Rainbow Gatherings

Rainbow Gatherings are temporary loosely knit communities of people who congregate annually in remote forests around the world for one or more weeks at a.
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Creative events may include variety shows, campfire singing, fire-juggling, and large or small art projects. At one gathering, a cable car was rigged to carry groups of four quickly across the meadow. Faerie Camp was "alive with hundreds of bells and oddly illuminated objects. The Rainbow Family has governed Gatherings of up to 30, people. Regional Rainbow gatherings can attract as many as 5, Although each event is more or less anarchic , practical guidelines have been reached through the consensus process and are documented in a "Mini-manual".

Items which are strongly discouraged, by some, at gatherings include firearms, alcohol, tobacco and pets. Other items that tend to be discouraged include radios, tape players, sound amplifiers, and power tools. Camps and kitchens are the basic community units of the Gathering. Camps may be based on regional, spiritual, or even dietary commonalities. For example, Kid Village attracts attendees with children , Tea Time specializes in serving herbal teas, Jesus Camp has a Christian foundation. Some kitchens such as the Turtle Soup Kitchen serve predominantly vegetarian meals.

Lovin' Ovens is a kitchen which craft ovens out of clay and mud in the area and will cook food such as pizza meat, vegetarian, and vegan and different types of bread and snacks. Nic Nite is a camp that focuses on the sharing of tobacco and tobacco related products. Not all camps are kitchens, but all kitchens are camps. In addition to feeding passers-by, kitchens send food to the one or two large communal , predominantly vegetarian meals served daily in the main meadow. Drinking water is filtered at gatherings, both by small pump filters and large gravity-feed devices.

Attendees are encouraged also to boil drinking water. Water is often tapped at a source such as a spring or stream and run hundreds of yards to main kitchens in the gathering via plastic hosing. Sanitation has historically been a major concern at Rainbow Gatherings.

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Human waste is deposited in latrine trenches typically referred to as 'shitters' and treated with lime and ash from campfires. New latrines are dug and filled in daily. The gathering in North Carolina experienced an outbreak of highly contagious shigellosis a. It is common to find physicians working with herbalists , EMTs helping massage therapists and naturopaths coordinating with Registered Nurses on patient care.

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There is usually one main C. Even those without medical experience are encouraged to help with things such as procuring water and cooking for the healers, who are often too busy to attend main circle or visit other kitchens. Within the Rainbow Gathering, security, conflict resolution , and emergency situations are handled by Shanti Sena "peace keepers" , which includes anyone who is capable of helping at that time. This type of interference with police operations resulted in numerous arrests in the gathering in North Carolina, with state, federal and local officers being assaulted, blocked from patrol areas and threatened.

The Shanti Sena at the '87 gathering were characterized by local, state, and federal officers as a criminal gang and were suspected to have collaborated in the assault on an Asheville Citizen-Times reporter. Several gathering members who reported they had been expelled from the gathering called the Shanti Sena "gestapo" and thugs.


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In some particularly serious situations, Shanti Sena have collaborated with law enforcement although without violating the Gathering's principle of consensus. The phrase is also used as a call for aid. If individuals find themselves in a dispute, they can shout "Shanti Sena". Everyone within earshot is expected to then approach the scene calmy, deescalate where possible, and eventually reach a consensus agreement to settle the dispute.


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In recent years, there have been increasing reports of drifters and vagrants who attach themselves to gatherings where they engage in hard drug use, sexual assault, theft and violence. In , Heber City, Utah police arrested Leilani Novak-Garcia, known as "Hitler", who repeatedly stabbed a man at the annual gathering after he tried to stop her honking her car horn. Garcia pleaded no contest to the charges and served days in jail. Jose Antonio Ramos, who was identified in and again in as the primary suspect in the Disappearance of Etan Patz , attended and was removed from the Rainbow Gathering twice in the 's and was convicted of molesting an 8-year-old boy at a gathering in Pennsylvania.

Rainbow elder Barry Adams helped to identify and convict Ramos. Soon after his release he was arrested on a Megan's Law violation. In , the American Civil Liberties Union in Vermont issued a report expressing concern over federal law enforcement activities which the ACLU describe as "overzealous" and "unconstitutional". Forest Service systematically harasses people who attend Rainbow Family gatherings on public lands. All major gatherings in the United States are held on National Forest land, which is under the jurisdiction of the United States Forest Service , a federal agency with its own federal law enforcement officers.

County sheriffs have concurrent jurisdiction on all forest lands, as do county police and local police depending on location, community boundaries and locals laws. So too do state law enforcement agencies, namely state wildlife wardens, state troopers and state police or bureaus of investigation. Many local gatherings occur in remote areas, with county sheriffs being the primary response.

They often request deputies from neighboring counties and officers from area police departments. Additionally, it is common for state conservation and wildlife officers and state troopers to deploy. The USFS has tried to prevent these gatherings from taking place because it denies all others access to the forest and the surrounding area for the duration of the gathering [49] or insisted that a group-use permit be signed, contending that this is standard practice for large groups wishing to camp on public land and that it is necessary to protect public safety and the local environment.

Gathering organizers generally contend that the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights give them the right to peaceably assemble on public land and that requiring a permit would violate that basic right by turning it into a privilege to be regulated. The Gatherings did attempt to initially work within the permit system starting in , [ citation needed ] but found the government-imposed requirements for facilities and insurance too onerous. In , the Forest Service enacted a regulation requiring a permit for any expressive assembly of ten or more people on Forest Service lands.

This was unenforced for a year and a half before the Service attempted to apply it to the gathering in Arizona in Judge Bilby called attention to the selective enforcement of the regulation, and in any case ruled it unconstitutional, in part because it required expressive assemblies, but not non-expressive ones, to obtain permits. Federal Judge David Sentelle. The book provides a first hand account of Sentelle's role in presiding over the case brought by the State of North Carolina in an attempt to stop the Gathering, including site visits to the Gathering and related legal actions.

Garrick Beck, a Rainbow Family member involved in the case, wrote an afterword to the book in which he expresses agreement with Sentelle's characterizations. In the 87 Graham County NC gathering, numerous state arrests were made for breaches of the peace, alcohol and traffic violations and interfering with officers.

The federal court allowed the NC gathering to continue, but when members overstayed their time allocation, they were forcibly removed and arrested by state and federal officers. Damage to the Slick Rock area of Nantaha National Forest was estimated to be in the tens of thousands of dollars. An outbreak of bloody diarrhea occurred and at least two kidnapped minors were rescued from the camp in 2 separate incidents. Because the Rainbow Gathering has utilized the land in the past without required consent from the Forest Service, the gatherings have been given special attention, as under current Forestry rules and regulations they may occur illegally.

In and again in , the NIMT selected three gathering participants who were charged with "use or occupancy of National Forest System lands without authorization. Instead, they all chose to fight it in court, but lost their appeals. At the National Gathering in Wyoming, an incident occurred whereby Forest Service officers tried to arrest a member of the group. A spokeswoman for the U. Forest Service said that about participants in the Gathering began to advance, throwing sticks and rocks at the officers, [55] although this was disputed by Gathering participants and video evidence.

According to the guidelines, or Raps of the Rainbow Gathering, open and public consumption of alcohol is discouraged by many people at the gatherings with respect for others being the primary reason. Gatherings in Europe do not have "A-Camps. Wine is tolerated in moderation at some European gatherings, particularly in France, where it is customary to drink wine with the evening meal. There has been a longstanding Rainbow rumor that the Gathering is recognized by the elders of the Hopi people as the fulfillment of an ancient Hopi prophecy [61] some versions substitute Hopi with the Ojibwe people.

According to Niman, Banyaca was "puzzled about the supposed Hopi prophecy" and said, "It's not right We hope they will stop it".

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Willoya and Brown had briefly met with Banyaca before publishing Warriors of the Rainbow in , a Christian tract in which they fabricated the Rainbow Warrior concept, claiming it was an ancient Native American legend and a prophecy about the Second Coming of Christ. According to Niman, the rainbow in Willoya and Brown's version was a reference to the rainbow in the Book of Genesis.

Niman described the source as purveying "covert anti-Semitism throughout" [61] and that, "If anything, it was an attack on Native culture In , a group of Native American academics and writers issued a statement against the Rainbow Family members who are "appropriating and practicing faux Native ceremonies and beliefs. In , the bodies of two women were found after the gathering at Monongahela National Forest in West Virginia and members were questioned about possible involvement.

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They had been shot to death during the gathering. There had been tension between local residents and the "hippies", and police concluded local men led by Greenbrier County resident Jacob Beard were responsible. White supremacist Joseph Paul Franklin confessed to the murders but later revealed he had just read about them.

Oregon Rainbow Gathering 2017 Altruist Relief Kitchen

The killers remain at large and filmmaker Julia Huffman is working on a documentary, The Rainbow Murders , hoping to bring more facts to light. In October , human remains and jewelry were found near the woman's campsite. In , three unrelated fatalities occurred at Rainbow Gatherings, including two fatalities at the Washington State national Rainbow Gathering. Another member, Jacob Cardwell, known as "Smiley", threw himself over Dice and was himself shot and killed. Other Family members then beat and stabbed Mayers, who spent two weeks in the hospital before being moved to jail where he was charged with first-degree murder.

Authorities ordered the encampment vacated. The group complied after holding a prayer meeting. Police say the woman, identified as year-old Amber Robinson of Florida, hitchhiked with Capstraw after leaving the Gathering and was beaten to death by him after an altercation. Gatherings are routinely held all over the world, on every continent excluding Antarctica. There is an annual European gathering and many European countries host their own national or regional gatherings.

The European gathering, the 25th recurrence of that annual event, took place in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The first was held near the northern coast of La Palma and the second was held on Gran Canaria. The Gathering was in Portugal, in Slovakia, in Greece, the gathering in Romania, the gathering in Lithuania, in the Alps, in Italy. The European Gathering will be in Poland. Note that the gathering in Italy was connected to several typhoid cases in France, Germany [88] , and Slovenia [89].

In , it was once again held in Canada, on Vancouver Island in the western province of British Columbia. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Some or all of this section's listed sources may not be reliable. Please help this article by looking for better, more reliable sources. Unreliable citations may be challenged or deleted. July Learn how and when to remove this template message. Rainbow Family peacekeeping strategies", Contemporary Justice Review , 14 1: All Rainbow parents know that, in Babylon, babies are business.

There are clothes and outfits for all occasions, baby carriers, prams, cots, disposable diapers, creams, shampoos, milk supplements and any number of squeaking, squeezy, fluffy toys of every description with flashing lights and noises, buttons to press, electronic sensors to trigger, eerie recorded voices of branded cartoon characters. And all of this for 2 year olds. And of course the baby in question looked quite content. Childbirth is where those with their heads in the clouds find themselves dragged down to earth with a bump. Few people in the Rainbow would want to have their baby in a hospital, fearing a sterile atmosphere with blinding lights and arrogant doctors.

Will loved ones be allowed to attend? Will the obstetrician even look the mother in the eye? Will the baby be given to the mother after birth to suckle or will she be too out of it having been pressured into taking an epidermal anesthetic?

While these kinds of nightmare scenarios are changing as perspectives broaden in Western medicine, still most pregnant women in the Rainbow are likely to opt for the natural approach; essential oils and Bach Rescue Remedies, Hopi chants and Tibetan incense, reflexology and a safe, comfortable environment to bring new life into the world. Unfortunately a desire to do things in a cozy, supportive environment is sometimes coupled with what can only be called a dangerous ignorance. While it might seem a magical experience to give birth in your tipi up on the mountain, any experienced midwife knows the importance of being able to get to a hospital quickly in case of complications.

It might sound obvious but when a baby is being strangled by its own umbilical cord you need an obstetrician, not a shaman. There are still the holidays, of course, but the whole process of schooling and just making a living to provide for the kids mean that few families can stay that long on the Rainbow circuit. There are some single mothers on the road with their kids but, aside from a few hardcore adventurers, most of them tend to have a generous social security system back home supporting them.

I often look at parents in the Rainbow and wonder how they do it. There are fires to make, animals to watch and playful adults to fool around with. In the absence of a sink, central heating and a washing machine, looking after babies in particular can be a real challenge in the Rainbow. Recent parents often stick close to their vans where they have some of the bare necessities on hand.

As the kids get older though, coming to the Rainbow can actually be a relief for the parents as they run off to play with their friends and just come back to check in at food circle. When kids first arrive at the Rainbow it might take them a few days to get used to things. Once Rainbow kids hit the teenage years things become difficult again. Too old to find endless entertainment in fighting with sticks and making daisy chains, but too young to fit in with the circles of adults talking and flirting in the sun, not many adolescents voluntarily come to the Rainbow.