Love Is in the Air . . .

Like Muslims in their annual pilgrimage to Mecca, or the swallows returning to Capistrano, the hippies migrated from their usual Harvard Square haunt to the Cambridge Common last Saturday for what was billed as "a happening, a gathering, an awakening."

It was the Annual Spring Cambridge Love-In.

"In society, there's not so much a love-in, is there? It's more like a survive-in," said Ish, a 33-year-old carpenter from Dorchester, who characterized the event on the Common as "a get-together for people who are looking for something--a spiritual gathering."

"People who come to this realize that there is something in them. Love is in them. It stirs them."

Whole Lot of Lovin'

Ish was one of about 100 people who gathered on the Common for frisby, free food, singing, talking, people-watching and yes, loving. Although the event was scheduled to start at noon, most people, in classic hippie style, showed up around 2 p.m. for the afternoon's festivities.

Crooning the usual mellow melodies--"Redemption Song," by Bob Marley, "Spanish Caravan," by the Doors and "Ziggy Stardust," by David Bowie--many of the participants gathered around guitarists and a flutist for a sing-a-long.

Seeking a rhythm section, they chanted, "we want drums, we want bongos, we want marijuana."

Other individuals stood around the seated group, discussing the role of the military-industrial complex in the Persian Gulf War, the practical uses of "hemp" (i.e. marijuana) and the efforts to stop the development of a Canadian hydroelectric power plant.

While small groups sat on blankets and ate picnic lunches, others took advantage of the free sandwiches and tea provided by an organization called Food Not Bombs.

Almost everyone in attendance said they felt a sense of community that they do not experience anywhere else. They lamented, however, that hippies do not come together as a community as often as they did in the past.

Yuppies vs. Hippies

Whereas at one time the get-togethers on the Cambridge Common were very large--focusing first on the Vietnam War, later shifting gears to the anti-nuclear movement--last weekend's event organizer Dana E. Franzen explained that "over the course of the 1970s, they decreased in size and eventually died out as a continual get together."

But the 34-year-old artist--who is frequently seen around the Square sporting a black top hat and smoking a Calabash pipe--said there are still lots of hippies around today. The reason they do not come together more often, Franzen said, is that the coffee houses where they once hung out left Harvard Square as commercial rents soared.

"When the yuppie trend came in, it drove out the coffee houses and turned Harvard Square into a shopping mall," Franzen explained, while hanging up a chain of cloth flags with hand-painted peace symbols.

This fact has limited most area hippies to hanging out at Au Bon Pain during most of the year, said Franzen with disappointment. He added, however, that "now that the yuppie trend has passed and the economy is teetering a bit, maybe things will change."

No Place Like Home

While most embraced their rare opportunity to gather communally on the Common, many of the day's partipants said they worry that love-ins cannot generate the long-lasting sense of community they once could. Many said they see people putting their normal lives on hold when they come to the love-in, but at the end of the day they return to their regular ways of acting and thinking about the world. They do not retain the sense of "peace, love and happiness" that they felt in the group, the hippies said.

One woman explained that it is necessary to live in a community of people who "truly love each other" in order to establish in practice the ideals discussed at hippy gatherings.

"People do a lot of talking about love, unity, and peace--that's the purpose of [Grateful] Dead shows and love-ins," said 20-year-old Shachar M. Pereira. "But they don't do so much about it."

Pereira said she lives with Ish and others in a community with three houses in Boston and other homes around the world. "It's more of a family than an organization," she said. "We share all things in common."

The Dorchester resident said she came to the love-in last weekend "to see if there is anyone who wanted to come back to the community. It's a place to go where it is real and it is happening," she explained, adding, "It's not an unattainable goal."

Simple Living

Taking a break from his flute playing, 23-year-old Sheba described his own experience squatting in a house on Eliot St. before it burned down last year. "The squat was good for all of us," he said. "It was a happy home."

Their hippie, squatter lifestyle, as Sheba described it, was a simple one: food was provided by leftovers from Square restaurants and was cooked on camping stoves that burned vodka; daily showers were furnished by a near-by water hose.

"It worked better than a lot of the programs," Sheba said, explaining that about two dozen people lived in the house regularly, with twice as many during weekends. "People took care of themselves rather than having people take care of them," Sheba said.

Tough Time for Hippies

Sheba is the artist responsible for the flower peace signs that occassionally appear on the walk in front of Au Bon Pain. However, according to the hippie, it is unlikely that his artwork will appear there anymore, as the restaurant recently ruled the designs to be a public nusiance.

The move on the part of the restaurant seems to be symbolic of a recent anti-hippie trend in the Square, many said.

According to Sheba, hippies have suffered from increased police harassment. In December, Sheba said the police instructed all of the business in the Square to stop giving their leftovers to hippies. Until that time, Sheba said he regularly collected food and distributed on the Common as part of a group called Bread and Jams.

The Best Education at Harvard

Sheba didn't need to worry about police breaking up the festivities on Saturday--there were none in sight. Nor were there any "right-wing thugs, flag wavers, or sports enthusiasts" that had terrorized gatherings in the past, according to Franzen.

Nor, for that matter, were there many Harvard students at the event. Although several walked by on their way to or from the Quad, few stopped to participate.

Those who did attend said they were taking a needed break from writing papers and studying for finals, or that they were simply curious about the gathering.

"I came here to get away from the ridiculous pressures building up at Harvard," said Mike M. Stockman '94. "I thought this would be a good antidote for them."

Stockman said he thought more Harvard students would have come to the event had they known about it. "I don't see why there aren't more students," he said. "There is nothing to actively dislike here. I guess the event wasn't well publicized around the Harvard community."

Stockman's friend, Nick B. Cowell '94, said students ought to participate in events like the love-in because it gives them the opportunity to think about how they can make their life's work socially beneficial. College does not provide the same opportunity, according to Cowell.

"I'm not knocking anything about Harvard, but it is contrived compared to this," Cowell said. "College is an absurdly reified experience, especially at Harvard because we think we are so good that we forget what a big world is out there."

Cowell said he thought he was learning more by coming to the love-in than by studying for his finals.

"This is better than anything else I could have done at Harvard today," he said. "It is crucial that people get together. This is a gathering of people who know why we are here and who can truly offer something to each other. This is where it's at."

From the Sublime to the Ridiculous

One man, who called himself the Grand Magus of the Sacred and Mystical Order of the Sword and Shield, said he dropped out of Harvard because he decided he "wasn't going to sell out."

"There's more to life than becoming a member of the Establishment," he said, explaining that he came to this "understanding" while dropping acid with former Harvard lecturer and drug guru Timothy Leary. Leary left his post in the early 1960s, amidst charges of distributing hallucinogens.

The 40-year-old Magus, who claims he is from "every-where"--and Watertown--added, "Right now you are going to Harvard--someday you will understand."

Carrying a staff and wearing a crown of lilacs, Magus threw handfuls of candy into the crowds and gave trinkets to passers-by. "I'm handing out eternal life, rainbows, and peace," he said.

Good-Old Values?

Most participants said they were hopeful for the future of the hippy style of life. Cowell said he sees a resurgence of the "good-old values that people drifted away from and now they are returning to."

"I don't think that you are talking about something that started in the 1960s," said Matt Wise, 25, of Allston. "It has always been around, and it will always come back."

Some feared, however, that too great a hippie resurgence would turn Harvard Square into San Francisco of the late 1960s, which faced a dismal situation of too many people, too little food and too few places to stay.

"Harvard Square is kind of like Haight-Ashbury was," said Sarah J. Baron, a student at Framingham State College, referring to the San Francisco street-corner where the hippies gathered. "I hope it doesn't go bad."

But despite the uncertainty of their futures--or their next meals, for that matter--Marcus, 27, a Cambridge-based artist and writer, said the hippie way of life is still better than the alternatives--at least for him.

"The pursuit of happiness has borne more fruit than the pursuit of knowledge," he said. "Tastier fruit, anyway."