Colorado 2022 Rainbow Gathering

The gathering functions as a temporary community where we practice creating the world the way we want it to exist. Not only are we creating a temporary community, but we are also creating hundreds of communities within a community. The gathering itself is a temporary community with not exactly rules, but guidelines on how to gather and create the peace we want to see on this planet. In gathering speak--these guidelines are called the “Raps.” I strongly recommend you read the raps, which you can find here  as well as the Mini Manual of Gathering Consciousness . Or read Paul's a rainbow guide. At the gathering, we have hundreds of individual camps (some small, some large) that might have their own special community standards. For example, Serenity Ridge is a camp for people in recovery so they request no smoking of any kind and no-mind altering substances of any kind (including caffeine). Tea Time is up and noisy all night long, while Kid Village tries to maintain quiet ...

Bosnia - 2007 Circles helps us focus our energy, ensure that everyone's voice is being heard, and create a grounding for the gathering as a whole.  When good strong circles happen, the entire energy of the gathering is changed. Not only the people who participate in the circle, but all those bellies hard at work around the gathering will pick up on the positive vibrations coming from the circle and we'll all be a bit more loving, a bit more peaceful and a bit higher in spirits.  Have a problem, call a circle.  Want to share your love, call a circle.  Want to focus energy in your area, call a circle.  Having cop issues, call a circle off to the side.  When you hear the call "C I R C L E,"  please participate. If world peace is what we're after, a circle never hurts and often helps. July 4 Om in California 2004 (photo taken by Greg Van)  

If you plan on driving, make sure your car and driver is 100% legal-all lights work, valid insurance and registration, seatbelts, car seats for children. Our government assumes that we are criminals. Please try to arrive during daylight hours as the roads into gathering sites can be tricky and we want you to arrive home safely. If you can make space in your vehicle for a rider or you need a ride, ride share is happening at your local craistlist.org or on Facebook . Please note there are multiple places on the internet where ride share can take place. Explore on your own but make sure to read the following recommendations. If you will be sharing a ride, please meet the folks you'll be riding with at a local coffee shop, make sure you feel comfortable traveling a long distance with them, and establish the ground rules. If you are coming via bus, plane or train, try to connect up with a ride from your destination before you get there. If you are planning on hitchhiking, please travel ...

The Earth Is Our Mother For family who are more musically included, we have a long tradition of chants and songs not for performance, but for participation. Many of these songs are call and response or chant type songs. We use these songs to create community, help people be more peaceful and create the energy we wish to see in this world. If you do not already know some of the rainbow songs, there are on-line websites that have the information.  If you play an instrument or even if you do not, try to learn these songs.  Then when you are at a gathering, I'm sure you will find a moment that is calling out for family singing and you will be prepared. Thanks to family who have taken the time to make this information freely available.   Bliss Fire Website Welcome Home Website Singing is one of the best tactics to improve the vibration of the gathering. I've even seen people sing to break up hostile situations, calm the anxious, and create community among random strangers. ...

When I get into the woods, my brain changes. The way my brain works changes.  The way I interact with other life on this planet changes.  Being in the rhythm of the woods is a magical part of the gathering. Everyone changes in the woods. I connect with human beings under the canopy of Douglas Fir and cedar trees. My brain slowly returns to rhythms marked by sunrise and sunset, rain and sun. It is a helpless feeling at first because I am so used to the endless push to analyze texts, fix computer problems, and tame databases.  The pace is relentless not just in what I am doing but in the already identified list of things to be done. Walking on forest duff, I deal with that which is in front of me. I slide into non-logical ways of knowing and stop thinking in words. Under the panorama of stars, I awaken all my ways of understanding. As Glen Slater writes in his article “Cyborgian Drift,” ,“the privileging of the intellect over other aspects of being—animal sensation, instinc...

The filmmakers of Ritual Nation explore ritual in our lives not just related to rainbow gatherings, but I think shows the importance of rituals in our lives and specifically at the gathering. Shot in the 1990s, it's a beautiful introduction and statement about why people gather in many different ways. Especially relevant to the big rituals, which happen at the gathering, like the prayer for world peace .

This comes from a wonderful sister Medicine Socks bit I will add my two cents. I never support duct taping of people. Sometimes we need to restrain people to prevent them from hurting themselves or others and then rolling them up in a blanket or sleeping bag is much more loving than duct tape. If for any reason, someone is being restrained, please have a professional medical person supervising the situation so that the person's vitals can be monitored.  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ On to the guest post ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ it's been a while, i'm too old, poor and crippled to involve myself in rainbow gatherings nowadays, so this qualifies as something like armchair quarterbacking... but i was once all gung ho, a regular local folkielizer and all about dealing with the some major instances of weirded out shit that sometimes came up at the getherings i was part of...especially around kid village... so here's some shanti sena lessons i learned in the trenches first of all, it means, tran...