There is always a Rainbow Gathering.

Right now, in the national forest of one of the lower 48 states, hundreds of hippies, gutter-punks and road-tramps are eating at free-kitchens out in the middle of a National Forest, trading crystals and chocolates for weed and tobacco and dancing every night at a large drum circle surrounding a massive bonfire.

There are Regional and National Gatherings.

Regional Gatherings are always going on, switching from state to state; from national forest to national forest. They are technically only a month long, but they are really three months long…some people come up to a month early for prep-camp…and some people stay up to a month later for break-camp. At any given regional Gathering there are a few hundred to a couple thousand people living in the forest, miles away from all civilization.

Nationals, on the other hand, have thousands to tens-of-thousands of people living out in the forests. Nationals only happen once a year.

I greatly prefer a Regional Gathering to a National Gathering.

A typical gathering is held on a nice piece of land within any given national forest, with a water source and a single entrance.

Imagine a large circle, spanning a mile or five in circumference. In the center of the circle is a large bonfire (called the Eternal Fire, or the Sacred Fire). This fire is kept lit for the duration of the Gathering, day and night. Some people volunteer to tend the fire…like me for instance.

At the edge of the circle, by the road back to civilization, was A-Camp. A-Camp served as the valve for traffic in and out of the Gathering. A-Campe stands for Alcohol Camp. Aptly named, since no alcohol was allowed inside the circle of the Gathering.

Every other drug under the sun…but no alcohol. Go figure.

A-Camp was run by gutter-punks and old hobos. They kept the cars from going past the checkpoint, spanged off the locals and tourists coming into the Gathering, and used most of the money earned to buy beer and liquor.

There was always a keg or three tapped at A-Camp.

Free kitchens were set up throughout the perimeter of the Gathering. Most kitchens served two meals a day, so you had to remember which kitchens were serving when. How were they able to offer free food, you ask? Well, crews would head into surrounding cities and towns, where the travelers from the Gathering will dumpster dive, spange, play music and juggle and run cons to get money for needed supplies.

Like alcohol, no money was allowed to be used past A-Camp, but there were no qualms using money while in Babylon.

Babylon is what we called society outside of the Gathering. You had to expect that.

Everyday there was also a Trade Circle. This was an area designated for commerce. As already stated, no money was allowed to be used inside the Gathering Circle, but bartering was perfectly acceptable.

I would often set up shop at the trade circle. This is where I mainly got my weed. As I got more experienced with things, I started making runs into town where I would buy chocolate, tobacco (I didn’t smoke), batteries, and beef jerky. I would then set-up a blanket at the Trade Circle and wait until someone with weed wanted any of things.

I did good business.

From this first Gathering on I always worked as a Fire Troll at a Gathering (what the volunteers who tend the fire are called). I and the rest of the Trolls would scrounge and chop wood and keep the fire alive 24/7. We alternate shifts and had a fairly loose organization.

Every Troll carried a hatchet and a Troll Tube.

A Troll Tube a length of metal conduit, bent at a 45 degree angle about five” from one of its ends. The once circular opening on the bent end of the conduit is flatted out, leaving a rectangular opening maybe a 1/4” wide. It was for blowing fire from coals.

Though we did use both the hatchet and the Troll Tube, they were largely ceremonial…a badge of office.

At night, the bonfire was the place to be. Countless drums and other percussion instruments explored beats and rhythms while sometimes a hundred people danced in front of the fire. Many a time, dancing in my underwear or less I would leave the nightly drum circle with a sunburn from dancing to close to the fire.

This is the only environment in which I will dance.

I haven’t danced for years.

During the day, the bonfire is pretty much dead. The Jesus Freaks would pray there sometimes. The Trolls would let the fire die down to a campfire size during the day. And everyday the Trolls would lumber off into the woods with ropes, axes and hatchet and come back dragging wood for that night’s bonfire.

Because of this, Trolls are given a certain amount of respect from the other campers…Trolls are often offered the first places in line at the kitchens.

Regarding the Sacred / Eternal Fire, it was supposedly connected to an old Native American prophecy, which the Rainbow Tribe took a particular affinity to. It was called the Seven Fires Prophecy. We were allegedly in the time of the Seventh Fire (post-colombus).

When this was told to me by one of the other Fire Trolls, it was described as a Hopi prophecy. It was not. It was an Anishinaabe prophecy (i just discovered).

This is the prophecy of the Seventh Fire:

“In the time of the Seventh Fire New People will emerge. They will retrace their steps to find what was left by the trail. Their steps will take them to the Elders who they will ask to guide them on their journey. But many of the Elders will have fallen asleep. They will awaken to this new time with nothing to offer. Some of the Elders will be silent because no one will ask anything of them. The New People will have to be careful in how they approach the Elders. The task of the New People will not be easy.

If the New People will remain strong in their quest the Water Drum of the Midewiwin Lodge will again sound its voice. There will be a rebirth of the Anishinabe Nation and a rekindling of old flames. The Sacred Fire will again be lit.

It is this time that the light skinned race will be given a choice between two roads. If they choose the right road, then the Seventh Fire will light the Eighth and final Fire, an eternal fire of peace, love brotherhood and sisterhood. If the light skinned race makes the wrong choice of the roads, then the destruction which they brought with them in coming to this country will come back at them and cause much suffering and death to all the Earth’s people.”

The Sacred Fire that was kept constantly lit at the Gatherings was a symbol of this Seventh and final fire.

Various Native American religious practices have a very similar use of fire in religious contexts. For instance the Muskogee tradition of a single hearth fire that was constantly lit to represent the community and the people’s connections with their ancestors.

A few years after this Gathering I ended up at Wolf Song VI, a Native American gathering outside of La Grange Texas (I’ll write that story someday) they also kept a fire lit for the duration of their gathering.

Not many people know this, but the Trolls would also make sacrifices to the fire.

This is not something we would advertise…I imagine most people would have been mad if they found out.

Don’t worry, we didn’t sacrifice people or animals or anything like that.

Let me give you an example: It’s 11pm and the bonfire is blazing away, the drums are pounding and naked people are dancing and having a good time and then somebody from outside the drum circle runs up yelling, “hey everybody, Granola Funk (a hippie hip-hop group that was popular at the Gatherings back then) is putting on a show over at Chewbaccacaca Camp”, and then many of the dancers and the drummers would forsake the Sacred Fire and go to see the concert.

They would often leave blankets, and shirts and shoes and other items at the drum circle. We Trolls would quietly gather them up into an inconspicuous spot by the furthest woodpile. If the people returned before the dance ended, and everyone returned to their camps to go to sleep, then we would happily return their items to them. But if they did not return by the end of the night we would feed their property to the fire. We mostly ended up burning blankets and clothes, but sometimes nice watches, CD-Players, headphones, etc. We never burned musical instruments, though. And we never kept anything that wasn’t our own.

True Story.

People have gotten upset when I’ve described this practice. And I can understand that. As far as I know there is no correlation with Native American traditions.

Everyday the Trolls gathered three very large piles of wood in preparation of the bonfire…and everyday one of the free-kitchens volunteered to make the dinner that night.

On any given day a free-kitchen gets a lot of walk through traffic. Most kitchens served two meals a day, breakfast and lunch. They also always had hot and/or cold beverages (i.e. coffee and water) and snacks at anytime of day. And on any given day they serve a fraction of the people actually staying at the Gathering (and most people didn’t eat at the same kitchen twice a day).

But when a kitchen agreed to make the dinner, that meant they had to feed every single person at the Gathering. It was a huge feat that happened everyday.

And everyday towards the beginning of dusk, horns would sound and bells would ring and everyone that could would meet up at the Sacred Fire with a cup or bowl in hand. Everyone would hold hands in a large circle around the fire and chant Ohmmmmmmmm, followed by a moment of silence.

ohmmmmm

The kitchen volunteering for the night then serve the food. Sometimes they would bring the food to the fire and sometimes the people would go to the kitchen. Either way,a line is formed and everybody gets their cup/bowl full of whatever they happened to cook.

This is when the Trolls feed the fire to excess and the nightly drum circle begins.

***********************

Fish, Chris and I split up with Butterfly and Starry Night almost immediately upon arriving at the Gathering.

It rained really hard before we were able to set up a camp and we got completely soaked. Winter was setting in and we were shivering from the wet and cold.

Fish ran into a friend of his from the Keys who said we could use her tent. She had another friend that was staying with her, also a girl. Since we were all wet and cold she suggested we do a cuddle-puddle.

They proceeded to take off their clothes and crawl into the tent. Fish’s friend reiterated that this was strictly platonic, for the purpose of generating warmth.

Chris passed on the cuddle-puddle and just wrapped himself in a tarp on the ground.

Fish and I removed our clothing and crawled into the tent.

Fish’s friend, uhm Carol maybe, immediately took position spooning him. I laid down behind her, spooning her and then the other girl began spooning me. All this under a number if blankets.

Look, I was young and inexperienced and I guess not in full control of my body. I had no idea how to lay between to naked girls platonicly. I tried to think of Spam and Werewolves and Grandma..anything else. But I immediately had a boner, which pressed up against the back of Carol-maybe.

Carol-maybe notices this, of course, and call out, “Hey what the hell?!”

“I’m sorry”, I cry out, trying to pivot in a different direction, succeeding only slapping the other girl with my excitement.

“Dude”, the other girl called out, “Inappropriate”. I spent the rest of my night on my back, wide awake and at full salute.

I couldn’t help thinking that Fish was lucky getting to be the engine on the cuddle-puddle train.

The next day, both those girls wanted nothing to do with me (I heard one of them call me a pervert when she thought I was out of ear shot).

Fish later approached me and said that we would have to go make camp somewhere else now.

I tried to explain that I didn’t mean anything by it, it was purely involuntary. He laughed, elbowing me in the ribs and said, “you can’t blame a k-k-kid for getting hard around n-nn-naked girls”.

We ended up camping with some other kids we met on the other side of the Sacred Fire.

Our camp was called Ferngully.