On the Road Again 2014 The Gathering #1

Every Gathering of the Rainbow Family is different. Some of those differences are related to how well the scouts have done their job. The people who go out to look for places to gather sometimes months before the Gathering need to ensure that the site is easy (but not too easy) to access, that there is good water to both drink and ideally to play in, that the site is large enough, that there is enough fire wood and perhaps most importantly that it is a safe place to camp.

But Gatherings also differ depending upon who turns up. The ratio of young and old(er) participants, or the ratios between genders or having a really good cook turn up all will affect  how a Gathering evolves. But Gatherings are also different because no two people ever have the same experience while at the same Gatherings. It may be one of the Family's greatest paradoxes - that while the Family is in large part about community living, the sharing of resources, and the collective celebration of love and harmony - people remain intensely individualistic and discuss their Gathering experiences in terms of themselves. I sometimes wonder if the reason why the Family does not resolve some of the larger issues they face is because we all see our experience as especially specific to us individuals.

Having said all of the above, the BC Island Family's (or whatever we call ourselves) Gathering this year was suburb. It would be hard to imagine a better Gathering for me - with the one exception that I wish there had been a few more people somewhere close to my age.

The Gathering was held west of Gold River, down some logging road. While I had been assured that the walk from the trailhead to the main circle area was very short and easy to hike, the real problem was going to be getting to the trail head. There are no buses that go in that direction. The last forty kilometers of the trip while it is the road to Tahis, was unpaved and I suspected, not very busy. I knew that there was no way that I could put myself in a position of having to walk any of that distance. So I reached out and made contact with someone who lives a on one of the smaller island to drive me to the Gathering. The answer wqs yes as long as I could meet him at the ferry terminal at 9:00 in the morning.Unfortunately the only Greyhound bus of the day got there at 3:30 PM. It would have been a long wait.

The Island Link bus service because of its more frequent bus runs got me to Buckley Bay at 8:30 at night. Getting there at that time was absolutely perfect. It gave me lots of timeto eat and to get set up for the night. I had originlly planned on cooking some soup on my little stove but the Subway shop at a nearby gas station was still open so I bought a "Veggie Lite" sub for supper. Perhaps it was a little bit lazy not too cook, but it was just so much easier.

I was in my sleeping bag by 9:30. The sky was clear and I was hopeful that there would be no rain or mosquitoes. I had not bothered to set up my tent. While it was a little bit weird sleeping on the grassy verge of a parking lot, it was reasonably quiet and quite dark. The moon which was nearly full was still low in the sky and so by the early hours of the morning millions of stars were visible. I spent an hour or so just laying there - staring at them and the occasional meteorite flashing across the sky.  For a parking lot, it was a delightful place to sleep. (The cars that were parked there were owned by people who lived one of the smaller islands but had chosen to leave the car on the "big' island and bike or walk on the ferry to save money.)

I was up by daybreak, in part because I couldn't sleep but also because I didn't want to have to get dressed/brush my teeth as people were coming off of a ferry and getting into their cars.

I was excited and could hardly wait for the first Ferry to arrive.