Historical accounts of the first Rainbow gathering Colorado 1972

[bodhi]

It wasn't Armageddon, but the beginning of something new.....

excerpted from Rolling Stone, Tim Cahill, August 3, 1972
Granby Colorado, 1972:
Armageddon Postponed
this is also in the 1994 Almost Free

The Vision: conceived, by relatively well-intentioned human beings, in
liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all people are created
equal.
You could read about it in the Denver Post, or see it on the six
o'clock news. By the middle of may, all 800 or so people in granby
expected to be overrun - by an estimated one million fanatic christ and
dope addicts coming to a blasphemous festival at table mountain, right
smack in the middle of their park. it was going to last three whole
days, and climax on the 4th of july - sacrilege for sure - a bunch of
peace crazies trampling over the mountains on independence day. A
million of them! granby was gearing up for the greatest natural
disaster since the locusts ate utah.

A million is what they said, or sometimes 144,000. whoever had
organized the event, the rainbow tribe, or some such lunatic group, had
been working on it for three years. they had invited every congressman,
senator and world leader; but of course no one expected nixon or mao to
show.

Worse, the one big tourist weekend of the summer would be a bust.

Hippies (it is well-known) don't sleep in motels, or buy guns or
fishing equipment. but the people who did, the regulars, the small town
summer people, they would avoid granby by the thousands of dollars.

Consider: the 4th of july is a big, critical holiday. stopping this
festival would be a matter of survival for most of granby. a
controversial letter written by a local businessman: "You can't even
buy a box of .22 shells. We have locals 'spoiling' for a fight just to
kill or harm someone just for the hell of it.

I even get the feeling many of these locals are glad the 'strawberry
folk' are here so the vigilantes can roust them out and burn them up
just like a Gene Autry movie..."

A court order was issued against the gathering at Table Mountain, but a
local developer, Paul Geisendorfer, 46, offered a 360 acre site at
strawberry lake, nine miles from the mountain.

There are those who will tell you Barry E. Adams is a spiritual
hustler, the elmer gantry of hip. Others know him as Barry Plunker, or
just plunker, and consider him a prophet. in 1969, Plunker had a
prophetic vision. A great gathering of tribes, the 144,000 of god's
elect mentioned in the book of revelations. The elect would all mass on
independence day at the center of the universe - a spot which arapaho
legends conveniently fix at table mountain. The more Plunker talked
about it to his tribe, the rainbow family of living light, the more
real, the more inevitable the vision became.

There are the indian legends claiming the spirit of slain warriors will
return to reclaim the earth. The gathering of the tribes could be the
peace dance the Hopi elders always talked about; it could also be the
great ghost dance the plains and mountain tribes started talking about
in the late 1890's. equipped with a list of 1000 or so communes in
america, the prophet plunker set forth with his brother rainbow
tribesman garrick, to testify personally to the will of god. Plunker's
energy, along with Garrick's energy, generated a universal wave of
spiritual excitement. A great pyramid would be built on Table Mountain.
Plunker carried a rock to form its base for three years. And at high
noon on independence day the elect would join hands and o-m-m-m-m. With
that much spiritual energy vibrating 9000 feet above sea level, who
could tell what would happen? apocalypse? armageddon? The end of the
world? the genesis of the universe?

In early april a rocky mountain national park representative, named
Steve Hickman, explained that directly over the ridge from Table
Mountain, the editor of the Denver Post had a summer cabin, and over
another ridge, a high official in the california state patrol had
another summer cabin and there were other, even more powerful men with
cabins, and for this reason, table mountain was "sensitive."

There are laws against armageddon in Colorado, or so it seemed. if the
prophets tried to lead the tribe up the mountain, Hickman said, they
would be repulsed. A command post was being planned at one of the
cabins. There would be a sheriffs posse and state patrolmen, and maybe
even the national guard.

Meanwhile the prophet Plunker appeared in a Colorado court which
forbade the gathering. Then Geisendorfer came forward with his
Strawberry Lake land.

The prophet Garrick and a rainbow brother named Patrick had a
conference with Colorado Lt. Governor John Vanderhoof. the way Garrick
tells it: "Patrick explained that since the indians were the 12 lost
tribes of israel, and the people on their way to colorado were the
reincarnations of dead indians, the gathering was foreordained in
revelations.... Vanderhoof said something like, 'I don't care if you
have god on your side, I'm the Lt. Governor and I say there will be no
festival on Table Mountain'." an unidentified ranger quoted in the
Denver Post said, "the only reason these kids come up here is for dope
and sex." but anyone familiar with the two commodities knows that if
you want a steady supply, you bring your own.

And if you have your own, then there's no particular reason to
hitchhike halfway across the united states, risking arrest at the hands
of nervous police and brutality at the hands of self-righteous
rednecks. There's no reason to spend a lung-choking hour climbing
straight up a scalding dusty road. wandering around, talking to people
at the strawberry encampment, I divided them into a quartet of
categories: 1) those who came for a rock festival 2) those who came to
be with people like themselves, and simply draw strength from
congregation, 3) lost souls and acid crawlbacks, seeking structure in
life, or a cosmic message, 4) the fishers of souls, believers and
gurus, looking for recruits, or more exactly, converts.

The encampment itself was set in a meadow 3 miles in diameter and
perhaps a mile long. The camp was split into tiny communities, people
in biblical robes, naked people, various loners drawn together by some
kind of affinity. There were at least five community kitchens - free
food from the commune of your choice. the denver post said the camp
hosted 15,000 people at its rush hour, but there is no real way to
accurately estimate the number of pilgrims.

About 4:30 armageddon morning someone started beating a conga drum. The
camp rose early. The plan was to march the nine miles to table
mountain. If the police forced a confrontation, the faithful would
overwhelm them with love. "Treat the pigs like brothers."

Nearly three hundred of the devout had made the long trek to the center
of the universe in the dead of night. They were already ensconced at
the top of Table Mountain, waiting for what they hoped would be 143,700
of their brothers and sisters.

The love family quickly dismantled their camp. Organic material was
buried in a huge pit. Inorganic waste was carted downtrail in huge
plastic or burlap sacks. By nine, but for the covered pit and the
trampled grass, there was no sign anyone had been there.

It was a half hour walk from strawberry lake to the base of table
mountain. there were numerous state patrolmen, park service employees,
and special deputies along the way. They were smiling and good-natured
in contrast to the raw-nerved panic of the previous few days. A
cheerful army helicopter circled overhead. ironically, most of the
festival-goers were skipping armageddon to get an early start on the
road. Only a little of the 1000 made it to the base of table mountain,
and several hundred of those dropped out after assaying the climb.
Nearly 800 feet up. the angle was as steep as a fire escape on a new
york tenement. there was something biblical, at least symbolic, about a
long line of colorfully dressed people, visible all the way up the
summit, trudging slowly up a mountainside.

"Take a rock for the pyramid, brother," I was told several times.

"I'll pick one up on top." I said. Many carried rocks, however,
miniature crosses on an american golgatha.

Cresting, I took particular delight in the view Table Mountain is the
summit point in an immense valley surrounded by white capped mountains.

Others, with tears in their eyes, were already on their way down.
still, there were easily 2000 people near the summit and they were
singing and om-ing and chanting happily. Most of them were naked.

"What happened to the end of the world?" I asked a full-breasted girl
with lobster red skin.

"This isn't the end of the world," she replied sharply. "It's a
gathering of the tribes."

I walked over to a naked couple holding hands and staring out over lake
granby. "What happened to the end of the world?" "It isn't high noon
yet, brother."

I showed them my watch. "That's congress time," I was told. "high noon
is when the sun is directly overhead." So it was. another chance for
armageddon.

Five minutes before the appointed hour, 1500 gathered to sit naked,
hold hands and om, I was the fully-clothed man off to one side. at
precisely high noon, 1 o'clock, there was a ponderous meditative
silence lasting several minutes.

The prophet Barry Plunker, who had been siting in the center of the om,
picked up his two-string lute and walked slowly across the summit
plateau. He sat naked and alone, facing the lake. I took an unholy glee
knowing that I would be the first to ask the cruel and deadly question.

Four or five of his tribe joined him and they were sitting in quiet
conversation when I squatted down with them. "say, Barry, didn't you
prophesy some kind of armageddon?" "yes, yes, of course," he said
quickly enough. "We om-ed here today and our brothers and sisters in
the communes and jails across the world om-ed with us. And at the
center of the mandala," he pointed directly overhead at the blazing
sun, "in the center there is god."

"You see him there?" I asked.

"Not with these eyes, brother, but I feel it ... here" he thumped
himself on the chest.

Plunker's eyes drifted back toward the lake. He didn't want to talk.
"so many people..." he began, then stopped. "I forgot what I was going
to say." a short, attractive rainbow sister sat with us. "hello, fine
lady." the prophet said.

I didn't ask anything about the pyramid. Barry's rock was one of five
in something that was hardly a pile, much less a pyramid. barry
surveyed the summit plateau. His eyes were moist and sad.

"I can still see it. He said slowly, "mandala city. over there we would
have the tents of the elders, and here would be the common council, and
on that far ridge would be tents of the tribes. I see ...." He shook
his head again, perhaps not altogether confident of the vision.

We shook hands and said good-bye. On the way to the downtrail, I saw a
dark and hairy man spread on his back staring savagely at the sky. I
squatted next to him.

"Garrick, was the gathering everything you expected it to be?" "yes,
absolutely. It's a spiritual landmark. There's mount sinai, the mount
of olives, and table mountain.... I feel that this is the beginning of
world harmony," he said. "I feel it here." he tapped his chest.

[bodhi]

Further Letters On Rainbow's Origins - Part I

This letter from Jodey was included in the 1996 Rainbow Anthology.

This is from the introduction of my book on Rainbow about the context
of the times when Barry Plunker (of Marble Mount Outlaws) met up with
Garrick Beck (of Temple Tribe) and they began to plan the first
gathering.

In May, 1970, the radical youth movement reached its height. When the
USA invaded Cambodia, the National Guard killed four anti-war
demonstrators at Kent State University in Ohio and two at Jackson State
University in Mississippi. Student strikes closed down over 400
universities and colleges across the country in protest against the
invasion and the killings. That was the week that Chuck Windsong, who
was deeply upset about the killings, went into the forests of
Washington to camp out with his cousin Barry. Barry had left
Haight-Ashbury long before and was now helping draft dodgers and
deserters escape across the border into Canada. That week of student
week of invasion and killings and student strikes, Barry and Chuck
started making plans to invite everyone who would come to stand in a
circle on a mountaintop on a Fourth of July.

It took over two years of preparation before Barry, Chuck, Garrick,
Karen, Jean Vision and the others could have the silent circle at the
first Rainbow Gathering in the mountains of Colorado on July 4, 1972.
During those two years, the left-wing movement went through a period of
decline. Already in June, 1969, Students for a Democratic Society
(SDS), the main radical youth organization, had split at its national
convention. SDS chapters around the country had mostly refused to
follow any of the rival factions. Thus, the student strike of May,
1970, was not coordinated by any national organization and there was no
way of keeping the energy going.

By this time, large numbers of SDS'ers and other leftists were mentally
and physically exhausted from five years of working against a war that
went on and on. In May, 1970, there was hope that the revolution - or
at least the end of the war - would come soon. By that fall the hope
was dying down. Some places the hope died later than others. In
outlying areas, young people were just starting to turn onto the
counter-culture and the vague hope of the revolution that had come to
them at second and third and tenth hand from the radical youth
organizations, while in the main centers, the hope was dying. There was
a brief surge of hope again around the May Day anti-war demonstrations
of May, 1971, but the hope died down again.

The left-wing people who had provided the moral leadership for the
counter-culture went out of action. Some went to graduate school,
others to a piece of land in the country and others to heavy alcohol
and drug use. Some kept on with the struggle, but the media weren't
paying attention and the goals looked further away than ever. In 1972,
an article in "U.S. News an(i- World Report" noticed that as protest
died down, crime in campus areas was increasing. With no more goal of a
revolution to give a moral purpose, the dropouts and runaways in
college fringe areas started stealing more and more. As trust broke
down, students and other people were no longer ready to give them a
place to stay. The use of LSI) and other psychedelics declined. There
was a big increase in the use of alcohol, downers and heroin.
Apparently in most people, psychedelics inspire bright, hopeful visions
and when people no longer believe they can make these visions into
reality, they prefer to blot them out.

As young people lost hope that the revolution would come soon to
transform the world, many came to believe that Jesus would come soon to
do the same thing. Jesus freak groups grew rapidly in counter-culture
communities. They usually disapproved of some things that were
considered basic in the counter-culture - pot smoking, non-married se*
and protesting against the war. The basic viewpoint of most Jesus freak
groups was socially conservative. Although most Jesus freaks did not
think of themselves as political at all, they disapproved of protest -
anything that might hint that people could make the world a better
place by their own efforts. Only Jesus could do that at his coming.
Jesus freak groups gave young people stability and hope as the
counter-culture communities around them fell into moral chaos, but they
didn't have the kind of moral leadership in the counter-culture that
the leftwing groups once had. The Jesus freaks did not see their job as
improving the scene, but as helping their converts to be in the scene
but not of it. The same thing is true of the numerous eastern religious
groups such as Krishna Consciousness that began to flourish at this
time. They regarded the counter-culture not as something good in itself
that should be developed, but as a hunting ground for converts.

Among the Plains Indians when they were conquered by the whites, the
Ghost Dance arose - the faith that an Indian Savior would appear who
would renew the earth and bring back to life all the Indians that white
guns and diseases had slain and all the buffalo the whites had
destroyed. It would be sudden - all that would be necessary was to keep
dancing the Ghost Dance - making that energy circle, dancing until very
soon the power came that would redeem the land for the Indians. For
some, the first Rainbow Gathering in Colorado was a Ghost Dance for the
hippie movement.

On July 3, 1972 Phil Coyote looked over the thousands of people he had
helped prepare the way for in the Colorado mountains. These people had
dared a National Guard road block to gather at the foot of Table
Mountain, a holy mountain of the Arapaho Indians, ready to go to the
top on the Fourth of July and make the silent circle as the spirit had
said. The counter-culture was in decay. The non-religious protest
movement that had given it purpose was too weak to stop the decay. So a
spiritual renewal movement had brought these people to the Rainbow
Gathering at Table Mountain. Phil tells his hope at that time - the
hope of many who came - for the immediate redemption of the
counter-culture, a vision straight out of the Ghost Dance: "I thought
it was the end of an old world, the start of a new one. We expected
things at the gathering too quick. We expected that the fences would
come down around the world, the prisons would crumble, the cities would
be gone and the buffalo would come back and Christ would return." The
next day, the great circle on the mountain was held. There was no big,
sudden, universal change. Phil Coyote comments, "A lot of different
people went up to Table Mountain to wait for the world to end. It
didn't." But Phil didn't go up the mountain to see what did happen.
Apparently Table Mountain is a center in a mountain complex that might
be compared to a human nervous system. This center would amplify the
energy raised by this huge circle of intensely praying silent people as
they gathered on the day of independence with the sun directly
overhead. Many Rainbow people deeply enjoy the release of energy done
by what Light Owl calls "a lot of strong praying." JaySun apparently
considers the "boogying and praying" he did in Colorado to be different
aspects of the same thing.

The human energy was apparently supported by the energy from the
natural world, The deepest feeling of Rainbow people seems to be that
the inmost energy of humans, the sun, the mountains and the other
natural objects is the same as what has been called period or spirits.
Chuck 'Windsong told me, "Barry and I seen Christ appear on "able
Mountain. At every gathering people have seen him ascend." I asked
Chuck did he mean descend, but he insisted Christ' ascended from the
earth. In other words, 'the earth we are on now is a sacred place as
much as any far-off heaven or different state of consciousness. This
sacredness is recognized in many ways, from praying on a mountaintop to
picking up cigarette butts and waste paper from the ground after the
gathering is over. I have used the word energy a lot. It is a frequent
word in Rainbow. Someone will tell a friend, "I like our energy." Matt
would not use cocaine because the greed of the coke dealers "fucked up
the energy around the cocaine." Once when somebody started to crush a
cockroach on a blanket at a gathering, the blanket's owner,
nine-year-old Erica, came running to prevent the insect from being
killed. "No!" she shouted. "I don't want that kind of energy in my
blanket!" The world is felt as all alive with everything radiating
energy - good or bad that can connect it to everything else. And there
is trust that the most basic energy is good.

Of course not enough energy was raised on Table Mountain to transform
the world in a moment. But there was enough generated to begin to drive
away the darkness that had fallen on the counter-culture. A long, slow
process began there of individuals changing and communities trying to
form, using the Rainbow Gatherings as a focus. It is not being done by
a spectacular, apocalyptic force from the outside, but by slow, steady
work - like digging a latrine at a gathering. The Rainbow Family links
together many thousands of people - more all the time. The Family is
assuming the moral leadership among counter-culture youth that the
left-wing groups had in the sixties. When I hitch around the USA, many
young people who pick me up have heard of the gathering and wish they
could go. If they know nothing else about Rainbow, they believe It
stands for share what you have and don't steal.

Best wishes, Jodey (postmark 1/28/91).

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This letter from Jodey was included in the 1996 Rainbow Anthology.

[bodhi]

Further Letters On Rainbow's Origins - Part II

Jackson Phelan was one of the people who was sent out by Don Kelsey -
called Mountain Don in Barry Plunker's book, "Where Have All the Flower
Children Gone?"' Jackson and the others went out to ask everyone they
knew to come to a gathering in the mountains near Nederland, Colorado
in the summer of 1968.
There were rumors that an asteroid called Icarus was going to hit the
earth and that the safest place would be there in the mountains around
Nederland, near Boulder. However, Jackson says that Don Kelsey never
said anything of the kind and he ((Jackson)) never told that to
anybody.

Jackson went to the 'Up Against the Wall Motherfuckersl-- they were a
group of anarchists who lived on the lower east side of New York. Ben
Morea of the U.A.W./Motherfuckers was at the June 1967 convention of
Students for a Democratic Society (S.D.S.) and in December, 1967
U.A.W./Motherfuckers was recognized as a chapter of SDS.

The Motherfuckers has a group of young people staying with them who
took on an identity of their own as the STP family. The STP'ers went to
this gathering in the Colorado mountains that Don Kelsey called. John
Johnson - now well-known in Rainbow as John Buffalo met the STP family
there in Colorado in the summer of 1968 and he became part of STP. He
does a lot of the security for Rainbow now, and hopes to do a kitchen.

Barry Plunker and his first wife Ellen were at that gathering in the
mountains that Don Kelsey called. They went on to New York. About 2,000
people in all showed up that summer. Some vigilantes came and tried to
make them leave. They hit Don Kelsey over the head with a rifle.
However people stayed camped there near Nederland all summer and
through the fall.

Jackson Phelan says that he stayed in Boulder over the winter. He
worked part of the time in a restaurant. ((Then)) that summer of 1969
the gathering started up again in the mountains near Nederland. Barry
Plunker hitch-hiked from New York sometime in late June and early July.
Jackson says he believes it was before the space ship landed on the
moon ((on 7/21/69)). He went camping in the mountains with Barry.
Another person showed up who was important in the early days of Rainbow
- Michael Bison Bear. He had been to the Woodstock festival ((of
7/_--,/69)). He left the gathering in Colorado and went off to the Big
Sur region of California and camped with the Salmon Creek Family
((around late Aug. 169)). Barry left Boulder shortly after that...he
went to Alaska and then down to Big Sur to be with Michael Bear and the
Salmon Creek family. When hunting season began in early fall, the
Salmon Creek Family started being harassed by hunters so they moved up
to Marble Mount, Washington.

Barry and Michael Bear and part of the Salmon Creek Family became the
Marble Mount Outlaws. They set up the camps called Love One and Love
Two and Love Three to take draft dodgers and deserters across the
border to Canada. They went down to the Renaissance Fair in Portland,
Oregon and met up with Garrick Beck and the Temple Tribe and began the
discussions with him that led to the Vortex free rock festival near
Portland over Labor Day weekend', 1970, and then ((onward)) to the
July, 1972 ((first)) Rainbow Gathering near Granby, Colorado.

Best wishes, Jodey (postmark 1/28/91).


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This letter from Jodey was included in the 1996 Rainbow Anthology.

[bodhi]

Further Letters On Rainbow's Origins - Part III
This letter from Rainbow Hawk was included in the 1996 Rainbow
Anthology

....the birth of Rainbow ((was)) at Vortex I in 1970...if you've heard
from others ((besides the writer, Rainbow Hawk, plus he mentions Jodey
Bateman)) who were there I wouldn't mind having their, current
addresses. Maybe Peter Blue Cloud ((would)) be a good source ... as the
Rainbow Temple Family were some of the originators of Vortex I. Maybe
some of the folks from the Brotherhood of Light ((could
help))...(partially where the name Rainbow Family of Living Light
evolved from). Or some of The Family Thing folks. And The Electric
Circus folks, the Good Earth Commune, The Marble Mount Outlaws,
etc.,...all of whom were parts of the first councils. ((Also)) the
Sunnyvale Farm Commune and a fair number of folks from Takilma, the
Mystic Arts Commune, Morning Star, Wheelers Ranch, etc.
The first council was about 450 folks and they were representative of
just about every alternative group on the Coast, so it's kind of hard
to remember them all, but those are some of the key-ones, Oh yea! The
Clear Light Corncob folks too. Most of us did a big caravan leaving
Vortex I (the first Rainbow Peace Caravan, but we didn't call it that
then) over to the Sky River II Festival (on Maggies Farm). ...Actually
((as well as the group names not presently remembered)), you can't
leave out the' Eagle Scouts, for their donation of the Rainbow Tipi
Circle was the major reason we chose Rainbow...((as part of an umbrella
name)).((, there were already 20,000-30,000 folks there who had all
agreed (via an announcement from the stage and a huge cheer) that the
whole West Coast alternative movement had decided to unite under the
symbol of the Rainbow.

...The Rainbow Family/Tribes part reached an easy 100% agreement at
Vortex I, but a number of folks had a hard time on the "of Living
Light" part...but it passed by simple majority. Those objecting thought
it a bit too pretentious and in many ways hipstory has proven them
right. I've personally always preferred Warriors of the Rainbow ((per
the Hopi(?) Indian prophecy, 'There will come a tribe of people from
all cultures who believe in deeds, not words, and who will restore the
earth to its former beauty. This tribe will be called Warriors of the
Rainbow.')) and Rainbow Tribes (though Dart of the reason for the
inclusion of "Family" came from two communities I was a part of). The
Gathering of the Tribes part of the Gatherings name ((the full name
being The Rainbow Family of Living Light Gathering of the Tribes and
World Peace and Healing Celebration)) came from an event titled the
Gathering of the Tribes in Golden Gate Park during the Summer of Love
(1967) and with so many Bay Area folks involved with Rainbow from the
get-go it was almost a foregone conclusion that that title would stick
with , us forever (I wholeheartedly supported that one too). ...for the
most part it's endless good news coming in and that's always a good
energy boost and an inspiration to do more and better. Give everybody
my love and hugs.

Meta Tontay ((Walk in Peace)), Rainbow Hawk.


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This letter from Rainbow Hawk was included in the 1996 Rainbow Anthology

[bodhi]

Wherever Two Are Gathered...
the beginnings of the Rainbow Family

The following appeared on p20 of the Winter 1988 All Ways Free, and is
a letter from one of the Rainbow Family Hipstorian's Jodey Bateman.

Around August, 1969, a group of young people were camping in the Big
Sur area of California. Like many groups of youth who had come together
in those days, they called themselves a family - the Salmon Creek
Family - from the creek where they were camped at Big Sur. They had the
hope of some day putting on a large gathering of counterculture people
in Colorado in the Rockies. As they knew, the previous year in the
summer of 1968, there had been a completely unplanned gathering of
thousands of young people in the hills west of Boulder, Colorado. The
Salmon Creek Family hoped to do the same thing, but with more planning
and with a silent prayer circle for world peace as the central event.
As fall drew on, the Salmon Creek Family decided to leave Big Sur to
get away from the harassment that was coming down on them - especially
from hunters - because of their "freaky" lifestyle. One of them stuck
her finger on a map, touching the northern part of the state of
Washington. So they went up to northern Washington, near the town of
Marble Mount, to a valley where they saw three mysterious lights with
no apparent source. A woman in the valley let them camp on their land,
and they became known as the Family of Three Lights. One group of this
family went off to camp by themselves. They had some horses and mules
and they helped draft dodgers and deserters cross over the border into
Canada. This group was known as the Marble Mount Outlaws.

Some of the Marble Mount Outlaws went down to the Renaissance Fair in
Eugene, Oregon, in the fall of 1969. At the fair, they met up with the
Temple Tribe, a group of craftspeople which also had the dream of some
kind of counterculture get-together. In May, 1970, people from the
Temple Tribe came up to Washington State and camped with the Marble
Mount Outlaws. They began making definite plans to put on a gathering.
As a practice for their own gathering, the two groups did the
coordination for Vortex, a free rock festival near Portland, Oregon,
over Labor Day weekend of 1970. About 75,000 people came to Vortex. The
co-ordination was done out of Rainbow Tipis borrowed from the Eagle
Scouts. From the Rainbow Tipis, the two groups took one identity the
Rainbow Family.

For the next year and a half, members of the Rainbow Family traveled
around the USA distributing invitations to the gathering - and finding
a site near Granby, Colorado. Every member of Congress was given an
invitation to the gathering. So was every delegation to the United
Nations. Almost 5,000 copies of the Rainbow Oracle - a collection of
poems, drawings and articles on alternate life styles - were given out
for free by the Rainbow Family.

When large numbers of people started showing up in Colorado for the
gathering in June, 1972, Governor John Love had- the roads blockaded
into the gathering site. People started hiking across the mountains to
the site - a three day hike. Finally 4,000 people stood in front of the
road block asking to be let into the gathering. The road block yielded
- the people walked eight miles up the road to the gathering site. By
July 4, there were 20,000 people at the gathering. Before daybreak on
July 4, several thousand of these people walked to Table Mountain,
seven miles from the site. They walked to the top of the mountain and
made a gigantic silent circle until the afternoon, praying and
meditating for world peace.

The people who had planned the first Rainbow Gathering had no intention
of calling another one until in Spring, 1973, the word came that an
individual who had been to the Colorado Gathering was calling a Rainbow
Gathering on his own on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming,
with the express disapproval of the tribal council. He had already sent
out announcements around the country, and there was the possibility of
mass arrests if people went to the reservation. So some of the people
who had put on the first gathering hurried to Wyoming and talked with
the Forest Service and found a site in a National Forest where people
could come and not get arrested.

At the end of the Wyoming Gathering someone left a sign saying "Next
year in Utah." And so it was Utah in 1974. Since then, the gathering
has been a permanent institution.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The following appeared on p20 of the Winter 1988 All Ways Free, and is
a letter from one of the Rainbow Family Hipstorian's Jodey Bateman.

[bodhi]

The First Rainbow Gathering,
Chapter 5,
By Phil Coyote
http://www.hippy.com/php/article-264.html
I was really tired of getting hassled because I was under age. I
couldn't count the times I went to juvies in several western states
for being a runaway in the fall of 1971 and the winter of 1972. I'd
always end up getting sent home. So I decided to try something. I
convinced my mom to write a letter wherein she stated that I was under
the care of Barry Adams. I had told mom what a great guy Plunker was,
and that he really watched out for me. Realizing that she couldn't
keep me home, she did it. Then we went and had it notarized. It turned
out that this little document would do just fine with the cops.
They'd ask for ID and I'd also show them the letter. They no longer
would take me in.

I got back to Eugene and found Barry Plunker. The Rainbow House had
disbanded. It was the early spring of 1972. I was now
fifteen-years-old. We were crashing at a big, two-story pad.

I met a hip, straight looking guy one night out on the street who had a
new car and was heading to Denver, Colorado. I asked the man if he
could take two riders with him. No problem, the dude said.

It was early morning, just before dawn. Plunker was at the crash pad,
asleep on an easy chair when I gently shook him, asking, "Are you
ready to go to Colorado?"

He woke up, a surprised look on his face. "Let's go," he said.

We were off.

We arrived in Denver, Colorado. We first went to the Order of the Holy
Family, a mystical Episcopalian monastic order headed by Father John, a
priest who had a deformed hand. The symbol of this order was a cross
supported by a peace sign. The brothers and sisters at the monastery
were sworn to poverty, chastity and obedience, and were committed to
peace and helping the poor. Father John was very receptive, providing
us with food, lodging and support. Soon, due to Father John's help,
we found a large, older apartment complex where we could stay in a
community room. It became Rainbow Headquarters.

Once established, we went to the state capital building. We stated that
we needed to speak to the Governor concerning the gathering. Instead, a
meeting with the Lieutenant Governor and several other officials was
arranged - rather quickly, I'll add. We were ushered into a large
room. Waiting for us at a long table were the Lieutenant Governor and
other officials. Because we were Universal Life Church ministers (these
credentials could be obtained for a small donation to this Modesto,
California organization), we had introduced ourselves as Reverends from
the onset of the encounter at the capital. We were addressed by this
title throughout the meeting, which turned into a question and answer
session. They asked the questions, and Plunker answered most of them.

"Who are the Rainbow Family, Reverend Adams?"

"We are brothers and sisters from all faiths and walks of life, all
races and creeds, worldwide, but we have no set membership and no
leaders. We include all people seeking peace everywhere."

"Where is this group based?"

"In the human heart."

"Where is this gathering to be held?"

"Somewhere near Aspen, Colorado."

"How much land, and whose land will be utilized?"

"Three-thousand acres. Whether on private land or the public land, we
don't yet know."

"How many people do you anticipate will attend?"

"144,000." This last answer really raised some eyebrows from the
panel.

We next journeyed to the headquarters of the U.S. Bureau of Land
Management. There we met with some top officials from the Bureau and
the U. S. Forest Service.

"What basis do you have to justify having this gathering on federal
public lands, if indeed that is the course that is taken, Reverend
Adams?"

"The First Amendment to the Constitution which guarantees freedom of
religion and the right of the people to peacefully assemble."

"How will you manage sanitation?"

Plunker described slit trenches where the excrement would be covered
with ashes, then buried. He then squatted down to demonstrate how the
trenches would be utilized. The fed rangers couldn't help but chuckle
at that, Plunker was so outrageous.

"I'm kind of concerned," the head official began. "There are a
lot of folks up in these mountains who wouldn't take too kindly to a
gathering of this sort up in the woods. Some of them may bash some
heads."

Plunker looked over at me and whispered, "He's talking about his
friends."

We headed back to our headquarters at the old apartment building. We
never had a dull moment there. We had other hipster folks crashing in
the community room, and all of us would socialize and party with the
renters, most of whom were hip or strange.

There was a real mellow African American guy staying there. He later
ended up convicted of an armed robbery and going to prison. I still
wonder if he really did it. So often racial profiling can hang someone.

And there was a wino dude named Mountain. He'd lie around and drink
himself stupid. Word had it that his liver was gone and he didn't
care.

But perhaps the strangest guy there was Mohammed. He was the heavy
weight boxing champion of Iran, he said. He was muscular and bearded,
and had the classic Middle Eastern accent.

One night Mohammed got really drunk on wine. He sat cross-legged and
entertained us all with Barry's plunker, strumming the thing while he
droned out Iranian songs in Farsi, his native tongue. We then ate some
dinner, standard hippie style, rice and veggies. Mohammed pointed to
some spilled grains of rice. "This is sin," he said.

Mohammed then tried to commit some real sin. He invited me into his
room and then suddenly slammed and locked the door. Barry saw this move
and came to the other side of the door. "Mohammed, what are you
doing?"

"I want him for the night, Barry!" answered Mohammed.

"Mohammed, we don't do things this way in this country."

"But he is pretty, and I want him!"

"No, Mohammed! That is not our way in America! Now open the door and
let the boy go!"

Mohammed realized the gig was up. He opened the door. "Why is this
not your way here?" he asked, drunkenly leaning on the open door and
staring at Plunker.

"He's like my son," Barry said, staring back.

"Oh, that is the same in Iran. I am sorry."

Barry and I took some acid one night. Then he asked me to design the
cover for a book that would be known as "The Rainbow Oracle" or
"How to Blow Minds and Influence People". On the cover he said that
he wanted a map of the gathering camp. I complied, and designed a map,
a layout plan really, of the first Rainbow Gathering, New Jerusalem -
Mandala City. Barry said to consult the Book of Revelation in the Bible
and see how many gates there were. Twelve it said. I decided on the New
Mexico Zuni Sun Sign to serve as the map of the layout of the
gathering. The circle in the middle represented the central council
area. The twelve gaps between sixteen rays, sets of four of each which
stretched from the center circle to each of the four directions,
represented the twelve gates where greeters were to be posted. For
reading material in "The Rainbow Oracle", plenty was submitted by
lots of people. I contributed a poem. In it I coined the phrase, "You
are your own guru." I signed it "Youth". Barry was pleased. We
soon had the book published and distributed. The volume was well
received by the hip community, immediately becoming a collectable cult
classic.

Barry and I made a side trip to Boulder to see Allen Ginsberg. The
event was near the University of Colorado. The hall was packed. The
event consisted of Ginsberg and his colleagues chanting mantras while
they were seated in the lotus position on stage. Barry pranced down the
aisle about midstream through the show and approached Ginsberg on the
stage, handing him an invitation to the gathering. Ginsberg was polite
and very receptive to Plunker, even familiar acting with him as the two
engaged in conversation. Barry had now invited the beat poet. I doubt
it was their first encounter. After all, they both had been in the
Haight during "The Summer of Love".

Our side trip to Boulder having proved eventful, we returned to our
headquarters in Denver.

Then Garrick Beck showed up. With him he brought a new relic - the
Rainbow Stone. It looked like sandstone, and was about the size of a
football. It was kind of flat in appearance, and looked like its front
and back were joined by a smooth layer in the middle. On its front
there were about seven faces that looked carved and kind of Olmec or
Mayan in appearance.

Garrick now told his story of how the stone tablet was found on the
Rainbow Farm. "We were given some Hopi corn. We went to the garden
and began planting the corn in the Hopi way, the men put a stick into
the earth, and the women dropped kernels into the holes that were then
covered up. When we were done, a rainbow appeared which stretched west
to east from the garden to a tree stump on the hill. We walked up the
hill to the stump. The stone was sitting there on it. Everyone asked
each other if they had seen this object before. No one had." Clearly,
Garrick was pointing out that this could be miraculous. And, of course,
everyone had the same thought: That this could be the stone tablet that
the Hopi were waiting for that the True White Brother was to bring to
them, ushering in a new age.

Barry surely felt he was a primary candidate for the post of True White
Brother. Many of us felt this way. Even the crumpled hat and red cloak
he wore coincidently matched Hopi prophetic descriptions of the hat and
cloak that the True White Brother would wear. But those hopes were soon
dashed. With Barry and Garrick in the lead, we embarked on another
caravan to the Hopi. When we got to Oraibi, the elders, upon viewing
the stone, were quick to state that this was not the stone that they
were expecting. Instead, they said, it was our stone.

Some other important developments ensued. Chuck Windsong, a Rainbow
person who was searching throughout northern Colorado for a viable
gathering site, hit pay dirt. In early June at a café in the small
Rocky Mountain town of Granby, Chuck met a local rancher who, legend
has it, had years before seen the Rainbow Gathering in a dream. The
story is amazing. Chuck had been back east in one of the New England
states. He was pondering about where the Rainbow Gathering in Colorado
would be. Then he received a vision, wherein he saw a meadow in his
mind, with children playing in it, all to the tune of the Beatles song,
"Strawberry Fields Forever". Another flash of the vision showed him
a wagon wheel. Going on this cue, Chuck headed to Colorado and searched
up in the high Rocky Mountain communities, stopping at any place where
a wagon wheel was displayed as a decoration, or where one was mentioned
on a sign. It was in Granby, Colorado that Chuck and some other freaks
stopped for coffee at "The Wagon Wheel Café". A rancher who owned
some of the future Rainbow Gathering site approached Chuck's
gathering site scouting party. The rancher asked Chuck and his friends
if they were Rainbow people, and they replied in the affirmative,
telling the rancher that they were looking for a gathering site. Then
the rancher told them of his dream. The rancher said that he had seen a
movie theater in his dream. Playing at the theater was "The World
Family Gathering". The rancher asked the ticket person at the booth
what it would cost to attend the gathering. "Everything you own,"
the ticket person replied. The rancher agreed to the terms and entered.
He was in the middle of a beautiful hippie gathering, on his land high
in the Rockies, by Strawberry Lake. Chuck and his friends were amazed.
The rancher's dream matched up with Chuck's vision. The rancher not
only owned land around Strawberry Lake, but up on Table Mountain as
well, the latter being a sacred site to the Arapaho Indians. The
rancher agreed at the café meeting to open up his property for the
gathering.

Soon thereafter, an initial group of hippies went up to the rancher's
large meadow near Strawberry Lake and began setting up for the
gathering. As the crowd grew, most of the gathering site included the
Rocky Mountain National Forest surrounding the rancher's meadow, with
the meadow serving solely as the main council area.

Within a matter of weeks hundreds, then thousands of freaks were
camping up at the gathering site. What had started as a trickle of
hippies was turning into a flood coming into Colorado - a state where
hitchhiking was illegal. At this time we were hearing rumors that the
jails were filling up with incarcerated hitchhikers.

Next came word that local law enforcement were blockading the
gathering. Roadblocks were in place to stop persons and supplies from
getting to the site.

Barry and I went up near the site. We headed to the parking lot, where
a sea of buses, cars and vans were assembled. Thousands of freaks were
waiting there to be shuttled up to the path, where they would hike
miles to get up to the gathering site. This all depended on the
authorities lifting the blockade. We didn't know whether that would
occur. But we believed it would happen. We just didn't know when.

Meanwhile, Garrick Beck and others were busy routinely leading large
groups of people on foot on a twenty-plus mile hike through the
mountains, bi-passing the blockade to the gathering site. These hikes
were going on continuously, making a major dent in the effectiveness of
the blockade. Thousands of hippies stealthily entered the gathering
site this way. The inflow of hippies was unstopable.

The authorities gave up. The blockade was lifted. The vehicles were
allowed to shuttle people and supplies to the entrance path, where the
long hike up to the gathering site was encountered.

It didn't mean that harassment by the cops was over, however. The
cops stopped the panel truck I got a ride up to the entrance path in.
They shined a flashlight inside to view the about twenty or so hippies.
"We love you!" all the riders yelled in unison as the flashlight
was flashed from face to face. The cops quickly withdrew. It was just
too much.

Multiple thousands of freaks poured in with no end in sight. Up the
path they went - it seemed like an endless stream of freaks heading
into the gathering site.

Kitchens to feed the people were quickly established, staffed by
volunteers. The kitchens, set in different locations in the woods,
became like small villages with their own unique flavors. There was
"Little Harlem", staffed by African Americans, where a real soulful
cultural scene was reflected by food and conversation. "Love
Kitchen", where the Love Family dished out not only food, but good
vibes. And "Rainbow Kitchen", where a lot of people like Barry,
Chuck Windsong, Garrick, Dominic, Byron, myself, and others who had
been working on the gathering for some time camped. At every kitchen
the smell of marijuana smoke permeated the air. Singing and
instrumental accompaniment, all acoustic, on guitars, congas, plates
(played by forks and spoons), and dancing, often continued into the
night until early in the morning.

The councils held at the large meadow near the lake were democratic
events. Anyone could speak. But the rules were thus: A wooden staff was
passed to the speaker. No one could interrupt the speaker who held the
staff. The speaker could speak as long as she or he wanted. The council
circle was always huge, with hundreds or thousands in attendance.
Usually council sessions started and concluded with all present joining
hands and chanting Om. The council meetings had many speakers. It might
be someone mystical, praying or sharing. It could be someone political,
like when Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman spoke at length, explaining the
significance of the black flag of anarchy, which he displayed.

A huge party was underway everywhere at the gathering. Many people took
drugs, went naked, talked, related, made friends, saw old friends, and
played.

Some got kind of bizarre - like Goldfinger, from the STP Family, and
some of his cronies. I'd met this character in Berkeley. He wore a
trench coat and gloves. He always had a sock and a can of gold paint.
He would spend his time spraying the paint onto a sock and huffing the
stuff. He was called Goldfinger because his gloved fingers were
gilded-looking due to this practice. You'd be walking down a path and
Goldfinger would be huffing and falling over off a log he was sitting
on, and so would his pals.

Most folks went for more healthy thrills, however, like the hot rocks
heated sweat lodge near the ice-cold lake. Getting plenty cooked in the
steam bath and jumping into the lake was super refreshing. I did it. It
felt fantastic when you hit the water, and you'd come up after being
submerged and here was this beautiful, pristine lake, surrounded by
awesome mountains touching the sky.

And I looked out upon the Council Meadow, and there was Country Sue,
formerly from the Manson Family, throwing a frisbee back and forth with
a guy. She looked happy, was smiling and content. I felt happy inside
that she had come to the gathering, feeling that she was connecting
once again with the original meaning of the hippy movement, peace and
love.

I saw Barry Plunker walking on a path where masses of people were
passing by, back and forth. He walked at a slow, steady pace, his arms
kind of stretched out, his plunker in his right hand. His mouth was
wide open and his face had a look of total amazement. He had lived to
see his dream come true. It made me realize that a small group of
people can have a huge influence upon thought and events. News of this
gathering had been spread by word of mouth and the personal
distribution of invitations. It had been promoted initially by only a
few. Now about 35,000 people were attending it and the gathering was
well known in hip circles around the country, and even was being
discussed in diverse parts of the globe. I too felt Barry's
amazement.

There was an announcement in the council by Bear, a Rainbow person who
hung out in Oregon. The image of a white buffalo in the form of the
shape of snowfall had appeared on the face of Table Mountain, he said.
Sure enough, we all looked up to the mountain and the shape of the
snowfall did closely resemble a white buffalo. Bear, who I had met in
Oregon, had often said that the appearance of a white buffalo would be
the fulfillment of a Native American prophecy that he expected to occur
in some way at the gathering. Others said they saw a cloud in this
shape as well.

I left the gathering on July third. I had expected something more
dramatic. I wasn't alone in this - a lot of us had. I wondered: Where
is the end of this age and the beginning of a new one? Fences and
technology haven't disappeared, and the world hasn't returned to a
more natural state. Barry had often hinted at these expectations. But
they were not to be. Not on a grandoise scale.

On July Fourth several hundred persons who had hiked to the top of
Table Mountain observed a moment of silence. It occurred at high noon.
Love Family representatives read a proclamation. Some who attended said
they went through a mystical experience.

But I had already left. The dream was over. I had awakened. The world,
unchanged, with all its problems, is still here, I thought.

What I didn't know, nor did anyone at the time, was that the Rainbow
Gathering would not be a one-time experience. It was destined to become
an alternative cyclical tradition, duplicated eventually on a worldwide
scale.

[bodhi]

THE LOST TABLET OF THE HIPPIE
by Garrick Beck/
http://204.60.163.141/rainbow/rainbow/prophecy/99awf.losttablet.garrick.htm

This is a story that deserves to be told. It contains people and ideas
that merit a wider audience and it contains mysteries -- old and new --
that may yet get to be figured out.

In the winter of 1971 I was cutting firewood up at a farm outside of
Eugene, Oregon. It was part of the Back to the Land movement as they
called it a generation ago, when thousands of people -- young people
mostly -- fled the cities for greener pastures at the edge of the
backcountry, -- planting gardens, cutting firewood, building buildings
with recycled materials, domes, yurts and living or at least trying to
live, in some kind of communal harmony.

At the same time we already had become an information outpost of the
Gathering -- letters being written, invitations being distributed,
ideas being brought together in preparation for the first Rainbow
Gathering now only a year and a half away.

People came looking for a community of people to be part of, looking
for a group of people who wanted to touch the earth with their labor.
And also looking for a place to freak freely, to abandon ship from the
upheavals -- the marching in the streets or the marching away to war --
of the sixties. For draft dodgers heading to Canada we were a stop on
the Underground Railroad. For runaways we were a secure unharmful spot
offering food, and good advice. For the young local citizens and
loggers we were a place to go party. For scientists or architects or
botanists we were a place providing in-the-field examples of geometric
architecture, organic farming, small scale logging, and solar
technologies. We were experimenting, sometimes experimenting wildly,
with herbal medicines, and very carefully with midwifery, meditation,
yoga, acupressure chanting, and so on. It was a wonderful, bold time.
And we knew that all over the country -- 5n the h533s 6f r4ra3 A0er5ca
-- there were others like us, in both smaller and larger groups working
on the very same problems and the same dreams.

Into this farm rolled a large deep-purple square-backed truck
containing a small clan on their way north. They had been on the road
trading. They said they didn't want to use any money so they had
adopted the trading lifestyle. They had a truckful of good stuff Tools
blankets books, toys, candles, rope, clothes, stuff we could use. It
was fun to go to their big purple truck and trade.

As they left they gave us a pouch of Hopi corn seed. They said it was a
gift really for the nice welcome they'd been given. And with the seed
they gave us planting instructions for the traditional way to plant the
corn.

A few months later spring sprang, the ground dried out, and we turned
the soil I the lower field. First we planted the frost hardy greens,
then the transplants from the cold frame greenhouses we'd built,
followed a few weeks later by plantings of corn and beans.

We brought everyone together by blowing the conch shell. We talked
about the way of planting where the man with a stick goes ahead, poking
the holes and the woman follows behind planting the seeds, dropping
them into the holes the man has made. But in the discussion seeking
balance, people wanted to do it both ways with both men and women each
taking turns with the sticks and the seeds.

It was beautiful. All done in silence. The corn pouch was passed with
reverence for the life inside it. As we planted, the afternoon began to
cloud over and a light rain started to fall. In the end we held hands
in our OM circle as the clouds burst over us and wetted down the
valley. The sun dipped under the clouds filling the forested hills with
golden misty light and a rainbow rose up from the river and arced down
-- I thought it was going to land on where we'd just planted the corn.
But no, it touched instead on the godseye standing on the center of the
garden. The whole scene was dazzling. The sun, the mist, the rainbow,
the new planted deep brown earth, us apart of it all.

Then someone's small voice said, "Why don't we go up the hill to the
meditation platform to take this all in"

Single file we went up the trail, a flute casting slow notes across the
valley. As we get to the prayer platform overlooking the valley,
someone notices a rock nestled in the decay of a giant cedar stump.

But it's only after we've sat that we look it over, passing the carved
stone among us. We leave it setting in the stump as it was.

Over a joyful, noisy dinner, amid many other topics, the rock is
mentioned. "Hey did anybody see that carved rock out by the prayer
platform?"

Nobody had but those of us who'd just been there.

For most of the next year the stone sat where it was

The rock itself was carved on one side with images that were themselves
made up of smaller images, figures and faces, and within those smaller
signs, figures, designs, until smaller than that it was hard to tell
where the carving left off and the natural pattern of the rock began.

More than 7 months later I left Oregon for the East Coast and holiday
visiting. But along the route we made stops passing out invitations to
the Gathering next July. The invitations were printed and posted, but
wherever possible it was given by word of mouth, in coffee houses, yoga
centers, community newspapers, laundromats, street corners, on
campuses, at rock ' roll shows, places of worship ... wherever,
whenever. And my travelmates and myself were not the only ones out
doing this. There were other carfulls traveling criss-cross the
countryside meeting people and spreading the invitation

One set of travelers went through the American Southwest and then
eastward and up the coast to where we met up. We planed a trip to
Washington, D.C. to distribute invitations and we traded tales of where
we'd been

One of their stops had been in the Hopi Lands where they'd heard the
yearly ceremonial telling of the Hopi histories and prophecies

They spoke of the part of the story about the times yet to be, where
people called the Warriors of the Rainbow would come and somehow set
things right in the troubled world -- and they would come bearing a
rock, a carved rock that would signal to the Hopi that these were the
people of their prophecies.

A rock? A carved, inscribed-type rock? I recounted the tale of our corn
planting and we made plans to go back to Oregon and bring the stone
down to the Hopi for their examination. First I got on the phone to
Kaushal and asked him to go get the rock and hold onto it, protect it.

Returning west, we found the tablet safe and dry, now wrapped up in a
small white woven cloth and tied with a coiled cord.

We loaded up two cars and a van with fourteen of us and headed toward
the southwest. Close to our destination we stopped at Jacques' place on
a remote mesa. He'd been living there for years, acquainted with the
Hopi and Navaho peoples.

"You gotta purify yourselves, make yourselves ready," he told us. And
we followed his advice taking time to fast, bathe ourselves, meditate
and wrap up our hair as a sign of respect.

Then we went early I the morning, to the Hopi village where Feather
Knew there was a Kiva, a prayer space, that was open and where we could
sit and meditate before going on. An older woman met us and explained
that this Kiva used to be open but that too many people had come and
abused the space so the Kiva wasn't open to the public anymore. On we
went, guided by Feather and Jayson to Thomas Banyaca's house. He wasn't
home.

Our next stop was David Monongye's house. Already the sun was starting
to bake us. People were home there, and I and Rome and Barry went
inside. The radio was blaring loud tinny music. A woman was feeding
young children. An old woman sat still on a bench at the side of the
room. There were buckets of fried chicken on the table. An old man sat
eating. "Come in, c'mon in boys," said the man, gesturing toward us at
the door. This was David.

And in we went. "What do you want. What brings you here?" He asked over
the din of the radio and the children.

"We ... we brought you a stone tablet which we found." I began, getting
right to the point.

"You brought a what?" He said, trying to hear over the lunchtime noise.

For a moment the possible foolishness of this entire journey flashed
thru my brain. "We brought you a stone tablet." I went on slowly and
clearly this time, "which we found."

The younger woman's hand switched off the radio.

"Do you have it with you?" Asked David.

"Yes, it's outside in one of the vans."

"Well go and get it and bring it in."

Like a curtain rising on a whole different scene the place transformed.
The food was swept off the table. The children ushered out another door
to play. The old woman had lit a candle and was sitting by it at an
altar in the corner when we returned inside with the wrapped up stone
tablet.

"Open it up." David encouraged

We did, and he ran his fingers over it, almost more to be touching it,
feeling it, than looking at it. "Well, how did you get this?" He wanted
to know. And I recounted, in brief, the story I have told you here.
Barry spoke about the planned Gathering that we were all working on,
and Rome, as a Native American, spoke to David about the respect we
young people had for the Native American ways.

David asked a few specific questions about where and when we got the
rock. Then without further to-do, he wrapped it back up and getting up,
said, "We'll just have to see who's here to take a look at it."

He went out and spoke with his neighbor, then told us they were going
to round up some of the others, that he thought there were "enough of
us here to have a good look together," and that we should go to the
house he gave us directions to.

We followed the directions he'd given us, which took us back to the
very same place, next to the Kiva, where we had been that morning.

It was Mina's house. She s head of the Hopi Bluebird Clan and she met
us at the door, once again, and invited us inside. The entryway opened
to a larger room and there were assembled a group of older Hopi.
Seventeen I counted. I was nervous as could be. It was a humbling
experience just standing there and feeling the combined weight of
thousands of years of the tribal culture.

David motioned for us to come up closer and tell our tale. As we spoke,
he translated into Hopi, and there was another man there who
translated. Sometimes the translation process was simple, other times
the Hopi would all speak among themselves in this wonder song-like
language. David was encouraging us not to leave out details. Things
that were small to us might be important to them.

We spoke also about the vision of this Gathering, and how this was the
spiritual quest that had brought us together as a clan. They talked
again for a bit among themselves, and then asked a series of questions:
What were the colors of the godseye in the garden? How much corn did w
plant? What direction was the tablet facing when we found it? How many
people had handled it, carried it since? And so on.

In all this telling we were clear, very clear, that we made no claims
whatever about what this tablet was or was not, only that all things
considered it seemed that the right thing to do was to bring this stone
to them.

At last, their glances turned to Mina. And she came forward and asked
us -- her eyes as piercing as a great night bird's eyes in the dark of
the desert -- she asked us to show them the rock. Without any further
fuss I unwrapped it held it toward her.

She looked and spoke with clarity and to the point. "It is not the same
color, it is not the same type of rock, nor the right shape to match
the piece missing from the tablet that I have."

She turned now and was addressing not just we rainbows, but all the
people in the room. "However," she went on, "when my father gave me
that tablet, and left me his instructions he told me that this world is
full of illusions and we must not let our eyes be fooled. He told e
then, that in a time like this I should take the rock and place it near
to the tablet itself to see edge to edge if the pieces fit."

"Can you give it to me?" She asked, and without a word I held the stone
out to her.

She took the rock and moved thru the bunches of people toward the rear
of the room and out a door at the back.

Perhaps ten minutes later she was back. When she spoke her quiet voice
had a strength like the Grand Canyon. "It is as I thought, your rock is
the wrong shape, color and size." She was shaking her head, "It does
not fit as the missing piece of our tablet."

David took it from her and handed it back to us. "This is you tablet."
He said as he passed it back to us.

I spoke, feeling honor at having been thoughtfully received at all by
these real elders of a enduring tribe. "We are a very young tribe, like
a grandchild tribe. Your are a very old tribe like a grandparent tribe.
We need al the help and advice we can get from you ... and if there is
anything we could do for you, let us know and we will do what we can.
At least we will try."

David again translated, and from the eager responses, it seemed there
was a lot to be told to us. "It is clear," He began, "that you and we
are working for the same Great Spirit. We all desire Peace in our
lives, for our children and for everyone. Because this is what you are
working for, we know that you are warriors of the rainbow, but whether
your are the Warriors of the Rainbow that have been foretold well, that
is another matter, but you are young and full of hope and there is much
life stretching out in front of you."

Then the other Hopi man was translating, "If you want to know a task
that we believe The Rainbow Warriors will accomplish, it is to rid the
Black Mesa of the demon machines that the coal companies have put
there. These are sacred lands for us and they are being destroyed for
coal and the smoke in the sky that the coals brings."

Several Hopi were talking in the old tongue now all at once and the
translator was trying to keep up with it. They were telling us about
the strip mining. I felt I awe of their serious wisdom and their
passion not for the money coal and uranium could bring, but for the
safety and security of the children of our world.

Then the conversation changed tone, and now they were giving us
instructions on Care of Sacred Tablets. A number of the old Hopi spoke,
and they were telling us of their traditions, several of them speaking
up in modern English.

"Don't take any photographs of it."

"Don't make any rubbings of it or draw a picture of the pictures on
it."

"This way the only way to see what it looks like is to see it with your
own eyes."

"Keep it wrapped up. Don't keep it open all the time on display. That
way when you do open it up it is a special moment to pay attention to.
Otherwise if it's open all the time o n your shelf, the people will
forget and they will argue and do foolish things in front of it."

And with glad hands and many thanks we wrapped up our tablet and
departed from Mina's house out under the now darkening sunset sky.

Things moved along quickly toward the first Rainbow Gathering. We went
back up to Oregon and included in the booklet "The Rainbow Oracle," an
account of the meeting with the Hopi, and an article about the coal
company digs at Black Mesa. And rainbow people have been volunteers
trying to keep destructive forces of profitgreed from damaging Native
sacred lands ever since. We may not have made a lot of headway but we
do keep trying.

In "The Rainbow Oracle" we also asked people to bring a stone from
their own home and put these in a pile at the site of the July Fourth
meditation, a kind of representation of the earth. And people did this
and Skyblue carried our carved rock up Table Mountain and set it on the
pile of stones that was heaped there. It sat there all day. But in the
evening, with the cool Colorado wind beginning to blow she brought it
back down the mountainside.

The rock began a long odyssey. It was carried and cared for by many
different people. It went to the Native American in Minneapolis where a
petroglyph expert pronounced it "at least a 100 years old." It was
bought to a psychic reader who made tape recording about its connection
to the great pyramids of mythic Lemuria. It was brought back to the
Hopi lands and some there saw a bear claw sign on it and remarked that
was like marker stones left behind during the bear clan migrations long
ago. It was wrapped and rewrapped with each keeper adding perhaps
another layer until five years later in 1977 it was brought to the New
Mexico Rainbow Gathering along side the Gila River.

That year Grandfather David came to the Gathering. I remember him
riding down the Gila Valley on a burro pack baskets loaded on behind
him. One day, while the council was taking place, Jimmer took out the
tablet and opened it on top of the blankets and cloths it had been
wrapped in. Then Grandfather David came to speak in the council. He had
someone draw out the symbols of the prophecy, rock the Hopi's prophecy
rock, and slowly in the center of the tipi village under the midday
sun, he retold the story of the Hopi people and the four worlds, full
of detail and spoken slowly and carefully as from log memory. Then he
was done and he returned to his lodge and the council continued. Later
that same day, after dinner and dark, the drums started up, the fire
threw sparks into the desert sky, and in one of those quiet places amid
the drumming someone's voice said David would like to speak to the
circle. So he came out from his lodge and lit by the evening Relight
spoke to us again.

"It's not by accident that the words 'Hopi' and 'hippie' should alike.
We are all people of peace, we are all working for the same Great
Spirit. You cannot rely on the banks, or the corporations or the
government. They will never respect you unless you hold territory. You
must take back the Earth, peacefully, one piece at a time. Plant seeds,
and water them, and make the Earth beautiful again."

From there the tablet was brought back to the farm in Oregon where it

was first found. We kept it under wraps except for full moon
celebrations or when someone came who expressed a desire to see it.

In 1978 we took it to the Gathering in Oregon, and there, on the sixth
of July Harold and Jeannie suggested we bring it out and share its
story. As each blanket and cloth was unfolded, revealing its own hidden
shells or feathers or deadwork, people began to gather 'round, straight
to get a view of this rock. At the outside of the crowd people were
trying to tell people what was going on and to relay the parts of the
story being told. It was almost too much, everyone wanting to a chance
to se and a little pushing of the circle's outside meant people were
stumbling on top of each other pressing in closer at the circle's
center. Freedom said, y'all finish this story up fast before someone
gets hurt." And finish it up we did, and the stone was re wrapped in
all the stuff, and that was the last time I have seen it.

It went from the Oregon Gathering up and down the coast, and to Mexico
where it was taken at the full moon to the top of the Jaguar pyramid it
passed as we pass things among ourselves with love and delight and it
went with Birdie to a bluegrass festival outside, I believe, of
Lincoln, Nebraska, where the car and people she had a ride with left
unannounced without knowing anything the wrapped bundle in their cars
trunk.

That was 19 years ago. But this was no rock in a bag. This was an
elaborate bundle, tied and containing something carved and beautiful
and mysterious I do not believe that it has been "thrown away." I
believe that it is something waiting to be refound.

Is there a Tablet that is somehow Our Tablet? Or, are we just trying to
mimic other tribes who have a tablet, or several tablets or a lost
tablet? And does this tablet have some meaning more than its mysterious
carvings?

I can tell you what we do have. We have a social program that cares for
our young, our weak, our sick, our old, and as best as we can for
ourselves and each other. We have an evolving culture that cares about
the Earth and all its inhabitants. We have a growing community that
respects the land, the water, the sky.

And I know that when we live in conscious awareness of doing good for
each other and the earth, that the signs are everywhere along the way,
that omens spring up at each turn; that there are natural wonders and
mythical symbols that appears as makers, as if too guide us, every day
of our lives ... but usually our eyes are closed to such things and our
minds occupied with just getting by.

And the Hopi, corn from the clan in the big purple truck? Corn from the
seed of that seed is alive and still being grown today.

Is the Lost Tablet of the Hippies ever going to be found? Does whoever
has it know what it is? Perhaps someone reading this or hearing this
story will come upon it and recognize it for what it is. Could it be
brought back to the Gathering? And ... what would we do then?

Garrick Beck/ Aqua Fria, New Mexico

[spiritrising]

phil cuyote would be a better source he is not looking for money, as too if
you went to eugene and visited kesey family, alot of works are in his
library. most of welcomehome is tainted. spiritrising

Post by bodhi
Further Letters On Rainbow's Origins - Part III
This letter from Rainbow Hawk was included in the 1996 Rainbow
Anthology
....the birth of Rainbow ((was)) at Vortex I in 1970...if you've heard
from others ((besides the writer, Rainbow Hawk, plus he mentions Jodey
Bateman)) who were there I wouldn't mind having their, current
addresses. Maybe Peter Blue Cloud ((would)) be a good source ... as the
Rainbow Temple Family were some of the originators of Vortex I. Maybe
some of the folks from the Brotherhood of Light ((could
help))...(partially where the name Rainbow Family of Living Light
evolved from). Or some of The Family Thing folks. And The Electric
Circus folks, the Good Earth Commune, The Marble Mount Outlaws,
etc.,...all of whom were parts of the first councils. ((Also)) the
Sunnyvale Farm Commune and a fair number of folks from Takilma, the
Mystic Arts Commune, Morning Star, Wheelers Ranch, etc.
The first council was about 450 folks and they were representative of
just about every alternative group on the Coast, so it's kind of hard
to remember them all, but those are some of the key-ones, Oh yea! The
Clear Light Corncob folks too. Most of us did a big caravan leaving
Vortex I (the first Rainbow Peace Caravan, but we didn't call it that
then) over to the Sky River II Festival (on Maggies Farm). ...Actually
((as well as the group names not presently remembered)), you can't
leave out the' Eagle Scouts, for their donation of the Rainbow Tipi
Circle was the major reason we chose Rainbow...((as part of an umbrella
name)).((, there were already 20,000-30,000 folks there who had all
agreed (via an announcement from the stage and a huge cheer) that the
whole West Coast alternative movement had decided to unite under the
symbol of the Rainbow.
...The Rainbow Family/Tribes part reached an easy 100% agreement at
Vortex I, but a number of folks had a hard time on the "of Living
Light" part...but it passed by simple majority. Those objecting thought
it a bit too pretentious and in many ways hipstory has proven them
right. I've personally always preferred Warriors of the Rainbow ((per
the Hopi(?) Indian prophecy, 'There will come a tribe of people from
all cultures who believe in deeds, not words, and who will restore the
earth to its former beauty. This tribe will be called Warriors of the
Rainbow.')) and Rainbow Tribes (though Dart of the reason for the
inclusion of "Family" came from two communities I was a part of). The
Gathering of the Tribes part of the Gatherings name ((the full name
being The Rainbow Family of Living Light Gathering of the Tribes and
World Peace and Healing Celebration)) came from an event titled the
Gathering of the Tribes in Golden Gate Park during the Summer of Love
(1967) and with so many Bay Area folks involved with Rainbow from the
get-go it was almost a foregone conclusion that that title would stick
with , us forever (I wholeheartedly supported that one too). ...for the
most part it's endless good news coming in and that's always a good
energy boost and an inspiration to do more and better. Give everybody
my love and hugs.
Meta Tontay ((Walk in Peace)), Rainbow Hawk.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This letter from Rainbow Hawk was included in the 1996 Rainbow Anthology

[r***@gmail.com]

The first council was about 450 folks and they were representative of
just about every alternative group on the Coast

Now that sounds like a council. It was "called" and it was
"representative". Now i see why they called it "council" in the
beginning. What i don't understand is why folks keep calling it a
council now that it is neither of those things. #

Post by bodhi
Further Letters On Rainbow's Origins - Part III
This letter from Rainbow Hawk was included in the 1996 Rainbow
Anthology
....the birth of Rainbow ((was)) at Vortex I in 1970...if you've heard
from others ((besides the writer, Rainbow Hawk, plus he mentions Jodey
Bateman)) who were there I wouldn't mind having their, current
addresses. Maybe Peter Blue Cloud ((would)) be a good source ... as the
Rainbow Temple Family were some of the originators of Vortex I. Maybe
some of the folks from the Brotherhood of Light ((could
help))...(partially where the name Rainbow Family of Living Light
evolved from). Or some of The Family Thing folks. And The Electric
Circus folks, the Good Earth Commune, The Marble Mount Outlaws,
etc.,...all of whom were parts of the first councils. ((Also)) the
Sunnyvale Farm Commune and a fair number of folks from Takilma, the
Mystic Arts Commune, Morning Star, Wheelers Ranch, etc.
The first council was about 450 folks and they were representative of
just about every alternative group on the Coast, so it's kind of hard
to remember them all, but those are some of the key-ones, Oh yea! The
Clear Light Corncob folks too. Most of us did a big caravan leaving
Vortex I (the first Rainbow Peace Caravan, but we didn't call it that
then) over to the Sky River II Festival (on Maggies Farm). ...Actually
((as well as the group names not presently remembered)), you can't
leave out the' Eagle Scouts, for their donation of the Rainbow Tipi
Circle was the major reason we chose Rainbow...((as part of an umbrella
name)).((, there were already 20,000-30,000 folks there who had all
agreed (via an announcement from the stage and a huge cheer) that the
whole West Coast alternative movement had decided to unite under the
symbol of the Rainbow.
...The Rainbow Family/Tribes part reached an easy 100% agreement at
Vortex I, but a number of folks had a hard time on the "of Living
Light" part...but it passed by simple majority. Those objecting thought
it a bit too pretentious and in many ways hipstory has proven them
right. I've personally always preferred Warriors of the Rainbow ((per
the Hopi(?) Indian prophecy, 'There will come a tribe of people from
all cultures who believe in deeds, not words, and who will restore the
earth to its former beauty. This tribe will be called Warriors of the
Rainbow.')) and Rainbow Tribes (though Dart of the reason for the
inclusion of "Family" came from two communities I was a part of). The
Gathering of the Tribes part of the Gatherings name ((the full name
being The Rainbow Family of Living Light Gathering of the Tribes and
World Peace and Healing Celebration)) came from an event titled the
Gathering of the Tribes in Golden Gate Park during the Summer of Love
(1967) and with so many Bay Area folks involved with Rainbow from the
get-go it was almost a foregone conclusion that that title would stick
with , us forever (I wholeheartedly supported that one too). ...for the
most part it's endless good news coming in and that's always a good
energy boost and an inspiration to do more and better. Give everybody
my love and hugs.
Meta Tontay ((Walk in Peace)), Rainbow Hawk.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This letter from Rainbow Hawk was included in the 1996 Rainbow Anthology

[spiritrising]

ahhhh. now you want to quote from a guy trying to make money off the name
very interesting! spiritrising

Post by bodhi
Further Letters On Rainbow's Origins - Part II
Jackson Phelan was one of the people who was sent out by Don Kelsey -
called Mountain Don in Barry Plunker's book, "Where Have All the Flower
Children Gone?"' Jackson and the others went out to ask everyone they
knew to come to a gathering in the mountains near Nederland, Colorado
in the summer of 1968.
There were rumors that an asteroid called Icarus was going to hit the
earth and that the safest place would be there in the mountains around
Nederland, near Boulder. However, Jackson says that Don Kelsey never
said anything of the kind and he ((Jackson)) never told that to
anybody.
Jackson went to the 'Up Against the Wall Motherfuckersl-- they were a
group of anarchists who lived on the lower east side of New York. Ben
Morea of the U.A.W./Motherfuckers was at the June 1967 convention of
Students for a Democratic Society (S.D.S.) and in December, 1967
U.A.W./Motherfuckers was recognized as a chapter of SDS.
The Motherfuckers has a group of young people staying with them who
took on an identity of their own as the STP family. The STP'ers went to
this gathering in the Colorado mountains that Don Kelsey called. John
Johnson - now well-known in Rainbow as John Buffalo met the STP family
there in Colorado in the summer of 1968 and he became part of STP. He
does a lot of the security for Rainbow now, and hopes to do a kitchen.
Barry Plunker and his first wife Ellen were at that gathering in the
mountains that Don Kelsey called. They went on to New York. About 2,000
people in all showed up that summer. Some vigilantes came and tried to
make them leave. They hit Don Kelsey over the head with a rifle.
However people stayed camped there near Nederland all summer and
through the fall.
Jackson Phelan says that he stayed in Boulder over the winter. He
worked part of the time in a restaurant. ((Then)) that summer of 1969
the gathering started up again in the mountains near Nederland. Barry
Plunker hitch-hiked from New York sometime in late June and early July.
Jackson says he believes it was before the space ship landed on the
moon ((on 7/21/69)). He went camping in the mountains with Barry.
Another person showed up who was important in the early days of Rainbow
- Michael Bison Bear. He had been to the Woodstock festival ((of
7/_--,/69)). He left the gathering in Colorado and went off to the Big
Sur region of California and camped with the Salmon Creek Family
((around late Aug. 169)). Barry left Boulder shortly after that...he
went to Alaska and then down to Big Sur to be with Michael Bear and the
Salmon Creek family. When hunting season began in early fall, the
Salmon Creek Family started being harassed by hunters so they moved up
to Marble Mount, Washington.
Barry and Michael Bear and part of the Salmon Creek Family became the
Marble Mount Outlaws. They set up the camps called Love One and Love
Two and Love Three to take draft dodgers and deserters across the
border to Canada. They went down to the Renaissance Fair in Portland,
Oregon and met up with Garrick Beck and the Temple Tribe and began the
discussions with him that led to the Vortex free rock festival near
Portland over Labor Day weekend', 1970, and then ((onward)) to the
July, 1972 ((first)) Rainbow Gathering near Granby, Colorado.
Best wishes, Jodey (postmark 1/28/91).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This letter from Jodey was included in the 1996 Rainbow Anthology.

[spiritrising]

letter from jodey written in 88, does not follow originals notes. lol ya got
to get better at this, 16 years makes a big circle and many lost things that
need the gaps and they are by what ever the writer wantedto put in there,
got to try harder! not one word of the pranksters in all of this, betya
didn't know they were involved were you? it ain't on your favorite web
site.you would be better off reading matt love's version. lol
spiritrising

Post by bodhi
Further Letters On Rainbow's Origins - Part I
This letter from Jodey was included in the 1996 Rainbow Anthology.
This is from the introduction of my book on Rainbow about the context
of the times when Barry Plunker (of Marble Mount Outlaws) met up with
Garrick Beck (of Temple Tribe) and they began to plan the first
gathering.
In May, 1970, the radical youth movement reached its height. When the
USA invaded Cambodia, the National Guard killed four anti-war
demonstrators at Kent State University in Ohio and two at Jackson State
University in Mississippi. Student strikes closed down over 400
universities and colleges across the country in protest against the
invasion and the killings. That was the week that Chuck Windsong, who
was deeply upset about the killings, went into the forests of
Washington to camp out with his cousin Barry. Barry had left
Haight-Ashbury long before and was now helping draft dodgers and
deserters escape across the border into Canada. That week of student
week of invasion and killings and student strikes, Barry and Chuck
started making plans to invite everyone who would come to stand in a
circle on a mountaintop on a Fourth of July.
It took over two years of preparation before Barry, Chuck, Garrick,
Karen, Jean Vision and the others could have the silent circle at the
first Rainbow Gathering in the mountains of Colorado on July 4, 1972.
During those two years, the left-wing movement went through a period of
decline. Already in June, 1969, Students for a Democratic Society
(SDS), the main radical youth organization, had split at its national
convention. SDS chapters around the country had mostly refused to
follow any of the rival factions. Thus, the student strike of May,
1970, was not coordinated by any national organization and there was no
way of keeping the energy going.
By this time, large numbers of SDS'ers and other leftists were mentally
and physically exhausted from five years of working against a war that
went on and on. In May, 1970, there was hope that the revolution - or
at least the end of the war - would come soon. By that fall the hope
was dying down. Some places the hope died later than others. In
outlying areas, young people were just starting to turn onto the
counter-culture and the vague hope of the revolution that had come to
them at second and third and tenth hand from the radical youth
organizations, while in the main centers, the hope was dying. There was
a brief surge of hope again around the May Day anti-war demonstrations
of May, 1971, but the hope died down again.
The left-wing people who had provided the moral leadership for the
counter-culture went out of action. Some went to graduate school,
others to a piece of land in the country and others to heavy alcohol
and drug use. Some kept on with the struggle, but the media weren't
paying attention and the goals looked further away than ever. In 1972,
an article in "U.S. News an(i- World Report" noticed that as protest
died down, crime in campus areas was increasing. With no more goal of a
revolution to give a moral purpose, the dropouts and runaways in
college fringe areas started stealing more and more. As trust broke
down, students and other people were no longer ready to give them a
place to stay. The use of LSI) and other psychedelics declined. There
was a big increase in the use of alcohol, downers and heroin.
Apparently in most people, psychedelics inspire bright, hopeful visions
and when people no longer believe they can make these visions into
reality, they prefer to blot them out.
As young people lost hope that the revolution would come soon to
transform the world, many came to believe that Jesus would come soon to
do the same thing. Jesus freak groups grew rapidly in counter-culture
communities. They usually disapproved of some things that were
considered basic in the counter-culture - pot smoking, non-married se*
and protesting against the war. The basic viewpoint of most Jesus freak
groups was socially conservative. Although most Jesus freaks did not
think of themselves as political at all, they disapproved of protest -
anything that might hint that people could make the world a better
place by their own efforts. Only Jesus could do that at his coming.
Jesus freak groups gave young people stability and hope as the
counter-culture communities around them fell into moral chaos, but they
didn't have the kind of moral leadership in the counter-culture that
the leftwing groups once had. The Jesus freaks did not see their job as
improving the scene, but as helping their converts to be in the scene
but not of it. The same thing is true of the numerous eastern religious
groups such as Krishna Consciousness that began to flourish at this
time. They regarded the counter-culture not as something good in itself
that should be developed, but as a hunting ground for converts.
Among the Plains Indians when they were conquered by the whites, the
Ghost Dance arose - the faith that an Indian Savior would appear who
would renew the earth and bring back to life all the Indians that white
guns and diseases had slain and all the buffalo the whites had
destroyed. It would be sudden - all that would be necessary was to keep
dancing the Ghost Dance - making that energy circle, dancing until very
soon the power came that would redeem the land for the Indians. For
some, the first Rainbow Gathering in Colorado was a Ghost Dance for the
hippie movement.
On July 3, 1972 Phil Coyote looked over the thousands of people he had
helped prepare the way for in the Colorado mountains. These people had
dared a National Guard road block to gather at the foot of Table
Mountain, a holy mountain of the Arapaho Indians, ready to go to the
top on the Fourth of July and make the silent circle as the spirit had
said. The counter-culture was in decay. The non-religious protest
movement that had given it purpose was too weak to stop the decay. So a
spiritual renewal movement had brought these people to the Rainbow
Gathering at Table Mountain. Phil tells his hope at that time - the
hope of many who came - for the immediate redemption of the
counter-culture, a vision straight out of the Ghost Dance: "I thought
it was the end of an old world, the start of a new one. We expected
things at the gathering too quick. We expected that the fences would
come down around the world, the prisons would crumble, the cities would
be gone and the buffalo would come back and Christ would return." The
next day, the great circle on the mountain was held. There was no big,
sudden, universal change. Phil Coyote comments, "A lot of different
people went up to Table Mountain to wait for the world to end. It
didn't." But Phil didn't go up the mountain to see what did happen.
Apparently Table Mountain is a center in a mountain complex that might
be compared to a human nervous system. This center would amplify the
energy raised by this huge circle of intensely praying silent people as
they gathered on the day of independence with the sun directly
overhead. Many Rainbow people deeply enjoy the release of energy done
by what Light Owl calls "a lot of strong praying." JaySun apparently
considers the "boogying and praying" he did in Colorado to be different
aspects of the same thing.
The human energy was apparently supported by the energy from the
natural world, The deepest feeling of Rainbow people seems to be that
the inmost energy of humans, the sun, the mountains and the other
natural objects is the same as what has been called period or spirits.
Chuck 'Windsong told me, "Barry and I seen Christ appear on "able
Mountain. At every gathering people have seen him ascend." I asked
Chuck did he mean descend, but he insisted Christ' ascended from the
earth. In other words, 'the earth we are on now is a sacred place as
much as any far-off heaven or different state of consciousness. This
sacredness is recognized in many ways, from praying on a mountaintop to
picking up cigarette butts and waste paper from the ground after the
gathering is over. I have used the word energy a lot. It is a frequent
word in Rainbow. Someone will tell a friend, "I like our energy." Matt
would not use cocaine because the greed of the coke dealers "fucked up
the energy around the cocaine." Once when somebody started to crush a
cockroach on a blanket at a gathering, the blanket's owner,
nine-year-old Erica, came running to prevent the insect from being
killed. "No!" she shouted. "I don't want that kind of energy in my
blanket!" The world is felt as all alive with everything radiating
energy - good or bad that can connect it to everything else. And there
is trust that the most basic energy is good.
Of course not enough energy was raised on Table Mountain to transform
the world in a moment. But there was enough generated to begin to drive
away the darkness that had fallen on the counter-culture. A long, slow
process began there of individuals changing and communities trying to
form, using the Rainbow Gatherings as a focus. It is not being done by
a spectacular, apocalyptic force from the outside, but by slow, steady
work - like digging a latrine at a gathering. The Rainbow Family links
together many thousands of people - more all the time. The Family is
assuming the moral leadership among counter-culture youth that the
left-wing groups had in the sixties. When I hitch around the USA, many
young people who pick me up have heard of the gathering and wish they
could go. If they know nothing else about Rainbow, they believe It
stands for share what you have and don't steal.
Best wishes, Jodey (postmark 1/28/91).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This letter from Jodey was included in the 1996 Rainbow Anthology.

[willowbear]

OMG! You actually posted something that's readable!

You're a solipsistic asshole bodhi ... I'll wrestle you through any
long night anytime ... cuz you diminish what you post cuz you post it
poorly cuz you don't care. Some of us have been doing this stuff for a
long long long time but you won't take help cuz,. bottom line, you
gotta gotta gotta do and you gotta gotta gotta do badly.

You're an agent, bodhi, but you aren't an agent of what your name
promises.

Oooooh something to share!
My name uhhhhhhh other name is who I am: Chopal (umlaut on the o) cuz I
so often said to my teacher something about "Glorious phenomenal world"
so he punned and gave me a name that some would read as "glorious
teachings" huh huh huh ... the stones by the fireside are a teaching,
the tea pot is a teaching ... it is for folk like bodhi do devalue that
... it is for folk to look at /how/ he does what he does and ponder ...

Hey, bodhi, how can you keep on so meanly for so long?

Your life is so implausible ... if I was gonna do what you do, year
after year after year after year ... I'd apply for a grant from the
CIA. (no, bodhi aint' a CIA plant ... they'd never think of posting
saw-blade ... they're geeks ... they'd post properly)

meh

<=== does sound/coms/security and doesn't suffer fools gladly

You negate me, bodhi ... and I resent you to hell

W^B

[bodhi]

Post by willowbear
OMG! You actually posted something that's readable!
You're a solipsistic asshole bodhi ...

......but i'm the only asshole in MY universe!

Post by willowbear
You negate me, bodhi ... and I resent you to hell

ahhhh, you negate me as well, asshole, and i don't need Hegel to tell
me about the negation of the negation.....

welcome back ,willowbear!

namaste;
bodhi

[g***@gmail.com]

hey spiritrising....how would one find out about the pranksters
involvement with rainbow? besides by going to his personal library.....

[spiritrising]

i don't think there would be much unless you were to find a book by a
prankster. alot of stuff is in his library, and i beleive it is open for
veiwing, or maybe the immediate family will charge a fee, just don't know.
the pranksters were there alot, with rainbow house, even one christmas we
all went downtown to carry a fake cake around. alot of vibes back then for
sure. they never thought od making money or glory from what they did, as
some have. it was about the love of life, you might even find a picture or
two of me, but not many, i shied away from cameras alot. where everyone else
was trying to make a serious movie.

i'll look around , never know someone might just have posted something, i
think the family even has a web site now on the pranksters, even if alot are
dead now. i have my own papers and pics, i never thought of putting
personal stuff on the net, too many people wanting to make a buck off the
lifestyles of others. spiritrising

Post by g***@gmail.com
hey spiritrising....how would one find out about the pranksters
involvement with rainbow? besides by going to his personal library.....

[spiritrising]

i found this after posting, it is an attempt to put down some history of the
pranksters, i didn't take the time to reveiw it to see if it contains more
truth, as it looks to be a compilation of different people relating thier
version of what happens. but did notice someone had indeed put the thing
about the cake donw in words.

http://www.pranksterweb.org/tribute10.htm

i couldn't even get the other links to work for me to see more tributes,
maybe someone can open them and post them, but good reading to say the
least, has the poster's name on top of each post.

i put in a google search with the pranksters and rainbow, had alot of
different things and did not research more than looking at a few. maybe if
you have time you can look for more. my connection is just dial up.
spiritrising

Post by spiritrising
i don't think there would be much unless you were to find a book by a
prankster. alot of stuff is in his library, and i beleive it is open for
veiwing, or maybe the immediate family will charge a fee, just don't know.
the pranksters were there alot, with rainbow house, even one christmas we
all went downtown to carry a fake cake around. alot of vibes back then for
sure. they never thought od making money or glory from what they did, as
some have. it was about the love of life, you might even find a picture or
two of me, but not many, i shied away from cameras alot. where everyone
else was trying to make a serious movie.
i'll look around , never know someone might just have posted something, i
think the family even has a web site now on the pranksters, even if alot
are dead now. i have my own papers and pics, i never thought of putting
personal stuff on the net, too many people wanting to make a buck off the
lifestyles of others. spiritrising

Post by g***@gmail.com
hey spiritrising....how would one find out about the pranksters
involvement with rainbow? besides by going to his personal library.....

[g***@gmail.com]

Thanks for the research spiritrising. I had no idea that the pranksters
were so integral to the first gatherings.
a guy named sonny who played sax was showing me some historical rainbow
papers in WV....said he was gonna try and get them on the internet.
anyone heard of this?

[spiritrising]

if its the same sonny i know he will try, haven't seen or heard, but hell i
am behind the times anyway, i only get the news the day before it happens.
spiritrising

Post by g***@gmail.com
Thanks for the research spiritrising. I had no idea that the pranksters
were so integral to the first gatherings.
a guy named sonny who played sax was showing me some historical rainbow
papers in WV....said he was gonna try and get them on the internet.
anyone heard of this?

[g***@gmail.com]

it would be alot nicer to just go to the Prankster Library, but theres
the pacific ocean between me and it right now.

[spiritrising]

someone told me hippie museum was finally up and running, aloot of
histrorical stuff should be there too! even maybe how adams became a
minister opps i have said too much watch out foor those last names. LOL
spiritrising

Post by g***@gmail.com
it would be alot nicer to just go to the Prankster Library, but theres
the pacific ocean between me and it right now.

[spiritrising]

there is even some on woodstock.com but its mostly koening's thoughts and
some clips from the pictures taken, but he is a buffalo nut, money making
fool. spiritrising

Post by spiritrising
someone told me hippie museum was finally up and running, aloot of
histrorical stuff should be there too! even maybe how adams became a
minister opps i have said too much watch out foor those last names. LOL
spiritrising

Post by g***@gmail.com
it would be alot nicer to just go to the Prankster Library, but theres
the pacific ocean between me and it right now.

[spiritrising]

now go ask adams who made him a preacher? funny story, some truths some
untruths, all in all good vibes, but not all truth. spiritrising

and by the way garrick was a joke right along with plunker's rock . lol
now do you know how 73 started? its not in your favorite web site! lol
or even 74,75, they too are not in your favorite web site.you took this out
of it, but the rest isn't there, wonder why?

Post by bodhi
It wasn't Armageddon, but the beginning of something new.....
excerpted from Rolling Stone, Tim Cahill, August 3, 1972
Armageddon Postponed
this is also in the 1994 Almost Free
The Vision: conceived, by relatively well-intentioned human beings, in
liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all people are created
equal.
You could read about it in the Denver Post, or see it on the six
o'clock news. By the middle of may, all 800 or so people in granby
expected to be overrun - by an estimated one million fanatic christ and
dope addicts coming to a blasphemous festival at table mountain, right
smack in the middle of their park. it was going to last three whole
days, and climax on the 4th of july - sacrilege for sure - a bunch of
peace crazies trampling over the mountains on independence day. A
million of them! granby was gearing up for the greatest natural
disaster since the locusts ate utah.
A million is what they said, or sometimes 144,000. whoever had
organized the event, the rainbow tribe, or some such lunatic group, had
been working on it for three years. they had invited every congressman,
senator and world leader; but of course no one expected nixon or mao to
show.
Worse, the one big tourist weekend of the summer would be a bust.
Hippies (it is well-known) don't sleep in motels, or buy guns or
fishing equipment. but the people who did, the regulars, the small town
summer people, they would avoid granby by the thousands of dollars.
Consider: the 4th of july is a big, critical holiday. stopping this
festival would be a matter of survival for most of granby. a
controversial letter written by a local businessman: "You can't even
buy a box of .22 shells. We have locals 'spoiling' for a fight just to
kill or harm someone just for the hell of it.
I even get the feeling many of these locals are glad the 'strawberry
folk' are here so the vigilantes can roust them out and burn them up
just like a Gene Autry movie..."
A court order was issued against the gathering at Table Mountain, but a
local developer, Paul Geisendorfer, 46, offered a 360 acre site at
strawberry lake, nine miles from the mountain.
There are those who will tell you Barry E. Adams is a spiritual
hustler, the elmer gantry of hip. Others know him as Barry Plunker, or
just plunker, and consider him a prophet. in 1969, Plunker had a
prophetic vision. A great gathering of tribes, the 144,000 of god's
elect mentioned in the book of revelations. The elect would all mass on
independence day at the center of the universe - a spot which arapaho
legends conveniently fix at table mountain. The more Plunker talked
about it to his tribe, the rainbow family of living light, the more
real, the more inevitable the vision became.
There are the indian legends claiming the spirit of slain warriors will
return to reclaim the earth. The gathering of the tribes could be the
peace dance the Hopi elders always talked about; it could also be the
great ghost dance the plains and mountain tribes started talking about
in the late 1890's. equipped with a list of 1000 or so communes in
america, the prophet plunker set forth with his brother rainbow
tribesman garrick, to testify personally to the will of god. Plunker's
energy, along with Garrick's energy, generated a universal wave of
spiritual excitement. A great pyramid would be built on Table Mountain.
Plunker carried a rock to form its base for three years. And at high
noon on independence day the elect would join hands and o-m-m-m-m. With
that much spiritual energy vibrating 9000 feet above sea level, who
could tell what would happen? apocalypse? armageddon? The end of the
world? the genesis of the universe?
In early april a rocky mountain national park representative, named
Steve Hickman, explained that directly over the ridge from Table
Mountain, the editor of the Denver Post had a summer cabin, and over
another ridge, a high official in the california state patrol had
another summer cabin and there were other, even more powerful men with
cabins, and for this reason, table mountain was "sensitive."
There are laws against armageddon in Colorado, or so it seemed. if the
prophets tried to lead the tribe up the mountain, Hickman said, they
would be repulsed. A command post was being planned at one of the
cabins. There would be a sheriffs posse and state patrolmen, and maybe
even the national guard.
Meanwhile the prophet Plunker appeared in a Colorado court which
forbade the gathering. Then Geisendorfer came forward with his
Strawberry Lake land.
The prophet Garrick and a rainbow brother named Patrick had a
conference with Colorado Lt. Governor John Vanderhoof. the way Garrick
tells it: "Patrick explained that since the indians were the 12 lost
tribes of israel, and the people on their way to colorado were the
reincarnations of dead indians, the gathering was foreordained in
revelations.... Vanderhoof said something like, 'I don't care if you
have god on your side, I'm the Lt. Governor and I say there will be no
festival on Table Mountain'." an unidentified ranger quoted in the
Denver Post said, "the only reason these kids come up here is for dope
and sex." but anyone familiar with the two commodities knows that if
you want a steady supply, you bring your own.
And if you have your own, then there's no particular reason to
hitchhike halfway across the united states, risking arrest at the hands
of nervous police and brutality at the hands of self-righteous
rednecks. There's no reason to spend a lung-choking hour climbing
straight up a scalding dusty road. wandering around, talking to people
at the strawberry encampment, I divided them into a quartet of
categories: 1) those who came for a rock festival 2) those who came to
be with people like themselves, and simply draw strength from
congregation, 3) lost souls and acid crawlbacks, seeking structure in
life, or a cosmic message, 4) the fishers of souls, believers and
gurus, looking for recruits, or more exactly, converts.
The encampment itself was set in a meadow 3 miles in diameter and
perhaps a mile long. The camp was split into tiny communities, people
in biblical robes, naked people, various loners drawn together by some
kind of affinity. There were at least five community kitchens - free
food from the commune of your choice. the denver post said the camp
hosted 15,000 people at its rush hour, but there is no real way to
accurately estimate the number of pilgrims.
About 4:30 armageddon morning someone started beating a conga drum. The
camp rose early. The plan was to march the nine miles to table
mountain. If the police forced a confrontation, the faithful would
overwhelm them with love. "Treat the pigs like brothers."
Nearly three hundred of the devout had made the long trek to the center
of the universe in the dead of night. They were already ensconced at
the top of Table Mountain, waiting for what they hoped would be 143,700
of their brothers and sisters.
The love family quickly dismantled their camp. Organic material was
buried in a huge pit. Inorganic waste was carted downtrail in huge
plastic or burlap sacks. By nine, but for the covered pit and the
trampled grass, there was no sign anyone had been there.
It was a half hour walk from strawberry lake to the base of table
mountain. there were numerous state patrolmen, park service employees,
and special deputies along the way. They were smiling and good-natured
in contrast to the raw-nerved panic of the previous few days. A
cheerful army helicopter circled overhead. ironically, most of the
festival-goers were skipping armageddon to get an early start on the
road. Only a little of the 1000 made it to the base of table mountain,
and several hundred of those dropped out after assaying the climb.
Nearly 800 feet up. the angle was as steep as a fire escape on a new
york tenement. there was something biblical, at least symbolic, about a
long line of colorfully dressed people, visible all the way up the
summit, trudging slowly up a mountainside.
"Take a rock for the pyramid, brother," I was told several times.
"I'll pick one up on top." I said. Many carried rocks, however,
miniature crosses on an american golgatha.
Cresting, I took particular delight in the view Table Mountain is the
summit point in an immense valley surrounded by white capped mountains.
Others, with tears in their eyes, were already on their way down.
still, there were easily 2000 people near the summit and they were
singing and om-ing and chanting happily. Most of them were naked.
"What happened to the end of the world?" I asked a full-breasted girl
with lobster red skin.
"This isn't the end of the world," she replied sharply. "It's a
gathering of the tribes."
I walked over to a naked couple holding hands and staring out over lake
granby. "What happened to the end of the world?" "It isn't high noon
yet, brother."
I showed them my watch. "That's congress time," I was told. "high noon
is when the sun is directly overhead." So it was. another chance for
armageddon.
Five minutes before the appointed hour, 1500 gathered to sit naked,
hold hands and om, I was the fully-clothed man off to one side. at
precisely high noon, 1 o'clock, there was a ponderous meditative
silence lasting several minutes.
The prophet Barry Plunker, who had been siting in the center of the om,
picked up his two-string lute and walked slowly across the summit
plateau. He sat naked and alone, facing the lake. I took an unholy glee
knowing that I would be the first to ask the cruel and deadly question.
Four or five of his tribe joined him and they were sitting in quiet
conversation when I squatted down with them. "say, Barry, didn't you
prophesy some kind of armageddon?" "yes, yes, of course," he said
quickly enough. "We om-ed here today and our brothers and sisters in
the communes and jails across the world om-ed with us. And at the
center of the mandala," he pointed directly overhead at the blazing
sun, "in the center there is god."
"You see him there?" I asked.
"Not with these eyes, brother, but I feel it ... here" he thumped
himself on the chest.
Plunker's eyes drifted back toward the lake. He didn't want to talk.
"so many people..." he began, then stopped. "I forgot what I was going
to say." a short, attractive rainbow sister sat with us. "hello, fine
lady." the prophet said.
I didn't ask anything about the pyramid. Barry's rock was one of five
in something that was hardly a pile, much less a pyramid. barry
surveyed the summit plateau. His eyes were moist and sad.
"I can still see it. He said slowly, "mandala city. over there we would
have the tents of the elders, and here would be the common council, and
on that far ridge would be tents of the tribes. I see ...." He shook
his head again, perhaps not altogether confident of the vision.
We shook hands and said good-bye. On the way to the downtrail, I saw a
dark and hairy man spread on his back staring savagely at the sky. I
squatted next to him.
"Garrick, was the gathering everything you expected it to be?" "yes,
absolutely. It's a spiritual landmark. There's mount sinai, the mount
of olives, and table mountain.... I feel that this is the beginning of
world harmony," he said. "I feel it here." he tapped his chest.