Axis Mundi X discussion

So... I pride myself on being a RECOVERING hippie... I never wear tie dye, I don't put batik bedspreads on the windows, I don't buy anything scented with patchouli, I don't own a sitar nor any albums of sitar music, the Grateful Dead is not played in my house (especially not live tapes featuring 27 minute drum and bass solos). I shave my legs. I did not name my child Apple.

But today I did something that told me I may never recover completely from my upbringing. Today I actually hung an Asparagus Fern in a planter above my kitchen sink with (wait for it) a macrame plant hanger.

I don't know what came over me.

I stare at the wooden beads and the yarn featured prominently in my kitchen window and despair.

Okay, I did buy the macrame at the local hardware store... I didn't actually macrame the thing myself, from hemp, while burning sage. The yarn is actually some kind of polyester polymer. But still.

Macrame.

If there were a recovering hippie 12 Step program I would go to a meeting. As it is, all I can do is post here, and hope this trend passes without any further incidents.

I wish you well, Charissa. Macrame isn't the worse thing about hippie life. In fact, everyone was infected with the desire for macrame for awhile there in the 70's.

I'm a confirmed square, with no hope of recovery. No smidgeon of hippie, or even hip in my life.

I even use squares as a decorating motif. My CD cabinet looks like an old card catalog, with square drawers. I make afghans with granny squares. Etc.

macrame might lead to free love, then where will I be??

With Margaret Mead on Samoa, I guess.

No, I don't think macrame is a slippery slope. Too nubbly.

It is a gateway to decoupage, though. You don't want to go there.
And watch carefully for signs of cravings for paintings of dogs playing poker, or anything on velvet.

my grandmother was the queen of decoupage. she basically decoupaged anything that held still long enough. We were always nervous watching TV at her house... no one wanted to sit in once place too long.

But I have been crafting this past year... and one of my products is basically images erhm... uhm... decoupaged acrylic glazed on bamboo tiles. I try not to think about the implications.

by the way... squares are awesome. Things go inside them. I am very fond of squares.

This square is up too late, as is my inclination. But as I was up too late last night, I am fading.

Bonne nuit, chère Charissa.

Decoupage: Not cool

Collage: Cool as all hell

See? Problem solved. You're an artiste. (By the way, I highly recommend Diamond Glaze as much, much less tacky after it dries than Mod Podge...and better yet, it's all artisty and stuff, no hippie decoupage connotations! It also sticks to anything, so it's multipurpose.)

Lisa... Diamond Glaze is exactly what I use. It frikkin RAWKS!!!

and I used Acrylic Gel Medium for my collage work. Very shiny... even when it's matte. : )

This thread has made my pachouli-wearing, granny-squaring self very happy.

I learned to macrame in Girl Scouts.

All the hippies I knew growing up were white kids from the suburbs. They had all the good drugs. I think most of them work in accounting now.

Hey, I used to do decoupage with my grandma as a kid ... I think that makes me a nerdknocker, not a hippie, though.

Nothing sexier about a hippie chick. At least until she "borrows" your car and strands you in the Ozarks. (True story---my lame postadolescent attempt at On the Road ).

Wait a sec!

*leaves her accounting office to go tend bar across the street*

Accounting? Ew, who does that???

I'm glad I get to pick and choose all my "hippie" bullshit--I can't help when I was born. But seriously, this thread sill makes me happy!

it's so perplexing to me that now hippie is cool again. I see these women wandering around in bohemian flowy tops and I think... damn, the 70's came back. Why?

When I dressed that way in the 80s... and in the 90s.... and at the turn of the millenium.... people muttered as I passed "fuckin hippie".... now my friend Agnes asks me.... doesn't it piss you off that now your whole wearing dresses with pants thing is in fashion and everyone is doing it? to which I say... no way, I get to be in fashion for four seconds. I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts.

But still.... macrame, even though it is nubby, is a slippery slope. Amanda... I'm sorry, you are disqualified from being a hippie if you are an accountant. That's just how it goes. But if you let your arm pit hair grow, and don't wear underwear under your peasant skirts, then you can hang out with hippies, which is kind of the same thing. They will have you do their taxes for them, for which they will not pay you, but they will bake you some zucchini bread.

hippie chicks are sexy? huh. who knew?

Accountants are disqualified from being human.

Hippie chicks are endlessly sexy. I'm not a fan of dreads on most, but a little hippie chick with tight long dreads can make me swoon. Hairy pits? Not a bother for me as long as the accompanying aroma isn't masked through laborious application of gallons of pachouli.

But then, to most, I am easily written off as a dirty hippie. An aversion to bathing? Check. Long hair? Double-check. A dog named after a dead reggae singer? Definitely. An apartment filled with produce all grown organically from farms within 50 miles of my town? Oh yes. Multiple pairs of sandals languishing by the doorway because I prefer walking around barefoot? Oh my, that's me. Hemp accessories? Guilty.

But then it comes to the music and I have to part ways with my spiritual kin. I hate the Dead. I hate Phish. I hate Joni Mitchell. I keep hoping that Bob Dylan will choke to death on a ham sandwich. Most music sounds better when you're high. Unfortunately, not the jam bands.

I like you, Logan. You should post here more.

back to work

well thank you, RA. I do enjoy it around these parts. I keep trying to break my addiction to goodreads, but it's just not working. I think the only thing left to do is dive all the way in and see what comes out on the other side.

Sigh. I was too old to be a hippie. No matter how many tie dyes, macrames and guitars I had I was still bricked under in suburbia.

I keep hoping that Bob Dylan will choke to death on a ham sandwich.

Thank you, Logan. Is it just me or does he sound like he's doing just that these days?

Seizure Romero
Not a dirty hippie

I secound that...I like you too!! I too part ways when it comes to the music. peace~Dharma

oh...yes..I'm a bathing hippie.~D

Dharma, I assume, with your name, that you have to be a hippy. Isn't there a law?

Back to work again, dammit

Dharma:

Please tell us your husband's name isn't Greg....
Although I'm sure you get more dumb wisecracks like that than to any Kerouac.

Peace,
Kirk
Hypoallergenic hippie

I am a conditional hippie lover.
Things I love about hippies
1) patchouli dabbed in all the sweet spots
2) no bras (yes, I know about gravity, ladies. I like gravity..it is real and non-plastic
3) hemp (slow inhale...hold...ahhhhhhhh)
4) barefeet
5) outdoor nudity, which may or may not be accompanied by sex
6) outdoor concerts, which may or may not be accompanied by tubing down a river
7) anti-establishment raging

Things I don't love about hippies
1) dreads on white people
2) haphazard bathing
3) The Dead, Phish, all jam bands, and most crappilicious hippie music except for a bit of Janis once in a while
4) macrame', unless lovingly hung by neohippie Charissa
5) old hippies who are now financially comfortable, hybrid car driving, rotten bratty, ADHD suburban kid raising, microbrew swilling, handmade Guatemala jewelry wearing, my 401K is bigger than your 401K bragging asswipes.
6) excessive body hair where my mouth wants to visit
Okay, I'm done. Gonna get stoned now and make lentil soup.

oh my goodness, I look away for a few minutes and suddenly there's a den of hippies in here!!! next thing you know someone will want to start a commune.

Ruth, you can't possibly be too old to have been a hippie... aren't you my mom's age? Your politics are definitely liberal enough to be called a hippie. I'm pretty sure if you hung out with my mom you guys would be fast friends... yup. Sorry, you qualify. I hereby dub you a hippie.

Of course, my mother insists she wasn't one either, pfft... whatever. Hello.... commune and paisley mumus... hippie!!!

Somebody needs to write a book called Malleus Hippiecarum

also... I totally am NOT a neo-hippie. I was one back when they actually existed, which make me an EX hippie. which, as we've demonstrated, is impossible. NEO is for those who are adopting it as their second language. Kind of like moving to Prague in the 90s.

Just teasing, Charissa dear. You are far too fierce to have ever been truly hippie, except, of course, for the sex drive thing.( by fierce, I mean ferociously, responsibly intellectual, not in the Tyra sense of the word. Oh, gosh, the mailman is here. I hope he is bringing the new Ikea catalog.

actually Brian... I was a total hippie in the way back machine. knee jerk leftie. the whole shebang. karo syrup in gas tanks at construction sites. yanking tags off trees in cutting zones. total monkey wrencher. Peace nik. BOngo playing, poetry writing, strumma strumma strumma peace love and understanding no more war songs, kumbaya, making the peace sign with my fingers in photographs. I'm fairly certain I was tremendously annoying.

Heee... fierce... oh girlfriend, you know it!!!

I do not like shaving. I've gone for years at a time without touching a bic to my underarms. The social stigmata is fierce. Men I do not even slightly know point and guffaw.

I've already beaten this horse to death in the Hater's Club, but allow me to drag dead ol' Mr. Ed over here for one minute.

Hairy pits do not smell more than shaved ones. That is just a fallacy. I'm displaying my hippie soul here.

But, as an educator I bathe on a regular, scheduled basis. If granted magical, society changing powers, I would undo all the damage our capatalized corporate conglomerate advertising prowess has done on the communal American psyche I would remind people that there are dangers of overwashing the scalp, hair and body. The oils the human body produces are more beneficial than any Dial soap and Jergens lotion, Clairol shampoo and Dove conditioner could ever begin to replicate.

And I happen to find the ripe smell of the male species uncontrollably sexy. Even the subway in Rome on a September afternoon kind of odor.

Charissa, I'm turning the phrase "total monkey wrencher" over in my brain. Does it have anything to do with what you posted in the 10 Books thread?

:::applauds::: very nicely done Sally. The mammal manifesto. Awesome.

I tried not shaving my arm pits once. It grossed me out to no end. Seriously... if civilization ended and I couldn't find a razor... I'd scrape it off with a sea shell.

ahhhh ha ha ha ha.... Dave....

seriously though, do you not know what a monkey wrencher is?

No I honestly don't.

Wow, I so do not fit in in this thread... I'm sort of WASPish.

I'd scrape it off with a sea shell.

Ouch! And loller coaster.

Sally, I'll give ya hairy pits if I can have my foreskin back. Seriously, I knew a hippie chick once who never shaved her legs...could not keep my hands off 'em. I agree with not liking the overly bathed...I just think fresh sweat smells betterer than weeks old sweat. The natural, unperfumed smell of a woman's skin is...is... dammit, I just got back from the guilty pleasures thread, it's time for church, and OH MY, do I have some er, food for thought.

Edward Abbey, The Monkey Wrench Gang

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/99...

Monkeywrenching is economic warfare by sabotage, or ecotage, with the intent to slow down or halt activities which the monkeywrencher perceives as destructive activities. It's a practiced as a way to protect the environment from abuse by capitalist ventures: clear cutting, damming of rivers, development.... It's pretty much the most far Left you can take environmentalism.

What's wrong with WASPs? I am totally into insects:)

Sarah... ha ha ha ha... you surrounded by hippies... now that is an amusing image.

I actually knew some fundamentalist Christian hippies up in Washington State... it made no sense to me... but there ya go. It takes all kinds.

King, you are demented. : )

A: Hockey players shower after three periods.


really?

This is a joke that is told?

From man to man, whilst waxing automobiles and measuring length vs girth, or grooming their appropriately manicured chest hair, I'm sure.

Waxing automobiles isn't a euphamism for anything, is it?

I don't think it's my Christianity that precludes me from being a hippie, or even my age (I know several neo-hippies). I just like looking like Charlotte from Sex and the City. I wear headbands in my blown-out hair and floral dresses and my handbag always matches my shoes (or at least coordinates). I like high heels and wouldn't be caught dead in Birkenstocks. I like pink lip gloss and perfume that isn't made with patchouli. I've even been known to wear pearls.

The funny thing is, I was a Charlotte before Charlotte even existed. I started watching the show and I thought, "Oh my God! That's me! Only poorer!"

Amanda: of course not!


*twirls thumbs and shifts eyes to the left*

Sarah, Jesus was a hippie, and, I think, a Christian.

WASP = white anglo saxon protestant... so I assumed you meant Christianity was part of that equation.

My sister says I am basically Carrie from that show. Except... I don't have a shoe fetish anywhere as bad as hers.

My best friend is from NYC originally... she feels the same way about hippiedom. She likes her socks to match her blouse, and doesn't want her nail polish to get chipped. We are totally mutt and jeff sometimes.

Sure you do and sure you don't.

*hands KD a BudLight and the remote so he can watch sports, and a fine toothed comb to groom his gorilla chest*

BudLight and groomed chest hair? Sally, what men are you hanging out with?