Excerpt:
Messenger from the Summer of Love
by David Echt
It's been
over thirty years now since that fateful summer, The Summer
of Love. Like everyone else who lived through that time, my
life has gone on. The extraordinary events I witnessed then
seem almost like a dream. I never expected anyone to believe
me, so for over thirty years I've maintained my silence.
After years
of wandering from place to place, I now live in Boulder Colorado,
at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. I've lived all over the
country and traveled from coast to coast, from New York to Los
Angeles, always anxious of talking about what I know of the
past and what I know about a possible future. A day hasn't gone
by that I haven't thought about it. And now those of my generation
are growing older, and we need to pass on a legacy. I don't
want time to forget how we dared to love. It's in the shade
of these majestic mountains that I've found the silence to write.
Once a
year, the town of Boulder celebrates the coming of summer with
the Boulder Creek Festival. It's a huge outdoor event set along
the lush, tree-lined Boulder Creek. It's clearly the biggest
event of the year, and the whole town turns out for it. This
year there were hundreds of booths with arts and crafts and
plenty of great food and drink. There was an impressive array
of ethnic dancing from all over the world but I came for the
music and spirit. It makes me a little nostalgic for that time
in the sixties, but the feeling of unity that I so fondly reminisce
is unfortunately gone. People are afraid now. Afraid to let
their children play, afraid of how people will react if they
smile at a stranger and afraid to be children. We've lost something
precious. I fear we've become afraid to love. As I watched the
crowds pushing past me, I wondered, what happened? What happened
to the dream?
There were
so many people at the festival that it was hard to walk through
the crowd. I found myself having to weave my way around to avoid
running into people. There were people pushing strollers, some
walking their dogs. And some not paying any attention at all
and bumping into each other among the throngs. Although pleasant,
it was chaotic and, at times, overwhelming. I stopped for a
moment to get my perspective, and for just that moment, it looked
like the crowd parted right before me.
Then I
saw him!
The Master
was standing right there. He looked radiant, bathed in golden
light. He looked exactly as he did over thirty years ago: a
young, handsome man, with curly blond hair and porcelain clear
complexion. Ethereal yet very real at the same time. He hadn't
aged a day since I last saw him. It felt as if time had stopped.
There was a familiar stillness in the air that I remember from
thirty years ago.
He looked
right at me and smiled. A feeling of pure divine bliss enveloped
my being; it felt as if it came from inside of me and from all
around me at the same time. I was re-awakened by his presence.
The Master once told me that what he does is awaken the light
that's already there within you. I was almost too overwhelmed
to move. It was like he had cleansed me of thirty years of residue
from living on the Earth. I wanted to rush over to him, but
as soon as that thought entered my mind, the crowd closed again,
like the Red Sea. I looked all around, but he was gone. I knew
I wouldn't find him.
Once more,
the crowd was a sea of moving people going about their business.
I could feel the warm sunlight against my skin and the sounds
of talking and laughter returned to my ears, yet the blissful
feeling of his emanation remained.
I walked
over to a bench and sat down. I was in a state of utter amazement,
yet sad because I couldn't find him. I put my head down in despair.
Sitting right in front of my feet was a card maybe 4 x 6 inches
in size. In large black print, it read, "It's time!"
A few weeks
later I had a dream. In the dream, I was sitting on the white
sandy banks of a desert river. It was warm and dry. I could
see desert shrubs along the distance of the river. I looked
over to my left, and the Master was sitting there. He looked
at me with his eyes piercing my awareness and simply said, "It's
time now."
I felt
completely content sitting in the bliss of his presence. With
a look of great compassion he said, "I want you to tell
the world what happened." Then he reached out and gently
touched my forehead between my eyebrows and just above, touching
my third eye. I closed my eyes; from the point of his touch,
I saw white light enter my body. It filled me with a gentle
feeling of divine love. I awoke smiling.
I knew
then what I had to do. I had to write this book. I immediately
went down to my basement and found the old wooden chest where
I kept all of my notes from thirty years earlier. I must have
had a hundred old spiral-bound steno pads. It was a little like
unearthing a time capsule. In addition to all of my original
notes, I kept some other artifacts in the box: my old desert
boots that I had painted in psychedelic colors, some beads I
used to wear and a small round stone that the Master had once
given me.
I felt
it was time to sit down and meditate and let the light guide
me to tell you the truth about the Summer of Love.