Bast:Singing, Music & Dancing (among other things) (meow_minx) wrote in history_dot_com, @ 2012-08-06 14:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | ~bast, ~thanatos |
Electric Kool-Aid [June 1967, Haight-Ashbury] (tag: Thanatos)
Bast was having the best time! It had all started in January of that year, at an event called the Be-In in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. While she hadn't had any direct influence in causing that rally, she'd certainly been in attendance. And her approval had possibly spurred what happened afterward, with the counterculture growing and spreading in the area. More and more people kept showing up in The Haight, seeking the ideas that had been put forward.
Really, Bast thought, it was about freedom: freedom to explore one’s potential, freedom to create one’s self, freedom of personal expression, freedom from scheduling, freedom from rigidly defined roles and hierarchical statuses. It was about finding one's self and being able to express that without fear of societal repercussions. Why should children have to do exactly as their parents demanded once they were old enough to make their own decisions? Why should people have to fight in a war they disagreed with? Why should a person's right to speak their mind be limited for the comfort of those who held positions of power? Why shouldn't people be free to love whomever they chose, as long as it hurt no one else, regardless of the sex of their partner? Why shouldn't women have the same freedoms as men? Why should a person be held down simply for the color of their skin?
All of those questions, but particularly those in regards to sex, race and gender equality, struck deep cords in Bast. She had always been one who encouraged people to do what felt good, what felt right, no matter what anyone else said. And here was an entire group of young people, trying to change the face of their world to make it freer. To make it better. Bast adored them for it. And not just those who were protesting peacefully here in San Francisco.
The Summer of Love was also The Long Hot Summer, a time of great unrest and unrelenting riots as people gave in to the dissatisfaction and disenfranchisement they felt. Bast absolutely believed in fighting for what she wanted, even if it meant that fight would be physical sometimes. So she understood the people that ended up venting their frustrations with violence. If she'd known what was to happen just a month later in Newark and Detroit, she might not have come west.
But how could she resist the pull of the revolution happening in California when it was packaged in song? So many talented people, artists, poets, musicians, and philosophers were gathered in the area, there was almost a perpetual buzzing in her blood from the creativity being expended. Those around her were experimenting with mind expanding drugs to open up their perception of the world around them; Bast didn't need to. With so many people feeding off of and into her power, she was feeling pretty happy most of the time as it was. Which didn't stop her from occasionally indulging with friends anyway.
She'd been spending time with great bands like Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Grateful Dead, and Big Brother and the Holding Company. They lived in the area, and with this concert coming up in Montery that was going to happen soon, others would be joining them: The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Otis Redding. Many more were invited. And it was coming on the tails of a smaller event, the Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival, had happened just weeks prior, so certainly some of those acts would be joining in as well.
Bast was loving it. The attitude, the music, the culture, all of it. She'd just left the Jeffrey-Haight, the large Victorian house that had been turned into the Jefferson Hotel where she was staying, and she was headed for the All Saints Church. There was a Free Bakery in the basement there, and Bast was hoping to grab some Digger Bread for a dinner tonight with Janis Joplin and the rest of the Big Brother and the Holding Company band. There was something really tasty about the whole wheat bread that was baked in coffee cans; Pearl liked it, and Bast loved Pearl, so she was bringing it tonight. She always gave a small donation, that somehow turned into a hefty one once it was in the collection box. It was only free to the recipients, it still took somebody donating time, money or materials to pull off the great Free Stores the Diggers were organizing.
She strolled down Haight Street, stopping to praise a few street performers and offer greetings to those that she saw regularly. Then she cut down one block on Ashbury Street to get to Waller Street, where the church was located. As she rounded the corner, Bast literally ran into somebody. Or he ran into her. It was a little hard to tell. But given her good mood, and the general feeling permeating the whole area, Bast responded with the sort of greeting that was typical these days.
Giving the man a hug and a kiss on the cheek, she said, “Peace, brother.”
It was only as her lips touched his skin that she realized that the tingle she was getting wasn't just from the musical energy in The Haight. It was from him. He wasn't mortal. Which made her greeting that much more appropriate, she decided with a grin. A fellow deity was far closer to being a brother than some random mortal man. Bast felt the need to ask, “So who are you? What are you? Greek? I'm betting on Greek. I'm Egyptian. Bast.”
She didn't elaborate on her patronage. Bast felt her name should be explanation enough.