1996 Rainbow Gathering
Copyright 1996 by Mu Kraken
SPIRITEDLY SEEKING THE GODDESS
(The Rainbow Gathering at Mark Twain)
-- by Mu Kraken
Jean Houston and others detect a Rhythm entering human
affairs. Here in the nether portal of the twentieth century where
so many signs point to Doomsville, spirits of coming-together
shimmer amid the Sickness, which recedes before the harmonic
rhapsody of hearts attuned to one another. Earth Abides.
ribba run past macadam bridges, Dionyssian sages
and rills unhymned,
past divas and ashras, Asuras and astral log rhythms,
bathing holes and filtered streamwater, traders bartering for the
Light,gutterpunks frenetically pursuing the elusive photon jolt
even the Dead can't attain without pausing for nondesire,
past the oldsters raving and meditating, past Jesus and Geos,
past Gabriel who keeps losing and finding his horn
{Trump XXIII: The Rainbow Lady},
past the Drum Circle and its smaller and greater reverberators,
past feathers and scents and laughter and
scream and song and chant and murmur in the dusk --
Macadams and Greeks: Prof. Tetragram in the midst of the
myssts and Zeno there at last, at the very last --
Pie Man here, there, and everywhere
(how does he move his grand bulk around, through all these folds
and nooks in the flesh of Mother Gaia?) --
and the Peripatetic Editor? How shall I write his name
for future ourstory? Something short -- PE?
And howsabout the Muse Magnet? I dast not call him ole MM.
Mad Grodan was there with Astarte. She's smart. And
steadier than Mad Grodan. I like her.
I'm Mu.
Day One, Sunday, June 30, 1996
I amble. I wander. I migrate. I find myself at the
stream one must cross to reach the End of the Universe. There
are streams to cross between each meadow, each with a narrow
macadam bridge. This is the only stream at which one has to
get one's feet wet in order to cross. Instead of a bridge,
there is a stone causeway that is underwater. The last camp
before the stream is This Camp. Welcomed by the sitters there, I
join them. It is a group of young men and women ranging from
college age down to some who look teenage. They shanghai me into
a vociferous effigy inspirator ceremony.
Suddenly I am on a Mission From Buddha. I am often on a
Mission From Buddha,generally without the assistance of
inspirator effigy rites or other central nervous system enhancers.
I usually don't know what the mission is, even after it has
been successfuly completed. Keeps me out of trouble.
Near the Main Drum Circle I encounter Prof. Fiber, a
pleasant acquaintance from Memphis who has spent some time at
the commune near Summertown, TN, which outsiders call
"Stephen's Farm". I tell him about my Mission. He humors me for
a few minutes, then goes off looking for his own Mission. I
hope that he is not to be Missionless.
I find out later that it is Fiber's first Gathering. Quite
understandable.
The gutterpunks (their term, not mine) at the Gathering are
quiet (aside from the occasional scream of "Dose me!"), observant,
interested in everything. I even see some of them hanging an
appreciable amount of time with Krsnas -- though it's difficult
to be sure, considering the similarity of hairdo. As I get to know
them better I find them warm, friendly, intelligent, and often
well-read. Many of them are seen to work assiduously in the
kitchens and other needed areas.
Their black and gray tatoos are intriguing. More natural
looking than the usual colorful ones worn by "normal" folks. I
should imagine they would age better. I wonder if any of
them attach occult significance to the symbols thereon. Then
I realize that anyone who gets anything burned-on and needle-
injected permanently into their skin must attach some kind
of occult significance to whatever is depicted. Be it heart and
Mom and apple pie or demonic skull emitting cobras. Moot point. I
could never have a color tatoo. But I might could have a
black tatoo. And pierced lips? Anything can happen. Not my
nipples, though. Too vestigal.
I find the Muse Magnet with a companion on the Poets'
Bench. We quote together awhile. I check out the Had Matter's
Tea Party, meet the Had Matter. But hanging around the Had
Matter's Tea party is too desire-ridden for my strategy of
Undesire. I know if I stay there I'll get obsessed with which
side of the mushroom is which. I move on.
At dusk, I enter the Main Meadow. There is a huge
bonfire at the Drum Circle, which I can see in the distance.
It looks like a scene viewed in a dream or vision -- or a
fantasy painted by an artist tripped out on pixies and
druids. From that distance, with my Thurbian nearsightedness,
the figures of the people are a blur. They might be doing
anything for all I know -- shape-shifting, breathing fire, flying
through the air. The light and smoke of the fire are in full
clarity, though. Not only does it look like a vision, it feels
like a vision. Walking through this too-real vision, I skirt
the crowd and go looking for Ingues. Find him with Nemo, and
the three of us go back to the Drum Circle.
Vachel Lindsay was known to have said, from time to time,
"Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.
THEN I had religion, THEN I had a vision.
I could not turn from their revel in derision.
THEN I SAW THE CONGO, CREEPING THROUGH THE
BLACK,
CUTTING THROUGH THE JUNGLE WITH A GOLDEN
TRACK.
Then along the riverbank
A thousand miles
Tatooed cannibals danced in files..."
Ingues turns in early. As I sit by the Drum Circle with Captain
Nemo, talking of Michaelangelo, a radiant lady comes over to us and
begins hugging us. She tells us that she is enacting the Eleusinian
Rite of Hoffman for the first time in 26 years. She came over to us
because things were getting a little confusing and we looked like we
had "safe" auras. She says that her name is Foya and that she's from
Mackinaw, AR. The name rings a bell. I ask her if it is near
Parthenon, to which she answers in the affirmative. I tell her I used
to live in a commune outside Parthenon called Rivendell.
"Oh! Wow! You're one of those folks who started the Rivendell
Blueberry Farm!"
"Well, actually at the time it was just six hippies sleeping
under the stars."
So as it happens, she, out of some 20,000 people in the dark
Ozark park, lives a stone's thoreau away from a place that served as a
pivotal point in my life. Rivendell was synchronistic with my knowing
Nemo and all the other fine folks in Metaphysics Anonymous. She says
she wants to adopt me as the great uncle she never had. We sit and
talk for quite some time before she dances away into the darkness.
Eventually Nemo disappears likewise.
By and by, I decide to go get my bedroll and sleep wherever I
can. I walk up and down the main path, seeking our campsite. Whenever
I think I'm near it I call out, "Ahoy Captain Nemo!" but get no
response that I can detect. The sign for Camp Elizabeth has vanished
mysteriously. I have no idea if I've gone too far or not far enough.
I encounter the Candle Lady time and again. Sometimes
it's the only way I know I've gone in a circle. She brings to
mind a painting I've seen, sort of a neo-Pre-Raphaelite of a
golden-haired maiden haloed in a golden laurel-like light,
bending over to peer at a pixie procession. Like her sister in
the painting, Candle lady has golden hair and golden halo.
An aura auroric and aureate, one might say.
Also likewise weareth she a gossamer medieval-looking gown.
She is moving small candles, each in its little glass or metal
cup, all about and crisscrossing the pathway. I recognize her
for what she really is: my family's Christmas Tree Fairy from the
1950's, what came alive and flew off the tree one night in 1954,
Memphis, TN, leaving multiple images behind. Paused right in
front of my kisser to BLISS ME INSIDE OUT. Don't know what
happened to her after that. She may have taken up residence as
Chief Dryad of my ganglial tree. Rather enjoyable trip for a
four-year-old. No chemicals.
As I wander back and forth along the path, pausing here and there
to call, "Ahoy Captain Nemo!" to the cloud of strange vapors that hang
over the Gathering, I encounter at one point a pair on the Critical
Path to Peaking, a cat and a kitty. The cat asks me where White Dove
is. I tell him that I think it's back that way. The kitty grabs my
arm and asks me if I am still in charge. I give her the benefit of
the doubt and assume she means in charge of my own self-actualization
and sobriety. I say, "Yes." She asks me for guidance, and I take them
in the direction of White Dove.
Suddenly she decides she wants to turn about and go the other
way. The cat darts ahead, though, in the direction of White Dove.
Sagely choosing the kitty over the cat, I walk arm-in-arm with her for
some ways, having conversation of a sort. Eventually she decides I'm
the Devil and we part company in a friendly fashion. I let her
wander, certain she will find a comfy haven.
I stop at a tarp by the side of the path. A lady is sitting
there in a chair in the dark, her face hidden in the shadows. She
says her name is Rainstar. I sit down in the chair next to her to
rest. We talk quietly for some time. Free Parking. Gazebolike in its
serenity and respite. By and by I leave without ever having seen her
face.
Later, as the dark is beginning to disperse, I encounter another
lady, sitting on a log. Her name is Share One. I sit down next to
her and we talk awhile. She's upset with the way the Gathering is
going. Too much of a party atmosphere, lack of respect for Mother
Nature, loss of direction and purpose. I agree. She invites me to a
meeting at Silence Place near the bathing hole. I tell her she reminds
me of Captain Nemo. She isn't sure how to take that. I tell her it
might be seen as a compliment, in some quarters. She accepts that as
my opinion.
At the end of the first day, no poison ivy, no serious cuts nor
scratches, nothing strained or jammed, no infections, almost no
bugbites.
I wander and converse way past sunrise and on into:
Day Two (Mon., 7/1/96)
Sundog Kitchen early dawning pipe ceremony with sweet-hearted
punkie lady and others -- I still haven't slept -- Tobacco Guy
(Chilly or Willy or Chilly Willy), gives me "Punkin' Pie" pipe
tobacco; we talk; we smoke -- The punkette has worked there all night,
I think. She has a sweet, sincere, downhome smile, albeit pleasantly
fatigued -- I've come at the change of shifts -- We talk,
we drink coffee, we smoke --
Nemo arrives, cup in hand --
We talk, we drink, we smoke --
Son Dog's Kitchen is a little into the woods, and surrounded
by a horseshoe slough of shallow water. At night, it's the only
place with enough frogs to sound like the Delta. Did we meet
Joanie and her companions at Son Dog's? I don't remember
exactly where or when we met Joanie. Maybe there. She was
intriguing. I believe she was from NY. I remember talking with
her for some time and finding her fascinating. Haven't a
clue as to what we said, tho.
But I do remember when and where I met Roach.
I had noticed her the day before. Now I spy Nemo talking to her,
indicating her butterfly tatoo and asking her if she's seen the movie
"Papillion". I introduce myself and we talk. She is willowy and
gentle while also sprightly. She reminds me of a girlfriend from 25
years ago, of course. Her hair is evenly cut to about one-sixteenth
of an inch and tinted green. Everything is pierced -- nose, lips,
navel, nipples -- Her butterfly tatoo is black and stretches across
her lower back. She tells me she teaches second-graders. She says
that she and her two girlfriends are going to Alaska. Silently noting
her state of undress, I ask her if she has a wardrobe appropriate to
tundra. She says she doesn't. I say, "Semper paratus."
She is one Vision too many for my overawed neural clusters. I
return to the tent and plummet into the realms of Morpheus.
By and by I wake and resume my errantry. Many among the
multitudes have not yet learned the strategy of Undesiring. Foolish
people run hither and thither throughout the Gathering, hollering for
"The Mad Doser". An attractive gutterpunk lady named Spike walks up
to me and says that she's heard the Mad Doser is an old bearded hippy
in a tie-dyed shirt. I guess all us old tie-dyed hippies look alike
to some folks.
"The Mad Doser cometh not to those who seek him, but only to
those who seek him not," I counsel her. She rushes off.
Somewhere sometime I meet Deja, daughter of Liz. I donate Nemo's
brick of Rainbow Brand Coffee to Son Dog Kitchen, thereby accumulating
the needed karmic credit to invoke her appearance. She is giving away
short peacock feathers. She says that her mother collected them all
her life. Now her mother has passed away, and Deja has decided to
present them to people at the Gathering. I ask for one and put it in
a copy of FOUR QUARTETS (by T.S. Eliot). I give her the magic hawk
feather (blessed by the shaman and given me by the man who lived with
wolves, was burned severely with 3rd degree over large areas of his
body and healed perfectly through Native American shaman health care).
It has become quite mangled in transport, but is still as potent as
ever. Back at the Drum circle I find Nemo and Ingues. An entity
named Mole seasons my food with Teonanacatl. Later that night,
Ingues and I fall asleep fairly early, around the Drum Circle.
At the end of the second day, no poison ivy, no serious
cuts nor scratches, nothing strained or jammed, no
infections, almost no bugbites.
Day Three (Tue., 7/2/96)
That morning it rains a little. I tuck my head into my bedroll.
Eventually I rise and make my way to Son Dog's for morning coffee.
We had met Geos the day before. He is quite an
interesting conversationalist, as well as being warm-natured and
helpful. He invites Nemo and me to join him in a Teonanacatl
ritual, and we do.
Then we hike from Son Dog's to the Swim Hole below Milliways,
at The End of the Universe.
I swim out to a huge innertube clustered with people.
We talk and smoke. A freckled girl swims up behind me and
grasps the tube at a spot next to me. She is a Vision, like
so many at the Gathering, taken from a pre-Raphaelite painting.
"Hylas and the Nymphs", this time.
I turn from the tube and mine subtoral orbitals
(eyes) are bodhi-slammed with another Vision. It's the maiden
from "Daybreak" by Maxfield Parrish, knee deep in the stream.
"Holy Charismas!" I OOrupt.
Nearby, Dawn Golden swims round and round us, wearing a
sunflower dress that spreads and drifts in the currents. I could
at any moment transmigrate into bee pollen and blow away
without even noticing the change.
Dried out and on the trails again, I sit down on the
ground next to an elderly man of medium build. He has a long
white beard and a bald pate. He appears to be around eighty. He
introduces himself as Gabriel. I tell him my name is Mu and
that I am on a Mission From Buddha.
He studies my features. "Weren't you around at that
Palestine thing a couple of millenia ago?" he inquires.
"Palestine? I thought it was Sumeria!"
"You never were any good at reading maps, my son."
"I suppose you're right. So what have you been up to?"
Gabriel says, "I had to go all the way back to the
beginning and start all over again as an amoeba. It hurt alot
sometimes," he adds with a pained look. Now here he
is, and he feels a gratitude and jubilation so intense that he
thinks his heart must break for sheer joy.
He's lost his pack. I ask him if his horn is in it.
He says, "Yes." I say I hope he isn't planning on blowing it any
time too soon.
He says, "I dunno. I'm getting itchy lips."
As it happens, Gabriel loses and finds his pack over
and over throughout the Gathering.
Later Ingues and I ask for water at a Jesus tent.
They refuse to give us any water, but offer us a free book.
Ingues takes one. He churches; I don't. Still later, the
Krsnas offer us another free book. I refuse. I learned my lesson
in an airport 30 years ago. I like the Krsnas, though.
Anybody who's attended every Festival and Gathering for the past
30 years must have something good going for them.
That night the last I remember of Gabriel, he was
hanging onto a geodesic dome singing about "chocolate drums".
At the end of the third day, no poison ivy, no serious
cuts nor scratches, no sprains, no strains, no bruises, no
infections, almost no bugbites.
Day Four (Wed., 7/3/96)
I probably started my day at Son Dog's again. I went
swimming when the sun grew bright. Down from Milliways at
the End of the Universe. Xena the Warrior Princess was
there, awe naturally. Not the actress on teevee! This
was the real Xena, straight from the collective subconscious
of humankind. You can tell cause their faces are a little different.
Astarte rubs mud on my back for me. As I am about
to leave the water, Xena asks me to rub mud on her back. I
comply. As I do so, I fall into a rhythm, massaging her
back with the mud rather than just slopping it on. She arches
her back and moans as my hands slide up and down the
musculature on either side of her spine. At that point I
feel something coming up from the direction of my lower
chakras. Fretting that the children around me might learn
something that they aren't ready for, I sit down in the water.
(Did I mention that I'm a married man? Whups!) Xena
thanks me and (bump-grind) ambles over to Granola Funk where a
wild and wiggy jam session is in progress. My subtoral orbitals
are still attached, hooked like big-mouth bass to her line
of undulation. I slip a handful of mud into my back pocket, "for
later". The tactic of Undesire has met its match.
Geos hands me a slice of Teonanactl. I'm already so
spaced on the mud trip that I don't notice eating it. The
erotic feeling has moved out of my groin and sublimated right up
my kundalini, tickling my heart chakra on the way, to light
up that ethereal neuron bundle a few inches above the pineal
gland. It is then I realize that the only solution to the
world's problems is for the men to surrender to the women.
Unconditionally.
I follow her mud-blackened buns as she dances at
different places -- Granola Funk, Elysian Fields -- to the
End of the Universe, where the Milliways jam is reaching new
heights. During all this time, I am intensely aware of my own
social limitations in regard to Xena. I am married. I have
never believed in strict monogamy, but my wife does.
So I have had sex with no one else throughout the 18 years
we have been together, simply because I respect her
primitive monogamistic superstitions. So I most certainly could
not actually seek out any kind of erotic relationship
outside of my marriage. Of course, if Xena were to "come on"
to me, I might have to reconsider just what the Will of the
Goddess might be in this matter. I certainly wouldn't
want to abrogate Destiny because of mere human moral qualms,
would I?
Besides, some people say there's such a thing as being
possessed by a goddess. And, if we men are going to surrender
unconditionally to the women, I have to just get by as best I
can as a prisoner of peace.
Right? Of course right!
As I'm mulling this over and at the same time wondering
if I want to put my shoes back on, I stub my toe
ferociously on a big rock in the path. I dance/yell/plead and
blaspheme. It's bleeding and feels like the business end of a
jackhammer. By the time I calm down, Xena is gone. Is the
stubbed toe my punishment for harboring thoughts of lust in my
heart chakra? More likely, it's just retribution for the sin of
walking around barefoot. Even a taoist shaman has to deal with
Protestant Guilt once in awhile.
Meanwhile, somewhere in there, Nemo and Astarte
stand in a Circle at Granola Funk Kitchen, hands vibrating to
the music. They can feel their hands vibrate all way up to
their elbows from the drumbeats. A young lady walks up to
Astarte and holds her hands palm outward. They put their
palms together and a trancelike look comes into their eyes.
Vulcan mind-meld? There is a transmittance there, some
ungraspable communication between Persephone and Demeter, between
maid and matron.
Nemo is having a mystical experience of his own by
this time, seeing in 3-D without wearing his glasses. He's
sharply aware of the effects of the Teonanactl, something I
have forgotten in the rapture of the general motionality. The
universe assembles around him at the Drum Circle.
Here might be a good place to mention an often
unrecognized fact about experiential rites such as
Teonanactl and the Eleusinian Hoffman: Sometimes reality
outdistances them. A friend once related to me a visit to
the Grand Canyon that he had had while under the influence of Dr.
Hoffman's molecule. He said that the Canyon was so intense in
itself that the effects of the molecule were negated or
overwhelmed. I had noticed the same thing at Festivals of
the Woodstock genre. I remember losing count after
ingesting eight Hoffman wafers, because the reality of the
Festival was so intense that it put metanoia to shame. For
me, the same process was unfolding here. Effigy inspiration
and Teonanactl ingestion seemed to have little more effect than
coffee. The Cosmos around me was already on a trip far more
cosmic than anything I could come up with on my own.
While the Cozymos and her Consorts assemble around Nemo,
I take the path beyond The End of the Universe. No more
kitchens. It's all individual campsites. Really interesting
signs, though. Very few people. The strategy of Undesire
has reasserted itself by this time, so I'm not looking for
anything or anyone in particular. Suddenly I spy the lady
in the sunflower dress. She's sitting talking to three naked
people. I stop to chat. She says her name is Sheena and that
she lives "just over yonder" which I assume means outside
Thomasville.
A bearded fellow with longish hair introduces himself as
Yeeshua. That's how he pronounces it, Yeeshua. He certainly
looks like the pictures of Rabbi Yeshua of Nazareth
("Jesus" in the vulgar vernacular). He sits astride a naked
lady whom he is massaging. Her name and that of the other
lady present are lost to me, I am so excited to actually meet
Yeshua in the flesh. He may or may not know that the English
transliteration of his name is "Jesus". He gives me a funny look
when I quip about it. I tell him I'm on a Mission from
Buddha. He lays the Word on me, which I promptly forget. It's
okay. All is forgiven.
This might be a good place to comment on the
significance of names. Somewhere sometime in a dusky grove at
the Gathering I met Gaia. When she told me her name, I
folded my hands with my thumbs at my sternum and bowed,
telling her how happy I was to meet the eidolon of Earth.
She demurred, saying that Gaia was her "given" name. I
said, "Ah! Your parents have given you a wonderful name!" She
said, "No, not my parents ..." and fumbled for the right
words. I supposed she was trying to say that Gaia was her
pseudonym for the Gathering.
As it happened, I was on my way to somewhere else, so I
laid a pagan blessing on her and bid her adieu.
Walking along the trail, I cogitate on the fact that
these folks with significant names like Gaia and Yeshua
really don't get it. It doesn't really matter whether the
names are printed on their birth certificates, dropped
from the lips of a snockered Deadhead, or scribed in the
Book of Life. Any adept practitioner of experiential rites
(whether Eleusinian Clear Light panes, Oztechian fungi,
Castanedan succulents or whatever) knows that such folks ARE the
name they possess, or that possesses them, for the duration of
the epiphany on the part of the observer. The tripwise
observer can keep in mind that the subject is "really" just
another bloke like anybodhi else, while revelling in the
Presence of divinity residing in the thoughts and feelings
brought forth by the name. After all, the divine Presence
hovers at the seventh chakra of each of us, regardless of
names.
Everything is cool as long as the interdimensional traveller
realizes this and annoys no one with his/her epiphanies.
Those who don't understand this process probably shouldn't
tote hefty names around in realms where epiphanies abound. Or
at least be willing to shrug at the consequences.
I see Gabriel here and there. Keep running into
certain people throughout the next few days: Gabriel,
Fiber, Astarte, and our neighbor from near Camp
Elizabeth, named Selene. Selene is relocating. Her
boyfriend didn't have a blanket, so she found her one who did.
Somewhere in there someone lays a trip on me about the
"dynamic tension of opposites". Too close to Thule Society's
"Ice and Fire" concept for my likin'. Who was it? Yeshua?
Surely not Gabriel! Some forgotten fellow from Cleveland?
Maybe it was Yeshua.
That night, Ingues and I decide to return to the tent,
fetch our bedrolls, and sleep out at the perimeter, near
Milliways perhaps.
People are coming into the Gathering in droves. The
traffic on the main path is as thick as any rush hour I've
ever seen cityside. It looks more like mob of drunken
students at Mardi Gras than a Rainbow Gathering, as people
holler and cuss at each other, stumble, fall, and trample
each other. Getting past the traders is near impossible. If
ever there was a night to be disappointed in the Gathering, this
is it. We finally fetch our bedrolls and trek back out
toward the perimeter. But when we leave the Main Meadow and
try to cross the bridge to the next meadow, we are
stymied by a literal traffic jam.
The crowd is moving at a rate of about a foot a minute and
singing the ogre chant from Wizard of Oz, "Oh ee oh, ee ohhhh
oh!" We give up and decide to spend another night at the Drum Circle.
At the end of the fourth day, no poison ivy, no serious
cuts nor scratches, no infections, almost no bugbites. My
toe, however, is severely stubbed, and bled earlier. Now a
huge flap of skin, half the size of a large toenail, hangs off
the outside front fender of the Right Great Toe.
Silence should have begun at midnight. For many of us
it did.
Day Five (Thur., 7/4/96)
I was awake in time to spend time at The End of the
Universe with Nemo and Astarte. We wrote notes and drew
pictures to communicate, sitting on the log benches.
The Silence was to last until noon, at which time
Kids' Village would dance a ceremony for breaking it. Folks
were keeping the Silence fairly well, except toward the
parking areas. Having no idea what time it was, I headed out
toward the Med Tent. As I walked through the entrance
of the tent, the Silence was broken. I got a bandaid for my
toe and made my way to Lovin Ovins to drop off a
bodaceous bag of tea and coffee.
Meanwhile, back at the Drum Circle, the ceremony
was in full swing. About 30 minutes into it, someone
pointed to the sky and yelled. There was a rainbow
around the sun. If one shaded one's eyes, one could see it.
Geos gave Nemo his sunglasses so he could look up and
see the colors. This happened at the peak of the Gathering.
Later, Nemo tells me it was due to ice crystals
in the stratosphere. As a practicing Pagan Pragmaticist, I
had to ask him what difference that made. I mean, a
rainbow around the sun is a rainbow around the sun. He said
he guessed so.
Pagan Pragmaticists always ask what difference
divergent explanations make, one to the other. For
example, the question of free will vs. predestination: How
would things be different, if one or the other were the
exclusive truth? If the answer is "no difference at all",
then one is encouraged to consider the possibility that the
question is essentially meaningless -- a function of the
convoluted structure of language. Can God make a stone so big
that He can't pick it up? A mere linguistic illusion, no more
nor less. Such a stone can only be found in the Slough of
Lost Luggage sand witched amid the intersecting interstices
between moments, and only the moments that gyrate to the
tweedling pipes of the Gentry on All Satyr Day Night Eve.
Of course, Benjamin Whorf might comment that there is
nothing "mere" about linguistic illusions, that every
word and sentence structure is dripping with etymological
cabbala and archtypal ingrammatonic chimes of the Spheres
at the lobes of Lady Cosmos. But that's a different ball of wicca altokether.
What is the difference whether a rainbow round the sun
is formed by ice crystals in the stratosphere or snowflake
pixies in the grand aura of Mother Gaia? Especially when you
can meet Mother Gaia and converse with her in a hazy
dusky wood. I have met ice crystals in a hazy dusky wood, and
even conversed with them, but never in July.
I wanted to find better access to the mudbath
area, so I wandered in the stream with my shoes on for
some time. This must be when the rainbow around the sun was
sighted. Chances are good that it would have been visable
earlier, like when I was in the Med Tent. I was too focused
on first my toe and later the beauty of the stream to pay much attention.
I followed the shallow, rocky, meandering stream in
search of return to the Swim Hole. I got hopelessly
lost. Someone said that there was a Meditation Teepee at the
end of the path that led out from The End of the
Universe. I went there.
Upon my approach to the top of the hill, I picture the
teepee as full of silent meditators, and I worry a bit
as to whether my squishing shoes will disturb them -- let
alone making me look like a real turkey. At first there
seems to be no one there. Then Prof. Fiber appears at the
foot of the mound, having come down from the teepee.
Fiber and I talk for some time with a tall, dark-haired,
naked, youngish fellow with black tatoos and a well-trimmed
sagittal crest shaped like a short Mohawk cut. Sharp lad.
Much like us when we were that age.
Five or so of us gather around an altar before the
teepee. We maintain a continuous Peace Effigy
Cannabyssmal Inspirator circle.
There are offerings positioned upon the altar -- crystals,
grains -- I place an Oztech Fertility Control Totem of onyx,
jade, or quartz where it will yield best effect.
After awhile and much talk, I enter the teepee. Silence.
Silence and a Presence. A void Presence, perhaps. I would call
it Destiny, but that that would be to limit it with too much
definition. A rushing stillness. All points converging on the
same Destination.
I meditate. I open my eyes. There is an altar
inside the teepee. One of the objects thereon puzzles
me. It looks like a long-chewed cigar butt on the end of a
leather necklace. I pick it up, wondering who the hell
would leave a cigar butt, on a necklace no less, as an
offering. Of course, the Mad Shaman of Patterson St. says
tobacco is the medicine of North America, so maybe? Upon
closer examination, it proves to be not a cigar at all but
rather a leather pouch. Its contents are green and brown.
The green appears to be homegrown wildflower weed. The
brown is unidentifiable, perhaps chunks of Teonanacatl.
Nice offering --
The rainbow may have been visable this whole time,
for all I know.
Later, back on the happy trails:
Gabriel is sitting in the midst of a fairy ring
(circle of mushrooms), fingering his horn.
"I hope you aren't eating those," I say.
"Oh, I know how to tell which ones to eat or not to eat," he
answers.
"How?"
"Well, first of all, never eat the ones that run from you."
"That makes sense. I think William Blake voiced the same
warning."
"And never, never, never eat the ones with the little doors and
windows."
"I see. I'll keep that in mind."
"That reminds me, have you seen Isaiah?"
"No, but I read the Classics Illustrated version."
"No, I mean the fellow, Isaiah. He was here just century or so
ago."
"Well, no. Malachi (Child of God) ushered Jesus into my heart at
a Yippy ralley in 1970. And I talked with a guy called himself
Yeeshua looked just like the Jeez just yesterday eve. He was
massaging a naked woman."
"That's him all right. A Gentile woman?"
"I dunno. I guess so."
"And with all the lovely Jewish girls abounding about these
hills! And he a Prince at that! Shocking!"
Half-naked Krsnas (or are they Gutterpunks? Gutterkrsnas?) pass
in the dusk, singing "Hoof and Horn, / Hoof and Horn, / All who die
will be reborn," in unison. Beautiful! I love Gutterkrsnas!
The song, as much of it as I know, goes like this:
We have come from the Goddess
And to Her we shall return,
Like a drop of rain
Flowing to the ocean.
Hoof and horn, hoof and horn,
All who die will be reborn;
Fruit and grain, fruit and grain,
All who fall will rise again.
Beavis and Butthead sitting in the path,
commenting on passersby. "Shut yer lentil hole, dude!" Ah!
B&B, all is forgiven! Welcome home, Beavis and Butthead!
Ingues decides to turn in for the night. I look around
and spy a campfire in the distance at the edge of the Drum
Circle Meadow. It's on the way to the latrine area, so I
decide to check it out on the way back from relieving myself.
The campfire burned before the tent of two guys from
somewhere. They were interesting chaps but my attention was,
of course, drawn to the women. Names, faces, and
conversations blur, but three out of that group of six or
seven are permaprinted in my memory circuits:
Euneuronica, Uma Weinstock, and Kadina.
Euneuronica was giving nonstop massages. Said she was
on call 24 hours a day. I have never met a masseuse so
embued with both energy and ethusiasm. She actually hungered
to massage anyone she could get her hands on. When my
turn came, I rose and moved over to where she was. I sat
still while she adjusted herself, taking a position I
only remembered seeing in Kama Sutra illustrations. Her
fingers did a Dance of Shiva along my neck, trapezius muscles,
and spine. But she also added an extra dimension. While
her fingers were dancing, the rest of her body was snuggling.
Sometimes she would place her forehead on my back.
When she did that, warmth would radiate from her third eye
and spread throughout my neural network. I
was tempted to believe that she was using body language to
make a pass at me, but that she was behaving in the same
manner with each person she massaged regardless of whatever.
(A neologism comes to mind: omnisexual.) When she'd done
everyone in the circle, I came back for seconds.
Uma was a young Jewish lady from Memphis. She
had just graduated from high school, and this was the first
time she had ever been away from home. She gazed on the
whole scene with -- literally -- widened eyes. Kadina was a
Gypsy lady who must've been about my age. At least, she
looked like a Gypsy. At a Rainbow Gathering, just like
everywhere back in the sixties and seventies, it is oft difficult
to tell the difference between Gypsy and Bohemian.
I said to Uma, " Maybe we'll run into each other in
Memphis."
"I don't think I'm going back there," she said.
Kadina was an adept storyteller, and she told us a
couple of good ones. By and by I noticed that she and Uma
had become enmeshed in a womanly conversation, with
Kadina providing the kind of counseling and advice that
older women traditionally provide for the younger. Her
welcome words fell on eager ears. Kadina gave Uma a long
massage, and Uma lay still for a long time thereafter.
"Now I know I'm not going back to Memphis," Uma said.
I didn't blame her.
Here might be the place to mention an aspect of the
Gathering that was apparent from our first day there.
Everywhere women were coming together to share the
experience and experiences of being female. Younger women
spontaneously approached older women, who often seemed a
little surprised at first as the younger ones sought advice,
instruction, guidance, and example. Veteran Rainbow Ladies showed
the younger how to accomplish certain tasks while at the same
time giving counsel on the various issues of life specific
to women. There was a similar process going on with the men,
but with much less intimacy. With us, it was mostly a
matter of talking together -- less about specifically male
issues and more about things in general. This coming
together of folks (girls : women / boys : men) was like a
reunion of generations that had been separated for generations.
Thinking this was our last night there, I stayed up all
night.
At the end of the fifth day, no poison ivy, no serious
cuts nor scratches, no infections, almost no bugbites. The
toe is much better.
Day Six (Fri., 7/5/96)
Asleep all unwilling by noon. Was enjoying so
much, that I would've stayed up if I'd known we weren't
leaving that day. I should've known, though. Woke at
5pm to Nemo's announcement that we had decided to stay another
day. This meant I had to go to a phone and call my wife.
Ingues and I trudged out to the car and drove to the gas
station. I have to admit, the outhouse there was delightful. We
made the call. That Amazonian-sexy Gutterpunk girl Spike was
here. Someone (Spike?) gave us some watermelon. Ummmmmm.
Back at the Gathering there is some new good news:
Captain Nemo has made contact with the Peripatetic Editor. He
wouldn't have found the PE if he hadn't volunteered to dig
a latrine trench. There was Nemo, sweating out in the trees
as he pounded the rocky ground with a shovel, when our old
friend from previous Gatherings, the PE, showed up. Nemo had
met the PE at a Colorado Gathering. The PE had lugged in a
ton of Metaphysics Anonymous articles and stories, along with
other literature. Some years later, the PE visited us in
emphis. They were now camped up the hill from where Nemo
was digging the latrine. Synchronicities abound
everywhere that the Magic proliferates, especially at
Rainbow Gatherings.
Later, in the darkness of the Main Path, I hear a
drunk-seeming voice bacchanally howling, "Ain't there no
one here who knows where I'm at? Ain't there no one here that
knows how I feel? Good Godamighty that stuff ain't
real!" At first I hear it as a continuation of the
general cacaphoney. "Check that bozo for instance," I
tell myself, "mushhead!" Then I realize he is actually
quoting a poem, "Lines for Woody Guthrie", written by Bob Dylan
and read by same on the Bootleg Album CD).
Once upon a time a pagan philosopher found a Starry
Lady named Meri in a meadow at dusk. It was Liberty Eve at a
Rainbow Gathering, and Meri was dosed for the first time in
two millenia and two days. Meri was drawn to the pagan padre's
vibes like a mote to a vortex. The boy was so swangin' and
so fine and such a groovy downhome astral-domed
lovelight laughcat, that his vibes were DOS EQUUS for her
chakral clusters from the estrodosage stream coiled in her
undalini to the ever-bursting wisdom-nova atop the Seventh
Wig-Sphere.
This chickie was laing lost on a onely lonestone, and
only the lodestone of Jessy could set her serene for the
duration. Mu Kraken, the antidelusion philosopher-shaman
scribe, humorist, and sometime poet, was perched at the ridge
overlooking the ley, grokking on the interstices, when he
espied the farlearn mayadryad in the mysts. Having thrown
his compass away yearns agone, Mu could only offer her a sippy
of his lodelith chalice. She took a number of sippies. And a
rather huge swig.
Mu looked forlornly at the bottom of his now-empty
lodelith chalice. He knew he should've packed the sangreal
thermos. Now this is what you get for trying to help
Levantine goddesses and all. So he led her to where her
paramoor and soulmate Jessy was waiting. He left them
intertwined, laying a pagan blessing on them as he walked away
into the fiatlights.
Back at the Gathering, I feel a little depressed. This
feeling is allayed but not relieved by my surroundings. Late at
night, needing a miracle, I meet Diamond Dave. Diamond Dave is a
piece of ourstory from wayback in the '50s. Knew Dylan and
everybodhi. We talk awhile but we're both way past our crashtime.
We make a date to meet the next morn at Kids' Village.
At the end of the sixth day, no poison ivy, no serious
cuts nor scratches, no infections, but the bugs have found me.
Also I have aslight heat rash from being pissed with Nemo.
The toe is much better.
Day Seven (Sat., 7/6/96)
I rise fairly early -- 8? 9? Nemo, Ingues, and I
break camp, then hike to Kids' Village to make contact with
Kid Blue -- He's unsure if he wants to stay or go --
talk extensively with Dave and other folks at KV -- Jade, a
preschool girl, comes up and hands me an apple -- A call goes out
for servers to help with breakfast -- I start to comply, but Dave
says, "No, let the younger ones serve"-- I usher Ingues over there
-- Jade sits down next to me with her oatmeal -- After breakfast
we circle up -- The Morning Circle at KV is one of the most
intense things I have experienced at the whole Gathering --
Singing, discussing, auming --
I come across Prof. Tetragram somewhere in there. The
Tetra is a sculptor, stonecutter, gymnist, shaman masseur
treeclimbing lutehead in Metaphysics Anonymous. He hangs with
us for awhile. Alas, we are distracted -- hippygogic in
our trip of departing. We decide to postpone any real
conversation till we meet again in the Abode of Ptah and
Sekhmet (or "Memphis" in the vulgar vernacular).
Packed, we leave. Kid Blue isn't coming. On the
way out we meet our old friend from the Talladega Gathering,
Zeno. Zeno is still focused on the same task he was three
years ago, the disinterrment of Zeno's Porch in Greece. Zeno
has it together. I think.
We have an easy jaunt back to Memphis. I get some
antique glass insulators for a quarter apiece at a junk shop
on the hwy. I buy a quilt for my wife from a little
old lady. My Rainbow banner is missing when I get home.
(Found it later, though.)
At the end of the seventh day, I have what is
to become prodigious poison ivy, one serious cut and several
serious scabs, scads of bugbites, intense heat rash, and the
beginning sneezings of a serious head cold. But I'm not
complaining.
Nemo said he'd heard someone say that goodly spirits
hang around where they find goodly vibes. Was Liz, mother of
Deja, there? Was Jerry? Was Tim? Abby?
Now, days later, I feel seeded or something. Like a
raincloud. Like I've got the Rainbow Gathering inside of me.
It feels vast, like the wheeling of the stars or the
pivoting of human ourstory about a fold in a tapestry of
aeons. I can't eat meat. I can't watch teevee.
I can't listen to music, except for Rainbow Gathering
tapes and an African song or two. Maybe some Incredible
String Band.
The Festivals of the sixties and seventies, the
Rainbow Gatherings, Earth Days and other gatherings of the
folk always have an intense effect on me. But no
Gathering nor Festival has ever had quite this intense an
effect on me before.
And I say, just like T.S. Eliot, "I shall say it
again.": Jean Houston and others detect a Rhythm entering human
affairs. Here in the nether portal of the twentieth century
where so many signs point to Doomsville, spirits of
coming-together shimmer amid the Sickness,
which recedes before the harmonic rhapsody of hearts attuned
to one another. Earth Abides.
Something happened there, something more than even the
mindgrowth, spirithealing, sharing, and general at-one-ment.
Something more real and permanent than anything
physical could ever be. When thirty thousand people get
together and ice crystals in the stratosphere
reverberate with a rainbow round the sun, well ...
Peace.
Atlanta Pop Festival, 1970
East Arden Commune, 1974
The Cosmic Jazzma
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