How Accepting?

most regionals are beautiful the only ones that seem to be overrun with drunks are the regionals that happen every year like ocala
but regionals that only happen now & then, like the pa one comming up..tend to be extremely nice & alot more intimate then the naationals
the natinals ofcourse cant be beat for the pure amazing experience, but a nice confy regional is wonderful for really getting to know folks, having an experience thats alittle less crazy
if your in ocala now, you should find your way to the pa regional, aug 10..
it should be a really nice 1st gathering experience

 

oh
few stories about "how accepting"
west virginia national: main circle on the 4th several thousand folks there, just after the sillence ..i notice 1 brother dancing with a pre-op transexual, naked, had breasts & penis, several thousand ppl around, & it was like noone even noticed, least of all the brother dancing with him/her...the only reason i did was the massive smile that came from being totaly accepted..
pa regional..hmm 96ish?: met a brother named stretch.. skinhead, covered in nazi tats, white power tats, the total opposite image of what youd expect at gatherings..untill you talked to him, & find that the gatherin experience had changed him, made him the most loving generopuse accepting person..& this brother worked his ass off, harder then anyone there..anonomously, i mean he hid the work he did, every kitchen always had a huge pile of firewood & about 15 gallons of water, but noone knew where it kept comming from, hed work under the cover of darkness, & sneak around to avoid getting noticed or credit for all hed done..
new mexico national: met a 10 year old kid, it was his 4th national, and the second one he'd gone to alone without his family.. his parents had gone for years, but when they couldnt make it to those 2 felt confortable sending a 10 year old alone (im not recomending that but only saying what i saw)

i'll think of more later
oh 1 last 1
on the way home from cali, 4 states away, kevin drumm who passed away right b4 colorado was sick & we stopped to find a hospitol, & a cop calls an ambulance for us, then the cops like " dont take this wrong but are u guys comming from a gathering?" & im thinking wtf were 4 states away is there a nationwide alert to watch oit for us? but then he goes on to say " i worked a gathering a few years ago, i love you guys, u might smoke some weed & munch some shrooms but your so peaceful loving & accepting, i cant wait to go back out of uniform"
even the ones we dont want or like being there..cops.. are accepted

ofcourse that idsnt to say that every behavior is acceptable

 

At my first gathering I was amazed how many people introduced themselves to me with open arms. Everyone felt so free, I saw no fights and everyone looked out for eachother. The kitchens fed all the hungry rainbow children as if they were children of their own. But on the fourth night it seriously seemed as if we had all known eachother all along. It's great to walk up to anyone and start a conversation without getting turned away or looked down on. Accepting is definatly an understatement, yeah there are always a few bad eggs but usually the good vibes overpower any of the bad ones. Once the circle is made and everyone started to ohm is when the real magic happens, not only do you feel a connection to the people around you but a connection to everything around you. Rainbows are a cosmic and magical thing hopefully to be enjoyed for many decades to come. Lovin' You family

 

Completely opposite of what? There is no one Rainbow belief, no Irisean Creed, so to speak. We even have two Republicans that I know about. Unless you have multiple personalities that are schizophrenic, you can't out believe all of us.

That would depend on the random stranger. If there's a new face, and every time I see this kid and he's not playing guitar, he's hauling firewood or digging holes or cooking supper, I'm going to want to know who he is. And probably smoke him out so he'll slow down and not make me look so bad with my butt parked in my lawn chair. If all this new kid does is sit by the side of the trail dangling his glass piece on a stick and string fishing for nuggets, I'll probably trip over him.. There is a meritocracy. On our bad days we can be more cliqueish than high school kids. Somehow it works in spite of all this.

Oh, there ain't nothing too good about it. People who keep hold of all their idealistic expectations of how the Family and it's gatherings ought to be end up disillusioned and bitter and it, seems to me, have very little fun. The miracle is that it continues to function, most of the time quite well, in spite of all the human stupidity and ego and corruption and lazyness &c...Perhaps what the Christians would call the burden of Original Sin... and all the Guvmint's attempts to disrupt things even more than we mannage to disrupt them ourselves.



Foreign? I had to find a Polish-English interpreter at about 6:00 AM at Front Gate at the Michigan Gathering in '01. At Pensylvania '99 there were two sisters from Kiev and Moscow that met at the Owl's Nest parking lot, who came in on the came night on different rides. I've seen Russians at Ocala, and Quebecois, and of course, English speaking Canadians.

In all this reading, have you read Niman's book? It's no more misleading than anything else you're likely to have read. Remember, believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear, and all that.



Two other events changed my outlook on life as much as my first Gathering, Nevada, '89. One was loosing my virginity. The other was becoming a father.

Understatement of the year!

We just about agree on something here, dadgumit. There's a lot of work that goes into making the big party happen. After going to a couple of them, I decided that it was worth doing the work to make the party happen, so other folks could maybe have that same life changing experience I had. Then it took a couple more years to find the place that really fit me.

That was an article from a website maintained by one of the Christian groups who has decided that it is their mission to Mission to us. I can dig up the thread, but the link to the article no longer works. Did anyone copy this article to their computer? I want a copy!

We've been to diferent regionals. Or perhaps my favorite metaphor for regional gatherings and the Annual works here. A regional is like a small town. Everybody knows everybody else's buiness. If something bad happens, it's all over camp. At the Big City Annual, you only know what goes on in your neighborhood.

You haven't been to Ocala recently, obviously. USFuSs changed the camping regulations a couple or three years ago. It's impossible to go be homeless in the Ocala NF from the time the weaher starts to get cold till the gathering and call it seed camp, then hang out till the weather starts to get hot and call it clean up. We have to sign a permit to get away with 4 to 6 weeks in FebMar. Also, the past couple years, Family has been sucessful in geographicly isolating what you call "A-Camp" from Front Gate. They still get to call it FG, but most of the traffic has another way in.

If the kid's gonna be in Apopka in Feb anyway, he ought to check it out. I believe we'll be back at one the sites near Salt Springs. I've seen enough bad $hit at Annuals and enough beauty at regionals, and Ocala (a 3rd speicies, IMO) to think that there's any guarantees anywhere.

I'll say it again. A man walking through a forest encounters a dragon and a unicorn. They're playing chess. He says to the dragon, "Hey! both your bishops are on the same color square. It's not supposed to be like that!" The Annual's what its supposed to be, and the little regionals are what they're supposed to be, and Ocala is what its supposed to be.

When is the Annual SUPPOSED to be in the Samual R McElvie, Mr UnionJack Cornhusker?

 

Hey -- don't go to Ocala -- go to PA -- comin' up soon --


Journey

 

I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia when I was 22 years old; the psychiatrists insist that I am still paranoid schizophrenic.

All my life I have thought about fighting more then anything else, next down the line was sex. This, despite the fact that I've never actually been in many fights, never comitted a very serious act of violence, and have only had sex infrequently.

The only time as an adult that I was ever considered "normal" was for three short years, (when I was 19 until I was 22), during which I was part of the counter culture. At that time, I was in a very small nonbiological family that was only together for 2, or possibly 3 months. Tension in the "family" while we were together was so high that we were on the virge of fighting almost all the time. There was also a lot of love in the family.

Now a days my interest and enthusiam for non biologiocal families, (big or small) has diminished, especially in the last 2 or 3 years.

I'm 57 years old now and not getting any younger, and I've been devestated by taking psychotropic drugs for nearly a lifetime. In addition to that, I have for most of my life been cut off and isolated from healthy social, emotional, and sexual relationships. I'm also warn down physically from everytnhing I've just mentioned.

However, my curiosity about Rainbow gatherings is building. They sound appealing to me. Please continue to make more threads and posts about them, please. Even if I don't ever go to one, I like reading about them.

peace and love,
from an old hippy who never gave up,

peter

 

BraveSirRubin, If you by chance get to Ocala, Do stop by CampBurntout.We'l have the hot coco or some Dank Cappuccino waitin for ya..