Love beads

Abstract In this piece of creative non‐fiction, I use a countercultural artifact, love beads, to reflect on what life was like on an American countercultural commune in the 1960s and 1970s and to construct a sense of the style, visions, and hopes of the times. Not intended to be reflective of the counterculture writ large, the piece centers on one countercultural commune, its members, and their experiences. The beads take us through the beginnings of the counterculture in the mid 1960s, to the social experiments of the San Francisco Diggers, the performance politics of the Yippies, and a commune that was inspired by both.