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alt.gathering.rainbow |
There had been not as many people as usual arriving at the gathering Some more groups of Christians appeared next to Bread of Life, and Further up the hill was a line of trees that set off a higher meadow on The built a wooden stockade wall across an opening in the trees that Then I walked in side to the meadow seating area that sloped up the I wanted to see their Gong Show in the evening of the 3rd, but there More kitchens appeared on the hill sloping down from Info and Trade Across the extension of Main Meadow on the side where the trail entered On the 30th we finally succeeded in getting the rest of the Guides up Then Patch told me that three were still in a tent by the inner Welcome We gave out the rest of the Guides at Info mostly to people who came up Shortly before three on the third I went up to Kid Village and looked Over the course of the whole gathering I observed some trends: There were more people going nude than the last two years, and there It wasn't until July 3rd that I finally saw someone doing that joke of There were more "kid kitchens", staffed by people under the age of 30 And some of the kid kitchen people took to the game of stealing banners A lingering memory is one youthful female voice at Nut N 2 Eat The only poles in erected in Main meadow were a set of slender branches On the morning of the fourth, I came to the circle and saw a wooden A large circle of people started to form up near the trees, but it was As the sun approached the meridian, the Om started spontaneously from The kids finally made it to the circle, and then an Om commenced that Once again, as at Oregon in '97, the Om was shushed. I talked with a By the 7th I was in a state of cumulative fatigue, and not in too gung It was sometimes slow going thru the traffic and the parking-narrowed Thus ended my stay at the Hard Walking Gathering. As water flows around (The story ends here, but the gatherings and my involvement in them
during the days of uncertainty following the blockade attempt, but
there was a surge of new arrivals starting about the 27th, and along
the whole length of Main Trail the spaces between the first kitchens
filled in. A second welcome home straddled the trail in a small clump
of trees, a little after Nut N 2 Eat, with hanging cloth banners
bearing the Raps. Simply Wonderful appeared in the stretch between
Early Bird and Nick at Night, and Jerusalem Kosher Kitchen was nearby,
at the place where a trail led up a hill that I was told Purple Gang
and Lovin' Oven were up there, but I never got up the ambition to
climb.
across the meadow from them was Jesus Camp, which had food that was not
glamorous (mostly oatmeal and rice), but they were the most consistent
and reliable source of food. If you went there twixt 10:30 and sunset,
they always had at least something.
a plateau behind, and four kitchens set up there. One of them was
Granola Funk, and they did their usual elaborate constructions, in this
site with unusually abundant dry timber.
with a gate that had a miniature covered bridge with windows over it.
To the right was a tarp roofed shed with a counter in front. I thought
for a minute I had stepped into a time/space warp and walked into a
certain place at the Oklahoma Renaissance Faire.
hill, and saw the pirate ship, and the minute lasted a little longer.
They framed out a hull with slender logs, and put more logs across the
top to make a deck, then they made a poop deck over the stern. The
spaces between the timbers were filled in with brown construction paper
onto which they had drawn outlines of planks with black felt tip pens.
There was a main mast with a square sail of canvas, a mast behind with
a lateen sail, and a large jib going down to a bowsprit. It had rope
rigging that showed some understanding of how it works. I got reminded
that I was at the Rainbow Gathering and not the ren fair when I looked
thru a door in the side of the hull and saw a tapestry of Ganesha, the
elephant-headed Hindu god, staring back at me.
was some banking business that kept me at Info until it was dark. I
walked thru the gate, saw a bunch of people climbing the sides of the
ship amid much yelling, and people three deep three and four deep in
front of the seating area beyond, which was totally covered with more
people. I gave up after about 15 minutes and left. On the fourth, we
thought there wasn't going to be a Dinner Circle (turned out there
was), I didn't have to run the Hat, and I was able to get over there
about an hour before sunset, and I staked out a place to sit right next
the log that defined the front of the stage. Then came their usual
excellent Talent Show of musicians, comedians, storytellers, poets, and
even acrobatic rope climbers, year after year one of the best things at
the gathering.
Circle. A place that called itself Paonia Peace Kitchen (PPK) had a lot
of the crew that is usually found in Rainbow Crystal Kitchen, but Marty
Heartsong replaced Gary as ogre. I was told that Gary set up a soup
kettle somewhere on a side of the road coming in, outside of the limits
of the National Forest.
The Krishna devotees with the cookies set up their kitchen and kirtan
tent at the edge of the trees by the stream meadow, and wherever I was
at the gathering there would soon be a person with a white 5-gallon
bucket coming around asking, "Would you like some Krishna cookies?"
the trees by the stream, there appeared the huge circular tan tent that
Greg Sherrill calls a "yurt" on the right side and to the left a
composite Krishna camp was set up, with devotees from several different
ashrams, on the left. They did a lot of other Sanskrit songs besides
the Hare Krishna, and they sometimes allowed non-devotees to play the
harmonium and lead the chanting, including women. This made for some
moments of unusual creativity.
to Info. I had wheeled two of the boxes back up the day I moved my van.
I got permission from Marken to give Patch (rastapatch on a.g.r.) the
combination to the lock on the Northwest Tribes trailer, and he was
able to enlist other people to get all but one up to Info. Two boxes
arrived at Info a quarter full. As they were being carried up the trail
people were coming up and asking for them and they were being passed
out. A third box I could only surmise was passed out completely. This
was fine in that they were getting distributed, but no donations were
going into the can as people were getting them.
Home. So the next morning I went down with the supposedly brand new
four wheeled wagon that Marken had bought for Info. One box Patch told
me he had left with "some focalizers" in Handi-Camp. I discovered it
still sitting in the parking lot almost full, and took it back to my
van, saving it and the half-full open one for the requests for Guides
that I will be getting all winter. I loaded the three from the tent
onto the wagon, and shortly after starting a young brother and sister
offered to help me push it and keep it from tipping over on the bumpy
ground. But shortly before Shut Up and Eat It the hinge pin in front
broke. So I went back up to Info and fetched the dolly and got them the
rest of the way in. Marken surveyed the wreckage and stashed it
temporarily at Shut Up and Eat It. It was made in China.
and asked for one, and the donation bucket brought in $875. This made
up for all the money I spent in Denver, but didn't leave too much
capital for next year.
for another trail that I was told led to Instant Soup. I found a sign
that directed me onto a path that led down to a stream and a spring
head, but no kitchen. So I never succeeded in getting to the a.g.r.
meeting.
was an explosion on the fourth. The weather was usually cold enough
that I wanted to have clothes on most of the time, but there were a few
sunny times in the afternoon, and on the morning of the fourth.
tying a dope pipe to a string then tying that to a stick and holding it
all like it was a fishing pole. The humor in this seems to be finally
wearing off.
and clad in jeans and cargo pants in black, brown, olive drab, and
denim blue, and not too many rainbow tiedyes and granny skirts. And no
religious exercises of serenity for them. Rather than being repulsed by
"agro energy", a lot of them seem to revel in it, raising it to a point
of high comedy and creativity. I would hear a lot of people yelling at
each other and calling each other nasty names and think it was shanti
sena time, then I would see the smiles on some of their faces and
realize that they were doing if all for fun. And their kitchens don't
have names like Lovin' Oven or Warriors of the Light, but imperatives
like Shut Up and Eat It and Quit Your Bitchin.
and flags in a manner that was hard for other gatherers to understand
or tolerate. Some of the people involved in this called themselves
"pirates", and said "Ar-r-r" and carried on with other Renaissance
faire pirate antics. One morning an older brother came upon a person
who had been tied and duck taped to a tree, and he came rushing in to
rescue him with an opened penknife and came close to cutting skin when
he tried to cut the tape, resulting in shanti sena being called on his
attempt at shanti sena. It turned out that that it had been part of the
agreed upon "rules" of the game that if someone got caught, the
intended victims could retaliate like this, waiting an hour or so
before setting him free. One of the kids said, "We were giving him
drinks of water and hits off of smokes all the time he was there."
hollering into the night, "FREE FOOD IN THE WOODS. COME EAT OUR
SHIT!!!"
in a pattern that indicated the four compass directions. The point at
the middle of the meadow was left to the grass. On the morning of the
third, I looked down from Info and saw two men digging a pit in the
center. Soon there was a small crowd of people who had seen them and
walked down. After seeing them talk for awhile, I saw one of the men
fill it back up. Two different totem-carved poles were erected next to
each other at the beginning of the upslope maybe a hundred feet from
the center. Some more poles appeared up near the trees on the meadow
slope above.
walking stick with rope decorations standing in the middle of the
circle. I then saw it jiggle a little, and realized that it was being
held by a man lying on his stomach. I wondered if this was somebody's
last stand I was seeing here. But after an hour or so he apparently got
tired, and left the center unoccupied again. There was a little circle
of stones laid down around it, and on these the usual silent meditation
array of pictures, Tibetan prayer flags, crystals feathers, and
talismans were laid.
never completed because of the riparian areas near the stream. A
smaller set of concentric circles formed near the center. There were
people going around with cardboard signs saying "Please hold the
silence until the Children's Parade has entered the circle.
several points, and from other points other people started saying,
"Sh-h-h". This cycle of Om and shush repeated a few times. I kept
looking up the hill toward Kid Village looking for any sign that the
kids were on the move, and kept seeing nothing that really looked like
it. Then it started to feel like a competition between the Omers and
the shushers, and there were even a few words of joking said. Finally
there was a stretch of silence that felt to me as awkward as one on a
date.
was not shushed, but the parade walked around inside the circle with
drums and noise makers. The Om sputtered for a while amidst the
cacophony, then it died out.
few other people who agreed with me that the interjection of the
children's parade totally ruined the Om. I pointed out how intense it
had been at Michigan when there was no children's parade at all (Kid
Village then was at the opposite end of the gathering from Main
Circle). A few days later I met Felipe on the trail and told him how I
felt, and before I was finished talking Lynn there by his side was
nodding her head. She said she didn't like the shushing either. I
suggesting just let the beginning of the parade and the beginning of
the Om be determined by this thing we are all Oming to.
ho a mood. I attended about two hours of Vision Council, but finally
had my patience worn out by a longiloquitor who hung on to the feather.
It was about two in the afternoon, and I just wanted to pull the face
curtain and eject, and get back to Babs and baths and all the food I
wanted. I packed up the last load and walked it down, saying goodbye
only to those who saw me on the trail and said it first. I left at
about four, which I normally consider the lousiest time to leave a
gathering in terms of people asking me for things and cops wanting to
see other things on my way out.
roads, and I was in a long procession of cars as I went south on Hwy.
129. I saw a car being searched as I was going past a gas station, and
saw red and blue lights of top of other vehicles going by. I didn't
start feeling safe until I had made it to the main drag of Steamboat
Springs.
rocks in its path, so did the gathering advance around an incredible
number of obstacles thrown up by the Incident Command team of Forest
Service Law Enforcement. The slogan that I had seen on some signs
around the gathering: "Peace Wins", turned out to be true, altho there
were many times when peace was very difficult to maintain and sometimes
beyond the capability of a few individuals. But the spirit of peace and
its methods of nonviolence did finally prevail, and so did the
gathering over all that tried to stop it.
remain,
to be continued)