The Earlies' Hipstory

On July 3rd at Granola Funk, some of the earlies shared their Hipstory. This is the video for those who missed it.

Rainbow Hipstory

Come listen to the stories of how the first Rainbow Gathering came to be, by some of the people who were there! 

Medicine Story will be coming HOME to Vermont this year, possibly for the last time since he is now 86 and lives nearby in NH. We are having a special Hipstory session with him and several other "earlies" who were at the first Rainbow Gathering in Granby, Colorado, 1972. 

The event will take place at 2pm, on July 3rd, on the land at Granola Funk Theater.

Do not miss this!

It will be filmed and posted for those who aren't on the land.


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Early Gatherers Share Hipstories

Updated 6/22/16 @ 11 AM Cali time

Hipstory

Every year on July 5th @ dark thirty (usually at Granola Funk), we do a Hipstory where we tell the stories of the gatherings starting in 1972 and continuing until present.  Of late, anyone who was at a gathering is free to tell her/his story about that year.

This year Medicine Story will be coming HOME for the last time as he is in his mid 80's and lives nearby in New Hampshire.  He is one of the original Rainbows from our first gathering in Granby, Colorado in 1972.  There will be a few others from that era who will join Medicine Story for an additional/special Hipstory session about how Rainbow got started.   We have scheduled this for Sunday, July 3rd around 2:00 PM.  It will possibly be at or near Granola Funk but check with INFO.


We are excited to have an amazing story teller, Medicine Story, sharing his hipstory. Click here for more info on Medicine Story. I'm sure a few more "earlies" make make an appearance as well.

Rumor has it that Garrick B., Plunker and Glowing Feather will be here as well.

We expect that several people will be video-ing this Hipstory for the record since these precious memories are quickly fading away as our Family's "earlies" pass on.  You won't want to miss this!  There will be a special area designated for anyone who prefers not to appear in the videos.

Medicine Story's brief bio

Manitonquat (Medicine Story) is a storyteller, an elder and a keeper of the lore of the Assonet Band of the Wampanoag Nation of Massachusetts. Author of ten published books and a former columnist and poetry editor with the internationally acclaimed journal Akwesasne Notes, he has also edited Heritage, a journal of Native American liberation. He continues to develop tools for creating a more humane society based upon teachings of the elders of the First Nations and the explorations of his camps under the designation The Circle Way.

Manitonquat has spoken to peace conferences and groups on 3 continents, was the keynote speaker at the United Nations observance of the 50th anniversary of Gandhi’s assassination, directs prison programs for native spirituality, advises a nature school, and, with his wife Ellika, Circle Way workshops and annual international family camps in 10 European countries and the US.

On the Unsigned Operating Plan

The United States Forest Service has regulations requiring a permit for 75 or more people to gather, camp, hangout etc, on at National Forest.  For many years the gathering refused to sign the permit and there was lot's of drama and conflict. For a history of those years, read Plunker's Permit Herstory or my own short history.

From these conflicts we have evolved into a model of using an unsigned operating plan worked out with the United States Forest Service (USFS) Resource personnel and gathering participants on the land.  While I understand some people oppose this, I personally feel that it has been working very well for our family since 2010.  But in order for this model to keep working, we need you to participate in the process.

For people who are at spring council/counsel/circle and/or at seed camp, you will be the people meeting first with the USFS resource people who have knowledge about the land on which we are going to gather -- the plants, the wildlife, the topography -- and working with them, we can collectively put together an unsigned (key point) operating plan.

Once we land at HOME, please try to set up a daily or alternating day council/circle/counsel with the USFS resource personnel in the model of previous unsigned operating plans. Click here for a incomplete archive.  Encourage as many people as you can to become involved in the process. When the council/circle/counsel happens, listen to each voice and the concerns they bring to the table -- USFS and non-USFS alike.  Be creative on proposing solutions to issues that arise. Be patient. Some years we spend a week sitting in council/circle/counsel with the USFS trying to work on a document. Think about concerns that others you know may have and raise those as well with

gathering participants and the USFS folks. Bring copies of old operating plans that we worked on.

Keep in mind, that it is the process of writing the unsigned operating plan that matters: the discussions, the dialogue, the deep listening, and the proposed solutions are the real win here. The USFS just wants a piece of paper for their file.

We all know that when we sit down in a circle and peacefully and respectfully discuss the issues, we all win.  Please be part of the circle/council/counsel. Please be the change you wish to see in the world.

The Children's Perspective

This is a great video I found on You Tube that tries to provide a children's perspective of the rainbow gathering.  Enjoy!

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.

Experience the Rainbow - - 1978

Experience the Rainbow - Part 1- 1978 - Excerpt

Enjoy words of wisdom from some of the earlies when they were the youngers!  See who you recognize.


But please servers, don't let folks hold their cups over the communal pot. 

Experience the Rainbow - Part 2 - 1978 
 
Experience the Rainbow Part 3 with my favorite fiddler.

Experience the Rainbow - Part 4 - 1978

Experience the Rainbow - Part 5 - 1978


 
 

Collective Wisdom on How to Gather

Over the years, the collective wisdom of gathering participants have put together information on how to create a positive gathering for yourself, other gatherers, and the land upon which we gather.

The original version of this is the Mini Manual of Gathering Consciousness.  Normally appearing in the Rainbow Guide each year,the Mini Manual, for short, covers in a brief 8 pages, how to positively create and participate in a gathering.  Click here to view the entire Mini Manual in PDF format.

As with everything gathering related, gathering participants creatively re-imagine how to share knowledge with each and every one of us on an on-going basis. In 2014, I first saw the Where Do I Poop pamphlet.  Click here to view Where Do I Poop in PDF Format. If you choose to print it, the first page is the back outside cover and the last page is the inside center-fold.

Please note these files make take a few minutes to download. Please read, download, copy and redistribute this information freely.

Blast from the Past (1986)