Twenty-one years ago, a hand-made poster advertising a Healing Gathering started Seattle filmmaker Kevin Tomlinson on a journey that came full circle this year.

His new feature-length documentary, Back to the Garden: Flower Power Comes Full Circle, explores the fate of a community of back-to-the-land hippies he met and interviewed at that gathering in 1988 and then reconnected with in 2006 nearly 20 years later. Among them was Jeffrey Stonehill of Lopez Island.

Jeffrey gives Back to the Garden a tremendous perspective and levity and articulates these very timely stories to a whole new generation. Hes an island treasure who delivers many of the films best punch lines, Tomlinson said.

So where have all the flower children gone?

Find out this Friday, April 17, at 7 p.m. at the Lopez Island Community Center for a special screening. Viewers will learn about the re-emergence of the Woodstock generation still committed to love, living simply and defending the earth.

Ideas that in the ‘60s may have seemed fringe and extreme to some, but today, in the midst of a ‘green revolution,’ appear distinctly ahead of their time, Tomlinson said.

The film explores themes of environmental sustainability, living off-grid, consumerism, marijuana use, communing with fairies and the reality of growing up hippie American in rural Washington.

Filmmakers Tomlinson and his wife, co-producer Judy Kaplan, will be present at this benefit screening for the Lopez Community Center. They will introduce the film and take questions following the screening. To watch a preview of the film, visit www.backtothegardenfilm.com.