Marty and several others requested that we put up information about
where to get the new book about Black Bear Ranch, Free Land: Free Love:
Tales of a Wilderness Commune (Editors: Don Monkerud, Malcolm Terence,
Susan Keese) so for those interested ordering information is at the
end.


Here's briefly what the book looks like:





Writers in the anthology include Peter Coyote, Harriet Beinfield,
Michael Tierra, Alan Steinbach, John Salter, Bernadine Dohrn, Mary
Mackey, Osha Neumann, Efrem Korngold, Myeba Mindlin, Zoe Leader and
Chaparral Fireland. 344 pages



DESCRIPTION:

 

>From it's founding in a remote 80-acre wilderness valley surrounded by
national forest during the turbulent 1960s, Black Bear Ranch was
committed to creating a counter-culture more in tune with humanistic
values than those found in commercial American culture. The original
occupants left the Haight Ashbury, New York, Los Angeles and a dozen
other cities to free themselves from the constraints of middle-class
America. Pledging to experiment and create new forms for society, they
jettisoned the values, practices and habits they grew up with and
tested themselves in ways that few others of the time did.


A gathering of over fifty voices, the stories in this anthology are
authentic memoirs that capture true-to-life experiences of the
subculture spawned by the time. The accounts resonate as a wild untold
history and of heartfelt tales told first hand by participants. 


More than mere nostalgia the accounts are a cultural treasure map that
trace the beginnings of many of today's movements for natural healing,
women's rights, environmentalism and ecology, natural childbirth,
organic gardening and new spiritual alternatives. By understanding the
origins, readers will be better able to evaluate where these movements
are headed and what they seek. The stories address contemporary issues
of identity, community and values that remain important today and as we
go forward into the next millennium.



QUOTES FROM BOOK:


The object of the game was to get first choice of one's numerous lovers
on any given nite and I was good at the game. I always got my #1 pick,
but there was considerable self-delusion involved...

-- Estrella, <italic>Free Luv and the Feminist Revolution


</italic>One of the most important reasons we chose to move to Black
Bear Ranch was to rediscover and affirm our interconnectedness-to
experience again, for whatever reason and if only briefly, the beauty
and power of living in a closely-knit extended community. 

<italic>-</italic>- Michael Tierra, <italic>Encounters with the Karoks


</italic>We would sit there in the wintry evenings fingering a copy of
Julia Childs' first French cookbook, lusting over dishes that took
ingredients we knew we would never see and reading in breathy hushed
voices. 

-- Malcolm Terence, <italic>How to Make Chimichangas (Or How I Saved
the Commune)


</italic>There was, for instance, a period of time where everyone
abandoned their tiny single family dwellings and individual rooms to
sleep together in the mainhouse to subvert what was diagnosed as
"growing factionalism."

--Peter Coyote, <italic>Sleeping Where I Fall


</italic>I came to understand what it might have been like to live in a
small, Neolithic village.

	-- Mary Mackey, Poems from the Mosquito House



To place an order send $15 and $2.00 for shipping and handling to:


Black Bear Mining & Publishing Company

2220 Pleasant Valley Road

Aptos, CA 95003

831-724-2059

FAX 831-724-1893


For further queries send email to:


Info@BlackBearRanch.com