At the recent public gathering in Wendell celebrating 50 years since the founding of the Montague Farm commune, an attendee told of an early visit to Franklin County in which he felt drawn by its beauty, and by whatever 60s magic surrounded the inhabitants. In particular, he recalled two men he met, a gay older couple he found captivating and inspiring.
Something rare had allowed these men to prosper, to shine so brightly…the culture of the area? Its many communes…? If your path took you anywhere near the communes of the time, you recall their amazing pull! To me in 1972, this area itself had that feel. It seemed the groups had settled here because of a less rigid, more embracing set of understandings that was already stirring. It was this open, inviting, freeing possibility they were trying to bring to a boil.
Many of us “civilians” got caught, in a way. At our own safe distance, we circled, absorbing and embodying the movement’s energy. And, though the communes largely morphed or faded, many of the communards have stayed. This radicalized population continues today to do what the laughing, earnest long-haired and bra-less ones tried to do: reflect the real possibility encoded in us, and in Life, in the lowlands and uplands of this ancient region, learning from scratch how to more truly express the beating heart of this place.
That indigenous information, of course, lies beneath layers of newer, exploitive assumptions and practices, buried with the bodies and cultures of the ones who lived here indigenously. Even nationally, we’re excavating it, slowly, fitfully. We’ve begun questioning the morality and functional sustainability of Western-style power, and to acknowledge the trauma of European colonization of the Americas. In our own Valley, we work on more frankly understanding the European-led massacre at Great Falls (recall the extraordinary pipe ceremony a few years ago), and Lord Jeffrey and his infected blankets. We may even sense the desperation behind native-led atrocities – massacres and abductions like the Deerfield one. We’re clearly making strides, as Americans and Western Mass. citizens, in acknowledging the better angels of each others’ nature or culture and, where appropriate, the worst of our own. In the great, slow-motion stumble of the dominant class, individuals in and of it are managing to see themselves, their attitudes and history more clearly.
It’s all in the commune movement’s radical – not “alternative” – spirit. “Alternative” is too imprecise in this case. There are really only two great paradigms of group intention: 1) dominance or 2) shared participation. In human society and with Life itself. The Happy Valley is actually Fortunate Valley in being held (for now) by the Nature-protective spirit, the all-life-loving, lucky star. We’re pretty serious about it; we’ve spotted and turned away some potential black holes like the Montague nukes, the Boston garbage dump and the Pepsi water grab (all on the Montague Plains), the relocation of Route 2, the Connecticut River diversion, Recontec, Wal-Mart, the Kinder Morgan pipeline, etc.
We’ve got a real thing in our Franklin County/Western Mass. heritage of honesty and Life-embrace. It’s gone a ways in breaking old thought patterns and recognizing the precious, even sacred quality of diversity among humans (which helped those gay men thrive decades ago). It’s not perfect; it’s essential that this lens widen quickly outside the human realm to include the Earth-life system itself.
But remembering the commune movement of the Sixties and Seventies and how it graced this area (and continues to influence it) may help us protect and strengthen this great-mindedness and the sharing, truly participatory life it’s helping us toward.
Jonathan von Ranson lives close to the Earth in Wendell.