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Back to Seed Camp Journal: Notes from the 1999 Pennsylvania Rainbow Gathering

1998 Arizona Rainbow Gathering: A Photo Essay

by John Tarleton
July 1998

SITGREAVES NATIONAL FOREST, ARIZONA--The sound of drums—tunka-tunka-TUNKA-tunka— echoing across a moonlit meadow. Lithe, sweaty bodies undulating closer and closer to a blazing fire. Soft Earth underfoot. Following unmarked trails further into the forest that is home to the 27th Annual Gathering of the Tribes of the Rainbow Family of Living Light; a silhouetted face occasionally illuminated by a passing flashlight; the scent of dry pine needles fills the lungs.

Crowds of people mill around in front of one of the dozens of makeshift kitchens that have recently sprung up throughout the forest. Dusty and unwashed, their movements are free and easy and their voices at once gay and earnest. The stifling superficiality of "Babylon" seems far removed to these merry, mischievous inhabitants of a modern-day Sherwood Forest. In the abundance of their smiles, one can catch a first glimpse of a Utopian future.

"Hey brothers and sisters, can anyone get the bakers baked?" A shaggy young man with thick dreds calls out from behind the kitchen railing. There won't be any zu-zus or wham-whams coming out of the homemade ovens for another half-hour. Keep on drifting down the trail.

Drop in on a more subdued kitchen where a few volunteers sit around on buckets speaking in quiet voices. They have fed hundreds through the course of the day and now relish the chance to relax. A 74 year-old grandmother recalls traveling to the first Rainbow Gathering in Granby, Colorado in 1972 in her yellow VW bus, picking up seven hitchhikers along the way, "People warned me it was dangerous, but I figured why else would someone be standing on the side of the road unless they needed help?"

A young, single mother from Mississippi with a sweet, gracious Southern accent picks up a guitar and plays it with the wise confidence of someone who has endured more than her years would indicate.

"I'm here to git my yah-yahs out," she says.

In the midst of much scruffiness, she still manages to look neat and petite; a light blue bandana is wrapped around her forehead. Someone asks her if she plays gigs in public. "People have told me I should do it," she replies. "But I'm pretty shy. I guess I'd rather do it for the love of it."

Good Morning Rainbow

The drumbeats die out at dawn as the first, bleary-eyed campers stir from their tents to start fires for boiling coffee. The boogie pit now looks like a bomb crater—the last, smoldering embers still giving off heat while young revelers lay sprawled out in the dust; one man's hair singed by the fire he passed out next to, a night (or several nights) of ecstasy giving way at last to catatonic sleep. Wandering over to Lake Carnero where the placid waters shimmer beneath scattered, pinkish-orange clouds. An occasional skinny-dipper dives boldly in amidst the water reeds that line the edge of the lake. "Eeeeoooowwwww!..."

The Little Ones are already playing at Kiddie Village. Every day is a chance to make new friends; to run around and be free. Kiddie Village is a child-care center without walls. The only kind of things you can get into trouble for are hitting and not sharing. Big People are welcome to come by anytime.

Felipe has focalized it for years. He and his wife and their five kids live in a school bus and travel the country feeding the homeless. For the moms, many of whom are raising their kids alone, Kiddie Village offers a break from the daily grind. It's at the center of the Gathering, both physically and spiritually. There's a tire swing, a swingset a handmade seesaw, and free rides on the Dream Mobile. Mostly, the children find ways to entertain themselves. No TV. No Nintendo. No computer.

Next batch of pancakes is almost ready. Pull up a bucket and listen to some music. A raspy-voiced guitarist with a beat-up green fedora taps his bare feet in the dust and strums Woody Guthrie tunes for breakfast:"...I walked into town one day and saw a line of my people/ at the relief office by the steeple/and I wandered if this land was made for you and me."

Quick Tour around the Village

More than 100 kitchens and camps spread over roughly four square miles. Look around, there's something for everybody.

Are you an early riser? Try vegan pancakes at Early Bird Cafe. Green oatmeal laced with spirulina? Go to Phat Phree. Ever had your food cooked directly by the sun? Solar Ovens is doin' it up. Jonesing for a super-styley burrito? Lago Atitlan Cafe. Born-again Christians who serve heaps of good food, 100% sermon-free? Check out Bread of Life Kitchen. Or, do you prefer hulava? Then show up at Krishna Camp just before dark when the chanting and the drumming dies down.

Need books to read? M.E.U. (Mind Expansion University), just down the trail from Early Bird. Trying to find out about yoga groups that meet in the morning or the dozens of workshops going on each day about everything from solar energy to organic gardening to UFOs to the search for one's Inner Elvis? Drop by the info booth, just off from Main Circle. Covered in dirt and grime? There's solar showers in the trees next to the Tipi Circle. Sore from digging lots of shitters? Boulder Massage Camp will treat you right....

Grasping at the Wind; Barking at the Birds

Another day Rainbow, another day of Crisis Management for the Incident Command Center (ICC) in nearby Springerville....A multi-jurisdictional task force composed of dozens of federal, state and local law enforcement officials under the command of U.S. Government Special Agent John Carpenter. Hundreds of thousands of taxpayers' dollars spent on overtime pay, hotel rooms, expense accounts, helicopter fly-overs, armed patrols riding through the Gathering Site on horseback, roadblocks and K9 searches on the Forest Service roads entering the Gathering.

Daily press bulletins from the ICC, stimulated a crisis atmosphere more appropriate to an oncoming hurricane. 20,000 Rainbows were expected to be on-site for July 4th. After several well-publicized incidents of panhandling and dumpster diving, Terry Ringey, the police chief of Pinetop-Lakeside vowed in the local paper (The White Mountain Independent, June 23, 1998, p.1) to nip the growing crime wave in the bud. "We know what's going on and will take care to protect life, property and the quality of life we all enjoy," he said.

Based on shared ideals as opposed to shared land, the Rainbow Family is a baffling, bewildering, glowing, mind-blowing example of Post-Modern Tribalism. It is at once primitive and futuristic; zany and profound. Because it is leaderless (all decisions are made by unanimous consent in councils that anyone can attend), it can't be easily subverted. Because the Gathering itself is inherently chaotic, it remains in equilibrium. And because it dies (in a sense) and decomposes, it can be born anew over and over again.

The question facing law enforcement officials is the same one Mike Lohrey, Incident Commander for the 1997 Oregon Gathering, grappled with afterwards in a memo he wrote to his superiors: "Should the annual Rainbow Family Gathering be managed as a recreation event with a law enforcement presence," he wrote, "or as a law enforcement event with a resource presence?" (1998 All Ways Free, p.4)

Getting the Work Done

So how does it all get done? If there are no bosses, how will anyone follow orders? Look around. There's people cutting firewood, hauling in supplies, laying miles of PVC pipe from unpolluted springs to the campsite, lugging heavy jugs of water for kitchens, chopping veggies, kneading dough, stirring enormous pots of food, sharing skills and ideas in workshops, healing the sick at C.A.L.M. (Center for Alternative Living Medicine), sitting in tedious council sessions, tending small children, directing traffic in the parking lot on the outermost edge of the Gathering, going out on all-night firewatch or digging shitters.

Hmmm, that's a tough one. Digging shitters. It's the kind of work a group of people becomes proud of because they have to stick together and each do their part. The trick to shitter digging is to break through the mat of surface roots and then use pick and shovel, pick and shovel, relentlessly banging through the dirt and rock. Don't park yourself too near a big, old grandmother tree, either. Just thinking about breaking through those kind of roots will break your heart. 2 feet. 3 feet. 4 feet. Go as deep as you can. Use leverage on the big rocks. Keep the trench about nine inches wide. When the clay turns a lightish-blue color, you've made it five feet down. A job well done. A labor of love. Make sure the tp, the bleach water, and the lime are well stocked. Run down to dinner at Main Circle. Just heard someone blowing the conch shell a second time....

Try

"Rainbow keeps the dream alive," Try said. He and his wife Pollywog had arrived at the beginning of Seed Camp and planned to stay through the end of clean up. He was relaxing on a giant, fallen log near Bliss Kitchen. "It's the only place going on right now where you see sharing and giving emphasized." When he isn't on the Rainbow Trail, Try programs mainframe computers for the Federal Reserve. During the 1960s, he lived first in Haight-Ashbury and then on the Wheeler's Ranch Commune north of San Francisco.

"The Fed controls the economy by controlling the money supply. It can probably keep everything going for another 15-20 years," he said. "But somewhere between 2010 and 2020, all the problems we are facing now: the population explosion, destruction of the environment, global warming, rising food prices, hunger, war, out-of-control nukes, the collapse of the economy; they're going to converge. And the shit is going to hit the fan....Rainbow is a step in the right direction. It's based on cooperation, which is Gaia's way. And that's the real model for the future."

Dinner Circle

A naked man dressed as a unicorn pulls up to the edge of the Dinner Circle on a bicycle. People call out and dash into the outstretched arms of long-lost friends they haven't seen in a year or more. Another man, with a multi-colored tail dragging between his legs, wanders the perimeter of the circle alone, mumbling to himself, "Man I just survived tickle torture."

Inside the circle, hundreds and hundreds of people wait patiently for kitchens with names like Granola Funk, Shama Lama Ding Dong, Jah Love, NERF, Morning Star, Millieways, sprout Garden and Everybody's Lovin' Ovens to send down coolers and five-gallon buckets full of steaming hot food that will soon nourish their bellies.

Meanwhile, others struggle for the eagle feather that gives them the right to speak. A superhero named "Reality Man" in black tights and a homemade cape hops and paces about in the center of the Circle, exhorting people to quit smoking by chanting with the Hare Krishnas. Urgent warnings about fire danger and pleas for more donations to the Magic Hat alternate with the long-winded prophecies of confused, barefoot Messiahs and the forlorn announcements of missing personal items: kittens and puppies; backpacks, sleeping bags, a pair of pink Smokey the Bear shoelaces. The burning earnestness of it all leaves the skeptical and the hungry squirming. It is theatre at its purest and most spontaneous, devoid of any self-consciousness.

At last people clasp hands, forming a Circle around the meadow. The 4th of July is fast approaching and there is a sense of rising anticipation as thousands more are on their way. Standing still and breathing in deeply from the diaphragm. A resonant, vibrating sound begins in the chest, rises up the throat, passes freely between the lips, mingles with thousands of other oms and echoes above the forest in the cool, twilight air.

The drumming starts up again as darkness settles over camp. The trails are now packed with people, many still carrying backpacks they've just arrived with. "Hugs for Nugs!" Someone bleats out. "Nugs for Doses!" Another young brother sits cross-legged on the side of the trail, dangling an empty glass pipe from the end of a fishing line, cuz it's 4:19 and hey bro, can you spare a minute?

The current of people keeps on flowing down the trails. The Granola Funk Theatre Talent Show starts at Dark:30. Others follow rumors of tasty pastries and hot musical jams. The drumbeats quicken from every direction. A waxing half-moon appears overhead. The night rushes along like a mountain stream. Soon burnt to a nub like a wax candle, it intensifies just before dawn and then expires at the first, chilly light of day.

July 4th

A quiet calm falls over the camp on the dawn of the 4th. People slowly drift into Main Circle, where a hand-carved, 12 ft. high Peace Pole is planted in the center. The mid-morning silence is broken only by whispers, children's' cries, the jangling of a metal cup against someone's backpack, the droning of a Cessna circling overhead. Sitting, kneeling, stretching, hugging, meditating, standing on one's head; each Rainbow does as he or she pleases. There is no one to lead the worship.

The sun approaches its zenith and people clasp hands, forming tightly coiled concentric circles that radiate outward from the Peace Pole. Beneath shimmering aspens and a blue-white sky, the oms begin, arising from the Rainbows' innermost beings, vibrating and filling the air with a gentle purposefulness. The moment is both humble and other worldly. Like the sun breaking through a patch of thick clouds, the millennial vision of World Peace and Healing suddenly appears radiant and close at hand.

A long, serpentine-shaped paper mache dragon snakes its way from Kiddie Village to Main Circle. Underneath, there are the children and some of their parents. They are preceded by a solemn drumbeat and the call of a sax blaring out "When the Saints Come Marching In". The oms intensify as the Circle opens up to receive the children. When they are nestled in the center, the omming reaches a crescendo and is then shattered by a loud, shrill yell—"Ay-yai-yai!"—and then another and another.

The drummers explode with pent up energy. People dance and hug, stroll about in gaudy outfits, look around once more for old friends, share slices of watermelon that have miraculously appeared on the scene. It is New Years, Halloween and the 4th of July all wrapped in one.

"There's nothing else on the planet like it," one old hippie said, making a sweeping, panoramic gesture out over the scene.

Days and weeks of rising anticipation give way to the lassitude of contentment. The cycle is complete. A small cleanup crew of 100-200 people will stay behind in the following weeks to restore the land. Most Rainbows will depart in the next couple days; disappearing back into "Babylon", already dreaming of when they will rematerialize the following summer in yet another National Forest to reconstruct an ephemeral but enduring Utopia.

NOTE: The 1999 Rainbow Gathering will be held somewhere in Pennsylvania.

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John Tarleton is a freelance writer. He has attended eight annual Rainbow Gatherings.


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