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 Igneous. 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..."
Igneous 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 Igneous. An entity
named Mole seasons my food with Teonanacatl. Later that night,
Igneous 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.
{Continued on next reed}
Tibet Folks's Home Page
Wack, wack, wack
The Cosmic Jazzma
Three step to the lief and straybone till marining
Back to El Camino Surreal Cantina
Rainbow Gathering '96
