Woodstock Nation

Maybe it's Cindy Sheehan's peace vigil, maybe it's the war, maybe I'm just feeling nostalgic but I'm in a 60s kind of mood today. On this day in 1969, Woodstock opened its gates to what would become the defining moment of a generation. The theme song of that event still resonates with meaning appropriate to our current morass.

I came upon a child of God
walking down the road
I asked him, where are you going?
And this he told me

He said I'm going down to Yasgur's Farm,
Just join in a rock and roll band.
Get back to the land and set my soul free.

(He said) we are stardust, we are golden,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

So can I walk beside you?
I've come here to lose the smog,
I feel like I'm a cog in something turning round and round.

Maybe it's just the time of year,
Maybe it's the time of man.
I don't know who I am,
But life is for learning.

(And then)we are stardust, we are golden,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

We are stardust, we are golden,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

By the time we got to Woodstock,
We were half a million strong
Everywhere you look there was a song and hope and a celebration.

And I dreamed I saw the bomber death planes
Riding shotgun in the sky,
Turning into butterflies
Above our nation.

We are stardust, we are golden,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

We are stardust, we are a billion year old carbon,
we are golden,
We just got caught up in some devil's bargain
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

To some semblance of a garden.

Thirty six years ago my generation came together in harmony and helped to end a wrongheaded war and built a movement for peace among nations. Here's hoping Cindy Sheehan's courage can continue to inspire us to do it again.