Flashes of Insight

WOODSTOCK 40 YEARS LATER:
SEEDS FOR A NEW CONSCIOUSNESS

by Flash Silvermoon

It’s really hard to wrap my head around the fact that Woodstock happened 40 years ago on Aug 15 1969! They say that if you can remember the 60’s, which were really the late 60’s, then you weren’t there but I beg to differ.

It amazes me that my memories of those days and particularly Woodstock are as vivid as if they were yesterday. Considering the substances that flowed through my system that weekend, it is even more amazing.

There were two festivals occurring in my hood that month and I knew that I could only manage getting to one of them and thank the Goddess and all the Muses, that I decided that Woodstock was a better concert than the Atlantic City Fest which also looked pretty good.

During the summer of ‘69, I had gone cross-country to California and actually saw and met Grace Slick singing with the Jefferson Airplane at the Fillmore West in San Francisco. She and Janis were my idols and I was still flying high from the experience by the time I returned to New Jersey and prepared for Woodstock. I mention this adventure in Kali-fornia because while waiting on line to get into that Airplane concert, a funny little man saw me at the front of the line and asked me to save him a seat near me and he would “give me some good dope.” I said yes and would have helped him without the offer. I figured that he would give me a joint but instead he gave me a little purple pill that I immediately tucked into my amethyst poison ring for just the right occasion. I was actually traveling with my parents so this was clearly NOT the right time. As I write this part of me is saying, “Are you crazy taking a pill from a stranger?” But you must understand, those were different days and amongst the circles of folks that I traveled, people still had honor and trust with such things. (read on…)