so...how was it

Great story! I truly can't wait to meet you in VT! As far as the previous posts, please don't take any of it as "negativity", but rather as friendly debate ! We are passing the feather electronically, dig? Email me your travel itinerary for your trip to VT and maybe I can help along the way.

 

As is her wont, Karin tells it well. "When you absolutely, positively, have to have the right word, ask an English Major."

----------*************-----------



" Keep in mind this only represents things I was involved with or have
first hand knowledge of and by no-means represents everything that
happened at this year's gathering.


The evening of June 20, we hit Grand Junction, Colorado and upon
checking, my voicemail messages found out about the blockade at the
gathering prohibiting people from entering the site.


After a few phone calls to media and an email blast to my list, we
sacked out in a motel for the night.


The morning of June 21, I called a few different people at the USFS,
asked questions, and asked for changes. Specifically I was told that
any and all people could get ticketed for going to observer the
gathering. Additionally, I was told about the nudity ban and spoke to
many people trying to gain an understanding of the temporary
prohibition against nudity, was told it would only be enforced along
the road and complained to numerous people why the closure order was
not written something to the effect that "within 500 feet of any
marked USFS road" nudity would be prohibited.


After shooting out another email blast to my list, we headed home.


We stopped at the Clark store for a bit, met up with other gatherers,
got the skinny on tickets being issued for ingress and egress, talked
to some folks about what was called the "Ninja" movie (sneaking in to
the gathering), and decided to head home.


After heading home, we picked up a hitchhiker who gave us details on
how to Ninja in. As we approached FS500, we met people driving out
due to a roadblock. At the first of checkpoints, we were told if we
proceeded to the gathering we would be ticketed. I was also given a
paper indicating that the following activities were prohibited:


Nudity
Digging slit trench latrines
Building rock/mud ovens
Cutting of standing trees


After this point, my rider bailed out for a Ninja entry and I
continued to the second check point. All vehicles were being turned
around at this point and the LEOs instructed me to turn around as
well. However, due to poor planning on their part, they were trying
to turn people around in the narrow road with three foot drop-offs in
the very large meadow. As I was driving a large rig, I told them I
was unable to turn around at that location without fear of rolling my
rig. I asked them why they didn't pick a spot where a car larger than
a Honda Civic could turn around. After much discussion, they told me
there was a third checkpoint up ahead where I could turn around and I
proceeded.


The third checkpoint turned out to be the same as the second and the
conversation about turning around or backing up a mile was repeated
and I was allowed to proceed to the fourth checkpoint where I was
promised I could safely turn around. The LEOs at the fourth check
point were a bit freaked that I ended up there, but after recognizing
one of the officers from previous gatherings and having a bit of a
chat were I politely asked to be given a ticket and allowed to enter
the gathering, my request was granted (although the second checkpoint
officers came driving down in a big huff and a brief argument between
the LEOs ensued). Later, people surmised that in those days, only a
limited number of tickets were issued each day and once the "quota"
was reached, all subsequent folks were turned around. In the five
hours after I entered, only one car entered after me and they too had
to "talk their way into a ticket" in order to enter.


I spent the evening of the 21st at the Front Gate hanging with A-camp
and hoping to welcome more family home but it was very lonely. One of
the A-camp brothers told me he had made a permit application that was
denied.


On the morning of the 22nd, after a great night's sleep, I hiked into
the gathering. The advice I was given at that point was to avoid LEOs
by disappearing into the woods when they walked through. That seemed
to be what was being done by the more experienced folks I knew and I
followed suite for a day or two.


As my intended focus for the gathering was the biodegradable
composting shitter project, I got to work. Things went great. Two
improvements for next year come to mind: better signage to people
understand what we're doing and more frequent maintenance. Twice
daily maintenance isn't enough. Hopefully next year, I can pull
together a crew so we can do shitter maintenance at least 4 times
during daylight hours. As to the shitter project, we used all of the
improvements: 1) shitters in the sun; 2) add a handful of duff
(dried plant matter) after each deposit; 3) line the shitters with a
corn/soy polymer to prevent overloading the ecosystem with fecal
matter; and 4) shitter covers. Additionally, we had a soap and water
hand wash, bleach water hand wash, and alcohol gel hand sanitizer. A
couple of extras were lots of privacy screens and even a commode for
the squatting impaired.


After that I started trailing the LEOs to observe and call out Six Up
as needed. A few of them were very uncomfortable about this and
singled me out for photos, discussions and attempted identification
as a person who follows them. this was done in a very intimidating
manner where two or three very large guys surrounded me and got so
close that if I had done the same to them, they would have cited or
arrested me for interfering with an officer.


The USFS Resource folks had serious concerns about the site we were
at which centered around the fire danger. The ground was green with
grass and other plants, but probably 30% or more of the trees in the
area were dead from beetle kill. As there was a lot of lighting in
the area, the possibility of a lighting caused fire starting miles
from us and sweeping through the dead trees had them worried. The
other concern had to do with the single road in and out of the area.


One of the resource folks took a couple of gatherers to see a
proposed alternative site. while I didn't hear about this until July
1st or 2nd, apparently the site had no water and was not usable for a
gathering and the option of moving was not mentioned. I doubt people
would have moved at the point as many of the kitchens were up and
serving main circle..


A day or two later, I hiked back to my rig for another load of
shitter stuff and on the way back, just past the trailhead, I was
almost run over by the USFS LEOs driving into the gathering due to
the "incident". I hung around near the vehicles with my camera ready
to assist in whatever way possible. The USFS came out with one
brother in custody and a heap of gatherers bringing up the rear. The
gatherers where physically non-violent, and verbally most of them
were using words like we love you, but the tone was definitely
aggressive. As this scene played out, (most of what I know on this
situation will remain confidential for valid reasons), the USFS LEOs
were like dogs wanting to fight but being pulled away by their human
helpers.


I resumed my hike in and got back to work. Later that evening, I met
a few folks at the Trailhead to talk to Tim Lynn and discuss what
happened, etc etc etc.


ON ???, a couple of gatherers met with the USFS resource folks and
walked the proposed alternative site. I didn't hear of this until
much later and I don't believe it was discussed in the gathering.


The next time I saw Tim Lynn and his staff in the gathering, I
resumed my cop watch walking and discovered they had the County
manager, County Attorney, and Sheriff Undersecretary with them. So we
walked and I talked to the three local folks as we did the grand
tour. Back at the trailhead, I talked to Tim about the nudity
closure order and that it needed to be modified to specify a distance
from the road. After much discussion, he said his offices were
instructed to enforce it along the road only. The result of this was
I promised him that the next time I escorted him through the
gathering I would have to due it nude to protest the blanket nudity
closure order.


After this walk, the other LEOs stopped trying to intimidate me and
just let me walk with them whenever I choose to do so (which was a
lot but was a good thing as I was trying to work off some extra
pounds and the 5-10 miles a day I spent doing cop walks did the trick).


A couple of things during this time period sadden me. First off,
some media and the Colorado state Health department were told if they
entered they would be ticketed and this prevented the health
department from coming in one day to work with us. When they finally
came in, we spoke about the need for shitters and the health
department agreed to discuss this issue with the USFS.


Also during this time period there seemed to be two parallel efforts
happening to deal with the situation. One was happening by people
either staying in town or at the trailhead, the other was people who
were inside the gathering working with the people on the land. While
this was caused by the ticketing, I was saddened that was as a family
didn't do a better job at trying to keep people informed of what the
other contingent of gatherers was doing and felt we could have
coordinated our efforts much more effectively. I am as guilty of this
as anyone.


Inside the gathering, we wrote up an operating plan which was
presented to the USFS resource folks and served as an unofficial
agreement for them.


As one of the folks working from inside the gathering, there was a
lot of focus on non-violence and appropriate Shanti Sena responses to
they antagonistic LEO presence. From non-violence workshops and
trying to get a more focused Shanti Sena effort happening to talking
one-on-one to people at strategic camps, the message was "Peace
wins." Something I tried very hard to do, was to work on gathering
without letting the LEO scenes change what I was working on. This
became challenging at times as more than once I lost a shitter digger
crew when the LEOs came by as many people were unwilling to stand
their ground as I was. Also, having key family at odds with each
other didn't help the situation at all. I am making a heartfelt plea
to my family - the USFS is trying to divide and conquer - please
don't let that happen.


June 30th was my court appearance. Despite the fact that most
tickets issued seem to follow some pattern of ticket issued within a
certain date range resulted in a certain court date across the board,
a number of high profile people where issued court dates of June 30
even when random gatherers were being given court dates of July 1, 3
or 7. So my court date, turned into "secret leader" day at
court. All day on June 29 I was so blissed out and happy about being
given the privilege of going to court, that by the time I got there I
was flying on love for the court, the officers, my family and
everyone in between.


Just before our 9 AM court time, we circled up and asked for the
spirit of Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Junior to be in us.


Then the first offer of collateral forfeiture for illegal camping
came around and the price tag was $100. By mid day the deal had
dropped to $40. I was in the second group up and while I sat in the
court room, I decided I would plead No Contest as I felt I had
engaged in an act of Civil Disobedience. By using the magistrates
time, I was assessed an additional $35 court processing fee, but was
given time to make a statement on the record which I used to plead my
spiritual need to be with my family to pray for peace, recounted the
history of our attempts to work with the USFS to change the
regulations through legal means and finally felt I had no choice but
to engage in an act of civil disobedience. The magistrate liked my
speech and asked me for assistance on changing other regulations as
well. For this I was assessed a $50 fine in addition to my court
processing fee and given until Sept 1 to pay. Other people were
given much longer as they pled need and one brother was given until
May 1, 2007 to pay $30.


Before I left the court I told them all I loved them, walked outside
and hugged Tim Lynn and reminded him of our date for a naked walk.


After this, the gathering unfolded from me in alternating patterns of
shitter digging and cop walking with wonderful beautiful evenings at
Main Circle.


On July 1, I was at Main Council when I got word that Tim Lynn was in
the gathering. I hurried to meet him. First I asked him to sign a
statement limiting the nudity closure order to xx feet from the road
- after some discussion he told me he would not put anything in
writing, so I informed him that I had no recourse other than to
commence the naked walk. So I stripped down to my hiking boots,
socks and a sun hat and walked with Tim Lynn, some of his officers
and a group of US Marshals for close to two hours. From Trade circle
to Kid Village and Yoga Camp, we walked while I kept up my end of the
conversation and they didn't say much.


Shortly after that we started getting the opportunity to meet with
Kent Foster and various resource people. These meetings happened at
the cooperation's area behind INFO late mornings. Most of them only
had a few gatherers in attendance, but lots of good discussions. We
used these meetings to set up two other meetings for July 8. The 11
AM meeting was to discuss the rehab/cleanup plan with gatherers and
resource personnel. After that a meeting was scheduled to happen with
the big USFS mucky mucks to discuss ways to create a more cooperative
gathering in 2007. As I had to leave the evening of July 7, I was
unable to attend either meeting - but hope to hear what happened from
family who were able to attend.


In general, my gathering was blissful and full of joy and happiness
towards all people I interacted with. I was so lucky to be able to
spend a lot of time with the USFS resource personnel and talking
about changing the regulations both with Resource personnel, Law
Enforcement and the media..


Another side effect of the ticketing, was the non-drinking gatherers
abandoned the Front Gate to A-Camp. Standing on the road was
hazardous if you were trying to avoid getting ticketed and somewhere
towards the 4th of July, things down there started getting out of
control. On July 6th, I observed some bad shit down there and rounded
up a crew to go down there. Despite a shown down between the old
Shanti Sena Clan and A-Camp, by the next day things were bad
again. At least two vehicles had windows smashed out, there were
numerous black eyes and other small injuries from altercations, and
at least one brother got beat up pretty bad and had all his (and
family's stuff stolen). I also have an unconfirmed rumor of folks
trying to get into the gathering and being turned back by A-Camp.


Another problem was the parking. Our parking situation was really bad
and stretches of the road were almost impassible at times. This was
of special concern for emergency situations where one stalled car
would block all traffic on the road. Both the parking and A-camp
situations I believe stem from the fact that we did not obtain a
permit and people were trying to avoid being ticketed (Thank you
Kalif for standing tall in the face of harassment!). While I
understand not signing a permit, in the future we need to still take
care of our shit even if it means we go to jail or get ticketed.


Over the next week or two I will be opening "complaints" with my
federal elected officials and the USFS mucky mucks regarding LEO
behavior and the USFS's refusal to change the regulations to
accommodate non-hierarch (anarchist) assemblies. When I pull that
information together, I will share it and encourage others to open
"complaints" as well.

I love all of you!

Karin "

Link: http://groups.google.com/group/alt.gathering.rainbow/browse_thread/thread/b5c7f0d2cb758b61/d52724aa81940bfe?hl=en#d52724aa81940bfe

 

Eagle, i'm soooooooooo glad you made it home! I hope the rest of our crew makes it home safe too! There will always be people who complain about everything. I had an amazing time and met the most amazing people. I can't wait until VT. I didn't get enough of CO...lol. Having a job only allows me to take off a little bit.

 

i think it is best that we do not label people who do not have a over all positive experience at a gathering....

 

LOL yeah right, what about Real World disillusionment? I find a lot of "Rainbows" have a bad case of THAT.

Call me "draining" or a "'downer"...whatever...don't really care either way. I shared my experience...and wasn't that what this thread was about? I think the "Rainbow way" needs to be reformed a bit...but THAT'S MY OPINION...

 

I think part of love in life is to try and change other peoples' ideas so we can exercise or freedom of choice to do what we want when it doesn't hurt anybody else. However, I have been through years of legal battles. Where a word to the wise is sufficient, these people just don't get the live and let live attitude. Also prosecutors generally don't relate to common sense from my legal defenses in two states. Whereas I wrote 100 page briefs, they relied on the presumption of the judge that the government ticketed or charged lawfully by the fact they represent the government. I am resolved to avoid any legal engagements in the future, even at the cost of never coming to a Rainbow gathering. Is there a reason the festival is not held on private property?

peace, rest, sleep and joy.....
Honor Seed

 

Ooops!!!!!

I just saw this.........oh my
Was it me who used that word first on this forum 'drain'
I was referring to 'Babylon' effects
And also the 'difference' that is on folks from returning from gathering
sorry if it caused some sort of 'flame' here

 

"Is there a reason the festival is not held on private property"

And are any of those reasons more important than the hassle it would save?

Change is a natural thing, often evolving out of need to adapt.

Is it time to consider a change?

 

One reason Rainbow isn't held on private property is that it opens up a whole different group of laws. A small Gathering on private property (like the one at HHB & Dill's place) usually won't get hassled but a large Gathering would wind up raided, the 'man' can take private land if anyone has drugs with or without the owners knowledge.

Been wondering what type of regs the Family would be faced with if state land was used or what if there was a lease taken out for Family use on BLM land.......

 

I don't know much about the Rave Act, but that would apply to a privae land gathering. Even scarrier than that, to me, anyway, if I was a property owner, would be the potential financial liability issues associated with having a large gathering on on my land. Somebody OD's like they did in Utah, for example, property owner could wind up on the wrong end of a lawsuit.

Would depend on the State. Most have some kind of mass gathering statute. I attended a regional on State land in Michigan, we didn't even see a County Sheriff. Aparently that AGOT Event in MO over the 4th was on State land, and violated the MO Mass gathering law, but recieved no hassles. Any body want to try that trick somewhere else, like, say, New York?

 

its public land for public use .....if the people can not use there own land to gather on then we might as all just bend over completely ...they are taking away our rights daily this is one we can fight against and should .....the gov claims the family damages the land yet hundreds of thousands of acres are clear cut and mined yearly causing far more damage to the ecosystems yet this is done by corporations and is fully indorsed.....

to move it to private land or sign a permit is caving in to a corrupt system bent on controlling you .......it is simply not an option we can consider

 

No redirecting the questioning to state land please, it was a direct question and specifically questioned the use of private land like at Woodstock. I realize the drug issue is enforceable on any land (even foreign lands). I was wondering if it is some unwritten concept that forces a group dedicated to love, peace and happiness into direct confrontation with the government using public land? Who decides these things really, is it by diabolical design the devoted dwell as pawns to be used ??????

Seems to me it would not be that hard to pull 20,000 people together by word of mouth onto private land for a gathering dedicated to love and peace. Do you really want to continue the charade of civil disobedience year after year?

Bad girls, bad boys....I spank the whole rainbow clan.....there..... now you happy?

 

No redirecting the question to state land please? !? None of us are actually speaking on topic. as it were. Are other suggestions really that big of a problem?

Private land is not a viable option for many reasons; the laws are much different than in the days of Woodstock; private land would require festival insurance is another reason that hasn't been listed so far

And as stated by cheese-wiz it is also a matter of standing up for our rights as americans; many Rainbow folks are just as dedicated to standing up for freedom as to peace & love. if we allow the government to step on our rights as citizens then soon there will be no rights. Besides the fact that in no way does civil disobedience clash with a belief in peace & love. (spanking might not exactly be showing peace & love tho)

It is really a charade of civil disobedience when people are Gathering despite ticket writing & LEO intimidation? Is it a charade when there is plenty of media coverage talking about the regulations & how they go against our constitutional rights?

we don't think so. it is time for americans to stand up & if Rainbow doesn't show folks how, where will they get the courage to stand when they have had enough?

 

you go ahead and deceive yourself it is a big prob with me, go right ahead...I think this method of discussion lacks the important person to person contact it takes to see and feel how mellow a person is......peace bro. HS

 

Wow, great to hear everyone's experiences, I'm surprised how differently each person experiences the same event. I had a great time but did notice a lot more drama than usual (especially with the cops, but luckily I arrived after the roadblock; and also with A-camp and them bringing kegs into the main circle on the 4th!!)... the location was beautiful and we met many friends, both old & new.

I agree that the gathering is what you make it, and in order to change things you have to participate. It was great volunteering for kitchens, running errands & getting water for them, etc.

The main problem I encountered was loose dogs, mostly pitbulls, who were not being kept on a leash. I have a male husky who is always with us on his leash, and he's been attacked or confronted by other dogs several times at gatherings. He tends to be defensive because of this, but since we keep him on a leash we were able to avoid dog fights. I just wish everyone else who brought their dogs would be responsible owners. This is especially important for breeds that are bred to fight and have the genes to be aggressive. LEASH YOUR DOGS, please!

This was only my second gathering (first was CA 2004), and I had a wonderful time. Each time I learn more and more about rainbow and how the whole thing is run, and I definitely want to become more a part of it. Most of the people we encountered were very friendly and welcomed us home, and I didn't notice any hostility with cops (we told them we loved them as they walked through), but I was there from about July 2 to July 7, so probably missed the drama with the set-up crew...

So where's next year's gathering?

 

sadly to say.. i witnessed some rocks and sticks being thrown.

 

even tho all those with belly buttons are family not all are peace lovin and some are prone to turn to more agressive measures when confronted....but over all those that were there did a very good job of holding there ground against the LEOs .....

 

the two choices seem to be pay in time to confront LEOs or pay in money to insure a private land holder to have a festival. 3 choices, don't hold a national gathering. 4th choice, at a preset time and place agreed upon, all loving souls from where they are telepathically imagine themselves together....................just thinking about it all day for a couple of weeks together apart........('works for me') ..yeah it does me too......~~~~~