Stay Wild Flower Child: How to Be a Hippie

By Arielle Kelly

If you have the soul of a hippie and wish you were born in the 1960s, then this book is for you. It guides you gently into hippie ways of thinking, sharing, and living, keeping you closer to nature and encouraging you to live a kinder and more beautiful life. Never fear; the hippies are still here, and you can be one of them. Stay wild, flower child, and be a hippie! Peace and love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: May 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543400779

Arielle Kelly

ARIELLE KELLY is a poet, author and activist who lives in Sydney, Australia with her extended family. She loves singing, dancing and cooking and she has a deep love for nature and animals. She likes to meditate and to embark upon adventures in consciousness leading to peace, knowledge and enlightenment. She currently works as a volunteer biographer for people who are fi ghting life threatening illnesses and those in palliative care.

Book preview

Prologue

How I Found My Tribe

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I walked into the theatre for the Saturday afternoon performance. The air smelled thick with a sweet incense that pervaded everything, and the room was dim and smoky. It was like stepping into another world, and it made me catch my breath because it was so unexpected! I could hear the sound of tinkling bells and soft chanting, like a hum. It gave me chills and filled my soul with a strange kind of magic I had never felt before.

It was June 1969, in Sydney Australia, and I was 16 years old when I took my seat for Hair – The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical!

Suddenly, from the back of the theatre, lots of cool, hippie-looking members of the ‘Tribe’ began to move through the audience, like in slow motion, dancing towards the stage. They boldly jumped up on the backs of seats on their way down the aisles. One of them spontaneously sat on my lap and stroked my hair. It was crazy and unpredictable. When they all reached the stage they celebrated in song about being free and about the dawning of The Age of Aquarius and after two hours of irreverent cheekiness, free spirits, long hair, bare feet and free love, I was changed forever.

Yes, I had found My Tribe.

Chapter 1

A Hippie Manifesto:

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Be here, now.

Live and let live.

Don’t be uptight.

Go with the flow.

Don’t push the river.

Keep an open mind and an open heart.

Live in the moment.

Be comfortable in your own skin.

Speak words of kindness and love.

Be gentle with yourself and others.

Try not to cause pain or sorrow.

Respect what is natural and beautiful.

Preserve it.

Go green

Go off grid

Rewild

Speak from your heart.

Be a devotee of beauty in all its forms.

Spread peace and love.

Have empathy and compassion.

Love freely and wisely.

Don’t leave any unfinished business…

Forgive and move on.

‘I do my thing, and you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful.’

~ Frederick E. Perl

Chapter 2

Hippies Have Inner Peace

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P eace is an inside job. It’s also a habit, just like worry, or anger or criticism.

Peace is the serenity of the soul, born of self-reflection and self-acceptance. Peace is the ability to let go and go within, to find and to commune with your soul.

Peace is the ability to be still in your center, remaining calm, even in the center of a storm.

Peace is the breath, rising and falling, like the ocean tides.

Through peaceful reflection and contemplation we can discover what is real and therefore what is of true value.

We can find in our authentic self a calm and peaceful place of love and acceptance. We no longer fight what is, or what was. We no longer struggle with who we are, or how other people see us.

When we become fully accountable to ourselves, and have the self-realization not to