Sustainable Tarpon Springs - The Beautiful People

There was a term that evolved in the ’60’s - The Beautiful People - which may have blossomed fully by ’67, (aka - The Summer of Love.)  It was a term for those who really had vision that reached beyond the dominant paradigm of the ’50’s - beyond the concept of the ‘Beat Generation’ (which to Kerouac really meant, ‘beaten down’, not ‘upbeat’ as you might associate with ‘Bop’ music), and beyond the rigid norms to which everyone was expected to conform.

The Beautiful People led the Movement ‘back to the Garden’ - as Joni Mitchell so beautifully described in her song about Woodstock.  It was a time of awakening and scratching the surface of actualization.  A time of detaching one’s mind from the idea of a ‘rock-solid-reality’ and a time of realizing that perception is malleable, dependent upon each person’s view.  It was a time of deliberately trying to release the structures of the previous generations and find one’s own truth - yet in a very collective way - which led to what many people associate with the ’60’s, rampant drug use and free sex.

What the heck does this have to do with sustainability?  Whether or not the means of breaking free was necessary or appropriate, the result was to crack the world wide open to new possibilities.  This movement organically erupted out of an endless war, and the sorrow of seeing friends whose lives were on the verge of blossoming be drafted, possibly killed, or physically and mentally maimed.  The feeling was that the current system was not sustainable and had to be transcended.

There were many Beautiful People whose views, voices, and visions blazed a new trail of hope.  Some were snuffed out too early, others mellowed out as time wore on, or found themselves falling into a different kind of conformity.  Others got ‘stuck’ in the romanticism of those times, and failed to stay in the ‘present moment’ where change occurs.  Yet, we seem to be on the edge of a new shift in consciousness NOW.  It historically comes in cycles. 

Just as it is ‘hard to see the forest for the trees’ - Beautiful People are in our midst HERE and NOW.  Try to think of the beautiful people you know in Tarpon Springs, ones who are full of love, acceptance, and peace...ones who are filled with community minded spirit!  Gratitude for these people can attune us all to the path of this kind of beauty, and being thankful for those around us is a ‘positively’ contagious experience.

And how is this part of sustainability?  We are each part of the Universal Web of Life, and we need one another.  The more we are aware of this fact, the more we can appreciate the ones around us, the nicer we are, the nicer others are in return.  How magical is that?!   And as much as writing this blog each week is therapeutic to me, I need connection also.  If you read it and it resonates with you, please be so kind as to say so.  The most important reason I am writing is to stimulate community, discussion, awakening, and change for the future.  We each play a part in the network of Beautiful People!  As I post this, I am sending out the LOVE.