mountain Girl by Oregonite Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Garcia's inclusion as the den mother and feeder of the great Grateful Dead as they began their decades of transcendent musical experimentation and performances really came about as a result of her relationship with lead singer Jerry Garcia whom she married, had kids with and later divorced. She gets very emotional when describing the band's performances and their marriage and she emphasizes that many of the songs were specifically written with high emotional content and she comments about this in response to one of the subsequent audience questions.
Although of poor sound quality, the podcast is, perhaps, the best first-hand account of the times and a good resource for anyone interested in all things associated with The Dead. I refer to it because it was such a wonderful surprise – a real gem of a retelling of a wild and exciting life the rest of us mere mortals can only imagine. The podcast is found here and also here. Go on, dig it, man!
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