After a seven-year hiatus, the Regional Rainbow Gathering returned to Colorado, nestled in the Uncompahgre Forest looking up at formidable Lone Cone Mountain. Seventy-four or so misfits from across the U.S. camped in scattered tents, vehicles, a Food-Not-Bombs bus, with no fire, good spirits and plenty of weed.
My brief stay with the Rainbow family was a much-needed break from “Babylon,” as the Rainbows call society. I arrived a few days before the gathering’s end, late at night, to owls hooting in the distance and a shooting star blazing across the sky.
Refreshed by daylight, weary from life, I struggled to find the central gathering space. Bright, friendly faces invigorate the short journey from the parking lot. I’m welcomed by a handsome, long-haired, twelvish-year-old kid with a bracelet he makes me on the spot and a tour. Scouted for the three creeks that frame the camps, we walked the forest paths around Cosmo’s dad’s stunning sacred geometry art and two kitchens. Headed by longtimers Domino, Raden and Silver Fox, “Luv’n Ovens” bakery and “Colorado Crud,” tucked in the back, went through 40lbs of mozzarella cheese in one day.
Domino, a nonmember (Rainbow is a nonorganization of nonmembers with no leader) of the established Rainbow Camp Montana Mud since 1993, talks about his experience,
“It’s been a good gathering after a seven-year break,” he said. “Everyone has been fed well, caffeinated and kept a safe, sober place for people to make good memories. That’s what Montana Mud is about. We kept a good, clean kitchen this year.”
Raden adds an allure of levity to the atmosphere, serving food and jokes in equal measure. He shares with me as I pull up an inviting camping chair, “We don’t ask for permission; we just go. We don’t get permits; we just go and do what we do … We all agreed there would be no fires.”
He sermons, “80% of people who show up to gatherings don’t do nothing. They show up, eat the food and they leave. I’m fine with it, because maybe people showed up and did nothing, but they were a great musician. I used to have a problem with it until someone explained it to me: it’s a numbers game. If one fraction helps out, it will keep growing. The whole purpose is to gather.”
Silver Fox, organizer of Luv’n Ovens tells me passionately, “It’s really important to create a safe space for everyone — handicapped people included, alcoholics included. And if you put the intention for creating a safe space for the gentle, the peaceful, the simple-living folk, it creates a healthy space.”
A symbol of anarchist culture since it began, the Rainbow Family gets a bad rap. Every color of the spectrum is invited to join this forest nemophila that most think is just a party, but is rooted in peace and sovereignty. Every gathering hosts a call-for-peace prayer. Aug. 15 opened with a morning of silence that ended at noon in a joining of hands and singing “Ohm” three times — a sacred mantra in Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism. This happens every Fourth of July at the national gatherings.
I observed the council, another central piece of Rainbow. Embodying an Indigenous method of deliberating issues, participants, mostly men, passed around a feather giving all a chance to speak until consensus was reached. Many people spoke with concern for causing fire and harming the earth and asked for a May or September window. This was countered with the desire to center the gathering around children and their ability to attend. I look up from my notes and catch Cosmo and his brother, the only kids present, hugging their dad right in the center of our circle.
Consensus was reached to have another Colorado regional gathering next year, but when and where is still being discussed. The apocalypse was mentioned a lot as Rainbows expressed their gratitude for this safe place for people to go in uncertain times. More than one woman spoke to our power to manifest the reality we want, bringing grounded nourishment to the table.
On my way out, Jared from Georgia praised his first Rainbow. “We bring the New Jerusalem, Zion, the Holy Land wherever we set foot with the right collective mindset to create whatever we want,” he shared. “This place will weed you out. We follow the Golden Rule and work the kinks out. It’s the key environment.”