The Long Walking Gathering - part 5
Most of July 5th was cold enough to feel wind chill when out in the open meadows. At about 5 in the evening a big gray cloud appeared to the east, and it dropped rain for a while. As I was walking down to Dinner Circle at about 6:20, I heard a big commotion down the trail as I was passing Nick at Night. The I saw a large group of 15 LEOs all walking together the other way up the road. I thought this was the cause of it, but I continued to hear noise, now mostly cheering, further down the trail. As I walked out into the clearing around Trading Circle, I saw the cause of it: a brilliant rainbow that extended in a full arc above the hilltops to the east. The sun had come out while it continued to rain to the east. Then I saw a more faint rainbow with its colors reversed above it, making it a double rainbow. Then a third rainbow formed immediately beneath the lower one, then more until it became hard to count individual bows. Some people said there were four in all, some five. This spectacle dispersed as the rain subsided, but then there was another double rainbow a 8:10 and then another at 9:20. By the time the last one appeared, the clouds and the rainbow took on an orange hue in the light of the setting sun.
At about 9 in the morning of July 7th, a woman who told me her name was Dawn came into Info while I was still the only person awake there, and she asked for help in finding her brother (meaning a male who has the same mother as you, not “brother” in the Rainbow sense). She told more of her story and I found out that his name was Dorian, he was 34 years old, and autistic. “He is not capable of holding a job and looking after himself.”
She was her caretaker, and they had gotten separated during the party after the meditation on the Fourth, and she had been looking for him for all the days since, and now she was in a state of extreme worry and stress. She broke down crying at one point in her talking. She was saying things like “I was wondering if the law enforcement officers would be able to help me, and I looked all over yesterday and couldn’t find one of them. I wanted to try calling them, but the battery on my cell phone is completely dead and I don’t have any place to recharge it” and “Couldn’t we organize a mass search by Rainbows for him?”.
Now (an Info brother’s name) and Karin Zirk showed up and helped me to calm her down. Karin offered to walk her up to the topmost parking lot where she could let her use her phone, and they left. I tried looking for Plunker up in Montana Camp, but failed to find him.
Later on, Vision Council convened in the co-operations meadow (a sign had been attached to the Peace Pole the previous evening before Dinner Circle, announcing this location). As people were still coming in before the start, there was a multitude of joints and pipes being passed around. About 50 people were present at the start, but over the day it grew to over a hundred. The Om started at 12:30, and Patch started the feather off. It went around very slowly, with most people talking for at least ten minutes, and often longer.
Of those who mentioned states, most wanted Oregon, but there were some who wanted it to go someplace other than the northwest, especially if this was going to be the third time there in only four years. One especially impassioned plea was from Glowing Feather, whose Boston accent really stood out when he repeatedly referred to “the northern regions”. There were pleas for New England, Wisconsin, Texas, the Four Corners, but there never emerged any real unity on one alternative place.
But many people never mentioned states at all. This circle was heavy on the heartsongs. There was talk about alcohol and violence, and about the rift between old and young and what we have to do to heal it. People had statements summing up what was wrong with the Family and lots of sentences starting with “we must” and we’ve got to” and you should”. There were reminiscences about old days that were better than now and talk about what we all have to do to regain them. A few people were trying to start intentional communities and recruit new members, and they gave long pitches describing how many acres of land they held and the society they were hoping to build there. And all of these people could find a dozen different ways of saying the same thing over and over again, as if they thought that repetition was the sure way to conversion.
At 2:15, Karin Zirk came into the middle of the circle and said, “I’m sorry to have to interrupt this council but we have a missing brother who is autistic and we are trying to get together some search parties. We are meeting in front of Info right now.” At this about half of the people in the circle got up to leave, and some people mentioned stopping the council, but there were some others who said that they blocked this. These refusals were meant with some strong expressions of disapproval of their wanting to stay sitting here while this emergency was going on. One of these was from Dawn, who again went to the point of crying.
It appeared that there was more going on to report in front of Info than at this council, so I went over to observe. The only picture anybody had of him at the time was an image on an iPhone, and people passed it around and held their hands over it to shade it from the sun as they looked. (Later on some better pictures on paper appeared at Info.) Several people said that they had seen him in various places in the gathering in the days since he went missing. One sister said, “The last I saw him was yesterday evening on the main trail coming in. He was saying, “I’ve been a bad boy, I hit someone”, and Dawn confirmed that this was one of his impulsive behaviors whan he got upset. This calmed the fears of many of us that he had gone off into the woods and sat down somewhere and died of hunger or dehydration.
There were lots of leaders trying to emerge from different places in the crowd with different suggestions for courses of action, but some agreements and coordination did manage to emerge. Groups of people took upon themselves the tasks of searching specific areas and left on their quests. Other people were piping up with advice like “Don’t go off without carrying some water, and if you haven’t done searching before, go with someone who is experienced. We don't want you to be the subject of another search.”
I returned to the Council, and by now it seemed to have lost all its focus. There were nothing but heartsongs and no more discussion of places, and I finally left as Dinner Circle time approached, very doubtful that I would witness any decision that day.
Finch had been one of the first to stand up and leave the circle, and about an hour after the interruption he came back to the circle, entering it about 3 people before the feather instead of his original spot much further around. When the sister who had the feather before him was done speaking, she looked at him and said "You were over there before" and handed the feather around him to the next person. Someone across the circle said, “Please respect the rotation, pass it to the left”, and that person handed it to him.
When he got it again he chastised with strong words all of the people still there in the circle instead of responding to this emergency. In the course of his tirade he told a story about one of the three feathers that were tied together into the bundle that was being passed around. It belonged to a bird owned by a dying friend of his father, who had gone to visit her and brought back a gift of a bag of feathers. He wanted to remove it so it would not be profaned any further by this council. Finally he said, “This feather is going back to Info”, and walked away from the circle with it. He was pursued by several people, and it was brought back within a few minutes.
There would have been no conflict with Vision Council, so Dinner Circle took place on this last day. The total contributions to the Magic Hat were 9,484 paper dollars and up to about 300 dollars in coins. I’ve seen attendance estimates that ranged from 9,500 to 12,000. The big circle on the Fourth seemed about half as big as the one in 2000, so I find this range believable. There were definitely more than last year in Tennessee.
Dorian had not been found by about 9 o’clock after I had I walked back to my van.
On my walk in on July 8th, there seemed to be little of the Agro Eighth energy that I had witnessed at gatherings past. I heard only one person shouting out, “Wake the fuck up and start cleaning.” But I heard complaints at the council later that day that some people from Nick at Night were very aggressive in clearing out people from Trading Circle, to the point of picking up blankets and dumping their contents on the ground.
The second day of Vision Council started out with Badjer saying, “The talk yesterday was mostly about visions. I hope today that it will be about decisions, that is, where we are going to go next year.” There were about 30 people present, with about 20 more showing up later, and for the first round of the feather he mostly got his wish. Again more than half of the people stated a desire for Oregon, but there was still the same disjointed opposition from a minority.
Then it got to one brother who said “this is my chair, and I’m going to come back later and I’m block anything until we’ve had a discussion of all this marijuana smoking that was going on before this”, and then got up and left his chair behind. Then just before the feather got to its first trip all the way around, another brother said. “I’m gonna block anywhere that is not the northeast.
But Glowing Feather, who was sitting just to the left of Badjer as the feather started its second round, said, “I’m gonna stop supporting the northern regions and call for consensus on Oregon.” This was immediately met with “I block” from three places around the circle, and at this Glowing Feather got discouraged and left the circle. Then we got into a discussion about how we should handle blocks (should the feather just proceed, or should the person blocking be put on the spot and asked to explain why?) Then this led into a long procedural discussion about the relative merits of consensus minus one systems and other procedural fine points that was full of requests to address the feather and complaints from others about hogging the feather while this was going on. This managed to be stopped, then after going thru a few more people one woman got it and then went out into the middle of the circle to deliver a screaming emotional diatribe about how she was being oppressed as a woman by Muslims and Rainbows and society in general. I got up and left after several minutes of it. I didn’t think any decision would be arrived at this day either.
And my predictions were correct. The council went on for three more days (five total) and I found out on Facebook that the final consensus was for Nevada with Utah as a backup.
And here is where I depart from just reporting to express my personal feelings. Neither of these states were even mentioned during the first two days of the council, and it certainly did not reflect the general desire that I sensed from talking with people in the last days I was there at the gathering. The decision was a surprise to me and many other people. I remember all the desperation choices that people threw out in the last two days of one five day council that I did stay until the end of (the previous Montana gathering in 2000), and this sounds to me like another case of this happening. Government by attrition; decisions made by groups of less than 30 people who can afford to spend long hours and days sitting there making decisions for the whole Family. While I have seen places where consensus works like Shannon Farm and small Rainbow councils among kitchen crews and at CALM and Info, I don’t think it will ever work reliably with groups of over a hundred people who are mostly strangers before the meeting starts. Some years it works and is over after a day and a half or only one. Most years it doesn't.
By the evening of the 8th before I left for my real home, Dorian had still not been found. A post I read on Facebook after I had returned home said that he turned up in Seattle, where he and his sister lived. I have not been able to get any more details on this.
I left on the 9th just after it was light enough to take a last shit. At home I had cut some wires and inserted a bypass switch on the right sliding door of my van so that I could leave it open without the warning lights going on in the dashboard, and at the gathering I made sure to start up my engine and run it for a few minutes at least once every three days - so the dead battery problem I had last year was averted. About halfway along the highway to the interstate, I was briefly delayed by some cowherders on horses driving their cattle on the road directly at and around me as I slowed way down and sometimes stopped. They all just walked around me with no collisions as I got to see a lot of wide open eyes and frothy mouths.
Thus ended my stay at the Long Walking Gathering. In many ways it seemed like a renaissance. We probably achieved the best relations with the Forest Service that are possible for us to get until the laws about marijuana are changed. Lots of people reported to me blissful and love filled old time gathering experiences. The young people continued to take over basic infrastructure functions, and do them well. I could have called this the Second Ad Astra Per Aspera Gathering, because like in Utah in 2003 I found a lot more strength and stamina than I had had the previous year. And I could have called this the Second Warm Fuzzy Gathering (tho it was really a third, as the Short and Sweet Gathering in Michigan was the second) because like in Arizona in 1998 I was given a lot of loving affirmations from many people, from people saying they liked my books to Useless calling out to me as I passed Mudder Earth on the 7th after we had done the final count of the Magic Hat, “Cleanup crew loves you.” Some problems that have been ongoing for years were still not solved to everyone’s satisfaction, but a general mood of optimism prevailed.
(The story ends here, but the gatherings remain
to be continued)
At about 9 in the morning of July 7th, a woman who told me her name was Dawn came into Info while I was still the only person awake there, and she asked for help in finding her brother (meaning a male who has the same mother as you, not “brother” in the Rainbow sense). She told more of her story and I found out that his name was Dorian, he was 34 years old, and autistic. “He is not capable of holding a job and looking after himself.”
She was her caretaker, and they had gotten separated during the party after the meditation on the Fourth, and she had been looking for him for all the days since, and now she was in a state of extreme worry and stress. She broke down crying at one point in her talking. She was saying things like “I was wondering if the law enforcement officers would be able to help me, and I looked all over yesterday and couldn’t find one of them. I wanted to try calling them, but the battery on my cell phone is completely dead and I don’t have any place to recharge it” and “Couldn’t we organize a mass search by Rainbows for him?”.
Now (an Info brother’s name) and Karin Zirk showed up and helped me to calm her down. Karin offered to walk her up to the topmost parking lot where she could let her use her phone, and they left. I tried looking for Plunker up in Montana Camp, but failed to find him.
Later on, Vision Council convened in the co-operations meadow (a sign had been attached to the Peace Pole the previous evening before Dinner Circle, announcing this location). As people were still coming in before the start, there was a multitude of joints and pipes being passed around. About 50 people were present at the start, but over the day it grew to over a hundred. The Om started at 12:30, and Patch started the feather off. It went around very slowly, with most people talking for at least ten minutes, and often longer.
Of those who mentioned states, most wanted Oregon, but there were some who wanted it to go someplace other than the northwest, especially if this was going to be the third time there in only four years. One especially impassioned plea was from Glowing Feather, whose Boston accent really stood out when he repeatedly referred to “the northern regions”. There were pleas for New England, Wisconsin, Texas, the Four Corners, but there never emerged any real unity on one alternative place.
But many people never mentioned states at all. This circle was heavy on the heartsongs. There was talk about alcohol and violence, and about the rift between old and young and what we have to do to heal it. People had statements summing up what was wrong with the Family and lots of sentences starting with “we must” and we’ve got to” and you should”. There were reminiscences about old days that were better than now and talk about what we all have to do to regain them. A few people were trying to start intentional communities and recruit new members, and they gave long pitches describing how many acres of land they held and the society they were hoping to build there. And all of these people could find a dozen different ways of saying the same thing over and over again, as if they thought that repetition was the sure way to conversion.
At 2:15, Karin Zirk came into the middle of the circle and said, “I’m sorry to have to interrupt this council but we have a missing brother who is autistic and we are trying to get together some search parties. We are meeting in front of Info right now.” At this about half of the people in the circle got up to leave, and some people mentioned stopping the council, but there were some others who said that they blocked this. These refusals were meant with some strong expressions of disapproval of their wanting to stay sitting here while this emergency was going on. One of these was from Dawn, who again went to the point of crying.
It appeared that there was more going on to report in front of Info than at this council, so I went over to observe. The only picture anybody had of him at the time was an image on an iPhone, and people passed it around and held their hands over it to shade it from the sun as they looked. (Later on some better pictures on paper appeared at Info.) Several people said that they had seen him in various places in the gathering in the days since he went missing. One sister said, “The last I saw him was yesterday evening on the main trail coming in. He was saying, “I’ve been a bad boy, I hit someone”, and Dawn confirmed that this was one of his impulsive behaviors whan he got upset. This calmed the fears of many of us that he had gone off into the woods and sat down somewhere and died of hunger or dehydration.
There were lots of leaders trying to emerge from different places in the crowd with different suggestions for courses of action, but some agreements and coordination did manage to emerge. Groups of people took upon themselves the tasks of searching specific areas and left on their quests. Other people were piping up with advice like “Don’t go off without carrying some water, and if you haven’t done searching before, go with someone who is experienced. We don't want you to be the subject of another search.”
I returned to the Council, and by now it seemed to have lost all its focus. There were nothing but heartsongs and no more discussion of places, and I finally left as Dinner Circle time approached, very doubtful that I would witness any decision that day.
Finch had been one of the first to stand up and leave the circle, and about an hour after the interruption he came back to the circle, entering it about 3 people before the feather instead of his original spot much further around. When the sister who had the feather before him was done speaking, she looked at him and said "You were over there before" and handed the feather around him to the next person. Someone across the circle said, “Please respect the rotation, pass it to the left”, and that person handed it to him.
When he got it again he chastised with strong words all of the people still there in the circle instead of responding to this emergency. In the course of his tirade he told a story about one of the three feathers that were tied together into the bundle that was being passed around. It belonged to a bird owned by a dying friend of his father, who had gone to visit her and brought back a gift of a bag of feathers. He wanted to remove it so it would not be profaned any further by this council. Finally he said, “This feather is going back to Info”, and walked away from the circle with it. He was pursued by several people, and it was brought back within a few minutes.
There would have been no conflict with Vision Council, so Dinner Circle took place on this last day. The total contributions to the Magic Hat were 9,484 paper dollars and up to about 300 dollars in coins. I’ve seen attendance estimates that ranged from 9,500 to 12,000. The big circle on the Fourth seemed about half as big as the one in 2000, so I find this range believable. There were definitely more than last year in Tennessee.
Dorian had not been found by about 9 o’clock after I had I walked back to my van.
On my walk in on July 8th, there seemed to be little of the Agro Eighth energy that I had witnessed at gatherings past. I heard only one person shouting out, “Wake the fuck up and start cleaning.” But I heard complaints at the council later that day that some people from Nick at Night were very aggressive in clearing out people from Trading Circle, to the point of picking up blankets and dumping their contents on the ground.
The second day of Vision Council started out with Badjer saying, “The talk yesterday was mostly about visions. I hope today that it will be about decisions, that is, where we are going to go next year.” There were about 30 people present, with about 20 more showing up later, and for the first round of the feather he mostly got his wish. Again more than half of the people stated a desire for Oregon, but there was still the same disjointed opposition from a minority.
Then it got to one brother who said “this is my chair, and I’m going to come back later and I’m block anything until we’ve had a discussion of all this marijuana smoking that was going on before this”, and then got up and left his chair behind. Then just before the feather got to its first trip all the way around, another brother said. “I’m gonna block anywhere that is not the northeast.
But Glowing Feather, who was sitting just to the left of Badjer as the feather started its second round, said, “I’m gonna stop supporting the northern regions and call for consensus on Oregon.” This was immediately met with “I block” from three places around the circle, and at this Glowing Feather got discouraged and left the circle. Then we got into a discussion about how we should handle blocks (should the feather just proceed, or should the person blocking be put on the spot and asked to explain why?) Then this led into a long procedural discussion about the relative merits of consensus minus one systems and other procedural fine points that was full of requests to address the feather and complaints from others about hogging the feather while this was going on. This managed to be stopped, then after going thru a few more people one woman got it and then went out into the middle of the circle to deliver a screaming emotional diatribe about how she was being oppressed as a woman by Muslims and Rainbows and society in general. I got up and left after several minutes of it. I didn’t think any decision would be arrived at this day either.
And my predictions were correct. The council went on for three more days (five total) and I found out on Facebook that the final consensus was for Nevada with Utah as a backup.
And here is where I depart from just reporting to express my personal feelings. Neither of these states were even mentioned during the first two days of the council, and it certainly did not reflect the general desire that I sensed from talking with people in the last days I was there at the gathering. The decision was a surprise to me and many other people. I remember all the desperation choices that people threw out in the last two days of one five day council that I did stay until the end of (the previous Montana gathering in 2000), and this sounds to me like another case of this happening. Government by attrition; decisions made by groups of less than 30 people who can afford to spend long hours and days sitting there making decisions for the whole Family. While I have seen places where consensus works like Shannon Farm and small Rainbow councils among kitchen crews and at CALM and Info, I don’t think it will ever work reliably with groups of over a hundred people who are mostly strangers before the meeting starts. Some years it works and is over after a day and a half or only one. Most years it doesn't.
By the evening of the 8th before I left for my real home, Dorian had still not been found. A post I read on Facebook after I had returned home said that he turned up in Seattle, where he and his sister lived. I have not been able to get any more details on this.
I left on the 9th just after it was light enough to take a last shit. At home I had cut some wires and inserted a bypass switch on the right sliding door of my van so that I could leave it open without the warning lights going on in the dashboard, and at the gathering I made sure to start up my engine and run it for a few minutes at least once every three days - so the dead battery problem I had last year was averted. About halfway along the highway to the interstate, I was briefly delayed by some cowherders on horses driving their cattle on the road directly at and around me as I slowed way down and sometimes stopped. They all just walked around me with no collisions as I got to see a lot of wide open eyes and frothy mouths.
Thus ended my stay at the Long Walking Gathering. In many ways it seemed like a renaissance. We probably achieved the best relations with the Forest Service that are possible for us to get until the laws about marijuana are changed. Lots of people reported to me blissful and love filled old time gathering experiences. The young people continued to take over basic infrastructure functions, and do them well. I could have called this the Second Ad Astra Per Aspera Gathering, because like in Utah in 2003 I found a lot more strength and stamina than I had had the previous year. And I could have called this the Second Warm Fuzzy Gathering (tho it was really a third, as the Short and Sweet Gathering in Michigan was the second) because like in Arizona in 1998 I was given a lot of loving affirmations from many people, from people saying they liked my books to Useless calling out to me as I passed Mudder Earth on the 7th after we had done the final count of the Magic Hat, “Cleanup crew loves you.” Some problems that have been ongoing for years were still not solved to everyone’s satisfaction, but a general mood of optimism prevailed.
(The story ends here, but the gatherings remain
to be continued)