This is why the 60’s were banned, and why the 70’s-- a decade sprayed with a veneer of colorful sanitary plastic for public consumption-- were made safe for TV.

Earthlings Smell Like Hippies

This was what they were trying to hide from the public: here was a large group of unsupervised humans helping each other to enjoy a moment of life on Earth, and to share food and love as a vast family.

With no police protection, no money trading hands, and no rulers, thousands were said to be sharing their food and helping each other, building efficient wilderness kitchens and temporary intentional communities in coordinated gestures of sheer care, then disappearing without a trace.

This I Had to See

Such an attitude was not encouraged by the civilized world out there. Such behavior was simply not tolerated on the planet, so I had to see it for myself. Further, I thought that if such a thing really existed, then I also wanted my child to witness it herself, before she could be told that it was wrong.

So it was that on July 3rd of 2007, my 8 year-old daughter and I found an entire tribe of people behaving in exactly such a fashion at a thing called the Rainbow Gathering.

Deep in the Ozark National Forest was where we found them gathered, and welcome was the feeling that we got as we made our way down the old logging road with our camping supplies.

Human Encounters Began Happening Right Away

I had brought too much camping gear. Along the Ozark highway ridge there were hundreds of cars already parked above the remote forest, and my daughter watched the people at the top of the main path disappearing into the woods as I loaded myself down with supplies. An ice cooler full of quickly-melting ice, an iron skillet and various camping cookware utensils, our tent and our food supplies, and two folding chairs.

My daughter agreed to carry the folding chairs, and we began our descent into the forest to find the Gathering. As we struggled down the path with this load, a couple behind us approached to offer assistance. They were already going our way, and insisted on helping. Without any more discussion about it, we found ourselves an instant family of four, and easily made it down the rest of the half-mile descent.

These people were familiar to us, yet we had never met them. Three Dog Night began playing in my head, On the Road to Shambala ringing my vibrating skull like a Tibetan temple bell, and I could tell my brothers and sisters by the flowers in their hair as we bounced down that Ozark ridge, down into the legendary Rainbow Gathering.

Nothing Unusual Going On Here

It’s not really unusual for strangers to help each other. Voluntary cooperation is actually human nature, and is the way people tend to behave when left alone with each other for any length of time. Grand words like ’society’ and ‘civilization’ often get credit for this cooperative behavior that is exhibited by groups of individuals, but those words only tend to divide us-- as if some of us are civilized and others are not-- as if human society were something to be joined like a yacht club.

Some Rules are Encouraged at the Gathering

Along the outer edge of the Gathering was where a sternly written sign said “NO ALCOHOL PAST HERE” and we had none, passing freely. In an anarchistic setting, there are rules that are agreed upon because they make sense, and everyone knows it, but there are no rulers to violently enforce those rules.

There was no money at the Gathering. I hadn’t planned on spending any money anyway, so that rule suited me as well. Welcome home, to my world, indeed! This is how life should always be, of course.

Meeting the Family

We set up our tent in a place called Kiddie Village, and as we explored the surroundings we met our family around every corner. There was no central organization, the whole thing had grown organically around the various kitchens which filled the forest with the smells of cooking food. It was a food-powered circus in the middle of the forest.

Things Got Unusual

We saw the grandpa of the Gathering, a smiling grey beard with a bicycle horn in hand, honking friendly toots and being followed by a group of children dressed in fairy wings. It was all rather unusual to see, but so is an ordinary rainbow, with each color both rare and distinct.

We saw some nudists, and I did my best to act like it was no big deal so that my daughter could observe everything that existed in life without judgement, if such a thing could be done, without anyone telling her that it was wrong.

Not everyone wears clothes. It was unusual to be sure, to see an elegant lady who was wearing only fairy wings in the sun along the water’s edge as we surveyed the clear wild creek that ran through the Gathering, but we didn’t stop to chat with her about it.

We saw a giving tree-- a sweet little tupelo as I recall-- and it was beaming with trinkets, shells, crystals, chewing gum and candies, poems on tiny pages, and joy. The little tree was happy to give my daughter a tiny stone arrowhead that was nestled in a corner of bark, and since neither of us had visited a giving tree before, it was a familiar feeling, but certainly an unusual experience.

Returning My Daughter to the Real World

It must have been interesting to hear my daughter describing the Rainbow Gathering to her friends later. Grown-ups wearing nothing but fairy wings, giving trees-- it probably sounded like an odd fantasy.

Her friends probably thought she’d made up a special world where there’s no money and the food is free, and everybody gets to play all day in the creek if they like.

Now of course the nonbelievers need only to search Utube for ‘Rainbow Gathering’ ‘Arkansas’ to see that fantasy on video. It happened.

When We Were All Magi

Some day in the future we will all remember that we were once shaman, and the clues that were in sight all along will fall together before us like a kaleidoscope collecting rainbows. In between those times lie the clues, sparkling messengers that may look like colorful bits of trash to some, but others see the colors and the way the light charges the surface on those fleeting moments, knowing that they are seeing reality beneath the old crumbling plastic coating of the world.

We Are The Rainbow

This Rainbow tribe has a way of making a remote piece of wilderness feel like home to thousands, yet we Earthlings may be that tribe’s largest people, destined to make Earth feel like home to billions.

The Rainbow tribe gathers to remind each other that life can be beautiful, while they remind the police and state authorities just how easily the illusion of government control will fall apart without constant state maintenance.

We Earthlings can similarly remind the world that humans enjoy helping each other, enjoy feeding strangers, and still like playing in the creek all day sometimes without being bothered.

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all images above thanks to Wikimedia Commons
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