Free (almost) Copy of Butterfly Bill's First Book

Butterfly Bill passed away in February 2015 having written two books on his experiences of the rainbow gathering.  I had known Bill for many years and while my recollections of some of his experiences may differ slightly, I think anyone who is interested in the how the gathering works, will find this interesting reading.  Keep in mind, it's not a novel so no climatic ending, but lot's of great insights.

368 pages, 21 chapters, 152,000 words, with an index, written music to 10 Rainbow chants, and selections from the 1995 Rainbow Guide Mini-Manual.

Volume 1 is a memoir of Bill's 14 summers of going to these Rainbow Gatherings, from his first Gathering in North Carolina in 1987, followed by many regionals and nationals from Vermont to Oregon until the one he attended in Montana in 2000. It also covers some of the winters in between.

It provides detailed descriptions of day-to-day living in this utopian experiment, and shows the ways these gatherers fail and succeed at actually attaining these ideals. In contrast to the many accounts available by news reporters who have come to a gathering for the first time in their lives, this account is by a person who has experienced nearly all spheres of activity at a gathering, over many years.

He describes the people who make the Gathering go and various parts of its infrastructure in the order that he was introduced to them myself, giving many details. He examines their central ideal of anarchism, a society with no leaders, and describe how in spite of this leadership can arise spontaneously out of people trying to work together. He also examins their ideals of non-violence and non-coercion, and describe how successfully conflicts are resolved in peaceful ways and people are inspired to do things voluntarily.

Dr. Michael I. Niman, author of People of the Rainbow – a Nomadic Utopia, has called this a “native ethnography”, “because of its attention to detail and methodological deconstruction of the Gatherings as physical and social entities. The author is a native participant writing about his own introduction to the Rainbow Family and his eventual self-identification as a Rainbow.”
If you’d like a copy of Butterfly Bill’s first book, Rainbow Gatherings, Volume 1

1. Please send $4 via PayPal to the [dot] millet [dot] house [at] gmail [dot] com (covers shipping plus a bit towards the mailers we are ordering)

2. Don’t forget to give us your address! Questions? Send an email to  the [dot] millet [dot] house [at] gmail [dot] com.

It’s a great book!  Plus there is also a CD of his music available.