Like Muslims in their annual pilgrimage to Mecca, or the swallows returning to Capistrano, the hippies migrated from their usual Harvard Square haunt to the Cambridge Common last Saturday for what was billed as "a happening, a gathering, an awakening."

It was the Annual Spring Cambridge Love-In.

"In society, there's not so much a love-in, is there? It's more like a survive-in," said Ish, a 33-year-old carpenter from Dorchester, who characterized the event on the Common as "a get-together for people who are looking for something--a spiritual gathering."

"People who come to this realize that there is something in them. Love is in them. It stirs them."

Whole Lot of Lovin'

Ish was one of about 100 people who gathered on the Common for frisby, free food, singing, talking, people-watching and yes, loving. Although the event was scheduled to start at noon, most people, in classic hippie style, showed up around 2 p.m. for the afternoon's festivities.

Crooning the usual mellow melodies--"Redemption Song," by Bob Marley, "Spanish Caravan," by the Doors and "Ziggy Stardust," by David Bowie--many of the participants gathered around guitarists and a flutist for a sing-a-long.

Seeking a rhythm section, they chanted, "we want drums, we want bongos, we want marijuana."

Other individuals stood around the seated group, discussing the role of the military-industrial complex in the Persian Gulf War, the practical uses of "hemp" (i.e. marijuana) and the efforts to stop the development of a Canadian hydroelectric power plant.

While small groups sat on blankets and ate picnic lunches, others took advantage of the free sandwiches and tea provided by an organization called Food Not Bombs.

Almost everyone in attendance said they felt a sense of community that they do not experience anywhere else. They lamented, however, that hippies do not come together as a community as often as they did in the past.

Yuppies vs. Hippies

Whereas at one time the get-togethers on the Cambridge Common were very large--focusing first on the Vietnam War, later shifting gears to the anti-nuclear movement--last weekend's event organizer Dana E. Franzen explained that "over the course of the 1970s, they decreased in size and eventually died out as a continual get together."

But the 34-year-old artist--who is frequently seen around the Square sporting a black top hat and smoking a Calabash pipe--said there are still lots of hippies around today. The reason they do not come together more often, Franzen said, is that the coffee houses where they once hung out left Harvard Square as commercial rents soared.

"When the yuppie trend came in, it drove out the coffee houses and turned Harvard Square into a shopping mall," Franzen explained, while hanging up a chain of cloth flags with hand-painted peace symbols.