Rainbow Family Gathering
Posted on Jul 1st, 2008
by 
*Ladybear~
*Ladybear~
It's July 1 and people are traveling all over the US in Rainbow buses, car pools, hitchhiking, Rainbow ride share, or whatever it takes to get to The National Rainbow Gathering.
cool-hippie-bus
This event happens every year from July 1 peaking on July 4 with a huge peace circle involving all of 30,000+ people involved in the gathering.
This year "The Gathering" as it is now known is being held in Wyoming.
Reports are that driving is difficult because the police are stopping people for any slight reason, and demanding court appearances.
I went to the first seed gathering in 1970 in Eugene, Oregon.
This was the first year of the "Gathering of the Tribes" to come together to plan the annual Rainbow Family of Living Light Gatherings.
The official First Rainbow Gathering happened in 1972 at Strawberry Lake, Colorado.
I remember going in a VW bug with the seats taken out of it for easy sleeping on the road.
I was traveling with a friend name Dennis who had picked me up hitchhiking in Oxnard, California in April of 1972.
When I got into his bug, I said I was going to Mt Shasta, about 600 miles north.
Dennis said "if you fill my car up with gas, i'll take you all the way!"
I did and we stayed together for about 5 months.
Dennis still comes by to visit every month or so, but he's now on a Moto Guzzi motorcycle instead of in that old VW bug.
We got to the site and had to park the car at one of the parking lots.
No cars are allowed into the site, we hiked UP the side of a big mountain carrying all kinds of crates of food with us.
Did that a few times, just because I loved stopping to rest and eating the raisins out of the large crate!
I think there were about 15,000 people at this first gathering. "The Family" fed them all.
We each had seperate camps, but came together at night for campfires in varied pod circles of common likes.
Music pod circles, drumming circles, healing pods, you name it, there were group circles for it.
EVERYONE ate together in a circle after working at the kitchens during the day preparing meals.
I met people from all over the country there.
A professor from George Washington University, in Washington, DC,
ended up coming back to California with us.
There were sweat lodges, healing circles, no money exchanged - it's barter only,
lots of dope and a lot of music & fun.
I still have a blue ceramic bead I traded some pink leather for.
I've been to a few Rainbow gatherings since the original one.
The Rainbow Family usually comes through Mt. Shasta at some point in August
to extend The Gathering in Northern California.
But now my days of this type thing are pretty much over, my body can't take it anymore!
Ram Dass is interviewed in this video when he attended The Gathering following his stroke.
They carried him in his wheelchair up the mountain to the event!
WARRIORS OF THE RAINBOW (Doc.trailer)
Access: Public
rainbow family
September 2008 