9 ... Gabriel Morrishad our evening dinner circles. During my time there, I helped to
cook and serve in the kitchen; built a plank bridge across the creek;
hauled wood for the drum-circle bonfires; and helped build a sweat
lodge. I also participated in the drum circles and the sweat lodge cer-
emony.
I’d been hoping I might see Jeffrey there. Midway through the
gathering, I noticed him amidst a group of people near the main
kitchen one afternoon, having just arrived. He looked very differ-
ent from when I’d last seen him. He also had short hair—though
not quite as short as mine, which was barely an inch long now after
shaving it—and his beard was trimmed. I walked up and gave him a
big hug. He was happy to see me, as I was to see him.
“You’ve changed,” he said, peering into my eyes.
“Yes,” I said. “It’s been a hell of a journey, to say the least.”
“Hey, me too...”
Talking to him later that afternoon, I found that he’d had a chal-
lenging time over the winter as well. He shared with me his experi-
ence of—as he described—his consciousness turning in an instant
from a sharp sword into a puddle. He had lost some of his memory
and had spent much of the winter moving through deep fear and
confusion, same as me. It felt good to discover I wasn’t the only one
having a hard time finding balance in my life, and to be able to talk
about it with him. I found the relative similarity of our experiences
remarkable, though not terribly surprising. I knew that we were con-
nected in some subtle way, though I couldn’t fully make sense of it.
Towards the end of the gathering, I started looking for a ride out
to the big national Rainbow Gathering in New Mexico. Although I
had planned to stay a few days after the Oregon gathering to help
with clean-up of the site, on the last official day of the festival I
found a ride to New Mexico with a friendly couple headed straight
to the gathering—Dream and Marie—in a large van. Two other folks
were coming along—a man in his thirties named Forest, and a young
woman named Bethany. It seemed like a fun crew, so I decided to go
ahead and hop on board.