Inside the rainbow: Love, mud and smoke welcome members home
GIFFORD PINCHOT NATIONAL FOREST — It’s unnerving the first time you hear it: A stranger smiles big and says, "Welcome home. I love you."
It’s a kind sentiment, to be sure. But then you realize you’re expected to say it in return. And, well, telling strangers you love them doesn’t come easy for the uninitiated.
Dozens of people greeted me, my wife, Shawna, and Daily News photographer Bill Wagner this way as we hiked into the Gifford Pinchot National Forest Wednesday to camp with the Rainbow Family of Living Light.
The family welcomes everyone to one of America’s national forests each year to eat, dance, sing and pray.
"Welcome home," they tell each other as they settle in for this time of simply being together.
"Lovin’ you!" they call out in camp, again with the big smiles. Very few use their true or full names.
The event officially begins Friday and climaxes Monday when attendees will meditate and pray for peace in Skookum Meadow. As many as 20,000 are expected to camp here before the event officially ends next Thursday.
It’s impossible to say how many had already arrived at the meadow Wednesday. One Rainbow elder put the number at between 5,000 and 7,000.
Calling this a camp-out for hippies doesn’t quite do it justice. Think of it as how the survivors of a societal meltdown — fuel supply collapse, apocalyptic economic crash, nuclear attack — might give civilization one last shot.
Cars from just about every state line the forest road for miles. It’s a two-mile hike to the main camp, where trees give way to an open meadow speckled with tents and teepees. More tents are tucked among the evergreens, near thick and wet snowdrifts. Smoke rises in plumes from cooking fires. Branches and carefully cut logs serve as foot bridges across a clear mountain stream that snakes through the camp.
There is no money here. People cook fresh vegetables, stew, oatmeal and rice in giant, dented pots over roaring fires. The masses wander along muddy trails with cups, bowls and spoons, lining up to eat for free.
Others pass glass marijuana pipes and joints, the skunky smell blowing over the camps.
Many barter. As I strolled into camp, a woman offered me chocolate for pot.
There’s a different feel in each part of the gathering. In the western meadow, the older traditional hippie-types and professionals with kids have set up camp. To the east, just beyond a grove of trees, are the "Dirty Kids" and "gutter punks" — the young and homeless, who wear mostly black. Some have tattooed faces and pierced cheeks. The mood here is aggressive, loud and brash.
Drumming The Forest And The Trees - News
Presented in partnership with the Asian Canadian Special Events Association. The trees are alive! Vancouver's groundbreaking masters of projection will apply their high-tech artistry to the Stanley Park forest. The Urban Visual Interaction Lab connects
They are often thunderous, with Romanowski's drums pushing everything forward, but then dissipate into ornate guitar crawls. It sounds like the bark of forest trees split open to form growling mouths as the wind howls through their branches.
Cars from just about every state line the forest road for miles. It's a two-mile hike to the main camp, where trees give way to an open meadow speckled with tents and teepees. More tents are tucked among the evergreens, near thick and wet snowdrifts.
Ruffed grouse hunters hope that increases in spring drumming by male grouse will bring more birds and better hunting this fall. / Rich Stedman/Submitted The ruffed grouse is every wildlife manager's dream because only its habitat, not the bird or
As one team guesses, the other drums and sings to boost their side's morale — and to taunt their rivals. What was once invasive English Ivy taking root on Stanley Park's forest floor is being transformed into large woven sculptures by lead artist
The Little Girl and the Drums | Sherwood Forest Faire
I have spoken about the desire and mission of Sherwood being the development of a sense of tribe or community. It is a core value of our business and our souls. The transmission of traditions, values, mores, and rituals from generation to generation is paramount for Sherwood to be enduring. The time since we closed the faire this year and today has intensified my feelings of this matter…as I have found myself wondering why we are not all together on an ongoing basis if we truly enjoy each other’s company and the extended family we are creating. I have actually found myself sometimes floundering in my 8-5 job of late without the escape come friday evening when I would otherwise be traveling Highway 21 to find myself amidst your love and comradre.
Enclosed is a beautiful articulation of the hope we have for Sherwood as an enduring and passionate expression of family…from one of our very own fairies regarding an experience her daughter had within the magic of Sherwood.
Read, enjoy, know that Sherwood is yours. Embrace the vision. Bring your best to Sherwood!
Love and respect (and see you in July at the next Gathering),
Rengypsy
The Little Girl and the Drums
This year I was able to share that experience with my daughter, Cayley. She fell in love with faire, with Sherwood Forest, the second she walked through those gates on the way to the Greenwood Stage for rehearsals. I recognized the expression that came over her face — the awe, the sheer wonder of it all, and that sense that there was something truly magical lingering beneath those giant trees.
That same expression returned one Saturday night in January, the weekend that was to be the final gathering before Sherwood opened its gates to the public for its second season. This time, however, it was coupled with a gleam in her eyes and a flush on her cheeks. There were drummers at Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem that night, and she was positively mesmerized by the music they made, by the way their hands moved over their instruments.
Cayley never moved far from that stage, eventually finding enough courage to actually go and sit by those men and women she presently revered, drumming with fingers on her thighs in some effort to replicate the rhythms. When one of the drummers put his drum in her hands and another sat next to her and taught her some basics — and continued to offer pointers throughout the evening — I knew she was hooked. I had never seen her as happy as I had that night. Her smile was a permanent fixture, and I of course, was telling everyone I knew — or anyone I didn’t know, but was within earshot — that that was my baby up there, with a similar expression. She played for hours and was still tapping out beats in the car on the drive home. Imagine her disappointment then when she learned that the drummers weren’t going to be at the pub every single Saturday night from there on out.
Drumming The Forest And The Trees - Bookshelf
Bulletin
DRUMMING " TIMBER IN THE COVES. The plateau is easily lumbered. . The land is so level and the forest so open that trees may be feiled in the desired ...Bulletin
The forest was lumbered with no thought for its welfare. Logs were cut only from the choicest oaks and Tulip-trees: boards, ties, fence rails, and firewood ...Beyond bop drumming
1 and 2; Ron Fink, Drumset Reading; Jack DeJohnette and Charles Perry, The Art of Modern Jazz Drumming; Martin Bradfield, The Forest and the Trees Snare ...Bulletin / United States. Forest Service
DRUMMING " TIMBER IN THE COVES. The plateau is easily lumbered. The land is so level and the forest so open that trees may be felled in the desired ...The forest and the trees, a guide to excellent forestry
Since such trees are usually poor quality timber trees, they should be saved ... of the commercial forest land ... in eastern Oregon and northern California ...Daily Information Directory
Drum Manor Forest Park | nidirect
Drum Manor Forest is a small yet varied and attractive forest estate located near Cookstown, Co Tyrone.
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