The rainbow gathering — that is where I spent two and a half weeks this summer, eating zuzus in the middle of the night, making music, making love, having sex, trading crystals for tarot cards, and running around like crazy.
I heard someone say that if you get depressed when you leave the gathering and go to the city, remember that one part of the gathering is, instead of escaping, healing, so you can bring some of that woods consciousness with you wherever you go. Today I picked up my pen and journal to write an article about the beauty I saw at the rainbow, and what lessons there are to learn from it. I want people to think about how they relate to the earth and each other, and how those things are the same.
I came back into the cities with a further developed animal consciousness. I look around me and see what is alive — plants, hills, rocks, birds, water, humans naked under their clothes. I saw and understood a lake nestled in the foothills of the mountains on the edge of a desert, without the words I just used to describe that place. That lake transcends the sign some Bisy Bakson (reference: The Tao of Pooh) put up next to it that reads “Topaz” and underneath that word, the elevation in number of feet above sea level. It transcends the word ‘lake’ and even transcends the word ‘water’.
Through my animal eyes, I see some humans as animals who got very carried away in building their colonies — like ants on speed, or something. Now when I do things to help flow peoples’ houses, I see the absurdity of it all. Today as I was helping my aunt in her backyard, I imagined, if there were no houses here, no fences, cars, roads, if I had no clothes on, what would I be? A crazy fucking girl sitting in the middle of the desert sawing a piece of wood to a shorter length. Pointless. Insane. Never trust white man’s tools, I’ve heard.
Here I am in this podunk little town, learning how afraid people are. I came here to see my family, my friends from way-back-when. I am doing that. I am watching my friends live in ways that seem like a game to me: work, school, boyfriend, rent, drama, obedience.
People are scared. My friends tell me they wish they had my life. It is so obvious to me that it is everyone’s life. “You can have the whole world!” I am screaming inside. “You can have today, you can have tomorrow. You can create opportunities with every breath!” But…
…people are scared. Scared to hitchhike, scared to live above the illusory law, scared to make friends, to take risks, to trust that the world will provide. People are scared of instability, scared of Now, scared to share; share a loved one, their bodies, their thoughts. I see it, I hear it. I watched a girl accused of cheating on her jealous boyfriend for participating in a consensual threesome. I listened to a friend say she would never go skinny-dipping, while I’m thinking, “How else do you go swimming?” It was unusual that I walked in front of a window naked, and that I peed while someone else was in the bathroom (at the gathering, you pee next to any random tree that is far enough away from any tents, trails, or kitchens, and there are plenty of people around).
I am learning how important it is to be related to people, to relate to the earth, to be real, and to share what I am learning in the best places possible. I’m learning the more I live in anarchy, the more important it is to develop my spirituality, for I have an amazing, peaceful spirit. I’m learning to be humble, because I know there is still a part of me that wants to go down in history as a revolutionary, or a dreamer, or maybe just a poet. I also know I’d rather go down as compost then go down in history, or herstory. I am part of our story.
Hi, story! That is what this is, more than a newspaper article. It is a story about me, and about you. Here is a story about dancing naked in the rain, and hugging people for three full breaths, and being the animal you really are. This is our story. It is about watching buildings crumble (they are compost too!), and grass growing in the sidewalk cracks until there is only crumbles of sidewalk in the cracks of grass. It is a story about burning textbooks, holy scriptures, and down, dead wood to warm ourselves, as we sit around the fire on a cool, starry night, knowing we are one. Our story is about happiness, and our story is about freedom.