Originally posted at YES! Magazine
Forty-three years after co-founding The Farm, one of the first “hippie communes” in the United States, Stephen Gaskin died on July 1 at the age of 79. What started in 1971 as an experiment in collective living for free thinkers, spiritual students from San Francisco, and psychedelic explorers, has evolved into one of the most enduring models of intentional community in the country.
“All the stuff that we have done here, we’ve never asked anyone for permission: no church, no corporation, no state.”
After learning how to farm on 1,750 acres of rough and rugged terrain in rural Tennessee, The Farm became an internationally known model and an exporter of farming skills, tools, nutrition, midwifery, and other forms of appropriate technology for village-scale societies. It has also become a training center for midwifery, permaculture, solar building design, mushroom cultivation, composting, book publishing, and other enterprises. It has maintained its own independent school system for decades, and is often credited with kick-starting the popularity of tofu. Read Entire Article…
