On the Road Again 2011 - Blog 24

July 1st ( Canada Day) is not a day that I go out of my way to celebrate. I am immensely proud of being a Canadian, but like most of my fellow patriots - it is not something that I spend a lot of time talking about. At the Gathering one of the first questions asked is "where are you from?". Seldom is the answer 'Canada", so when I met a fellow Canadian it is sort of a big deal. On July 1st there was a fellow Canuk walking around with a big Maple Leaf Flag. Everyone made sure that he and I connected. We made a point of talking for awhile. But for most members of the Family at a National Gathering the big day is the fourth of July.

The morning is quiet as most people try to meditate for world peace for at least  awhile. It is an impressive site to see 1,000s of people sitting quietly, all with the same focus. Of course not everyone is quiet or in other ways support this focus. But I think the majority do. Some of the more committed were there at the edge of the meadow from the moment the sun rose. Sometime near noon everyone joined hands to form some sort of rough circle. At all Gatherings this process can take some time but in Washington this process took even longer than normal as we had to circle around a large swampy area that contained some rare plants that we were asked not to walk on. We couldn't cross over this area, but had to go around it.  The meadow area was huge.  I could barely see people on the other side. As we waited for the circled to be joined, we ohmed. What a marvelous sound. To hear 1,000s of people with all of the the harmonies that evolvedis really not describable. It is as beuatiful and as sacred as any pother church music.

We all omed for awhile, and then sometime around noon the children had their parade. After that it was a party.

Lemonade and watermelons were distributed. ( which was nice as it was hot and many had been fasting since sun-up). Folks sat around and chatted, danced and sang. It was really a magical time. It is extraordinary to think that this ritual of praying for world peace and then in some strange way celebrating the birth of a nation (especially amongst people who as a rule are not, to say the least, pro-government) has be going on for 40 years. There are paradoxes within the Family and this is one of them. They pray for world peace with an intense belief in the power of a unified voice, then celebrate the birth of a nation that has seldom been a peace.

It was a fun time. I got to meet lots of people, renew some old friendships (including meeting someone from Virginia who I had meet at the World Gathering in Quebec in 2004)  and hear some of the older folks tell their stories.It is the Family at its best, or at least at its most mythological. Folks are dressed up in their brightest clothing ( or in some cases nothing at all), clothing that they brought special just for this occasion. I wear a white homemade shirt with a necklace that was given to me by a special friend. I only wear it at such events. People are relaxed. People thinking about food or fire wood or about whether the pipes from the well are working. People are just enjoying the atmosphere, enjoying being with their Family.

On the Road Again 2011 - Blog 23

For me, other than actually working in the kitchen ( which means that one gets to hang around the back of the kitchen close to the fire and occasionally get goodies such as fresh strawberries when there are not enough to go around), I am attracted to Instant Soup because of the music and the conversation. Endless amounts of it. Sometimes the conversation is just good humour banter and other times the discussion is intensely political and serious.

It is hard to explain where the time goes when one is at a Gathering--- or at least I never can. During the 10-12 days that I was there a spent part of three or four days visiting with Sally and her friends. I visited with some old friends and some new ones, and I walked around visiting other kitchens stopping to chat when there was an interesting conversation happening.  I also spent a lot of time helping ensure that there was lots of water for the kitchen and that the containers of filtered drinking water were full. It is a job that requires occasional diplomacy, little strength and even less skill. It is something that I can manage quite nicely.

Water is a precious resource everywhere but even at a Gathering it is critical. There are 1,000s of people who need water to cook with, to drink and to wash pots and pans and dishes. All of those people need to to have water that is clean, clear of all contaminates.. At Instant Soup, water that came down the lines from the springs, if it was unfiltered, it was boiled for 20 minutes. If it had come through the 4 separate filters, it was assumed to be safe. Making sure that all of the kitchens had access to water is a significant task and the guys who find the springs, and run the lines down to the various kitchens work flat out for the entire Gathering. They were still laying new lines two days before they had to take them up again. It is a job that takes a good knowledge of hydraulics and the Gathering.  The water lines can be somewhat fragile. While some of the lines are comprised of black ABS  piping, much of it is 20 foot lengths of friction fit tubes. It is a fragile system.There are times when people trip over lines and the joints separate, other times it is just the pressure that blows the lines apart. We ran out of water surprisingly often and frequently I had to follow the line until I found the break.

Sometimes the pressure in the lanes was very low, especially around supper time when every kitchen needed fresh water. Sometimes there was not enough pressure to push the water through the filters and it took 30-40 minutes to fill a five gallon jug. During those times there would be long line ups as kitchens and other folks lined up for drinking water. There was nothing to be done but just to relax and enjoy the company. Most folks were pretty good about it, but every once in a while some would get frustrated and complain. I usually reminded people that we were very fortunate to have clean water when so many people around the world had to walk for miles for dirty ditch water. Quite often I suggested that the reason why the water pressure was so low was that someone had left the toilet running or that someone was running the shower too long.

I was always surprised when sometimes someone would say in surprise " there are flush toilets around here!! Where?"

For me, other than actually working in the kitchen ( which means that one gets to hang around the back of the kitchen close to the fire and occasionally get goodies such as fresh strawberries when there are not enough to go around), I am attracted to Instant Soup because of the music and the conversation

On the Road Again 2011 - Blog 22

The Rainbow Family has, in the language of not-for-profit agencies, a succession planning problem. It is absolutely true that no one leads the Family. As is frequently repeated, the Family is the largest non-organized organization in the world. There are no formal meeting, no elections and never a vote on anything. What ever decision needs to be made it is done by consensus. People who are there and who want to participate sit around in a circle and one by one as the feather is passed say what is on their mind. There is no debate, no cross the circle discussion; just everyone listening to both the speakers and to their own hearts. The oldest person and the youngest person have equal status around the council and both are carefully listened to. It is a time intensive process, it can take hours and hours to resolve complex issues or to decide what to do. But it works and the process is one of the glues that holds the Family together.

There are no leaders in the sense that people are elected or appointed to certain roles. As in the kitchen when someone asked what kind of soup is being made and the answer is 'Whatever you want to make", people volunteer for tasks, do them and then frequently move on. But there are people who are more likely to consistently volunteer and have done so for years. People expect them to fulfill those roles. The guys who run the water lines from the springs to the individual kitchens are skilled, knowledgeable and hardworking. There are a number of folks who have created kitchens and have returned year after year to ensure that those kitchens run smoothly; the people who work at CALM (the medical unit that deals with everything from bug bites to baby births, adverse drug reactions to heart attacks) have also done so for years. There is a whole crew of people who have made it their responsibility to look after parking, or to do food runs or perhaps most importantly, to ensure that the site is returned to its pristine beauty.

Many of these people are getting old. Many of them look older than their years. Some have had a hard life, following the dreams of another way of living. It means for many of them that they have not had good medical or dental care. Because many of them have not worked at well paying jobs with benefits, they are now living on some sort of  social assistance. As wonderful and as caring and as well visioned as this groups is, they are not going to live forever. For many of them at the Gathering in Washington, it was clearly stated that it might be the last one that they would be able to attend.

There are lots of young and middle age people at the Gathering who work incredibly hard in the kitchens of their choice. I did my MA thesis of why these folks come back year after year to help the Family sustain itself. But their energies seem to be devoted to the kitchens and not the larger Gathering. In spite of the fact that I have spent a number of hours hanging around those who were there in the early days, I have seen no one with them who is younger and starting to assume some of the responsibilities.  I suspect there is no one waiting in the wings to assume some of the responsibility because the old timers are not yet prepared to give up their roles as self-appointed elders,or as carriers of the lore and the vision.

For the Family to grow and flourish and become relevant to the 21st century some folks are going to have to let go a little bit and others are going to have to show that they too have a vision of what the world can be like if we are prepared to give our lives towards that process. A pile of folks for the last 40 years have done just that.  It is time for some others to step up to the plate and carry just a little bit of the load.

On the Road Again 2011 - Blog 21

The Rainbow Family is built on stores of previous Gatherings. There are tales of epic journeys across the USA, of forest fires being put out by bucket brigade of 20,000 dirty hippies, of constant battles with the police and the National Park police who have spend countless millions over the years trying to stop the Gathering. (there are times when the economic boom derived from the Gathering is really from all of the police who rent out virtually every motel/hotel room in the area), of Gatherings where 1,000s got sick and of Gatherings where babies have been born.

And many of the stories appear to be true. But as the stories are told over and over again, every year a new dimension seems to be added to them. But the Family needs these stories. They are told to remind people that we are a special group of people who at least for a brief while make a commitment to live by consensus and to live by loving and serving each other. And for the most part it works. Perhaps people exaggerate their importance in their stories, perhaps the fire was not quite as big, the police not quite as harassing or the journey in some multi-coloured school bus was not quite as exciting as is remembered, but it doesn't matter. It is in the telling of the tale, and it is in the listening of the tale that the identity of the Family gets shaped. The accuracy of the content is not as important as the fact that people need to tell the stories and that others want to listen.

This year a new tale had been added to the lexicon of Rainbow mythology. When the initial group of people got to the the site they found that the snow had not melted along the roadway into the area. While there is some discussion as to how high the snow was and how long the road was, I saw sections where clearly the snow was at least 2.5 feet high and it stretched for well over two miles. The road needed to get cleared so people could get to the parking areas. Young travellers from around the country, street kids from Seattle and the city of Vancouver Washington, people who had no where else to go but who had been told that if they came to the Gathering, they would find a people who would love and accept them, came and with hand shovels, shoveled the road clear of snow. Some of them came with no winter clothing, and with sandals on their feet and still they shoveled that road clear. The park people who had refused to plow the road were in awe and eventually sent in the plows. But by the time the plows arrived, the roadway was clear.

It may be that next year the snow in the stories will be a bit higher or the shovels a bit smaller. But when ever they hear the story, those who shoveled that road will smile and know that at least for a brief time they belonged to an elite group of beings who for no reason other than it needed to be done, did something that others thought was impossible.

Pretty amazing.
P.S. There was snow on the ground when I arrived and for most of  the 10 days I was there, my tent was within five feet of a three foot high pile of snow just inside the forest that surrounded the meadow I camped in and where Instant Soup was located.

Intermission - Strike

The support workers at my college, as they are at all colleges in Ontario, are on strike . This means that all of the IT folks, and the administrative personal are walking the picket line. Generally I agree with their issues. We all need to be concerned about job security and about contracting out to part timers who will have no benefits or opportunity for permanent employment.

This morning it took 27 minutes to get past picketers. The traffic was backed up even further behind me as people tried to get on campus by 8:00. The strike impacts teachers more than the students. I need to have software installed, but I have to wait until the folks from IT are available. My office which I share with two others is poorly configured. We need to have things switched around. Again we have to wait for the support staff to be available.

Does any of this affect students? Not one bit. Does my frustration around software and how desks are arranged assist the strikers in anyway to make their point? I can't see how. They have the right to strike. I support their issues but someone needs to figure out how to make the strike meaningful.

For the students the lines are longer as untrained managers assist with time tables etc., web ct is not up and running, and there are little bits and pieces of the registration process missing.Of course the students are irritated. Even more so are the handful of parents who came with their kids to help them register.   Perhaps they will complain to their MPPs, and perhaps that might make a bit of difference. The students are getting less service than they should, and while they do not yet recognize it, their educational experience is being diminished.  But is it enough to attract any one's attention?

I don't think so. The colleges are not negotiating. Everyone is waiting for the government to do something. It may be a long fall semester.

On the Road Again 2011 - Blog 20

Most kitchens provide food for the main circle. They cook the dish – rice- lentils beans etc and carry it down to the main area where people gather for the main meal. They are generally supplied by main supply that purchases food from money raised through donations or the Magic Hat. Other kitchens, specifically the one at Kiddie’s Village are supported by the Gathering but only provide food for people who are located in that general area. Mostly this is families. Anyone can eat there, but as kids and families get to eat first, there is not much left over others. Instant Soup is relatively unique as a kitchen. It does not provide food for anyone else other than those who live or will walk to the kitchen. When it is fully operational it is also the only kitchen that tries to provide food at least 20 hours a day. One can get freshly made soup at 2:00 in the morning. It is also unique in that for the first week or so, most of the food comes through donation, directly to the kitchen. It was not until the beginning of July that we were able to get food from main supply.

The soup base is made from large packages of vegan instant soup that are donated to the kitchen. It is great stuff, rich tasty and filling. Later in the Gathering soups were made from scratch with all sorts of vegetables spices etc. People come to this kitchen just to cook.  I met two men who worked in kitchens in their other lives. They were a joy to watch as they made soup stocks and combined ingredients that I would never have thought of.  Some people just made one or two soups and left. They probably had not planned on cooking but when they after eating, asked what they could do to help they were quickly were pointed to what vegetables were available and told that they should feel free to cut them up. When they asked what kind of soup was being made the answer frequently was “what kind of soup do you feel like making?”  I never felt stuffed, as if I had eaten a bit too much, but I was never hungry. Eating nourishing soup four times a day is a pretty healthy way of living

I didn’t cook much. I helped set up the kitchen, making things like pot hooks to hang up the utensil, helped to finish building the wash stand for dishes  and occasionally kept the fire going. I didn’t do much collecting of firewood. That is a young man’s game. Just one time I did some log splitting. Just enough to shame some younger folks into doing it. I think they felt sorry for the old man having to do it. I did get to share some tricks on how to split wood efficiently.

There are two remarkable things about living and working at Instant Soup that make it different from other kitchens. One is that there is virtually no drumming. Drumming for many people is almost synonymous with a Gathering. I love the drums, but they can dominate a fire, preventing conversation or singing. At Instant Soup the focus is on good conversation, wonderful debates and some gentle singing. Not all of the time, but enough to stimulate both the mind and the soul. Instant Soup is remarkable as well because of an individual call “Rich in Spirit”. He is a 70 year old man who lives in Florida and has been coming to the National for years. Rich does not cook, nor does he often carry firewood, he is just there; sometime playing his guitar and singing, chatting with friends and just somehow providing a tone and a direction to the kitchen. It is Rich who every year helps ensure that the kitchen with its big pots, large tarps and other assorted equipment gets to the Gathering. He doesn’t travel with it, he just makes sure that someone else does. Rich is a gentle man, and the kitchen that he created reflects that gentleness.

On the Road Again 2011 - Blog 19

I know this whole process of writing down what happened this summer must seem pretty easy.  But it is not. I am so far behind schedule that it is difficult to get enthusiastic about the process. I am now writing about things that happened in June. It is not that I can't remember what happened; it is just that I am less sure of the relevance than I once was.

But then every once in a while someone will ask me a question and I realize that at least a few people read what I write. So time to move on with telling the story.

The Gathering was huge....some say that there were at least 30,000 people there. I do not know how people can guess that. I suppose counting cars and guessing, after years of experience, how many were in each car would create a rough estimate. But regardless of the actual number there were a lot of people there. But except for one day, we were never all in the same place and therefore it usually does not seem as if there are many people around.

The Gathering is comprised of numerous small groups of people. Some have come from the same geographic area or perhaps state and have always camped with each other. Others, regardless of where they are from always hang out with the same people and purposely find where that kitchen or group is located. And there are some who gravitate towards those areas where likeminded people such as practioners of Yoga, followers of Christ or street kids hang out. However I think the majority of people and certainly most of the people who are new to the Rainbow probably just end up camping in a spot that feels good to them.

There is certainly an area for everyone, but sometimes it takes work to find it. Certainly in the early days of any Gathering, it is hard to find people who know where the various groups or kitchens are. It is not until the 1st or 2nd of July that an accurate map starts to emerge. It was, for me, a long walk to get to where I wanted to be.

I asked almost everyone I saw – “do you know where Instant Soup is?” On more than once occasion I got diametrically opposite answers. But that kitchen seems to almost always be located away from the main areas so I kept on walking through lovely meadows, across small streams via somewhat dangerous bridges constructed of two logs (my balance at the best of times is somewhat suspect – carrying a full pack across some of these bridges was more than a bit hair raising – others of course just danced across them) and along the edges of swamps. It was an interesting few hours walk with lots of “welcome home” being shouted out and more than a few conversations. I saw lots of possible places to pitch a tent and met some people that would have perhaps been fun to get to know. But I knew where I wanted to go and eventually I got there.

While there is always a special feeling about getting to a Gathering, for me I know I am at home when I get to the kitchen that has a pot of soup on the fire, a fire pit for conversation and singing and a relaxed gentle air about it.