44 ... Gabriel Morristhe road. We made a campfire to cook dinner and then lay out our
sleeping bags on the ground under the expansive Wyoming sky.
The next morning, we came across another carload of people—
with better directions than our own—and we followed them, after
several more winding, dusty miles, to the Welcome Home parking
lot. We parked our trucks in a huge clearing filled with row after row
of vehicles. From there, we packed up our backpacks, drums, shovel
and water containers, and hiked the three miles down a path to the
main circle meadow, with many a “Welcome home!” along the way
from folks passing by. We stopped to rest in the huge main meadow,
at a large circle of folks forming there for a late breakfast of oatmeal
and pancakes with honey.
We joined the circle for a free and delicious breakfast (it’s indeed
true that everything tastes better in the woods) as well as some friend-
ly conversation with like-minded folks. Afterwards we hefted our
belongings onto our backs, once again, for the final push, and hiked
into the woods to find a good campsite. Soon enough we found an
excellent spot, amidst a large grove of trees in the center of another
large meadow, a short stroll through the woods from the circle we’d
just attended at the main meadow.
The annual national Rainbow Gathering is an event like no other.
It is a free-form festival held in one of America’s many National For-
ests, with as many as 0,000 people attending. It is a month-long
ceremony, imbued with deep primal energy, emotion, spirituality,
and love. But, unlike many gatherings of alternative-living folks these
days, such as bluegrass festivals, hemp fests, farmer’s markets, reg-
gae festivals, or renaissance fairs—in which the people gather around
a particular band or theme—most people go to a Rainbow Gathering
for the sole purpose of hanging out together. It is essentially a huge
family reunion, of many different sorts of people, who come togeth-
er to celebrate in a myriad of different ways. It quickly takes on the
feeling of a small village spread throughout the forest.
Now, in case you’re horrified at how this might impact the land,
I should mention that, despite what might sound like chaos, there is