Back to the Garden, Flower Power Comes Full Circle

While the public image of the Hippie movement of the late 1960s had more to do with loud clothes, loud music and an enthusiasm for marijuana than anything else, for many the rise of the counterculture had a far more powerful message — it encouraged people to question the values and goals of the mainstream of society, and many rejected the lives their parents and peers had lived to commit themselves to supporting peace and personal freedom while rejecting conformity and avarice. By the end of the 1970s, the die-hard followers of the Hippie movement had become cultural anachronisms, and in 1988 filmmaker Kevin Tomlinson and his wife attended a “healing gathering” in Eastern Washington, where folks who were still committed to the ideals of the Woodstock Nation got together to share ideas and insights. In 2008, Tomlinson revisited a number of the people he interviewed at the gathering to find that most were still living their lives “off the grid,” and in a world where sustainable energy and agriculture, organic farming, ending war and rethinking the global economic system are frequently talked-about topics, many no longer seem as far off the beaten path as they once did. Back To The Garden: Flower Power Comes Full Circle profiles a handful of veteran counterculture activists and chronicles how they keep their vision of a better world alive after four decades. Back To The Garden received its world premiere at the 2009 Seattle International Film Festival., Filmmaker Kevin Tomlinson profiles back-to-land hippies in Washington state, comparing their present lives and dreams to those they had in 1988, when he first met and interviewed them.