The Hippie Hilton Welcomes you! (Attn: Rainbow Family of the Living Light)

The Hippie Hilton at Spirit House, Seattle Washington, Northwest Tribes


My cyber-pal Beach Bum, a kind, breathtakingly visually beautiful sister here at Hip Planet asked me to tell her about the Hippie Hilton, something I must have mentioned in one of my posts, so I decided this would be a great opportunity to share with ya'll...


As a young hippie buck growin' up in California, I had heard of the Rainbow Gathering since about 1974, when it was only 2 years old, and I was 16. I had been a hippie at 10, in 1968 when I got in trouble in school for parting my hair in the middle, and having a huge picture of Jimi Hendrix and his afro filling up me peechee folder.


I never made it to the gathering until 1981, when it was in Newport (Usk) Washington. I had a new baby, Sierra, my ole' lady Cornflake and my great Blue Heeler dog Jeremiah, and I set out in my trusty old International Harvester Travel All and brought a good friend along for the ride. I had already been turned on by Stephen Gaskin (my hippie guru) and The Farm, thru "Hey beatnik this is the Farmbook"... the quintessential alt-culture guide to how to be. That and Be Here Now by Ram Dass, and I went to my first Dead show about '74 as well.



The Rainbow Family and gathering completed the changes in my life, and cemented my hippiedom forever, I was finally (welcome) home. I lived in Seattle also in '74, and after moving back to California to work in Tahoe and have 3 kids there, and play in bands throughout the west coast, I had a band break up in L.A. and headed back to Seattle for the last time in '86.



I started the Seattle Peace Heathens community action group in 1987, a strong volunteer tribe of people "dedicated to doing something about doing nothing" (http://www.seattlecrisis.org). After moving into a group home, the "Thackeray House" when a dear sweet and righteous hippie sister named Marisande (who is to this day a cornerstone in the foundation of our community) took pity on my and my girlfriend, Cornflake (see my gallery for pics) after I had been screwed out of my living arrangement in a small shack behind Kino's by the ancient Blue Moon tavern (Pacific Northwest Grateful Dead Headquarters).



It was at Thackeray House that I began to list Peace Heathens in the Rainbow Guide. It is well known that listings in the Rainbow Guide, which is passed out at, and mailed out after, rainbow gatherings, meant that you were offering a place to hang your hat for a minimum of 1 night, offer a meal and a dry, safe and warm place to lay down one's bed roll. It is etiquette for seekers to call first, to be uber-respectful and low maintenance and helpful when they are taking advantage of someone's "hipstitality".


Many hippies came and went in the years that we lived there. In 1994, the same year we produced the locally legendary Starlight Mountain Festival, we had to all move and separate. Cornflake and I (and my son Forest had moved in with us by this time) stumbled into finding a 3 level house, built around 1910, with a stained glass royal red old-english "S" in the diamond door panel window. It was not until 1997 when my father came home to die in this rental home, that I realized what thatS" stands for...Spirit. My dad died in this home with me holding his hand. Been called "Spirithouse" ever since. It has been called that ever since.


I had someone else enter us into the Rainbow Guide for the year of '94, because I was already leading the Dragon Parade at the Oregon Country Fair... "hippie Disneyland in Sherwood Forest during Mardi Gras with a thousand fairy wings thrown in", which is the week directly after the Gathering. So it is tough to make both events, time and money (and in my case health) wise. It didn't take long before the phone was ringing. "Hay man, my name's Sunlight and I got your name out of the rainbow Guide, lookin' for a place to crash as we're passin' through". Sunlight remains a great friend.

It's all good. We have a stairway leading up to the 3rd level bedroom, and if you turn left you go back into my (at the time our) room, and if you go right there is a little nook, about 8 feet deep and 5 feet wide. Just large enough for two people to sleep and have a tiny bit of room foe their road gear. Thus the Hippie Hilton was born.


We have had over 100 hippies stay here, in the Hippie Hilton, in the 10 years that we have been here. In '96 someone gave us a "Guest Book" for X-Mas, and since that time it has become chocked full of poems, drawings, prayers of thanks and blessings of good will. We have had some of the highest, stoniest hippie brothers and sisters stay here, made friends for life with some. And we have had a few hurtin' units...some downright crazy and dangerous, pass through these doors as well.


Over the years I have developed a screening process. All it took was one good case of head lice to make its way through the house. I stopped putting the street address in the Guide a long time ago, so I can screen people by phone before they are standing on our doorstep. I listen for alcohol intoxication, as alcohol is an energy that I am highly wary of. The vast majority of serious problems I have encountered in rainbow circles has emanated from A-Camp people. I am not suggesting that all people who drink alcohol have a problem, or are argumentative or violent or anything. But if someone sounds the least bit drunk I politely tell, them it is a bad time and we cannot help them. I used to drink alcohol, when I was a young rock musician, but I find it not for me now a days. I am an herbal person.


I come right out now and ask "you don't have bugs, do you?". I ask them how many people they have, if they have animals, where they are coming from and where they are going and how long they intend to stay as they are passing through.


I have learned to promise only 1 night at first and take it from there after an evaluation of the vibes, how low impact and respectful folks are. I offer, in the minimum, a night in a soft, dry warm spot, a meal of good healthy vegan grub, a bowl or two of kind nugs, and some pleasant conversation. Over the years we have been graced by so many wonderful and beautiful spirits.


There was Little Susi "Tree Elf", a tiny 5 foot German sister who I fell madly in love with during the 4 months she stayed here. Or Michelle (see gallery pic), who called from St. Louis a few months before she was gonna leave to drive to Seattle, to relocate. She had just finished college and was going to look for work as a multi-lingual Chinese dialect interpreter. She showed up, and the very first day, within hours she was on the computer creating a tri-fold pamphlet that became the 1997 Seattle Hempfest promotional literature.


She stayed for 3 months, as long as it took for us to hook her up with a righteous sister from out tribe who was the contact that ended up getting Michelle the dream job of a lifetime...the exclusive interpreter for the president of Microsoft's China offices. She has launched a career, living in Shanghai and making triple digits...all because she called Spirit House out of the Rainbow Family Gathering Guide 7 years ago. She is still a close friend, and comes to visit when she is in the states. Or Micah the Storyteller, a stony broski if there ever was one, or Tree who is a real character and rides his bicycle across America, sleeping in bushes and being a gentle creature upon the land. Or Two Ravens, a delightful 65 year old bro with long golden dreads and beard, as high valued and gentle a person as anyone would want to meet. Tree and Two ravens show up occasionally, and have an open ended invitation at Spirit House.


Some people think we are crazy inviting complete strangers into our home with only a 5 minute conversation to get to know them by. We take our chances. We have never been ripped off, very bad anyway, the whole time we have been inviting hippies into our home. We've had some nut cases, like Ramon, who showed up at the door without calling (he is why I stopped putting in the address).


My wife (at the time), Cornflake and I had just made spaghetti dinner, and we offered him a plate. He took three quarters of our food onto his plate, started shoving it into his mouth until he had sauce all over his white beard, dripping onto his shirt, and proceeded to inform us that the folks who kicked him out of the Gathering (Garrick Beck and Barry "Plunker" Adams) for being a child molester were full of shit. "Child molester "I thought to myself, what a great way to introduce yourself to someone. I got him baked, and told him we had no room that night. he has come back a few times, years apart, but he doesn't recognize me, and I tell him that "Vivian doesn't live here any more" and send him off.



What we need is a linear line of Hippie Hiltons in the rainbow guide and folks can network their way up and down the hiways spreadin' the good love and peace vibe and cultivating goodness and social advancement.


As us hippiefied hair farmin' folks say a little too often... "it's all good" (yeh man, my leg got caught in the wheatgrass grinder, my dog was ate by an alligator and my house fell into a sinkhole...but it's all good".


Love and squishes, Vivian "Templedragon", aka "Jicama Prickly Pear"

 

sounds like a kind, warm, safe place.

the hippie hilton, tee-hee.

what a gracious invite, viv.