1992 - Francis Fukuyama: The End of History

1997- 30th Summer of Love event in Golden Gate Park (organized by Chet Helms) - 60,000 people

1997-2009 Millenial generation X (Hero) born 1977-1989 turns 20.
A Hero (or Civic) generation is born during an Unraveling, spends its rising adult years during a Crisis, spends midlife during a High, and spends old age in an Awakening. Heroic leaders have been vigorous and rational institution-builders, busy and competent in old age. All of them entering midlife were aggressive advocates of technological progress, economic prosperity, social harmony, and public optimism.
These are the dutiful soldiers of the Middle East wars. Their heros are the G.I. generation (John Wayne).

1997-2006 - The 1950s again . . . A dead grey time. Back into the monastery to preserve the valuables for the future . . . Well, that's what I'm doing. See: Michael Ventura's Letters at 3 A.M.: Reports on Endarkenment, where he gave that advice.
Citing Dr. Helen Caldicott's warning that it's ten minutes to midnight, he maintains that we're already into the new day, albeit the darkest, scariest part of it. In Whole Earth Review he wrote that we are living in an "age of endarkenment." What each of us must do is cleave to what we find most beautiful in the human heritage - and pass it on. The implied metaphor here links us with the monks of the Middle Ages: when the endarkenment eventually ends, ...those precious things we've passed on will still be alive.
Love your writings, Michael.

2004 - April 29 - Allen Cohen, creator of The San Francisco Oracle, dies

2005 - June 21 - Chet Helms, concert producer, dies

2007 - 40th anniversary of the "Summer of Love" in San Francisco
Already surpassed. The real descendants of the Summer of Love can be experienced at the Goddess Festival in Glastonbury, England each August, and perhaps at the Glastonbury Music Festival and other festivals throughout England and Europe.

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Michael Ventura on the Sixties (Shadow Dancing in the U.S.A., 1985):
You tend to forget just how much raw energy was loose in the air then, and you don't quite believe your own memory: that sometimes, then, for weeks on end, we actually thought (1) that we were living in the Promised Land, the New Age, the Other World, (2) that it was everything we had ever imagined it could be, and (3) that everyone was going to join us in its promise as soon as they saw how good it was. There was, hovering over everything, a possibility larger than the tedious makeshift that had been called "daily life." Simply to be alive then, to be part of the demographic bulge called the war babies, meant that somewhere people more or less your age, people who might conceivably welcome you in their effort, whom you might even run into on the street (which often happened!), were trying whatever fool idea, passionate thought or cosmic vision they thought themselves capable of. You yourself could be doing nothing about such things for the moment, and maybe you never had and never would, yet through some alchemy of the time somehow you were part of their hope and they were part of yours.

The Sioux once sent young warriors to the mountains alone, and they were not to come back until they'd dreamed their names. They were protected by the instruction they'd received in how to survive and in how to interpret dreams. We had mostly had instruction in how to be like everyone else, only more successful, and in how dreams were not important. So when, as an entire generation, we made everywhere we went a mountain on which we were trying to dream our names - we were messy, out of hand, easily distracted, out of our depth, full of shit, half-assed, and in deep trouble. But all that sound and all that fury, all that silliness and all those trips imprinted on everyone who was there and on everyone who came after the notion that humankind has far more dimensions than had been admitted for a very long time. It is a simple and utterly disruptive notion. Some people have been trying to live it out and a lot of people have been trying to forget it ever since. Because once you admit it - once you admit it - nothing is quite the same.

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I always perceived in retrospect that those experiences especially our experimentation with psychedelics and peyote and such and with pot wasn't a free ride. Yes, it was gloriously good and it opened our lives to many things. Some of it turned sour for some people who overindulged in it, which is true of any substance, but the perspective we gained that Buddhists monk take maybe 20 years to achieve in deep meditation, we got in 45 minutes. And I always felt there was probably a reason for that, in the generational sense. But I don't think our whole story is finished yet, it hasn't all been played out here. There were reasons why we went through that stuff, and as I said it wasn't a free ride and there was some responsibility for that insight, but you'll hear more from us, before it's done. - Luria Castell (Rockin' At the Red Dog)

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Seeds . . . The first signs of another High starting?
- 1990 - First Burning Man at Black Rock City, Nevada (Cacaphony Society)
- summer 1996 - Kathy Jones and the Goddess Temple of Glastonbury present the first Goddess Festival in Glastonbury, England.
- October 1998 Harry Potter becomes a huge hit, a big surprise for its publishers.
- April 1999 three friends join Nipun Mehta, then working in the software industry in California, to build a website for a homeless shelter; that effort later came to be known as CharityFocus - http://charityfocus.org
- March 2007 - Glastonbury Radio goes online
Observations, Saturday, May 26, 2007:
- Bollywood: The silly playful innocence of teenyboppers, mini-skirts, Beatles, bubblegum pop music. [NEW WEALTH]
- Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow - showing up in costume for the premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean III. The moviemaker again thought pirates would be a sleeper at best.
- Jan 28th, 2008 - "During a rally at American University in Washington, DC, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Representative Patrick Kennedy, and Caroline Kennedy today endorsed Barack Obama for President. Here are the remarks of Caroline Kennedy" (born 1957, currently 51, but her children are, natch, born 1988, 1990, and1993, so now aged 20, 18, and15):
"Over the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wish they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This longing is even more profound today. Fortunately, there is one candidate who offers that same sense of hope and inspiration and I am proud to endorse Senator Barack Obama for President. I am happy that two of my own children are here with me, because they were the first people who made me realize that Barack Obama is the President we need." (John Kennedy was indeed just as idealistic and impractical, and many honored him for that. These days, with what's ahead, I prefer practical to idealistic. May 2008 I like Obama better as time goes along. If any politician can be relevant with what is coming, he just may be able to pull it off. Whatever. Don't wait for others; become a leader yourself.)

So who is turning 20 now (2008)?

2010-2021 Active period of an Adaptive generation Y (Artist) born 1990-2001 turns 20 creating a High.
Born after the end of the Cold War - Children of new prosperity and freedoms. They are playful, happy, out for a good time. Their heros are the Beats. [An Artist (or Adaptive) generation is born during a Crisis, spends its rising adult years in a High, spends midlife in an Awakening, and spends old age in an Unraveling. Artistic leaders have been advocates of fairness and the politics of inclusion, irrepressible in the wake of failure. ]

2022-2032? Active period of an Internet generation (Prophet) born 2002-2012? turns 20 creating an Awakening.
Born after the Internet, and the Middle East wars and noticeable Global Climate Change. In 2008, they are 6 years old and younger. They are the next generation that will understand what was being strived for in the sixties, and will understand what happened and push it forward. [Awakening - driven by inner zeal to become philosophers, religious pundits, and hippies. Civil order comes under attack from new values. A Prophet (or Idealist) generation is born during a High, spends its rising adult years during an Awakening, spends midlife during an Unraveling, and spends old age in a Crisis. Prophetic leaders have been cerebral and principled, summoners of human sacrifice, wagers of righteous wars. Early in life, few saw combat in uniform; late in life, most come to be revered as much for their words as for their deeds.]

All generations will get a big wakeup at the end of 2012, according to many ancient calendar systems and prophecies.

2013 The births of the next Nomad (Reactive) generation may start. [A Nomad (or Reactive) generation is born during an Awakening, spends its rising adult years during an Unraveling, spends midlife during a Crisis, and spends old age in a new High. Nomadic leaders have been cunning, hard-to-fool realists, taciturn warriors who prefer to meet problems and adversaries one-on-one.] Their period of active influence will be 2033-

You write the next page

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NOTE ON THE TIMELINE:
The generational notings in this timeline explore the possibility that generational changes follow major events that change attitudes (i.e. those born after the French revolution never experienced the situation that led to that revolution, but instead were born into a more hopeful time, with possibilities only dreamed of by their elders, and so had quite different attitudes about the possibilities of life) and how members of that new generation act as they enter their twenties, usually the first time they could have, indeed were called upon, to be actively engaged in their times. More information on "Generations" theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generations_(book)


At the age of eighty, in 1823, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration [of Independence], Jefferson wrote to Adams: "The generation which commences a revolution can rarely complete it. Habituated from their infancy to passive submission of body and mind to their kings and priests, they are not qualified, when called on, to think and provide for themselves and their experience, their ignorance and bigotry make them instruments often . . . to defeat their own . . . purposes." - Michael Ventura: Shadow Dancing in the U.S.A. (1985)

I am always delighted every time a young person shakes their head in disbelief about how poorly previous generations treated the earth. It has become a given to them that the earth must be cared for, something that could never have been different. I spent ten years heavily involved in environmental politics, and we won. Now it's just working out the details, as awesome as that task might be. And not a moment too soon.