50 Things: #s 11-15

Here we go again. It's been a hideously long week, one of those during which it was interminably hard to focus on the good stuff. This is such a deliberate action: writing down everything I have to be glad & thankful for, instead of just 'intending' to do so...

11. Refusing to take someone or something for granted. I think we're all guilty of it sometimes: steamrolling our way through a relationship or experience, then ending up on the other side realising we didn't live it to the fullest, simply because we assumed it would "always be there". Or that, whatever it was, it would continue to operate on maximum output without receiving anything in return, a photosynthesis of the interactive world, where one entity is capable of "making its own food", so to speak. But it feels incredible to lift someone else's spirits by reminding them of how important they are to you, how their presence in your life is a boon & a privilege; it feels liberating & symbiotic to return energy & nutrition to something else you love: nature, a community you're a part of, the communal conscious of a cause or goal. Remembering every day that what surrounds you is NOT a given, & treating it accordingly, is so, so important...& so appreciated by what's giving of itself to you.

12. Reading a book. Also, smelling it. I'm a weird kid. I smell things. Flowers. Apples. Sometimes people. Reading a book, for me, is based fundamentally in tactility: the sensation of pages between your fingers, the curious ways in which paper takes on its own life, yellowing, fading or feathering at the edges. I do not care for new books. They smell like sitting on a freshly-disinfected & papered doctor's exam table feels: crinkly, awkward & cold. Old books are rad. When I buy (yes, buy), inherit, or find a new-old book, I am first entranced by the sensation of legacy that goes with each one-I always snoop around & try to find old notes, inscriptions, dedications: to think-I'm going to be reading something gifted to someone by a loved one. Because that's what reading is, now, isn't it? A gift. Back in the day, this kind of readily-available dissemination of information, the wild import of recorded history & human cultural exchange, was unthinkable. Now, I can read whatever I want (well, OK...that's another debate about the transparency of the world's media & censorship, etc...), whenever I want, however I want. It's interpretable, accessible & at my fingertips. Say what you will, but I would rather huck 3 volumes of Collected Works-authors interchangable, take your pick-than stare at the screen of a Kindle, or whatever you call it. Books are sacred objects, in far more senses than one.

13. Road tripping. I know, I know. That's such an antithetical thing to say. I'm a bad hippie, & I know it. But I love road trips. It doesn't even have to be by car. I also adore public transport while in another country, or just traveling in general. There's something timeless about packing a car with gear, snacks, mix CDs & curiousity & setting off to see exactly how far you can get before you HAVE to stop. Something ambitious & exhilirating, although simultaneously frightening, about wondering if you got on the right train & are ACTUALLY headed to Lille, France, or Lodz, Poland, or wherever. Yes, yes, yes. Fossil fuels. Twisty, turny, morally-reprehensible associations with big oil, etc. Pollution. Good hippies don't drive, they thumb it. I'm aware. But once a year, or once every 6 months or so, I get the urge to throw a bunch of stuff in a pack, strap in & just go...as much for the sake of the getting there as to see where I can go.

14. Foraging. It's how I was raised: to seek out the stuff in the woods that's tasty, medicinal, & there for the taking, & take it. Not just a subsistence living skill, it's a lifestyle. It satisfies the survivalist & medicine warrior, the woodsman & the apothecary, all at once; to work for one's food & concoct one's own remedies takes us back to digging our soles into wet ground, to a place & time when, because they were so necessary, these things became an art. Now, I forage dwarf huckleberry, salmonberry, & miner's lettuce. Wild ginger. Mint. Granted, I'm not making miracle cures with these things-I'm simply using what I've read & know about plant lore & traditional use, or experimenting with what happens when berries are cooked down with sugar. It's a constant reminder of my connection to not just "food", but ecosystems, seasonal patterns & flora. That, & I really don't mind not having to pay for jam, tea, & salad greens. It's $10 I can spend on, oh, old books instead...

15. The first cup of coffee. It's 8:30 in the morning on a Saturday right now. Silly mortals. This one needs no explanation.

50 Things That Feel Really Good: #s 6-10

Here are a few more. Again, in no particular order. And, at their core, evidence of my own journey back through what's helped make me who I am. Or, more accurately, helped me realise who I'm NOT...

6. Reminiscing over a past love. And being able to laugh about it. Hoo, boy. This one's a toughie. So many times in the past, I've caught myself getting down over 'losing' someone. You know the deal: you're single, & not really dating, & while you're doing the dishes, you catch yourself wondering what happened to the person who used to come up behind you as you did so, to steal a kiss or just say hello. Here's the thing...we don't ever 'lose' people. That's an emotionally-dissociative fallacy. They're not lost at all. And more times than not recently, I've found that the following is true: I catch myself getting all nostalgic, & a specific memory comes into my head: laughing uproariously while twined together in the back of a cab, making the cabbie laugh uproariously too. Waking up freezing to death, except for my back, pressed up against his front. BBQs. So many things. And my heart breaks a little. And then, improbably or not, I have to laugh. Because it really was funny. Because it really still is. And because remembering that I've loved that way, & been loved in return, kinda sorta feels really, really good.

7. Drawing the line without crossing it. I'm not a mean person. Or a snide one. Or a negative one. I CAN be all those things, I guess. But it's not who I am. What feels really good, & really right, anymore, is the ability to draw the line about who I'm not, without letting myself step over that line into the territory of defensiveness, or negativity, or malice. There's some stuff I just don't do: polyamory, drugs, pool/billiards, tofu, cats (OK, most cats). I don't do massive festivals like Burning Man or even Rainbow Gathering-I know, I know. I went. I saw. It wasn't my thing. There are things I absolutely MUST do, or perish (I haven't perished yet, but I'm telling you, I would...): drink coffee, train in combat sports, have a dog, use the wilderness to recenter myself, give the people I love my all. Here's the deal: being able to draw the line on who you are, or who you're NOT, without crossing into that territory of identity occupied by judging yourself against the judgements of others, & the Selves of others, is a neat trick to learn. Because it teaches you exactly how far to go, based on how far you've come. Anyone who asks you to compromise an action, emotion, intention or other fundamental part of yourself is not worth your time. Draw that line, & politely refuse to cross it.

8. Sleeping. Dude, I'm not gonna lie. I really, really like to sleep sometimes. Especially outdoors in the sun, on the couch for random naps, with my dog for a pillow, whatever. I do the stretching-sliding-rubbing-face-in-pillow-snooze-button-abusing thing too. True story.

9. Recognizing and engaging in your true spirituality. This one has taken quite a few years, trials & painful tribulations to conclude on. I was raised Catholic & decided that wasn't for me; it wasn't easy, & still isn't, & sometimes it gets lonely, being the only one in the family who doesn't have that in common. It was a little over 2 years ago that I genuflected & sat in St. Mary's Basilica in Krakow, Poland, staring in awe at the manmade beauty of the place: gilt-framed votives, huge, towering candles & candleabrum, stars embossed on the domed ceiling in metallic paint; awe fueled by the absolute devotion of the people, tourists or not, to the symbology at play. I wondered if I were in the wrong, if I should still 'believe in God', as it were. I've dabbled in Buddhism a bit, & am wholly in love with the gods, goddesses & divinity of Hinduism. Some of my closest friends are 'pagan'. But devotional spirituality, to me, just isn't the way it works. I'll tell you what I do know: that I have faith. In so, so many things: sunrise, the goodness of men despite an ongoing world climate punctuated by hatefulnesss; in where the Center is, & where to find the juciest wild apples in fall. In my family. In myself, even though I'm totally self-deprecating & the butt of my own jokes. And just about every single day, something or someone makes me throw back my head & laugh. The cedars are shot through with light. I take a minute or 5 or longer to meditate, do sun salutations, take a walk, close my eyes. I read something touching, inspiring, & brave. A friend or loved one sends me a message. And I have no idea what you call it, this faith, but I have it. It's benevolent, loving, powerful & authentic, so whatever it's called, whatever it is, it's there, & I believe. I believe in you, too. Yeah. You.

10. Kissing someone who really can kiss. Oh, man. In the words of Iona from Pretty in Pink, "I don't usually go for younger men, but when the Duckman kissed me back there, I swear, my thighs went up in flames." Yeah. You know what I'm talking about. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go away for a moment. Into dreamland.

50 Things That Feel Really Good: #s 1-5

So. Sometimes I wallow. I admit it. I sat on the couch the other night in a spate of loneliness eating vanilla ice cream with Nutella, watching 'Anchorman' (of all the absurd movies) & wondering why Will Ferrell, in his hirsute ludicrousness, could get with Christina Applegate, when I can't even seem to stay with a partner for longer than 3 months without something going poorly. Why I only have *cough* dollars in my bank account. Why nothing felt right.




Then I fell asleep. Then I woke up. And somewhere in between watching my dog stretch luxuriously before coming over for petting, drinking that second cup of coffee, and watching the sun rise through the cedars, I remembered: There are a lot of things that feel really, really good. Why let yourself forget about them?




These next few blogs wil each feature some of those things. Mind you, they're what feel good to me. I'm not into suspension piercings or ultramarathons, but even my potentially-mundane good things might not feel good to everyone; I just hope to get them out on e-paper, as it were, & maybe you'll all have some insights on your own 50 things...and why they're so important to engage in...









Disclaimer: The 50 Things are in no way arranged according to importance. Structure is for suckers.









1. Working, and working hard. I'm not gonna lie. At certain points, I too have done the bare minimum, somewhere, in some way. And it didn't feel good. What does feel good is this: the sense of purpose, ambition and satisfaction I get from realising a job well done. This, noumenally, is enough most of the time. The praise I get for doing said 'good job' is icing on the cake. There's something deeply personally fulfilling about even the simple things: vacuuming my house. Cleaning out my email inbox. Finishing a book that's been half-read for weeks. Now, on a much larger, more meaningful scale, I can say that I went 'to work'-active tense-and worked. And worked hard. Gave something my all, & have come away from it with a renewed sense of purpose, of my place in the concentric circles that define our actions in the world. The ripple effect might start as a small drop in a specific place, but what happens later sends us far, & our ambitions wide.









2. Singing along. Generally speaking, I'm not much of a singer. But there's something about caterwauling along with whatever's on the iPod playlist or radio that just feels awesome. Vibration & resonance are key influences in my life, whether they be auditory, concussive, or human, & the fact that signing involves all 3 of these things makes it heavenly. There's a happy, energetic vibe that goes with singing along no matter the song, & even (or especially) if you don't know the words; perhaps it stems from rattling one's own ribcage, resonating out to meet all the sounds coming toward us: ambient white noise, traffic speeding & stopping, the friend sitting next to you trying to harmonize. Perhaps we're tapping into a greater, benevolent, universal vibration that we can't hear audibly but feel all the time. Maybe it's similar to little kids who holler just because it's fun. Either way, it feels good, & it's free.









3. Cooking something from scratch. Especially for someone deprived of home-cookin'. Again, I confess: I use precanned tomato sauce to put on pizza. Thai peanut sauce from the Asian food market. These are not 'made from scratch' as we know it, but the fact remains: I love to cook, & I love it the most-est when there is someone else around to eat. Last weekend, I made pizza. The crust was from scratch, with rosemary sea salt sprinkled on top, & the toppings provided by the 3 bro-tastic dudes from down the road. Someone said it was the best pizza they'd ever had. My friend Ean, who considers himself a connoisseur of pizza based on his lifelong obsession with the Ninja Turtles, called it "pretty damn good". And hearing all that felt, well, pretty damn good! Some of my favorite memories & recurring nostalgias come from the kitchen: making enchiladas for my little brothers & finding all the pans empty; attempting extravagant & sometimes ill-conceived dishes with my best friend on a winter's night, when it's been too cold to go outside; improvising gourmet camp cookery while in the wilderness. If you are what you eat, then I'm good memories, full flavors & love.









4. Telling someone-including yourself-that you're awesome. And meaning it. Anyone who says they don't spend a lot of time being too hard on themselves is probably lying to you. If they're not lying to you, chances are their sense of self is ego-driven, not sincere. Just as there's a big, big difference between false modest & humbleness, there's a vast disparity in the number of times we're prone to sarcastically saying, "Oh man. I just effed that up, 'cause I'm awesome.", & saying I'M AWESOME & meaning it. I have little pep talks with myself a lot. Meaning, my ego-driven self-the one that gets embarassed, insecure or feels inadequate-and my true Self. Self, I say,So and So might be going to Southeast Asia to save turtles. Or making 6 figures. Or have found the love of his/her life. Or whatever. But here's a list of all the shit YOU'VE done, that, quite frankly, is pretty badass. And it's a LONG list. I've traveled Japan, Europe, Australia, Canada and Mexico. I've hugged a lot of people. Opened as a spoken-word poet for Buddy Wakefield, Sage Francis, Alix Olson & Jerry Quickley. Rescued multiple dogs. Backpacked & hiked hundreds of miles. And more than anything, have the best family, friends & community ever. Too often we get caught in the cyclical & self-sustaining So yeah. I'm awesome. I mean it.





5. Smelling flowers. You don't need to intone the classic, "Jesus, you're a hippie" line. I can hear it wafting off you already. But before you scoff at this one, ask yourself when the last time you had an authentic, primal olfactory experience was. I do it all the time: juxtapose a natural scent with my own inorganic, artificial associatives. It tastes like fake banana. It smells like wet paint. This morning, while walking Puck, I picked a stalk of foamflower & smelled it, which I'd never done before-foamflower is ubiquitous around here & I'd just never though to see if it had a smell, since it doesn't give one off in the sun, or permeate the air. As I put my nose to it, there it was, distinctly & unmistakeably: watermelon (fresh from the vine, sliced on a paper plate) & cracked black pepper. Smells have the power to unlock a memory, reinventing & recreating the schema by which we define other things, allowing us to make associations we haven't before. I've never eaten watermelon with cracked black pepper on it, nor had I smelled a foamflower-those little white stars on a single stem-before. You can bet I'll try one, & keep on doing the other, now.

Rainbow Gathering, Part The Last

Monday, ungodly early:

The chill wakes us. Puck is still asleep, having finally gotten so exhausted that he can't muster the obnoxiousness to whine to go out. Abbey and I sit up, still wrapped in our sleeping bags. There's a total hush over the meadows, which compels us to speak in whispers, in the manner of kids at a slumber party telling secrets. Somehow, inexplicably, the calm around us lulls me into a sense of peace. Maybe all this soul-searching and crying is finally over...

Someone wearing a sarong and an off-white, natural fiber poncho arrives out front of the tent, which scares me for a brief minute, until I realise it's Bellingham Zac. I had no idea he'd be awake this soon, since generally, Sushi Kids party late and sleep even later. But here he is, motioning us to keep the silence: it's July 4th, the pivotal day of Rainbow Gathering, when everyone observes the silence from dawn til noon. It's a devotion of respect and energy to peace, on a day when most gatherings involve fireworks and chaos.

Although we'd expressed some urgency about getting downhill and reorganizing the gear, at the moment none of us is really in a hurry. Zac ends up falling asleep curled up on the welcome mat, and is soon snoring. Abbey watches Puck run around with his brindle friend. I sit half-in, half-out of my sleeping bag and meditate, saluting the hazily-rising sun from inside the tent, seated, drawing my arms up and over my head, hands pressed together, then forcing all the confusion, insecurity, love and grief out away from my torso before finally bringing my palms together in the center of my chest. Enough., I tell myself, It's enough now. Om shanti, shanti. Find prana.

And it has to be. I've given of myself with love and utmost hope for so long, to so many things. This is no longer just about him, or about how betrayed I've felt. It's about myself, about the drive and desire to find purpose in the world. About place. And where that really is, within and without the Self. I can feel myself pulling deep breaths in, deliberately increasing the space between my heart and pelvis, straightening. I don't know how long these pseudo-salutations last. From somewhere, I acknowledge the air warming with dawn.It is enough now.

When I come back to the tent-for I've never left my Self, this much I can be sure of-a string of people with bowls and spoons tells me Montana Mud is serving something from their gargantuan pots. Abbey and I gather up the remnants of our food: some overripe bananas, a little dog food. The idea now is to expel our leftovers into the various kitchens we've gleaned meals from; partly this is so we don't have to carry it back down the hill. Partly, the practice adheres to another tenet of Gatherings: share what you've got. Trade, barter and the supplies hucked in by various kitchens can only go so far; distribution of anything anyone's got to spare offsets the number of times a tribe has to make a trip into town. On reaching Montana Mud, we see that they're offering a strange brew this morning. It appears to be spaghetti noodles cooked down with canned tomatoes. Although many people will disappear after today's Peace Prayer, there will be clean-up crews in the forest for days yet. I can't help but wonder how they'll subsist on meals like this.

Harrison finds us at Montana Mud. I'm still amazed he and Bellingham Zac are awake, but here we all are, freezing in the shade and gradually warming in the sun. Since Zac has taken the vow of silence for the morning, we write back and forth on pieces of cardboard with a ballpoint pen. Cereal boxes. Of all the things. We've woken him up from his nap on the rug, and he and I stand in silence together, saluting the sun. This time we do it right, Zac facing away from the sun, my face turned up to his. The sky is a streak of white light across my field of vision. It takes a long, long time, pushing this anger and helplessness away from me. Within my Self, I know it's working. Outwardly, I'm really not sure. My shoulders crackle with the weight of what I'm leaving in this clearing. Under my own weight.

The boys stand around while we break camp. It doesn't take long. And this time it's wordless, folding tarps, rolling the rain fly, throwing everything into my pack at once. I find myself unfurling to the necessity of a schedule again, needing to be somewhere to do something at a certain time, or in specific parameters. Am I really this anal-retentive? It begs the question. Nevertheless, as I sling the (much lighter now) pack around and over my shoulders and we begin our trek out of the Gathering, I feel a deep sense of relief. Perhaps it's this that keeps me traveling, this palpable lightening: we've been happy here, and comfortable, but now we're really going home.

Monday, post-sunrise:

Reaching the shuttle drop-off/pick-up point, we discuss that we have 2 options. Raised at the mention of option #1: hike all the way back out to the car is a resounding, epic "Fuck no!". Personally, I can't face that 10+ mile walk again. So we all agree to sit and wait. I do some more yoga, twisting my torso around to either side, arms outstretched. A girl seated nearby joins me. The sun is high, and the antics of the parking guy amuse us all. Cars are already lining the pull in, everyone on edge as they wait to see which pickup truck full of hippies is the actual "shuttle".

My friend Robert joins us. Having run into him the night before, I offered him a ride home-he's from PT also, and seems fairly desperate to leave the Gathering. Here we are then, a set of pilgrims who haven't found exactly what they're searching for, squatting in the dust waiting for deliverance. It seems wrong somehow; thousands of other people have discovered exactly what they need here. Why haven't we? Then again, I can't speak for everyone else. And there are dozens of people around us talking about just that: attainment, fulfillment, regeneration. Listening to their stories with half my attention, stretching and rejuvenating with the other, I start to gather the happiness of others around me like a kid does in a game of wilderness hide-and-seek, piling the branches and grasses of the contentment rising from everyone else around me.

Each of these people came with something to give, and since I can feel little bits of myself crumbling off from time to time, I pass around the rolled-up, newly-battered Moleskine book. To avoid interrupting the morning vigil, I write at the top: "Looking for blessings. I go forward from here striving for an authentic life."

Harrison writes in it, then some kid named Ryan, who's looking for a ride back down to Stevenson, then a woman who calls herself Raven. Jaidee. Matt. I keep on burrowing my soul into the kindness of these strangers.

Parking Guy gets frustrated: cars are double-parked, some people have blatantly disregarded the "Don't Park Here, Hippies, Or We'll Tow You, Park On the Other Side" signs put up by Parks & Rec (Yeah, ok, they don't really say that, but the bright orange paper they're printed on speaks volumes). He ushers everyone sitting in the pull-in to walk up further to wait for their rides, hoping to clear some of the crazy congestion and allow the shuttles to come in and out. Abbey has managed to haggle a lift back down the hill: she'll go get the car, then bring it back up to meet us so Zac and Harrison don't actually have to bike back uphill to camp, a task we cannot conceive of them doing. It's a pretty steep hill.

Along the way, I acquire more hitchers. Ryan and his guitar are with us, and, out of nowhere, I recognize a CouchSurfer from the Seattle lists, Sherman. He and his traveling partner Kevin opt to hitch back downhill with us to get their own car. A tall man in a wool sweater has his young daughter with him, who's rightfully complaining about the shuttle taking too long. For a little kid, she's been awfully patient thus far, so I offer them a lift as well. Robert starts walking, entreating us not to leave him behind. We'll pick him up somewhere along the way. We all wander up another half-mile or so before settling into a shady spot where the road widens out.

Ryan pulls out his guitar and starts to play. Zac settles himself in a patch of sun across the street and meditates, bandana pulled up over his face. Harrison stretches himself out and closes his eyes, while Mary, the little girl, curls up against her dad and starts to sing us the thanksgiving songs she knows. One about giving thanks to all things, another about human beings answering their calling, being like bells. We are all bells. Ryan drops the key and picks up the melody with his low voice. Across the way, all I can see of Zac is his bearded jaw and mouth (he's trying to keep the dust out of his eyes); he is smiling. Kevin and Sherman prop themselves up on their packs, and we all listen. We keep our Selves still, and just listen, to this bright little girl teaching us all something about harmony and thankfulness and love.

Abbey finally manages to make it up to us: with so many people coming and going on bikes and on foot and in overloaded cars, it's taken a while. We set to work unloading Zac and Harrison's gear, along with 3 extra boxes of gleaned food. We offer produce to anyone who walks by: mandarin oranges, bell peppers, apples, bananas, even pineapples. It's hot, and dusty, and they're all incredibly grateful. I trade some mandarins for a handful of ripe apricots, and stop a moment to savor tanginess, juice in between my fingers. To everyone we see, I give a quiet "Namaste" or "Lovin' you." Why not, right? When in Rome...Some guy in an old Cadillac drives by, cussing us out for having the car in the road; Ryan yells right back at him, "You got plenty of room to pass, brother, plenty of room to pass."

I've seen this too often this weekend as well: altercations between people who've never met before, all because of a too-narrow foot bridge, or a cut in the food line, or a dropped cigarette. It leaves me questioning how strong the sense of community really is. In miniature, each camp is a model of peaceable living, but for the most part, these camps consist of folks that already know each other, or are acquaintances, or friends-of=friends. Out in the larger Gathering, however, things have sometimes seemed like a free for all, overwhelming with the vibe you get from dudes like Cadillac Speeder, who are in such a hurry to attain their own experience that they shit all over someone else's. It's only disheartening for a moment though: I look down, and Mary is standing beside me, taking my hand. This child trusts me. Not only that, she's perfectly content in this motley assortment of people, crammed into the car with her pink backpack on her lap, singing about birds and flowers.

We say goodbye to Harrison and Zac. Zac pushes his forehead up against mine, third eyes together, and for a moment, we are one. He's donating all his love and energy to restoring mine, when I need it the most. And yet it's still his thanks I'm receiving, for bringing them all this way, for dropping off their stuff, for being who I am. We leave them happily sorting through their things, and the hippie wagon is on its way home.

I throw on the iPod and rock out some bluegrass, managing to get us turned around without blocking the roadway, in a stunning 4-point turn. (I have to brag just a little here...). Sherman is folded up in the hatchback with all the crap. Ryan, Kevin, Abbey and the dog share the backseat. Mary's little feet are tapping time on the dashboard. We're all exhausted, dirty and overheated, but as we crawl down the road, waving at everyone we see, thumping rhythms out on our knees and car doors, I am happy. Because, in saying a heartfelt goodbye to Zac, it's finally hit me:

I made this happen.

This trip isn't the result of some completely spontaneous impulse, nor is it something I've waited for and planned for my whole life, both of which scenarios others can claim as their own. Rather, two people were in need, and I brought them here. And now, having picked up this string of hitchers and wanderers, I'm making sure some of us get home, too.

I can stand firm here, now, knowing that above all things, I have the capacity for Selflessness, for that renunciation of Self required to truly disseminate one's being out into the world without regard for one might be "getting" out of it. There is nothing else to 'get', for me. It seems utterly misguided to some, and is completely unfathomable to others: why would you ever give your Self up in this fashion, knowing it might suck, and it will probably hurt? Knowing that you'll be left vulnerable.

The only answer I can give to that is: This is who I am. More than anything this weekend, I've cemented that. When and where and whomever I'm with, I can honestly say that I give of myself without reserve, and without regard for what might be "in it for me". I know this. I know how treacherous it is, how painful and how hard, but if I can without doubt say anything of myself, it is that I move through the world with devotion to whatever I'm doing, to whomever I care about. I may never truly have left him back in the forest, but I accept now what I must carry with me, what I must bear the burden of in favor of never turning my back on who I truly am, what my purpose will ever be in this world. What a dear friend and spiritual teacher once told me: There's always a conversation going on, between you, and your needs, and who you are in this world. THIS is who I am. And I made this happen. My tribe arriving in this place that's so sacred to them. This carload of people, no longer worried about how to get home. This is enough. This will always be enough, now.

Monday, afternoon:

After dropping Kevin, Sherman, Mary and her dad off, and picking Robert up at the shuttle stop halfway down the hill, Ryan, Abbey, Puck and I are finally on paved road. The essence of granola is with us all over the car. Everyone's cracking jokes about it. "You know, for like the first day, I tried to keep a lid on my funk," Robert says, "And now, I just don't care. I give up, man."

That's about the shape of it, too. You can only control the eau d'hippie for so long...We're still rocking the bluegrass as we pull into Woodland, the first town with gas stations and diners outside the forest. And we're all starving. Under-caffeinated. It's time for a break. Robert opts to hang back with Puck and eat whatever's left in the car. The rest of us, probably erroneously, seeing as we've just come from a trade and barter society whose constituents claim they have no money, hit the doors of Rosie's Diner just before they close. I'm fairly certain all three of us are uttering silent thanks to the gods. This place has coffee. And cheeseburgers. I want to kiss the feet of every single waitress we see right now.

We settle into a vinyl booth and pound down a cup of coffee each. Ryan tightens the bracelet he's made me, out of a dusty black bootstring we found up in camp, around my wrist. We order ridiculous things: bacon cheeseburgers, onion rings, chocolate shakes, chilli-cheese fries. We eat. And drink more coffee. And keep eating. At some point, one of us wipes ketchup off a mouth-corner and just says, "Dude, I'm so happy right now, you guys."

And it's true. Somewhere on the winding road out of Gifford-Pinchot, I sense that we all shed something. An old skin. A bad memory. A little of the weariness. Robert is walking Puck back to the car-I see them through the window. I gather together a doggie box of burger scraps, and for long minute, we all just lie replete on the curb, looking like exactly what we are together: a rag-tag band of travelers in the sun, sated and content to be exactly where we are, with the friends we're with, right here, right now.

Ryan needs a ride to Vancouver, instead, so we pile back in the car that now seems so spacious without Kevin, Sherman, and the others. The windows are all down. Ryan and I have the backseat, Puck slouched between us. Robert offers to drive, letting Abbey and I have a break for a while. I settle back, petting Puck. Ryan's hand touches mine across the dog's back, and we smile at each other.

The road is long. It's hot, and we still have miles to go before we each sleep. Before we're each settled back into whatever routine or normalcy awaits us. But for now, I'm lulled back into the familiar, comfortable turning of the wheels on the road. And we're all still here, aren't we?

Because this is what we've learned to do. Because it's just what we know.

How to keep on driving.

Rainbow Gathering, Part IV...nearly the end.

Saturday Evening:

I could write so many, many things about the rest of the night. About how, just as I'm wiping the snot and tears away, and Zac and Stepha are preparing to head back to Sushi, he comes walking by again. With a big, trite grin on his face, bowl and spoon in hand. With herby his side-Great, so, now I look like a blubbering, insecure, unenlightened wreck; maybe that's exactly what I am. About how I have to pull him away from her to even get him to acknowledge me beyond the falsely buddy-buddy front that's being put on. About the hackles I see raised from my tribe, because they know just exactly what this is costing me. Just how little of it I'll get back.

Energy imbalance isn't something to be taken lightly by people like these, and it's the reason most of us are here: to pray for peace, to restore a flood of positive energy to the world, at least this patch of forest we're inhabiting this week. It's all over the gathering's web pages, official and not-so. Ask just about anyone who's attending, or has attended a Rainbow Gathering, and they'll tell you: it's an intentional community created with the hopes of promoting peace, but above all, of ridding oneself of anything negative, of meeting everyone you come across on ground.

But that's just it, I think, Moleskine notebook on my knee, facing the setting sun. I've never been equal here. At least, I've never felt like it. Why do I always feel so small? The ensuing conversation goes poorly. Lines drawn in the sand. I'm so tired of feeling like a little kid with a handmade paper heart. You know the type. The kind the shy, nerdy child draws for the one he loves, colored on with clumsy crayon-hands. The one he offers up with bated breath and the nervous words, "I made this for you." The one that's accepted with a genuine smile, or so he interprets it, out of admiration, out of gratitude for acceptance. Out of sheer love.

You know the one. The heart he finds in the trash the next day, half-hidden under an apple core, the daily paper's classifieds.

I could write an entire novel, and I'm not a prose writer. Suffice to say, it gets colder earlier this night. I make my slow way back to Sushi Land. Zac hands me a bowl of chicken and rice, and I eat it with tears streaming down my face. Trying to make conversation this way is like speaking a foreign language poorly in its own country. Since no one else understands the situation, there's a lot of brief staring, some "oh, poor thing" noises, and then disinterest. I mean, these people don't know me from Adam; they're probably rightfully trying to give me some space. Stepha sits by the fire with me. For an hour or more, I hunker down by the fire pit, holding someone's buff-colored pit bull puppy in my lap. The firepit circle includes Jeff and his unidentified girlfriend, a tweaked-out but kindly kid who calls himself Cloud, and a random assortment of Sushi Kids who are just trying to get warm. John comes back over. Having lost his sleeping bag and pants the night before, he's been poking around all day looking for them. I ask him if he's slept yet. He says no. He's been out here almost a week.

I wonder about what Rainbow Gatherings bring to the debate about human survivalism. It's one thing to prepare, agonize, train and then climb Mount Everest. It's another thing to go to ground, living entirely off what one scrapes from the land, like a homesteader determined to live outside civilization in the wilds of my home state, or on the prairies. Somehow pitching in the woods for a week with 20,000 other people doesn't seem particularly survivalist to me; it doesn't push the limits of what the human body and psyche are designed for. Unless you count those 20,000 people. And try to imagine inundating your brain and body with their presence and detritus. Perhaps what we're really surviving here, for this week or weekend, is each other. What we really survive is our Self.

Sassafras, the puppy, is wrapped in a black, tattered sweater. His smooth-furred head hangs over to one side. He is completely warm, safe and sacked out. I wish that were me, I think. How nice it must be to run around, helter-skelter, over and around and through all of life, all day, then collapse knowing you'll wake up refreshed, and, or I like to pretend, without any memory of the day before. I wonder if it might really be better, healthier, to just forget.

I could write more about how drained I feel. How I know somehow I've done the wrong thing by sending him away and simply saying, "I'm sorry things had to be this way." How I put my face up to his and attempted to give 'Eskimo' kisses, the way we always do. How he held perfectly still. And let me move. And let me be the one to keep on trying. There was nothing there, just as there was nothing between us when I first saw him this morning. The well-intentioned circle that surrounded me today let me purge a lot, though.

I could write volumes about how empty I feel right now.

Saturday Night, sunset:

Suffice to say that Abbey and I meander back to Rainbow Crystal Kitchen early. The fire is dying down and Sushi Tribe is splintering off in preparation for whatever everyone wants to do tonight.

Every time we walk back and forth from Rainbow Crystal to Sushi, we have to pass through Trade Circle. Trade Circle is an entity in and of itself. In it, one grasps a microcosmic sense of what the souks of Marrakesh might be like, or Middle Eastern bazaars. There are blankets and tarps spread out all over, with various crafts on them. Beads, bracelets, hemp jewelry, odd assortments of books, rocks, candy (a hot commodity in a place where marijuana is distributed as freely as food), clothes. And everyone is haggling. This for that, tit for tat, I'll trade you, I'll see you and raise you. It's insane, and the flow of foot traffic ceases in one of those Three Stooges-esque back-bouncers. You know the kind: the dude up front halts short, causing everyone behind him in rapid succession to bounce unchecked off the back of the person in front of them. And so on. Forgive me, barterers, but god, I hate walking through Trade Circle.

There's a more user-friendly, yet equally pervasive practice called Random Pocket Trade, which I actually enjoy, and engage in a couple of times on the way back to the tent. Random Pocket Trade is, my friends, exactly what it sounds like. The depth and breadth of one's pants or jacket pockets is vast and full of many mysteries. So, all over the Gathering, folks are hollering "Random Pocket Trade!" at each other. Hit someone up successfully, and you might trade a couple of quarters for a candy bar, some weed, a piece of jewelry, or essential toiletries like toothpaste or toilet paper. Then again, you might swap a pair of earrings for a used battery, half a granola bar, or arbitrary bits of other junk. I try a couple of swaps. Sure as shit, one of them is a used battery. Go figure.

As we reach camp, I can hear and smell the giant half-drum stewpot boiling. Rainbow Crystal Kitchen, like a lot of others, has rigged up an immense old 25-gallon drum as its cookstove. Wood burns underneath, and with the inside scoured out, it's a direct throwback to the 1920s railroad-trestle hobo kitchen: rusty, probably with a few holes in it, but functional. I run back to the tent and grab my backpacking mess kit just as the sister stirring the pot yells, "Come'n get yer Rainbow Crystal Stew!" When I hold out the bottom bowl of the kit to her, she ladles in 2 overflowing scoops of stew. And she ladles with a tin can lashed to a long willow branch. No shit.

You can't make this stuff up. Right next to the kitchen, some dude strikes up a riff on his old banjo. John Steinbeck would be proud.

I walk carefully over hummock-ville back to Abbey and we dig in with slightly dusty silverware scrounged from the bottom of my pack. It's delicious, whatever it is: something dark and rich with carrots, celery, and Ramen noodles drifting to the bottom. It's also spicy, lending some much-needed heat to our bellies. We sit on a red and white rug the kids camped next door gave me this morning; it's our tent's welcome mat, even though no one's really in and out but us. Puck eats some dog food and runs off to play with a rangy brindle mutt he's befriended. Abbey and I have finally, with Zac and Harrison, settled on a plan: They'll meet us at our camp in the morning, then we'll all take the shuttle down to the car to retrieve their gear. It's taken a supreme amount of effort for me to even get through the day this far, but I'm glad we finally figured out the last bit of concrete logistics before we lost each other completely in the shuffle.

I cannot tell a lie. After eating, we each take a Valium and pull on all our layers of clothing, then head into the tent to try and sleep. It's all of 8 pm. My body aches from the previous day's hike, which I've learned from passers-by is closer to 10 miles than to the 3 we were repeatedly told we had left to go. My heart aches from watching him walk away-I've done something wrong; the energy is off, and it shouldn't be, not between us, of all people. (Somewhere up ahead at some point, I heard his trademark donkey guffaw. He only does that one when something is genuinely piss-yourself funny. Oh my god. My heart.) By my goddamn brain will not shut off, and I think I sleep a whole 2 hours that night.

I'm so tired of having so many miles to go before I sleep.

The drum circle starts up again. This time I don't notice, the deep undertones of some guy's chanting echoing the lonely weariness in my heart and head.

Sing it, brother.

The night is wide, and sometimes it's hard to believe you're not the only one in it.

Rainbow Gathering, part III

Sunday, very, very early morning:

I wake up first. In fact, I haven't slept: drum circle never ended, the entire night punctuated by people yelling back and forth across the meadow, hakas, changes in tempo. Puck is agitated, so I let him out. I can see all of our breaths. Even Harrison's, and he's huddled down under his sleeping bag. I engage in that unique ritual of backpackers: attempting to pull on warmer clothes INSIDE a sleeping bag. Step outside, rummage for a cup or bowl or something. All I come up with is a camp pot with a collapsible handle. Good enough. Whatever. I take Puck and we venture across Main Meadow toward Montana Mud, where they serve coffee (YES). The terrain, in daylight, is ridiculous. I'm amazed none of us broke an ankle last night.

Here's my first taste of what ultimately will shape my experience: dozens of dirty, cold people passed out around the cold ashes of the main fire pit. Some are leaning on logs, each other, or bent forward over their own laps. A few are awake (more likely, they never slept), passing around a pipe. I see a couple of kids curled up under just tarps, or thin blankets, asleep in the meadow. It is barely above freezing out here. This I don't understand-the counterculture that's so reviled by newspapers, onlookers, etc, because it's so clearly governed by drug use, by what most would term 'freeloading'. I wonder how many of these kids are homeless. How many came here because they knew they'd find drugs and alcohol. If Rainbow Gathering is about intentionality, community, peace and love, what do these pockets of people represent here?

The Montana Mud crew hollers, and the coffee line begins. This is a routine here. Each kitchen has its own call to food/tea/coffee; Instant Soup blows a conch shell, if you can believe that. And then the madness ensues. Because Rainbow Gatherings are run through trade, barter and free exchange, everyone's on the lookout for grub. Food lines can stretch the length of hundreds of people, some with nothing but their bare hands outstretched. No one's up yet, so I'm lucky, and the benevolent gargantuan dipper at Montana Mud expels hot coffee into my camp pot. A girl I'm standing near has on a fantastic wool cloak, clasped with a set of bronze leaves. I mention how rad it is. She mentions that she has extra dog food-even Puck gets fed for free here. Standing around sipping the hot drink, talking to a small group of folks with puppies, I start to warm up, though my apprehension isn't gone: I can feel myself glancing around, with a running list of worries in my head: where the HELL is Sushi Camp? Will Harrison wonder where I am? I know my partner is here, somewhere; when will he crop up unexpectedly? Can I handle it? And, since now all I can think of is what it feels like to snuggle up to him, to laugh when he laughs (because his laugh is contagious, the essence of who he is), Oh, god. Please. My heart.

I try talking to a few folks to determine where Sushi Land might be. Stumbling across a small fire, I belly up to it, pressing my hands together and invoking "Namaste" to an older guy standing there. He introduces himself and then says immediately that he knows where Sushi Tribe is camped. Apparently it's all the way across the far side of the gathering, but in the light, it shouldn't be hard to find. We stand around watching his dog chase Puck around and around Trade Circle, and the guys pass around a joint, which I'm not super-excited about, having just woken up, over-caffeineated and eaten very little. But it's a huge, huge relief to finally figure out how to get to where I'm hoping Bellingham Zac and Abbey arrived-Harrison's tent is supposedly in Zac's backpack, Abbey's clothes are in mine, and the food is scattered between us. Organizationally, we're a shit show; it matches my current mental state. Some guy clad in a sarong, hair threaded through with feathers, grungy, rolls up, sits down, pounds the ground, laughs, and talks to himself. "He's just high, brothers," says the older guy, "High on testifying."

Over the next 2 days, I see this so many times. It begs the age-old question of who's saner. Who sees more clearly. We who are sober, tied to what we call Reality by duty, material and 'routine'? Or people like this guy, the archetypal shamanic crazy, apparently so connected (through psychedelics or who-knows-what) to a world outside himself that he's channeling it straight out his gibbering vocal cords into the air. Personally, I treat him as one might a nervous, hackles-raised dog: I leave him alone, save for when he stares at me briefly. Then, hoping it will calm him down, and so he won't do anything rash against me, I give him a "Namaste, brother", as well, holding his gaze. He seems to approve, because it makes him start laughing, shaking a gnarled finger my direction. Then he goes back to speaking to Yahweh, bobbing his head; he leaves me be. Phew, I think, Crisis averted.

Harrison wakes up and wanders over. We eat oatmeal doled out by Montana Mud, me from the coffee-flavored pot, Harrison off the pot lid. There are sweet chunks of apple in it, but I lose interest in eating after just one small serving. Puck is off playing with a bunch of puppies in the mud. We wander across the marsh without our things, concerned that Zac and Abbey took the same tack we did last night and camped wherever they could find, but upon arriving at Sushi Land, we're told that they've both stepped off to use the restroom and should be back any time. So we sit. We wait. Now that we're reunited with the tribe, things seem as if they should have been so, so much easier: there's a tipi set up, a big kitchen area with a firepit, and a bluegrass band harmonizing with each other. The sun is coming up, ground steaming all around us. It all seems bucolic and peaceful. Eventually, both Zac and Abbey wander back over-it's another ritual here, having to meander sometimes half a mile or more away from everyone to find a spot to pee in peace...

We lounge in the sun, which, by 10 am is as high as it's going to get. The temperature tops out that day at above 80 degrees, inconceivable when, at night, it drops so low. The band switches out members from time to time. Abbey and I wander back and forth between Sushi Land and other camps, people-watching, checking out others' set ups. At times, we bop back and forth between Sushi Land and Granola Funk camp, where my neighbors Tim and Andrea are, as well as a handful of new friends. I'm a little confused, though. There are stages and platforms and meeting areas set up, but for the most part, little activity. Perhaps that's just my hyper-motivational brain speaking: I'm used to attending music festivals with schedules, or community fairs with speakers, kids' activities, booths full of local organizations' pamphlets. Maybe something's wrong with me, I think, 'cause whatever this energy of community is, I'm not feeling it. Then again, you know, what the hell do I know?

Saturday, late afternoon:

Abbey and I wander back to our tent, which I've left pitched by Rainbow Crystal Kitchen mostly out of sheer laziness. We take a gander at the central message board, erected by Info Tent, to see if there's any chance of someone offering lifts back down the hill: Zac and Harrison's bikes, along with the rest of their gear, are still in Abbey's car, and none of us can fathom making that epic trek back downhill to get it, then potentially leaving Zac and Harrison to walk it all back in. I turn around to yell for Puck, and just as I do, it happens.

I start shaking. I'm shaking as I write this. I know him without even blinking: same hat, same posture, same fuzzy Mountain Hardware jacket. I don't have a chance to think about it, calling his name even as I think twice. He turns to me with that familiar, warm grin and calls out, "You came anyway!", walks toward me, puts his arms around me. I can't help it. I can't stop shaking, can't stop holding him, can't control the tears that come into my eyes. We stand there for a long moment, with our foreheads pressed together, and I'm trying. I'm trying so, so hard, pushing my energy out toward his, striving to feel connected to him, and my heart is breaking, because I'm not, anymore. Something in me that's more realistic than the shivering, winking, emotional mess I know I'm outwardly presenting just KNOWS. Maybe I'm not who I was. Maybe he's not who he was. Either way, there's an integral piece missing, the way a table has a single leg that's missing its caster. Off balance. Missing a chunk of hope.

We agree to meet up and talk later on. I know who he's there with, and that his energy is with her, just as it's always been. This isn't any different than it's ever been, though; me hoping beyond reason that this time the conversation will be different. That he'll make some gesture, give some word, follow through on even the tiniest of actions and show me that he cares enough to meet me halfway there. I don't even know where there is, anymore. He asks me, as we part, if everything is OK. My voice breaks, and I feel as small and strained as it sounds. "I just missed you," I say. I don't know what else there is.

I decide to wander back up to Montana Mud for water. I barefoot it, as I've been doing all day, since it's warm and I can finally see where I'm stepping. To do so, I have to pass directly by Main Meadow, where he's playing with hoops and poi and fire fans with his friends. I don't know how I look to him, but I know he sees me. Finally, I decide to man up, walk over, and tell him I'm going to take a nap in the tent-why doesn't he just come wake me when he's done practicing? He agrees, and because it's awkward not to, we kiss. There's nothing there. A peck on the lips. Probably because he doesn't want to embarrass me by declining in front of everyone. Or because it's just what you do here...After all, it's Rainbow Gathering. People are kissing all over the place. I go back to the tent. Curl up. Put Puck inside with me. Try to clear my mind and get some rest.

I can't sleep, thinking that the second I do, he'll be there by my side to wake me and smooth things over and finally have a calm, happy conversation. Instead, an hour or so later, I wake myself up. It's alternately stifling in the tent and a little chilly when the wind picks up, so I step outside. Abbey is sprawled out on her stomach facing the creek. "He's sitting right over there," she says. All of a sudden, I don't know how to act again. He's sitting with her, talking to some other friend, and that's when I know that his intention was never to come see me. Once again, I'm the small one. Puck goes running over to him, because he recognizes him, of course-after all, for seven months he took Puck on just as many walks as I did. He waves Puck back over to me and straightens, and I don't know what else to do but just look at him. I'm sure my face isn't right. I'm sure it's not very welcoming. In any case, he walks away. Oh my god. My heart.

Saturday, early evening:

What happens later is a bit unclear. I've been sitting behind the tent near the creek bank for a while, trying to write. Trying to absorb a little more sun, a little positive energy from somewhere. Abbey's gone back to Sushi Land, or so I assume. After a bit I see Zac and Stepha coming up the path-I remember that we still haven't organized how to get Zac and Harrison's bike gear to them, so I sprint barefoot up the way to greet them. At first I start babbling about how we need to meet in the morning, take the shuttle back down to the car, get the gear and...Stepha asks me how I am. One moment I'm leaning toward her, making some pathetic, incoherent noise. The next, I am sobbing. Stepha wraps her arms around me from one side. Zac, who's nude (come on, it's a hippie gathering in the middle of nowhere. What did you expect? Victorian dress required?), puts his head on my shoulder from behind and gathers me in, and I can't stop crying. All I remember saying is, "I don't know why this is so hard, you guys." Having heard at least the gist of the story, they both know what I'm talking about, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that I am hurting, and they are there to both heal and be healed. Stepha starts with deep breathing, then Zac picks it up.

Some long-grey-haired guy in a tie-dye tshirt sees us and hollers, "Rainbow Hugs!!!". The floodgates aren't closed yet. I pick my head up from Stepha's chest, gulp, and let out a sentence that sounds like a wail: "You can come join us if you really want." Tie Dye Dude clucks sympathetically and comes running over, arms outstretched. His multi-colored beer belly is against my left ear. From it comes a resounding, gravelly, "Om." That sacred, sacred syllable, and soon it's being echoed all around me, vibrating my entire body. Stepha's alto comes in, her chin on top of my head. Zac breathes deeply once, then intones the "Om" against my spine. All three of them are holding me as tightly as they can now, and oh my god, it hurts. It hurts to breathe. It hurts not to. It hurts to feel so lovingly, tightly, unassumingly cradled by these people I just barely-or in the case of Tie Dye Guy, not at all-know. They are breathing in with all the force in their bodies and exhaling the sacred tone with even more, all because they recognize another being in need, and are trying to help. To heal.

I am in the center of the Selflessness outside the Self that is the center of the Universe. These people are my friends. They are telling me I am not alone. They are channeling something larger than all of us so that I may feel I am not small.

And no one looks at us twice. Except for the few people passing who saw me crying instead of shining with the giddy light one is supposed to exude here, no one says a thing. Some even pick up the "Om" themselves, Doppler effect trailing it behind them as they walk past us.

And here I am surrounded. Trying to not only be, but to take in, the center of all things. Tie Dye Guy's breastbone feels like it will shatter against my temple, he is chanting so loudly. Zac's body is heated by the sun, bare skin all up and down my back. Stepha has draped her shawl over my head and presses her lips to my forehead, pushing the breath of her "Om' into my Third Eye.

They love each other. There is no loneliness like theirs*

And oh, my god. My heart.

(*from "A Blessing" by James Wright)

Rainbow Gathering: Part II

Bellingham Zac passes a bag of blue chips and a bottle of Tapatio around, and we all eat and listen to the incredible story of how our paths have merged, from their end:

Stepha, that strong, strong lady, turned back the day before. Her bike seat wasn't conformed well to her body, and so she backtracked via hitching to Olympia, and has actually arrived in the forest ahead of Zac and Harrison. The boys attempted to keep going, but had very little luck hitching, and, on the way down a fairly daunting hill and a fairly daunting speed, Harrison's tire blows-fortunately, and amazingly, as they hit a flat stretch. Zac is telling this story energetically, and we're all in awe of how many signs and occurrences seemed to have been screaming at them to stop moving, to turn back and give up.

They spent the night in the open, and in the morning, I received their call.

Once again, I'm humbled by how strong this calling really was: a call to action, to compassion and to DO. Activism and action are not one and the same; on the contrary, one may be an activist by only moving the lips, paying lip service to the 'cause' one purports to champion, or to the type of person one claims to be. Action is the fulfillment of promise, an affirmation of purpose, and the essence of change. Harrison's head rolls sideways against the window; Puck curls up and Zac pets him about the ears. The windows are open, the breeze blowing in, and I know I'm present here. Still striving for authenticity... We all lapse into silence; admittedly, I'm thinking about my former partner. What will happen when I see him-for see him I will, because I know my luck, and that this is not simply an impromptu road trip-and have to interact with him again? I hope with all my heart that somehow things there will work out, but I'm just not sure.

Saturday, late afternoon, Gifford-Pinchot Nat'l Forest off Curly Creek Rd.:

Due to some seriously gratuitous speeding, we arrive at what looks like the right spot pretty early. We're all incredulous: the road is uphill all the way, windy and narrow in spots. I can't imagine the guys trying to bike up it, especially considering the huge distance they'd have already come. I'm so glad they didnt have to try. There are signs all over the place directing us not to park here, there and everywhere-even though we've pulled into a huge, public parking area. So, we arrive at a plan that splits our group up. 2 of us will take the heavy packs, filled with food, water, etc, and head toward the campsite, which we've been told is 3.5 miles into the forest from the access road. The other 2 will park the car, situate our valuables and carry up more supplies afterward. We're thinking we've got this on lock: the walk in isn't far, and we've heard it's a maintained road. After sitting in the car so long, we all want to get out and stretch ourselves and begin to move around. Walking sounds pretty good. Harrison and I elect to take the heavy packs and Puck and head in to find our tribe, Sushi Land. Zac and Abbey will follow.

At first it's not so bad. The sun is out and we're warm, walking along chatting. Since they'd planned on biking the whole way, Harrison doesn't have a pack, but rather is carrying 2 bike paniers clipped together over his shoulder. My pack weighs nearly 70 lbs, since I have most of the people food and water in it. We're in good spirits, happy to be out of the car and having arrived there, somewhat against all odds. There are cars lining the road as we go along, so we figure we will have company walking with us and be able to get there fairly quickly. Puck is on his leash smelling everything he sees. Occasionally cars pass us going one direction or another.

Saturday, sunset:

As we gain elevation, it gets colder. Harrison isn't having an easy time with his paniers, since they're not the same weight and are awkward to carry. We hike for a couple of miles, then stop to put on long sleeves and readjust the weigh load. Sometimes we talk. Sometimes we hum. We've been walking for over an hour thus far, coming across small groups of people here and there. There are Westfalias and busses parked sporadically, tarped, painted and sporting fires beside them, some with pots of hot tea or something boiling away. The sun is beginning to set.

After a while it gets really difficult for Harrison to balance the paniers, and the 70 lbs I'm carrying is causing my back to cramp and my shoulders to chafe where the pack straps cut into them. I can't straighten up into a good posture anymore-we're going up hill steadily and I have to lean forward, throwing my upper body into the weight of the pack, since the hip belt isn't carrying enough of it. We attempt to trade loads for a while, but carrying the paniers with Puck's leash in the other hand is too awkward for me, and the pack isn't the right size for Harrison, who's 6'3" and lanky. It's starting to get colder as we ascend, snow piled beside the road. When the wind passes over it, I get goosebumps. Night is falling on us.

Mentally, I can tell we're both passing into the same space: that forceful, rigid mind-state that goes along with exhaustion, with accomplishing a task you can't rightly see the end of. We both estimate that it's been at least 3 miles already, so where is the entrance to camp? Where are all the people? We walk up to a campsite along the side of the road, and are greeted by a motley assortment: a couple of kids, a few women, and 2 guys who look like they've been partying pretty hard already. The kid offers us something to drink or eat, but we just want to get THERE. One of the guys tells us that we have at least another 3.6 miles to go, all the way up and around the ridge. Supposedly it's all downhill from there. I feel desperate. Harrison shrugs and says he's game to keep hucking, and there are no cars in sight, so we shoulder our gear again and keep going. Better to keep pushing onward than to sit down-if we sit down, we might not get back up. Harrison's Achilles has started bothering him more, and my knee begins to give under so much weight and fast walking.

Up top of the ridge, we pause for a while. The sun is setting. Mt. St. Helens is before us, mist below that, and a vast, vast valley shaded in gray, blue, and sunset pink beyond that, the river snaking out of sight, an expanse of serene beauty that stops the heart and revives the soul. "This was worth all of it," Harrison says. And I agree. We drink some water, say silent thanks for the vista before us, and continue on.

Saturday, after dark, somewhere outside Skookum Meadows:

It truly does become all downhill from here, but it also becomes darker and darker, until we are plodding along in complete blackness. It's gotten much, much colder, and now we're walking with an entire cadre of nomads. A couple of older guys shouldering swags. A young couple whose baby husky makes friends with Puck. Teenagers with black clothes on. A few times, vehicles stop and pick people up, but Harrison and I are too numb, in pain, and tired to stick our thumbs out anymore. We've had no luck hitching anyway, and we may as well keep walking. Talking intermittently with our compatriots, we gradually pick up more and more people, see more lights, and are told more often than not that we're "almost there", a concept we stopped believing in about 4 miles ago.

Finally, finally, finally, someone hollers "I see lights, you guys! That's it!". And sure as shit, it is: a large assortment of cars, trucks, vans and a couple of busses. Someone we can't see up ahead yells, "Welcome home! Lovin' you!": the Rainbow Family Gathering mantra, something I'll hear countless times for the next 2 days. We can't find the trailhead into the Gathering right away-it's blocked by all the cars, but eventually, someone steers us in the right direction. Unable to get into the packs and find headlamps, batteries or flashlights, we're at the mercy of those in front of us. It's muddy as all get-out, and I can hear people shouting to one another through the dark. Everyone is carrying lots of gear, some things as strange and unwieldy as kids' strollers, stand-up basses, pets in scarves, giant bundles of pots and pans. We're stumbling our way downhill over slippery roots and between trees we can barely see. I go down three times-Puck is pulling on his leash, knocking me off balance. Finally I just let him off it. Neither Harrison nor I really know where to find our tribe, the Sushi kids, but before we even reach the main meadow, we have to traverse this swampy, cold stretch, spanned by rough-cut, treacherously slick log bridges. It is a nightmare. Somewhere along the way, Puck flies by me in the darkness. Up ahead, I hear a splashing commotion: he's taken a header into the creek, which is deep and freezing cold.

We eventually pop out into the Marsh Meadow, surrounded by tall skunk cabbages. For a moment, again, we hold our breath: it's an incredible sight. For over a mile around the marsh, lights are glowing. In the haze, the poles of tipis, tents, geodesic domes crafted from tarps and frames, and banners can be seen. The pounding of drums from multiple drum circles is incessant. Every few minutes, a wild chant or haka fills the air. The sensation is one of unadulterated tribalism: a summit under cover of night attended by every conceivable Nation of Peoples, wherever they've come from, whomever they've chosen to represent.

Across the Marsh Meadow, we stop and fling the packs down. I have a foil packet of potatoes, onions and garlic in mine, and I pass it around. We're both starving. Even Puck eats the potatoes, which he normally wouldn't touch. There's a main message board somewhere that we're hoping to find a note from Sushi Land on; we have no idea where to find them, and the Gathering has swelled to 20,000 plus people, all camped in a huge radius spanning acres of land. No one at the information tent between one side of Rainbow and the other can tell us specifically how to find Sushi Land. We eat a bit more, then head off in a direction that seems right, passing briefly through the woods again until we come out into a huge clearing: the central meadow. There are people everywhere. Loud chanting and unintelligible yelling comes from a huge fire pit, where what looks like hundreds of people are dancing, drumming and circling around. Light flickers manically.

Harrison stops just as I do, and we stare at each other. "I'm overwhelmed right now," he says. "So am I," I say. "I don't know where to go from here..." A middle-aged woman stops near us and asks what we're looking for. When we tell her "Sushi Land Tribe", she looks dubiously at us. "It's going to take you at least another 3/4 of an hour to get there," she says. We have to walk all the way around the far side of the meadows, out onto another promontory. It's pitch dark. The terrain here is nothing but old sedge hummock-huge moguls and depressions pockmarking the landscape. You could break an ankle in the blink of an eye. Puck is shivering by my side, he can't decide if he wants to run and play with all the other dogs, or collapse. I suspect Harrison and I feel exactly the same.

We stagger closer to the drum circle, unsure of where to go from here. We'd so hoped to make it all the way to our tribe, and now neither of us can formulate a coherent thought. I'm tripping over my words. Harrison looks shell-shocked. The woman is amazed we made it-apparently we've hiked in much, much further than we thought we had. We end up pitching camp in the middle of it all, next to a camp called the Rainbow Crystal Kitchen. The tent straddles a huge hummock, myself on one side of it, Harrison on the other, Puck curled up wet and cold at our feet. By the time we get the tent up, I can barely feel my fingers. We roll into our sleeping bags, layers of clothes on, and try to sleep.

As I lie there trying to rest, I am in sensory overload. How much easier will this all be tomorrow, when it's light, and warm? We've lost Zac and Abbey and can only hope they've made their way to Sushi Land without us. I wonder about seeing my former partner. My heart aches in memory of the last time we saw each other. I've accomplished this much and we are HERE now, yet I feel empty somehow. The booming of the drums outside goes on and on and on.

Welcome Home: Rainbow Gathering 2011. Part I

I hadn't intended to go to this event. 'Event' isn't a particularly accurate term, I suppose: Rainbow Gathering is indeed a gathering of the tribes, and of the nomads, and of the curious from all walks of life.

Initially, I put my foot down: personal circumstances just wouldn't allow me to attend; Rainbow is meant to be a spiritually cleansing and healthy space, a place people go to find community and light. Perhaps retrospectively, I ought to have trusted my instincts. Perhaps I ought not have gone...

Saturday, July 2, morning:

I'd intended to do a BUNCH of things this weekend. Clean. Pack. A friend's birthday party. Then up to Tubal Cain again to backpack in, hike around, and heal myself with solitude and water. We're just getting ready to cook a huge brunch for those of the tribe who've also elected not to go to Rainbow when my phone rings: it's Bellingham Zac.

The prelude goes something like this: Bellingham Zac, Stepha and Harrison all biked into Port Townsend late one night, in need of shelter on the first night of an incredibly ambitious quest to bike all the way to the Gifford-Pinchot National Forest. The distance, in case you're wondering, is over 400 miles. We have dinner together, and they allow me to emotionally vomit all over them: I'm not going to Rainbow because my former partner will be there, along with HIS supposedly-former partner, whom he's now back with, and I just don't know if I can take it. My heart feels as if it's been planed along by a woodworker's tool: thin shavings curling up in some recess of me that I haven't the strength to sweep up and throw away.

Bellingham Zac, this Saturday morning, is in a predicament. Stepha's turned back-she's exhausted, and rightfully so, so he and Harrison are somewhat stranded somewhere on I-5. Harrison's Achilles tendon has been bothering him (strained?) and they're just wondering if anyone I know might be heading that way that could offer them a lift. I tell him I'll make some calls, and hang up the phone.

Then it hits me: I am meant to do this job.

How often in our everyday lives do we bypass the tasks laid before us? Like those passing the Samaritan in the road, do we consciously avert our purpose & therefore our Selves by skirting around those seemingly inane jobs laid in our paths by the world? Rather than resting on the backs of Materials- my cell phone, the friends who were to leave for Rainbow the next morning, my sense of false obligation to cooking for the leftover Tribe...- I quickly turned around, began slinging orders to Abbey, picked up the phone & simply told Zac & Harrison: "We're coming to get you."

It was my job to attain experience for my friends, my tribe.

Saturday, afternoon:

It took less than 2 hours. Abbey & I fly around Tim & Andrea's kitchen: bacon frying, garlic fritatta in the oven, strawberries macerating with basil in a bowl. There are people around the table eating and drinking strong coffee while I alternately chop, wash, fry, package, and answer the phone again and again; the strength of Purpose that I climb like a ridgetop bearing me up. For long minutes I think not a whit about what might await me at Rainbow: the sickening yet exhilarating shock of seeing that beloved face, the one I so hope will remain luminous for me. We shoo our friendship family out of the house. Wash up. Empty the fridge of its perishables, pack smartly but lightly and jettison ourselves.

Chehalis, Washington: Wal-Mart Parking Lot:

It's hot. 80+ degrees even in the shade, and Abbey and I have been driving for hours, speeding gratuitously and blaring bluegrass at unhealthy decibel levels just to stay awake and motivated. We pull into the Wal-Mart parking lot just before 4 pm, and find Bellingham Zac and Harrison sprawled out under a pitiful shade tree.

I am enveloped in gratitude. So often we do things in our lives that go unnoticed-picking up trash on a walk. Perhaps we offer love and solace to someone when they need it. Donate money. Take the time. This time, I am covered in thanks, picked up and spun around and made to know that the completion of this task matters, and is recognized. It takes us an hour or so to load ALL THIS STUFF in the car! 2 bikes, the dog, 3 huge trekking packs, and 3 boxes of produce gleaned from the Wal-Mart dumpsters. Take that, chain box store! We are on our way, and more importantly, Zac and Harrison are rejuvenated. They are on their way to Rainbow again, in a car! With music! And air conditioning! Hippie Limousine indeed!

The car is full to the brim with love and light. These men are so, so happy to be off their bikes and on the way to realise their dream of meeting Sushi Tribe at this international Gathering of spirits. It makes me supremely fulfilled simply to have summoned the wherewithal needed to swoop them up out of the heat and uncertainty and help shepherd them on down their paths.

We are at a confluence.

In rescuing these bright members of Sushi Tribe, I've altered my own path. Overcome my own fear and trepidation, and moved to merge my path with theirs in an eddy of destiny. The discussion in the car is sometimes silly-there are tricksters amongst us, of course-but more often than not, returns to destiny, confluence and meaning. We've met up out of the needs of some of us, and the jobs the universe holds for others, at the junction and in a swirling undercurrent of meaning, for all of us. There's some discussion of my personal journey. Of why I just feel that I cannot cross that threshold, between my individual self and the community self of Rainbow, when I know his energy will be there, affecting mine. And yet we move. We keep on driving.