HIGH TIMES MAGAZINE (DECEMBER 2006)

FAMILY MATTERS
Welcome to the 35th National Rainbow Family Gathering—the hippiest place on Earth.
BY DAVID BIENENSTOCK

It’s about an hour past dawn on the morning of July 4—Independence Day—and I’m standing completely naked before a mountain stream, trying to convince myself to jump all the way into its cold, clear waters. I’ve dipped my toes in already, washing away a thick layer of dark brown dust accumulated after a few days of walking the 50 miles of winding trails that now crisscross the majestic alpine forest surrounding the stream on all sides. One trail leads to Yoga camp, another to the Hare Krishnas, the Christians, Jerusalem camp, the massage lodge, the trading circle, Information, Peace Village, Kiddie Village, Musical Veggie, Granola Funk, Lovin’ Ovens or any of a dozen other elaborate kitchens scattered in the woods, set up to feed me, you, or anyone else gathered in Colorado’s Routt National Forest, all for free—in fact, everything essential’s always free here, including entry, parking, food, water, basic healthcare, brotherly love, and even entertainment, including a twenty-foot tall pirate ship set up to serve as a stage for gypsy-style sing-a-longs. Gifting, trading and donating are highly recommended, buying and selling are not permitted, nor are they necessary. Anyone with a belly button gets treated like family.

The stream’s fairly shallow, even at its deepest points, so I curl into a tight ball to ensure that I fully submerge. By the time my body bobs back to the surface, the shock to the system’s so acute that I must bite my lower lip to keep from calling out in agony/ecstasy. I’m not worried about any of my many brothers and sisters seeing me in my birthday suit. This place is like the Garden of Eden before the serpent and the tree of knowledge—when Adam and Eve were still naked and not ashamed—but per a longstanding Rainbow tradition, today has been set aside for a silent meditation that will last until the family comes together at “hippie noon” to join hands in a prayer for world peace, and so, since screaming “Holy shit that’s cold” at the top of my lungs doesn’t seem to fit the mood, I hold my breath as I pull myself up onto the bank of the stream to dry in the sun.

Since 1972, the Rainbow Family of Living Light has been assembling on federal land, with no permits and no leaders. Despite official government repression, including the arrest of hundreds of family members at this year’s 35th Annual national gathering—many simply for attending an “illegal gathering”—the world’s largest “non-organization of non-members” still drew an estimated 20,000 seekers of peace, love and understanding to this middle of nowhere, for a slice of life lived off the grid, and far removed from the machinery of modern day existence—a place where water comes not from a faucet or a bottle, but from the stream, filtered for drinking after running through miles of pipe lovingly laid by the hands of the earliest arriving family members, an all-volunteer advance crew in the hundreds that selflessly put in long, hard weeks preparing the site for the heavy influx of humanity in the days leading up to the 4th. These scouts first began their vital mission during a consensus-based council held at last year’s gathering in West Virginia, working together to find and agree on a suitable location featuring a fresh water source and a main meadow of at least 100 acres, with room enough leftover to park the cars and pitch the tents of the entire family once they arrive en mass.

One of the Rainbow Family’s most cherished bits of accumulated wisdom asks that everyone does a little, so no one has to do a lot, but these scouts undoubtedly chop the most wood and carry the most water. Some of their required tasks are conceivably, if not inherently, fun, like painting the giant “Welcome Home” banner that spans the entrance to the gathering’s main trail or chopping vegetables and singing songs alongside a half-dozen of your closest (or newest) friends. But the most necessary work, hauling cooking supplies uphill in the midday heat or cleaning out a shitter when the mosquitoes have just come out for sunset—that can hardly be called fun, right? But listen carefully, and you’ll hear laughter through the trees. Look up from your private worries, and you’ll see hugs when the job’s done. And should you want to get in on the fun yourself, here’s another dose of Rainbow wisdom: “If you see a job to do, it’s yours.”

Yet for all their efforts, those most committed to the Rainbow cause inevitably suffer disproportionate hassling at the hands of the man. Federal agents posted at the entrance to this year’s gathering site spent late-June distributing fliers threatening anyone passing with fines of up to $5,000 and the possibility of six months in jail. When arrests rose into the multiple hundreds, the Forest Service commandeered North Routt County Fire Station No. 2 and set up a makeshift court, so a US magistrate could sit in judgment within days of a summons, mostly issuing $150 fines. Authorities of all kinds have also made their presence felt during the main week of the gathering, inside and outside the site, but their suddenly low-key style of engagement when faced with our now superior numbers makes it clear that the official plan of action calls for targeting the instigators, then using media stories of early arrests to scare the locals and keep down attendance.

At its heart, the ongoing conflict between the Rainbow Family and the federal government has a lot more to do with the state exercising social control than protecting national forests. With no leaders capable of accepting responsibility for its non-members, the anarchistic Rainbows refuse to sign a permit, offering the US Constitution’s protection of “free assembly” as their required paperwork—a tradition of benign non-compliance that dates back to 1972, when the ironically-monickered Governor John Love of Colorado made it his official policy to squash the first gathering (see sidebar below), rather than contain and manage it, an ill-advised strategy that didn’t work then, and doesn’t work now.

“Freedom isn’t free,” at least according to the pro-war bumper stickers, and so, without permit or permission, the Family has always gathered, whatever the costs. They’ve also earned a well-deserved reputation for sound stewardship of the land, including clean-up and site restoration that will last for weeks, collecting the garbage, removing the water system and reseeding the trails blazed by the 40,000 feet of the family.

At the moment, however, those trails remain in heavy use, as a long line of silent meditators descends from the hills into the main meadow—like mercury pooling together—after first patiently waiting their turns for a sage purification ritual prior to entering the sacred space. I sit silently with my legs crossed like the Buddha, near the middle of the circle, seated between an upside down American flag and a right-side-up one showing the Earth as seen from space. At the appointed hour, without any noticeable signal or prompting, all of us stand and spread out, holding hands to form a giant Ohm circle that resonates with the sound of so many voices fusing together as one.

This is the prayer for world peace. The first and only time the Rainbow Family will all gather at once, and it’s an indescribable feeling to witness just how many souls have been sharing the same land, time, and ideals this week, and to know that while the rest of America eats hamburgers, drunkenly lights off fireworks and tries their damndest to turn a blind eye to the carnage in Iraq, we’re taking part in a ceremony that not only imagines a better world, but all-too-briefly brings one into being.

The arrival of a festive children’s parade breaks both the Ohm circle and the vow of silence, kicking off a massive party featuring all the drumming, dancing, eating, singing and loving you’d expect from a bunch of blissed-out hippies standing in a meadow. Off to one side, away from the crowds, some enterprising soccer fans have set up a field complete with two sturdy, regulation-sized goals made from fallen tree branches lashed together with rope. I count up the sides to see whose short a man, and soon I’m drenched in sweat, out of breath, holding my hand out to high-five one of my teammates after our side has scored a goal. We’re more than 9,000 feet up into the thin air, and when someone calls for a half-time, I’m relieved for the rest.

Only then do I notice the small crowd gathered on the far side of the goal I’ve been defending, a semi-circle of beatific smiles turned in the direction of two beautiful young women in white dresses, with flowers woven into their hair, about to be married. Their healer, who will perform the ceremony, carefully hangs a large, ornately decorated tapestry from our goal post before asking all within earshot to offer these two lovers our hearts as they begin a life together. A drumbeat begins, followed by the playing of a fife, and then the two beautiful young women in white dresses with flowers woven into their hair begin to dance, with only their fingertips touching. The drums build and build in intensity until the two lovers truly become one.

When the tapestry comes down, the soccer game resumes, and I play again until my legs start to give out beneath me. Then I slide off the field as seamlessly as I entered, hopefully holding just enough energy in reserve to make it back to the stream.

SIDEBAR:
THE BEGGINING OF THE RAINBOW
Two of the Rainbow Family’s original visionaries will be honored at this year’s Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam.

In the beginning, Plunker had a vision. Right after Woodstock, the man the authorities know as Barry Adams began planning a “gathering of tribes” from across the surging counterculture for an entirely free festival based on shared values, not rock stars and record label money. Along with his Rainbow brother Garrick Beck, Plunker traveled the country for years, making his case to communes, Yogis, radicals, potheads, anarchists, draft dodgers, veterans, feminists, Jesus freaks, and anyone else who might prove fertile ground for his mission: a gathering of 144,000 of God’s elect as predicted in the book of Revelations, on a sacred spot called Table Mountain in Colorado.

In June of 1972, the vision led to a stand-off, with state police using barbed wire to block off Table Mountain, and the seminal Rainbow Family, 15,000 strong, forced to retreat—first to a nearby wheat field, and then to 360 acres of private land at Strawberry Lake, a location offered up by local developer Paul Geisendorfer, who'd escaped from a North Korean prison camp during the war, fled into the jungle, and there had a vision of his own, centered on the founding of a spiritual city.

Before dawn on July 4, Plunker and Garrick led a contingent from Strawberry Lake up to Table Mountain, where police eventually backed down, and let them pass. At high noon, the hundreds of pilgrims who made it to the top joined hands for an Ohm circle, and the first Rainbow Family prayer for peace went out into the universe.

This November, at the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, Garrick and Plunker will be inducted into the Counterculture Hall of Fame.

“I’m not into the counterculture, because I believe that we are the culture. And that out there is the counterculture.” Plunker reflected at this year’s 35th National Gathering, during NYC Purple Gang’s annual jazz brunch. “We don’t look like much, and we aint’ much, but we have managed somehow to be constant, consistent and continuous in reaching out and trying to absolve peace. Our mantra is “Peace, we win.”

“It’s not that we think the world’s problems will be solved if everyone went and lived in tents for two weeks,” Garrick added. “But if it became a passion around the world for people of every stripe to get together and share each others foods, music, and prayers, that will help make a new world culture, and I don’t see how it can hurt.”

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