Naked in the Woods: My Unexpected Years in a Hippie Commune

by Margaret Grundstein

In 1970, Margaret Grundstein abandoned her graduate degree at Yale and followed her husband, an Indonesian prince and community activist, to a commune in the backwoods of Oregon. Together with ten friends and an ever-changing mix of strangers, they began to build their vision of utopia.

Naked in the Woods chronicles Grundstein’s shift from reluctant hippie to committed utopian—sacrificing phones, electricity, and running water to live on 160 acres of remote forest with nothing but a drafty cabin and each other.  Grundstein, (whose husband left, seduced by “freer love”) faced tough choices. Could she make it as a single woman in man’s country? Did she still want to? How committed was she to her new life? Although she reveled in the shared transcendence of communal life deep in the natural world, disillusionment slowly eroded the dream. Brotherhood frayed when food became scarce. Rifts formed over land ownership. Dogma and reality clashed.

Many people, baby boomers and millennials alike, have romantic notions about the 1960s and 70s. Grundstein’s vivid account offers an unflinching, authentic portrait of this iconic and often misreported time in American history. Accompanied by a collection of distinctive photographs she took at the time, Naked in the Woods draws readers into a period of convulsive social change and raises timeless how far must we venture to find the meaning we seek, and is it ever far out enough to escape our ingrained human nature?

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir

224 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2014

Reviews

[SLT · Rating 5 out of 5]

At least once a week, and sometimes more, I think about running away. Granted, I don’t usually get too far into the specifics. But I do wonder, abstractly, what that would actually look like. Just going completely off the grid. No more career, no more fixed responsibilities, no more technology, or even electricity. Well that is precisely what Margaret Grundstein did, which she describes in delightful detail in her memoir Naked in the Woods: My Unexpected Years in a Hippie Commune.

I don’t know who you picture when you think about hippies. Burnouts, maybe. Freeloaders. Potheads. But Grundstein was none of these things. A graduate student at Yale, her “running away” was done for philosophical reasons, not out of laziness or lack of ambition. The late 1960’s/early 1970’s were tumultuous times, and Grundstein and her cohorts were in search of a better way. These were talented, intelligent people, in truth not running away from anything, but running to something, creating a utopia, setting an example, essentially being the change the crazy and controlling and “straight” world did not provide.

Grundstein is so down to earth, reading her book feels like a casual conversation with a dear and enlightening friend, albeit with an amazing story to tell. Sure, sometimes her thinly veiled intellect shows through, when, for example, she casually drops a word like postprandial (p. 82) (adjective- 1. during or relating to the period after dinner or lunch we were jolted from our postprandial torpor; 2. occurring after a meal). A polysyllabic word lover myself, I certainly don’t mind.

Her story is captivating and funny, but also offers an unflinching look at the difficulties Grundstein and her group faced. Peace and love and sharing are all excellent as concepts, but there are certain unavoidable realities that, even “in the woods,” cannot be escaped completely. Money never becomes a total non-necessity. And even the most devout hippies are human, prone to the same impulses and imperfections we all are; exposure to the elements and lack of food and stability (and yes, occasionally, even some mood/reality-altering substances) often pushed personality differences up to and beyond the boiling point. Is Utopia possible in contemporary society, or even a few steps removed? You’ll have to read the book to find out.

I think a lot of the ideas that drove people like Grundstein to so completely abandon the “normal” path of education and career and taxes and mortgages have come full circle. Wasn’t the point of technology to make life more efficient, freeing up more time for what we want to do? To soul search, be one with nature, have more meaningful connections with people, more meaningful relationships? To help people? To take care of those who can’t take care of themselves? And what have we done with it? We use the efficiency technology has created to work more, to spend more time grinding, not even just the 9 to 5 the hippie culture bristled against, but an almost 24/7 work cycle. Why?!?!?

Have things really changed that much since the ’70s? Did groups like Grundsteins’ make a difference? Are millennials contemporary hippies? Hipsters? Did hippie culture mark the true beginning of the “tiny house” movement?

In maybe my favorite part of the book, Grundstein describes a point where she offers, almost in passing, “not that any of us still had a watch, as time had lost all meaning.” (p. 98). Can you imagine that? And does the idea scare you or invigorate you? Admit that at least a part of you wants to take off your watch (and maybe more), head for the hills, and never look back.

Naked in the Woods is informative, entertaining, but above all thought-provoking. Whether we lived through that period or have only seen it fictionally portrayed in movies or literature, I think all of us have some fascination with the offbeat, enticing world of hippie culture. Grundstein here gives us an inside look at what it was really all about, and I am thankful to her for that.

Check it out!

- See more at: http://dunceacademy.com/3644/naked-in...

[L.K. Simonds · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the Preface: "Memory is elusive. To conjure this book I slid down the rabbit hole of my past following the imperative "write me." Large fragments of time calved off my daily life, to be spent in the alternate universe of my memory."

Ms. Grundstein had me at "Large fragments of time calved off my daily life..." This is a captivating memoir of a Yale graduate, her activist husband, and their friends taking up communal living. The book was a fascinating look at daily life on 160 acres of undeveloped land along Floras Creek in Oregon, which became a crucible for the members of this group while they were there. They were cocooned by their physical situation and their ideology. A few, including Ms. Grundstein, had almost no resources (a fact that eventually drove her out of the commune to search for work). Others had personal resources from their previous lives. All had somewhere else they could have been, and been living much more comfortably. There was much to take away from these young people's choices and they way they lived together.

The editing appeared to be a little uneven in places, but overall this was a great read for anyone interested in a look inside the counterculture of the late 60s, early 70s. I thoroughly enjoyed it and found myself thinking about it quite a lot after I was finished.

[Jim Nail · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the best books I’ve read on the subject, Naked in the Woods is Margaret Grundstein’s first-hand account of a seminal period in her life during the early 70s, leaving the academia of Yale University to follow her husband to a backwoods hippie commune on the Oregon coast. Everything here feels genuine. Grundstein doesn’t follow the artificial rules of fiction. If a gun appears in Act One, that doesn’t mean it’s going to go off in Act Three. Instead, as in real life, the surprises are actually surprising. Betrayals and freak-outs come out of the blue. The cast of characters constantly shifts as communards burn out and escape for the city new ones arrive wide-eyed with curiosity.
One of the reasons I think Grundstein is able to keep her story cohesive is the fact that she stayed sober. After some initial unsettling experiments with LSD, she quit drugs entirely, while all around her cannabis and psychedelics remained the sacraments that kept the vision alive.
While not a diatribe, the book is steeped in feminism, exposing the male chauvinism rampant in the early days of hippie culture. This is most aptly chronicled when the women gather to create a garden to nourish the community. Grundstein writes: “That garden, my first, was as beautiful to me as any child is to its mother… But where were the men? What did those guys do all day? The answer was dope. Wherever and however they could. That was what they planted in their garden.”
These words convict me. I was a man in those days. I recognize myself in this narrative. And I have grown and changed. While the alternative movements of the 60s and early 70s may have collapsed into the violence of Altamont and the Weathermen, or been assimilated into today’s consumer culture, Grundstein informs us in her prologue: “We lived an adventure, changed ourselves, and left our legacy. The evening news covers a black president in the oval office instead of sit-ins at the Woolworth’s lunch counter. Women run multinational corporations and are on the cusp of running our country. Sexual freedom, gender identity, gay marriage, environmentalism, alternative health care, and the politics of food are part of the national dialogue. Organic is big business. Weed is medicinal.”
Thank you Margaret. I read your book to gather mood and detail for a novel I am writing set in the same era. I came away with so much more.

[Wendy Wagner · Rating 4 out of 5]

An honest story of the incredibly messy and difficult realities of the back-to-the-land movement.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here’s what the author wrote about communes: “Love one another is a great concept until you try it, especially in tight quarters with no exit from annoying habits or character flaws.” No kidding. And when the author's Indonesian husband invites his brother to come for a visit, the brother looks around and says, "If you wanted to live in third-world squalor, why didn't you just stay in Indonesia?

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a trip down memory lane! Margaret Grundstein skillfully captures so many details of the early 70's back to the land experience in Coastal Oregon and North Coast California. So many of her vignettes resonated with me- getting accepted to and dropping out of top rank colleges, leaving the real world where the Vietnam War and its protests were always front of mind, figuring out how to kill a chicken, driving a 1940's era chevy, getting goats and giving up on goats, finding a visit to the parental home in Ohio was too stuffy and hot to sleep, trying farm labor and realizing it was really hard work (I lasted weeks rather than a few days), cone picking for a little cash*, living surrounded by marijuana growing and smoking but not into it yourself, deconstructing older structures to get materials for a cabin, rotating groups of visitors, and a husband who used that opportunity to move on to someone else.

*Grundstein refers to the cones as pine cones and believed the seeds were to be sold as pine nuts, but they would have been Douglas fir cones as there were no pine trees anywhere near Greenleaf Oregon. There was a market for fir cones. Some years you could make good money for a few weeks gathering cones. The seeds were used by nurseries to grown fir seedling to plant after logging. Most folks coming from eastern states refer to all conifers as pine trees so she probably was told the wrong name and made assumptions based on that. I was surprised that her editor at Oregon State press did not pick up on this error.

[Rogue Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Personal narrative of bad choices and good times in an intentional community west of Eugene, Oregon towards the coast. About 5 years in the community before disenchantment and discord set in related to property ownership. Who's in charge here syndrome. Took her 40 years to forgive.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the author and found this book fascinating. The only reason I didn’t give it 5 stars is sometimes it felt rushed and did not get as detailed as I would like. I also read her commune cohabitant Carols memoir called Hippie woman wild which was also a very good read.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very easy and interesting read about the author’s experiences in a hippie commune, and all the challenges and excitement that came with it.

[Andy Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nicely written memoir of the author and fellow Yale graduate students moving to Oregon in the late sixties to start a commune. Unlike too many books of this era, "Naked in the Woods" does not mock or attack the time nor does it overly romanticize it. Instead it is a straight forward narrative that tells the positives of the experience such as the deep friendships, the sharing, the excitement of pioneering a new lifestyle including living off the land while also telling the negatives such as guilt about using food stamps and food giveaways to subsidize their lifestyle, the eventual tensions over money, work sharing, and sex.
There are great scenes on the realities of the back to earth lifestyle, taking eggs away from free range chickens and eventually butchering them to eat, acknowledging the ethical tradeoffs given their values--or when foreign students came to visit and instantly commented....if you wanted to live third world lifestyle, you can come and visit us. The author is frank about the nudity that while it became somewhat commonplace within the commune family, she would feel awkward when someone outside the commune would unexpectedly visit--the author is at her best when she acknowledges the different tensions

Another advantage to this memoir is the short epilogue at the end that updates the lives of the commune members in the 40 years after they left, perhaps surprisingly two of the couples were still together 40 years later, and while they entered some conventional lives, for the past part they all kept some of the values and aspects of their lives from the commune

[Jan Cherubin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Margaret Grundstein's Naked in the Woods is a loving yet unsentimental portrait of a place and time in history of change and experimentation. Grundstein was on the front lines in the Sixties, living the utopian dream on a hippie commune in Oregon. She writes with the sharp eye of a photographer and the analytical mind of the urban planning student she was when she left East Coast academia for the forest. The photographs she took at the time illustrate the book beautifully. How could she and her band of friends, all twenty-somethings, live for over five years without electricity or plumbing or the support of their families or elders of any kind, isolated by miles of dirt roads deep in the woods? Grundstein tells us how. They chopped the wood to build the fire to heat the water to boil the diapers. They practiced free love and scavenged for free food and plowed the fields and slaughtered the chickens and often went hungry. Rural living set back the clock for women in many ways. It also taught the women of the commune how to survive. Grundstein writes with candor about the ethical dilemmas she and the others faced over the years. It's a fantastic, mind-blowing story told with direct, confident style, well-written, and ultimately universal.

[Mary Lou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Naked in the Woods ... is a quick, informative read that explains Grundstein's reasons for dropping out of and back into society. She begins her memoir saying, "In 1969, I was part of a group of radicals at Yale University trying to create a community where we could live in peace and innocence" (1) and in the next two hundred plus pages, she explains what the group did.

Grundstein concludes in the "Epilogue," "When I left, I thought I would return. What I didn't really was that we, the self-chosen people, were on the cusp of a diaspora" (209).

In between those statements, Grundstein shows photos she took and tells stories about how the group worked and lived and about the differences in male and female roles. Although it is no surprise to learn that a lack of money and ways to get it as well as in surmountable issues about personal and familial rights undermined the effort, it is interesting to read about how the group innovated, improvised and bonded.

[Rhonda Gilmour · Rating 4 out of 5]

I happened upon this book in an indie book shop in Cannon Beach, OR. Gotta support our indie booksellers, right? This was a very interesting read. Grundstein was an anomaly: she stayed sober throughout her years on a hippie commune in the Oregon woods. This clarity no doubt helped her to write this sharp, detailed recollection of that time. I enjoyed meeting her merry band of dropouts--some idealistic, some sinister, some mad--who came together for a time to establish their own community, discard what they saw as outdated rules, live close to nature. The results were sometimes sweet and touching, sometimes destructive, but always interesting.

[Kate Belt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great job of describing the challenges and tensions that arose during the author's 5 years or so of communal living in western Oregon. I think she was fair and tried to represent the various points of view of the members without being overly judgmental. I appreciated how she succinctly summarized the history of those years in the 1960's and early 1970's that drove my generation of baby boomers to seek different values and ways of life. She wonderfully describes the land and beauty of western Oregon.

[Bookcat88 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a page turner! The author presents an intriguing and engaging memoir of her counterculture experience of communal living in Oregon in the 1970's. The story is rich with interesting people, relationships, and the imagery of day-to-day life in a hippie commune. A well told story and very satisfying read.

[NYBookDragon]

Not the best that I read on the subject, but a good read.