I don't get the appeal anymore...bunk family

The California gathering was in the north east, which is very sparsley populated Mormon country. The Idaho gathering was way too close to Boise, hence all the boneheads showing up just wanting to get loaded. All I'm trying to say, don't judge your geography by state boundaries.
Love ya' Svi

 

Hello I answered a question on my space to what I meant by being a rainbow hippie and the following was my answer I thought it was worth posting on hip forums. And I did I would like to post it here too.





I understand that hippie has a lot of connotations and some we like others we like less. So I will try to narrow down my meaning of hippie and why I am one..

To me hippie was the key word that started being used in the 60ties for the cultural and societal

movement that has made such a mark in the imagination of our generation and many who have followed. I will say this it has something to do with what you said (a sense of responsibility toward the environment and a creative lifestyle not based on material gain. ) but with these parameters:

Anti conformism and free spirit. Existentialistic and individualistic at the same time outspoken about many things and open to the many aspects including spiritual and philosophical approaches to the world.

Let us not forget the most important. Peace and love ya that good old cliché but it still works for me. Something about the whole and the pieces the idea that the world is a whole. That you can not separate things. Like Krishna Murti said see the flowers without noticing the roots and the spoil in which it grows. Something about how everything is important to heal the wound but also challenge the reasons for the illness. In the early 70ties hippies started polarizing around things like the rainbow family the farm in Tennessee the new age and with this evolution came the wholism and the seeking of other ways such as wholistic medicine and so I would say that the hippies are like the left hemisphere of the brain of the peace movement. The analog side.

Political and historical times have changed quickly and agendas like the community aspect of the hippies (remember the communes) had to readjust and find it s rules of engagement. I don t think this has been done well. The idea part of the hippie became less prominent.

When I was a kid intellectuals and creative minds almost always were hippies. The Internet itself was built by them. When I was a kid we called ourselves the new left now the marginals the freaks the heads and more everybody added their own little cliché their own little beauty and their own little scandal to the pie. In Québec in the late 70ties the French cool cats started saying le beau monde! The beautiful people! And it was so. Generosity and caring populated the morals of the hippies and the hippie vibe went down through the general population along with it s humor and its originality. Freedom and life and all the concepts and aspects of hippie all have 2 sides.

Freedom nurtures creativity and instability. The gypsies lifestyle also opens the door to bad apples. I use to travel with a milk truck converted to a little workshop home on wheels and after a school bus in which I lived for 17 years. At the biggining my door was wide open to offer tea coffee conversation rides and vibe to every one. Smiles populated my face when people asked me what I was about. Hippies were always welcome and I had many people live and travel with me and my partner and kid. Now I always take at least a good second look and there are many memories of not such good things that litter the scene.

Worst the hippies are having less and less impact on the world. The rainbow family one of the biggest examples of hippie dom has evolved into more of a religious ultra clique then the movement it was when it started and was throughout its close to 40 years of existence. The American rainbow family is still at the permit issue and since it is an non organization of non members and no one can speak in the name of the rainbow family and say this is what it means to be a rainbow hippie I can only say that for me rainbow family was a good effort at putting on the biggest show of resistance to a world that too often is a world of injustice power and ego.

Having impact on the world like the concepts of wholism and with that recycling healthy living happiness harmony and all the high stuff that comes with what hippies have to offer the world are still needed. Humanity has many challenges to move beyond. Apathy and the sense that we make no difference because either the work of Karma or universal perfection in the spiritual sense are the only players here. Or the thought that the world has gone beyond saving that we are run by a secret government that is so powerful so terrible and unchangeable that the best thing to do is to try to have a good time and achieve personal liberation through whatever means money drugs name it.

I am part of those hippies who were activists. That faced armies of club swinging cops in demonstrations and that were not afraid to take risks with burning our draft cards and dropping out. I don t have to listen to Naomi Chomsky to know that those who write the laws and enforce the laws have dark greedy agendas and that to find out what these big time manipulators are doing. But see things multifaceted and never black and white. Oops what is happening with this font...and so my point is that in my history as an activist from anti-nuclear demonstrations against nuclear tests and early civil rights issues in the US which had a vigil in front of the US consulate I was 15 when I was first arrested for being part of a sit in there. My mom when the cops brought me home told her the naughty things I had been doing and instead of siding with them in guilt when the policeman asked her if I was a good kid she said that I was. That although she did not approve me playing hookies from school she thought the reasons were noble enough and that I might be learning something more important than what I was missing in school those days. I remember the look on that cops face as she told him that.

When I was in my early 20ties I was the main organizer of the Nuguen van troy committee .

The purpose's was to collect money to build a children s hospital in South Viet Nam. Not in the Saigon but in territories that were in the hands of the non puppet government put there by the French and the US. We did it not only here in Montreal but through out the world. I wrote a communique that I sent to all the singers and popular artists at the time and spoke on the phone with people like Gilles Vigneault Pauline Julien Claude Dubois and got a very powerful list of sponsors for this we put on a huge benefit concert collected more than 100,000 $ here in Québec and I am still personally proud of that effort. Less than a year alter the war ended. The fake regime totally collapsed as the US army was evacuating. Viet Nam is at peace and rebuilding. It successfully outed one of the most monstrous regimes ever the Khmer Rouge. A by product of failed US policy gone wild like Irak is starting to look like.

Those of us who stayed with that pride by being part of the demonstrations and taking solidarity and conviction to the public front know what we have as power. We know that we can make a change.

But in the Rainbow family I know many people friends and just people I know. Some think the US is doing the right thing in Irak Some think the space ships will land and give us the magic wands so that we can visualize another reality where every one uses the right soap and eats the right food. I know people who have told me that Ronald Reagen was really smart when he came up with the star war concept. That by building a bomb that would destroy every single thing on earth was the best way to guarantee peace. That the USA was some kind of of basic good thing that just needed to understand its sacred constitution put there by enlightened beings plugged into the sacred truth but there were bad people in charge.

I also know some people not that many that go to the rainbow gathering hoping to get laid. Some to steal things or bing on alcohol or drugs. We have an a-camp. Some good folks there too but some serious problem people in the mix. People who should not necessarily be trusted. And then an very high percentage of just good people looking for some grace. People who are deeply into things like animal rights the environment pollution and health. So a wild world it is.

Would I recommend these things to my daughter or my friends definitely yes but with a good rap 107. Watch out for yourself kiddo learn to screen and take your time.

So I could go on about our shortcomings about our world ,my world in fact. But my interest is in building not destroying. I get hurt a lot but I enjoy life fully. Some one told me something profound in Montreal about the way he perceived me and my interest in not such fun things like wars and Irak and the Tsunami last year in the middle of a really hot discussion where my other friend was bombarding me with his way of seeing things. That in fact all these things are the future that in 2012 our world will collapse that most will perish that some will survive but only those who will have understood! That the tsunami was mother nature telling us that we are just fuck ups and that it is putting us in our place. Me when I think of that same event an earth quake that happened in the middle of the ocean something that has happened through out all of earths long and short history and at a time when humanity is plunged in the horror of war and violence that the humanitarians effort mobilized to help this horrific experience to humanity was able to muster in all of its history. Humanity is capable of the most beautiful and horrific things at once.

Those who support this or that train of thought do for many weird different reasons. And so back to that heated discussion the other guy tells me that with the way I see the world will make me un happy all my life!

So when I see the way I am in front of my need to be in touch with the world as I shuffle through news and mobilize at every noble cause that speaks to my heart and mind and that moves me to the point of tears like when I watch a moving movie and tears roll down my face and I consider that maybe I am un happy, attached, and I should just let go. I think of this.

I have lived a life full of adventure bought and traveled with 3 horses in Mexico raised kids on a hippie school bus but more importantly I have thrown my self literally knee deep in marshes to clean up the garbage left by others polluting precious land. And I have fought and still fight for what I believe in and I sense that I am part of the solution in an ocean of of good well minded creatures called humans with belly buttons. In no way perfect and with some real losers and egotistical little brats and my god the flank is steep but I am still walking singing thinking and trucking. And I feel happy not perfect.

I think I would be bored in a perfect world where there is no fight. When I establish a camp

in the forest or on the beach. My girl friends will want to just lay in the sun for hours but I have to beach comb and set up work tables and cant stay put. I have managed to live most of my adult life without paying any rent yet I have taken part of many fire teams at rainbow gatherings and NM where I pretty much drove up on a fire threatening to move from tree high flames to this persons house who wasnt there and who was a perfect stranger to me. The friend who was driving with me and lived on a sort of metaphysical cabala center went and gave the alarm and when the first rangers got there I had already located the water hose hooked it up to the fossit had also had to find and was dowsing the flames that were starting to dissapear and thing were smoldering and so when the fire squad got there and all the introductions were made I felt pretty good you know. I also got to be a care taker for a very nice ranch and got to experience another wonderful and testy love episodes.

So my hair is down to my lower back it is still thick and I have some whitish streaks and some crazy fuzzy white hair over it all that just wont bend. I brush the mess every once in a while and I experience a few days of almost tidy hair followed by jams and music and whatever. I smashed myself in the face with my flashlight last year at the KFF on my security shift as a volunteer staff and it still has a dark hole but the root canal treatment on that tooth is giving me time to figure out how I can save it or probably lose it. I have great holes of missing teeth in the back of my mouth. Some things are not as important to people than others. LOL

So there you have it why I am a hippie and what that means.

Papillon

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Good post ^


thanks

 

its my birthday on the tenth of january will there be people at the council on the tenth my assumption is that there is already people there. im just a free spirit fire spinner tryin to spend my birthday with family and shair some laughs

 

camp out an stay out there as long as your karma will permit. then retreat an jive your way forward against the piggy windz of confrontation, then again you will see ah chance to kamp an regroup, onward to stay high, an getin higher than your nemeses.

 

My main gripe about the gathering is the whole "non-organization" concept. To me non-organization = no accountability. Not saying I would never go to another but let's be honest the image has taken a huge hit. For a lot of people its a hardship to get there. And most people don't want to sacrafice their time and money and then have a negative experience. Not saying it should go the way of Burning Man and be a yuppie playground. But there has to be some kind of middle ground.

 

dont judge our family based on the all good scene. gdf is misunderstood by most kids. we arent the hubba smoking dirty dog pullin kids who cant name one dead song like most people say. Most family I know are there for the love of the Grateful Dead and the culture. GDF is a state of mind not some gang mentality like many think. I know you werent refering to GDF but i thought this might relate because most people judge when really you just gotta sit down and talk to some of our kids before makin any assumptions

 

i've had to quit going to Rainbow Gatherings. i'm a petite female person who attended gatherings alone and i no longer feel safe. in the name of "tolerance and healing" druggies, drunks. perverts and thieves are free to victimize whomever they please. it's not just running the A Camp gauntlet anymore because even within the gathering proper the negative elements poison the atmosphere. if i want to be watching my back all the time i could just was well spend a few weeks in a Babylonian ghetto. it's no surprise that more peaceful and conscientious folks have dwindled in numbers as the leeches and predators become more aggressive and more prevelent. i had been ripped off for my camp gear before and i can can deal with that but after being threatened with rape by a filthy leering drunk i went to some of my "brothers and sisters" in tears and i was told that it was up to me to accept my "karma". how fucked up is that?

like Dorothy ... i'm over the Rainbow.

 

Jerrys dead, Phish suck,, stay home and grow weed..

 

i`m old timer 2 gatherings, no natls yet. i kinda get sick of it sometimes.

 

ol timer here too and been gathering since az 97, or was it 98? started at woodstock 69 (was at 94 too but i don't think that counts for much) then had a family to raise so i missed the next 25 or so years, and have hit most of them since that were held west of the rockies (have only missed the k-camp scene in colorado...az was my fave with idaho a close 2nd...seems to me things changed after idaho) .
i don't know why i go either...perhaps it's all the planning, packing and mapping...or maybe it's knowing i'll end up with friends, old and new. all i know fer-sure is my dogs sure have a great time!

i'm still up in the air about washington this year. it's kinda far from az and having spent much time in the eastern half of the state i just don't see any place for us and from what i hear the cascade zone and west to the coast doesn't have what we need either. i'm secretly kinda hoping it'll go back to idaho...

 

i haven;t been to a gathering since july of 99. up in alleghany, a friend of mine went there this year. she said it was mostly a stereotypical one with tons of kids basicly looking for a party. i do miss certain things about those hings, but also there's plenty i don't miss either.

 

even without the interwebs. the ruianbow fmaily has been its own worst enemy. for too many years they;ve tolerated the likes of a fat wheelchair bound pervert who got chased off hipforums. not to mention the opportunistic cult leader and guru types. hell the first gathering i ever went to i basiocly got shoved out of a camp by an alpha male type. because there was a stray female who was massaging my shoulders and not his.

 

I went to my first gathering this year, nationals in PA, and overall I loved it. The only disappointments I had were not too much bud being around when I first got there, and there didn't seem to be as much random dosing of people with acid and that sort of thing as i would have expected. But I was stoned most of the time, clandestinely drank my spacebag wine in my canteen, (i'm a happy, mellow, controlled drunk-- A-camp ain't for me) and also got to try some good shit like hash and opium, and some sort of compressed mushroom pellet thing.

Some of the people sucked, or were just mediocre, but I found most to be pretty cool. Personally I don't mind the broke schwilly train hopper types, they're actually pretty fun to party with from time to time.

I loved all the cool nice hippie girls running around in the woods barefoot, (or naked ) I liked sitting around listening to guitars and banjos while stoned, I thought it was kind of cool that somebody can go there with almost nothing and hang out an have a good time. All the weird/awesome characters like grandpa woodstock were interesting. It was definitely the most fun I'd had in a little while.

Out in the real world I work low-paying jobs, usually live in a crappy neighborhood and am around a lot of drunks and tweakers and other pretty worthless people, so maybe I have lower standards then some, but it was a fun positive experience for me. No one stole any gear, and I left my car unlocked the whole time and nothing was ever stolen from it.

I'm not really a hippie myself, so my expectations of people aren't too idealistic or anything, but I thought the people were generally allright and it was a pretty kickass giant party out in the woods. I just loved the anarchy, randomness and weirdness of it. Not like anything i'd ever been to before.

SWIM would like to come back next year and dose a bunch of broke-ass hobo kids just for the hell of it. It was cool, and just made me feel like giving something back to it when I can. Which is unusual for me, most of the time life out in babylon makes me cynical, self-centered, pissed-off, and loner-ish.

Overall I liked it, but maybe my standards are different. I ain't expecting perfection from any large group of people. That's my $0.02, anyway.

 

I've been wanting to go, but with exception for this site, there is no where else to get info. That I know of. I have tried the Colorado group over in Nederland, but when I've tried, I get no response.

 

I think while your thoughts are valueable and shed some insight on rainbow gatherings..it's more of a negative perception. No matter where you go there are going to be types that are willing to manipulate and use you for everything you have. These gatherings offer a variety of different types. Isn't it worth it for an opportunity to meet afew extremely beautiful people....which are a rarity in society. I just don't think I could go on an adventure like that with that sort of mind set....as I was reading this I kept thinking how it sounds like a bad session.

 

I think that what you have observed is the draw that rainbow gatherings have for people who are spiritually sick. People who are spiritually sick are seeking a cure, maybe it would be a positive thing if a camp were set up to help those who are sick. Maybe you should show some compassion for those who are sick instead of saying a bunch of negative things about them. Anyhow there are people who are positive that show up to rainbow gatherings, and 1 person who is a positive out weights 10 people who are following a negative path.

 

several of us over the years have had the idea of seperate camps i saw a very successful jesus camp in ocala in the 80,s. some lost kids ranaway to it from main gathering, & actually had a better time. i gave them a ride to it. when i first heard of acola i was skeptical. i've heard good reports about it tho. & here in missouri we have one of many alternatives to natls. unfortunately i do believe it was sabotaged by hiholies this year. possibly a bogus site was posted.

 

Ppl go for their own reasons, each of them on a path to their destinies. There are different levels of consciousness involve, or should I say evolved we were all lost untill we were found.

An encouraging word is more inviting then a discouraging one, dont you think so?

If you approach something with Divine Love nothing negitive can develop within it.

The old ones try to encourage peace and a loving vibe, the younge ones are full of intense energy and want to make shit happen bc they are bored with the old ways.

It has always been so. Youth is wasted on the young The children think their parents/elders know nothing and become rebelous. Some parents do not parent.

I say the young bc most of us old folks arent into that, we're way past that and more settled in our own skins. We know who we are and are not out to prove ourselves. The younguns are still finding their way. Some are taking the long hard road, some are guided by an inner light that keeps them uplifted. Some are dark and unhappy..

Who's responsiblity is it to help the ones that are lost, can we call ourselves brother/sister and not help?

The Gatherings are to heal.. the earth, each other and ourselves. I include myself (altho I do not go to gatherings anymore) bc I am a Human Being, and the Earth, and all it's secrets and mysteries are for all Human Beings.

We have to disipline ourselves and set an example for others to follow.

Bright Blessings
sh

 

I don't really go to much festival type things anymore but went to alot of different stuff in my early 20s...I think any kind of event catering to an alternate lifestyle is going to attract degenerates no matter what the subject matter. Was, is and will be what you make of it for yourself.
If you can't deal with it, it is probably best to stay in the suburbs where this stuff is kept behind closed doors.