Vermont

In the beginning of August, Moon, Hella, Birdie and I went on an exodus to the promised
land. We travelled through spring and early summer in Moon’s white hatchback that was
covered in stickers:

LOVE YOUR MOTHER

ENLIGHTEN UP

COEXIST

This time we left Ithaca by thumb. The route to Vermont follows a horizontal line east to
the capitol where it turns left and shoots along a vertical leyline to the north. It can take
two days to get there if you travel with luck and even more days to reach the Northeast
Kingdom.

When we arrived at the rainbow gathering, we were greeted, “welcome home sister!”

A longhaired bearded man, who looked like one of the plaster casts from the Greek and
Roman antiquities hall of architecture, stood in the middle path center of the trail and
welcomed new arrivals. He wore no shoes, no shirt and his pants were tied up with a
piece of rope. He was covered in dirt from the forest but he radiated good health and
well-being with silver dreadlocks tied in a knot and deep crow’s feet from the corners of
his eyes. I realized that he was much older than he appeared. The young-old man and I
caught each other’s eyes and he said, “welcome home sister!”

“Thank you! I am home.” I knew that I was home. I started to say something to him but
he was already welcoming somebody else. “Welcome home brother!”

“This is not my home. I’m from Brooklyn,” said a newcomer in a bright white shirt.

“We’re all children of mother earth,” the young-old man told him and greeted someone
else. “Welcome home folks!”

I walked into the national forest and entered the alternate reality of the rainbow family of
living light, as we call ourselves.*

* NOTE: The nature of the rainbow family is communal – in other words you include
yourself. All are welcome or as rainbows say, “everyone with a bellybutton.”

There are regional Rainbow gatherings all over the world and a national gathering
happens in a forest each year around the day of interdependence or what the
government refers to as the fourth of July.

The gathering is a temporary city in the woods, an imperfect experiment of living in
Utopia with a community of travelers and nomads – people who live outside the
mainstream of society. There are as many ways to experience the rainbow as there are
rainbows in Peru. Some facts that we all agree on:

Everyone is welcome, meals are communal, service is currency, money is banned, all
goods and services exchanged through barter. The gathering is a refuge from
capitalism — there is no hierarchy, no leader, no laws. There is a council of elders and
community organizers who make decisions through consensus. Whoever is holding the
feather may speak.

The gathering takes form — kitchens with names like Gypsy Café, Jerusalem Garden,
Krishna Kitchen, Lovin’ Ovens and Tea Time – tent neighborhoods in the woods
connected by communal space — main meadow, trading circle, kid village and CALM
(the Center for Alternative Living Medicine) where you are might find a doctor, a nurse,
an herbalist, a naturopath or a midwife. Also: acupuncturists, energy healers, reiki
masters and witches all who provide care free-of-charge.

All of the kitchens were connected by footpaths that flowed like a river down to the main
trail, which was crowded with folks dressed in clothes from many different times and
places — topless women breastfeeding babies, naked children running through the
woods – a free-for-all alternative. People of all ages, ethnicities and identities on the trail
— everyone seemed to be carrying something — an instrument, a water bottle, a naked
baby, a pot of food. Two women with headwraps from Jerusalem Kitchen carried a
commercial-size stainless steel pot of vegetarian stew down the trail to main circle
where it was almost time to serve the gathering tribe – all meals are bring your own
bowl.

The main trail was a spontaneous parade of people who chose to leave civilization
behind and live communally in a forest — many were homeless, some on the road. The
rainbow family travelled in a colorful fleet of buses, vans and cars — all vehicles parked
in a makeshift lot. “A” camp was the only place where alcohol was allowed. The
gathering was a hideout for outlaws but it was not a place without rules. A cloth banner
the size of a billboard at the main gate spelled it out in rainbow letters:

WALK SOFTLY

PROTECT THE LAND

HARM NO LIVING THING

WATER IS SACRED

CAMP TOGETHER

PACK IT IN, PACK IT OUT

KEEP ONLY COMMUNITY FIRES

NO ALCOHOL, NO GUNS, NO MONEY

YOU ARE THE GATHERING

KEEP THE PEACE

As I walked by the rainbow welcome banner, I read the last words out loud, “enjoy the
rainbow with an open heart and you will see the vision.”

What’s the vision? I wanted to know.

I soon discovered that there is a lot of work to do before the vision – meals to cook,
dishes to clean – there is no time to stand around dreaming about the vision. It was time
to get to work and pitch in — as the rainbows say, “to see the vision, build a kitchen.”

First you must find carpenters, materials and tools, a good site at the foot of a north-
facing slope with enough room in the trees for a theater. Behind the kitchen build a
stage with a treehouse under a domed mountain for the moon to rise over in plays that
call for the moon to play a part. The kitchen should not be too far from the water source
since all water is transported by hand in five-gallon buckets. All day long volunteers
walk between the stream and the kitchen with buckets in hand or balanced over their
shoulders on either end of a stick. In the kitchen construct an open-fire cookstove using
stones and mud and a grate, build shelves out of sticks and twine, and a dishwashing station with buckets labeled:

SOAPY and CLEAN

Don’t forget to hang tarps in the trees at an angle in case of rain. We pitched a roof with
an open ridge line to allow smoke from the cook fire to escape, we placed an iron grate
over the stones around the fire and put industrial-sized stainless-steel pots on the grill,
we lit the first fire and once that was lit it never really went out again for the duration of
the gathering. The kitchen was much too busy – the perpetual cycle of food — someone
was always cooking something with a kitchen crew audience and someone was
swinging in the hammock. We pitched tents behind the kitchen, temporary shelter under
tarps, a moveable mutable village. We followed footpaths to get from place to place on
dark new moon nights. The kitchen fed the people and the theater fed the dream. We
built it in a nook between two hills that formed a natural amphitheater – the sound was
amplified by canyon walls – the floor of the theater was dirt and we dug a fire pit to
illuminate nighttime performances. We found fallen logs in the woods and dragged them
to the theater to act as seats. We built a treehouse on stilts above the stage. It looked like one of the Shinto shrines we had learned about in Japanese Buddhism -– bamboo frame, cloth walls, a roof with overhanging eaves — there was a balcony with a railing and a swing that hung down to the stage. This was the vision. We named it the Fifth Dimension.*

* NOTE: It is a truth universally acknowledged that light creates darkness and darkness
creates light. All of duality exists in form. In its true nature the Rainbow Family
encompasses all beings and states of mind on the path to enlightenment but for every
vision realized there are lessons learned – a thief in the camp, a fight breaks out, the
police arrive on horseback and start taking people to jail. There are always shadows
when there is light.

One morning when I had been at the gathering long enough to see the vision, but not
long enough to see the shadows, I woke up before dawn under the slanted roof of a
blue tarp that I was sharing with friends — some old, some new — everybody fast asleep.
We were living on rainbow time – no clocks, no phones, nowhere to go. I laid on the
earth in my sleeping bag with my eyes closed listening to the birds talk to each other
from the treetops. I wondered, what were they saying?

I got up without waking the other sleepers who were lost in a dream within a dream.
They had stayed up all night drinking mushroom tea and telling old vaudeville stories. I
sat in the woods for a long enough time to became aware of sun’s position in the sky.
The human body adapts quickly to the rhythms of nature. When the sun was high
enough to send solar rays through the tree branches and project shadow puppet leaves
(komorebi in Japanese) on the earth, I followed a footpath down to the kitchen of the
fifth dimension. It was so early (or was it late?) that the kitchen was in an unusually zen
state of emptiness. Of course, rainbow kitchens are never closed and at this late/early
hour a skeleton crew gathered to source ingredients, fill bowls with chopped vegetables
and make tofu cakes wrapped in cheesecloth. A pot of coffee steamed on the grate. It
was announced each morning with fanfare, “blessings on the meal!”

I washed dishes from a bottomless stack that piled up each day around a trio of six-
gallon buckets. I had been at the Fifth Dimension long enough to cook soup for all
seasons, vegetable stir fry, lentil soup, ginger curry and popcorn – and wash stacks and
stacks of dishes, piles of pots and pans. The kitchen is the vision and it is a lot of work.
As Ram Dass says, “chop wood, carry water.”

Chop wood, carry water, cook food, wash dishes. I made my way to the cookfire and asked, “what’s on the menu?”

“Everything but the kitchen sink,” said a woman named River who wore her hair in a
headscarf, “because there ain’t no sink in the kitchen!”

She hooted and the kitchen crew laughed. River was the self-appointed head cook. You have to be resilient to run a kitchen in the woods. She hoisted a bucket onto her head and picked up two more with her hands to stay balanced and walked down the path to the river cracking jokes to devotees in the kitchen crew who followed her down to the
water. They would follow her anywhere. She was a living kitchen god.

“How many hippies does it take to screw in a light bulb?” River asked the kitchen crew.

“How many hippies does it take?” they responded like a chorus.

“We don’t screw in light bulbs we screw in sleeping bags!” River roared with laughter
and her followers cracked up too.

All of the water for drinking, cooking and cleaning came from the stream, which made
the obtaining and purification of water the most essential daily task. Nobody one was
exempt – even River the kitchen god hauled water — three buckets at a time. Whenever
the kitchen crew ran out of water they yelled, “water run!” and whoever was nearby who
was not already working was sent down to the river with buckets, bottles and jugs.

“Thank you for volunteering!”

“But I didn’t volunteer.”

“That doesn’t matter!”

An ever-evolving crew of kitchen workers watched pots come to a boil on the cook stove. Everything was cooked over an open flame or in the mound-shaped earth oven
that was built out of mud. Some of the food was donated from local farms, some was
purchased with money from the magic hat, which was passed around each night at
Main Circle, some of the food came from dumpsters. I learned that the dumpsters of
America are full of food that has been thrown away. An organic family farm called the
Garden of Earthly Mirth contributed garlic greens, swiss chard and carrots and the Blue
Heron Farm donated zucchini, eggplants, potatoes and squash.

The kitchen was the central sun of the Fifth Dimension solar system during the day. At
night we gathered in the theater for the show, which was always a variety show
featuring an ever-changing cast of characters. In other words, every night was different.
Our saying was, “raise the roof!”

One fog-covered morning, I followed the footpath down to the theater and sat down on a
fallen log. I was the first one to arrive for the daily theater meeting, which technically
should have already begun. The lack of a concept of time is a running joke at gatherings
— everything happens on rainbow time — the show starts at dark thirty. The theater crew
was known for running late. In slow motion, a cast of characters began to gather on the logs around me – a woman with shiny black hair down to her waist who wore a floor-length dress and crow’s wings, a man with a ponytail and a batik sarong who told us
stories about his avant-garde theater in New York, a woman who looked like an elf with red hair in double buns, a punk kid covered in stick-and-poke tattoos, a woman who introduced herself as Sorrow (her parents named her Joy) and a couple of the
musicians who were part of a collective called the House Band. The last person to
arrive was MC, master of ceremonies, who was wearing white from head to toe. He had
recently become a practitioner of Santeria.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,” the MC’s voice boomed into the treetops. “The
moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived!” He was not one to miss an entrance.
He looked around the group and raised an eyebrow, “welcome to the once in a lifetime,
never the same show twice, daily theater meeting,” he announced to a smattering of
applause. “Remember there’s no such thing as a rehearsal in the game of life!”

The MC carried a walking stick in one hand that he spun absentmindedly. “You’re all
wondering what’s on the agenda for tonight’s performance,” all eyes were on the MC,
“well, I say, ask yourself!” He demonstrated a complicated kick-twirl move that made the
point.

After a few beats, the woman who looked like an elf volunteered, “I wrote a play
yesterday.” She was wearing a flapper dress with fabric draped around her back,
crossed over her chest and tied in a knot at the back of her neck. She had yellow-
flecked green cat eyes and could be described as featherweight.

“My darling swan you wrote a play? Please don’t keep us in suspense — what on earth
is it about?” The MC bowed and gave her the stage.

Leda the Swan as she was known by her stage name gingerly made her way into the
center of the circle, a ghost of a smile on her face. “It’s a play in four acts.”

“An extra act!” the MC was hooked.

“Each act represents one of the elements.”

“The four elements are my favorite elements!” the MC boomed, his voice bounced off
the hills. Then in a more intimate whisper, “and one of my favorite playwrights.” He
kneeled down on one knee and blew her a kiss. Everything was an opportunity for
theater. “Leda, my swan, when you take the stage you steal my heart.”

Leda blew a kiss lightly from her fingertips before returning to the subject of her play.

“It’s very simple,” she said, “each act represents one of the four elements – fire, water,
earth, air — and one of the four directions – east, south, west, north.”

“What about the fifth element?”

Leda turned to the MC, “can we build a crow’s nest in the trees around the stage by
tonight?”

“Everything is possible in the theater,” the MC said, “whatever your heart desires will
come true.” It was hard to tell whether the MC was acting. There was a fine line
between life and art. “Where are my trustworthy stage crew?” The MC called to
imaginary set builders who did not yet exist. “Please build a platform for my lady’s
performance.”

“I’m not your lady,” Leda told him without dropping the beat. “The first act represents the
direction north and the element air.” She continued to map out the play, “east and fire,
south and water, west and earth, north and air. Of course, not necessarily in that order.”
She scanned the audience with green cat eyes. “The last act came to me in a vision on
absinthe — I watched dancers being born from a flame.”

Before she set off travelling, Leda was a dancer in a New Orleans burlesque troupe.
The act that she was known for was based on the Greek myth about Leda and the
Swan. In the story, the queen Leda is admired by the god Zeus, who disguises himself
as a swan and seduces her – some accounts say it was rape. One version of the story
says that she gave birth to a set of twins who hatched from eggs. In Leda the Swan’s
version of the story, which she danced for drunken Mardi Gras revelers, the seduction
was mutual. By all accounts she knew how to hold an audience’s attention with an
intoxicating mix of obscuration and illumination.

The MC could not resist, “the perfect ending is also the beginning!” He started twirling
the stick.

“You know what they say — the show must go on!”

“Hurray hurrah!” said the crow woman.

“Where is the house band?”

“Are they asleep?”

“Will someone please wake up the house band?” The MC turned his attention back to Leda, “my love we need to rehearse.”

Some of the acts were recurring – the gong show, the house band, stilt walkers, fire
twirlers, martial artists. The previous show featured a fight scene between two drunken
masters and a chess match between god and the devil.

“I’m a lover not a fighter,” Leda said, glancing sideways in a way that suggested she
was both, “but I did write a fight scene.”

“My muse is a swan,” the MC swept the stick across the stage like a broom, “the eyes of
our eyes are open.”

“The first act represents the element air and the direction north,” Leda said, “it is a battle
between a masked warrior and a flying dragon.” She sketched out the scene. “The
warrior and the dragon bow to each other in the center of the stage before the fight. The
dragon chases the warrior to one corner, the warrior chases the dragon to another
corner — the battle crisscrosses the stage until they are too tired to fight anymore. They
call it a draw and meet in the middle of the stage for a bow. The warrior removes the
mask and lets her long hair fall down her back.”

“A woman as strong as a dragon!”

Everyone went wild at this news.

The MC yelled, “you are a star!”

“I am a swan” Leda made an exit.

The MC practiced a stick-fighting move. He slashed through the air from the sky to the
ground at a slant and then once more as if drawing the letter X on an invisible wall.

Was it the fourth wall? I wondered.

He spun the stick in a figure eight with one hand and then switched hands and reversed
directions. The vote was unanimous that the crow woman who had the longest hair play
the masked warrior. A straightedge punk who could do a backflip was cast as the flying
dragon.

“Well, don’t leave us hanging darlin,” the MC had many accents in his pocket, “pleasetell what happens next?”

Leda read from her notebook:

ACT TWO

WEST AND EARTH

Leda explained, “in this scene, the people return to the earth.”

“I’ve always wanted to know how that happens,” the MC said.

“We are going to build a giant puppet of Mother Earth.”

Someone asked, “but what will we use to make her?”

“Things that we find on the earth,” Leda said.

Mother Earth would enter from the back of the theater and gather the audience in her
arms. Her face would be luminous like the moon and we would make her a pair of giant
hands that were big enough to hold the world.

“I have bolts of fabric in my trunks that we can use as arms.” Leda traveled with several
vintage steamer trunks that were filled with an extensive costume collection. It might
seem impossible to hitchhike with a steamer trunk, but everything was possible for
Leda. She returned to her notebook:

ACT THREE

SOUTH AND WATER

“I will perform a traditional dance in a nontraditional way,” she offered mysteriously, “I
have the perfect thing to wear and not wear in my trunk.”

This announcement was met with catcalls.

“Is there anything we have forgotten?” the MC flowed through the elements, “air, earth,
water…”

Leda took the cue and read the next page:

ACT FOUR

ELEMENT FIRE

THE DIRECTION EAST

“Fire has the power to destroy and the power to create — pinecones require it to release
seeds, sequoias need it to make trees — fire, heat, passion, love — sex equals life.”

“Here! Here!”

“We already have a fire,” Leda said pointing to the fire pit that was used to illuminate the
stage, “now we need sex to make life.”
No one knew what she was suggesting.

“In my vision on absinthe, I saw naked dancers emerging from the fire.”

“One by one we are all born into the world naked and dancing.”

“So the tale’s been told and so it has been handed down.”

The MC leapt to his feet, “naked fire dancers to close the show!” He started spinning the
stick slowly at first then faster, “the birth of earth!” The stick spun faster and faster until it
no longer looked like a stick but appeared to be a disc with a hole in the center like a
record, “the big bang again and again.” He laughed like a madman.

“Every night is the creation of the world,” the MC called out to everyone and no one in
particular, “who wants to play a part?”

We all said, “aye!”

“Let’s build the set.”

“Showtime is dark thirty.”

We scattered in four directions.

(later that night. dirt-floor stage of the treehouse theater behind the fifth dimension. a fire
illuminates the empty stage)

The house band warms up with scales on a stand-up bass.

NARRATOR: “A long long time ago, a young warrior set off on a journey after winning a
great war that raged for many years, however, the battle is far from over, in fact, it has
only just begun. On the journey, the warrior encounters terrible creatures — a giant with
one eye, sirens with enchanting voices, angry gods, jealous goddess and lotus eaters —
but that, my friends, is another story!”

AUDIENCE: Hoots, whistles and shouts.

It was way past dark thirty. The outdoor theater was filled to capacity with people on
fallen logs, in the aisles, on the ground and in the trees. A fire danced in a trench at the
bottom of the stage, illuminating the scene in flickering light, projecting shadows on
treehouse walls. The play of light and darkness was the only movement on stage.

NARRATOR: “If we shadows have offended, think but this and all is mended: that you
have but slumbered here while these visions did appear — again, another story!”

Where was the voice coming from? The audience searched the stage with no luck.
Someone pointed to a tree where the MC was perched on a small circular platform like
a lookout in a crow’s nest of a tall ship. He was dressed in white from head to toe — top
hat, tuxedo, tails. “Land ho!” He jumped off the platform and swung on a rope to the
stage. He bowed deeply to the audience.

“The Battle of Sky Dragon and the Masked Warrior!”

The crowd cheered and clapped. I watched the audience from behind the stage.

“Remember folks, we don’t clap at the treehouse theater — instead we raise the roof!”
The MC raised his hands in the air and looked up at the summer constellations. “Wait!
What? We don’t have a roof!” He marched off stage like the bandleader of a parade.
The house band played a familiar song.

A lone figure walked onto stage dressed in black with a hood and a mask – the only
exposed feature were eyes. The warrior held a stick with a cloth sack over one shoulder
like a hobo. The house band played along to the warrior’s footsteps. They played a
drumbeat —

kick on beat one

snare on beat three

the time signature 4/4

Suddenly, a flash of movement on the stage. It is sky dragon in wings and headdress.
The warrior and the dragon meet in the center of the stage, frozen in immovable stance,
eyes locked. In a streak of motion, the warrior shook the hobo sack from the end of the
stick revealing that it was a weapon.

Without losing eye contact, the sky dragon reached down and picked up a stick from the
ground with its toes. The next sound was the hollow crack of bamboo hitting bamboo.
The dragon chased the warrior to one side of the stage then the warrior chased the
dragon to the other side of the stage. Hoots and whistles.

“Raise the roof!” someone shouted from the audience.

The warrior and the dragon crisscrossed the stage in battle until they were too tired to
take another swing. The match was a draw. They bowed to each other in
acknowledgment of equality, power and respect. Then the warrior removed the mask
and let her long shining hair fall down her back. She bowed deeply to the audience and
made an exit across the stage. A single sound:

GONG

A drummer played the conga.

DEEP DEEP DEEP

“Whoosh!” someone said.

“Raise the roof!”

“Friends and lovers, lovers and friends, friends of lovers and lovers of friends!” The MC
was back in the crow’s nest. No one had seen him climb up.

“You must see the views from up here!” He leaned dangerously over the crowd. “Wait!
What?” He hung from the edge of the platform at an acute angle, holding the tree trunk
with one white-gloved hand and bringing the other hand to his temple like a lookout.

“Sail ho!” he pointed in the opposite direction from the stage, which caused everyone to
turn around in their seats. It was a giant disembodied head floating towards us like a
sail. The face was painted like the moon. The puppet’s forehead read:

MOTHER EARTH

Mother Earth floated in slow motion through the trees, down the middle path and into
the theater held aloft by a crew dressed in white. As she emerged from the forest and
entered the theater, she wrapped everyone in a pair of flowing arms made out of yards
of fabric and a pair of giant cardboard palms.

Mother Earth gathered us and held us there, her head gently swaying side to side. We
stayed there for so long that eventually the audience broke out in cheers.

“Love your mother!” someone shouted.

“No compromise in defense of Mother Earth!”

Mother Earth kept holding on to us – swaying gently in the moonlight, shadows dancing
on her face. I watched the scene from behind the tree house with the other dancers who
were waiting to be born. Someone had smuggled in a bottle of contraband red wine that
was passed around. I passed the bottle to the fire dancer next to me, who took a swig.
Mother Earth slowly receded into the forest.

The house band played steps on the stand-up bass. Leda took the stage wearing a
kimono and holding a paper parasol. In her other hand, she carried a small suitcase,
which she placed in the center of the stage on the ground. She propped the lid open
with the parasol handle, slipped off wooden geta sandals and knelt on the ground with
infinite grace. She began to remove impossible things from the suitcase – a
checkerboard card table, two folding stools, a pair of tea cups and a flowering branch of
apple blossoms that she arranged asymmetrically in a vase. The last object that she
pulled from the suitcase was a squat cast-iron teapot, which she used to pour steaming
cups of tea. She moved like a cat as she served tea to the audience. The people yelled:

HOOT!

HOLLA!

Someone asked, “what’s in the tea?”
A reasonable question given the lawless setting – you never know who brewed the pot
but Leda was on to other things. She danced behind a backlit paper screen – her naked
silhouette projected on the surface like a Balinese shadow puppet. Her shadow grew
like a tall tree. Someone yelled, “raise the roof!”

The house band played a song that sounded like the weather.

For the last act, the fire dancer from Seattle took the stage in a costume that was both
turn of the last century and futuristic science fiction. In each hand she held a length of
chain with fuel-soaked rags tied to the ends as homemade wicks. She lit the ends in the
fire and touched the flames to the earth as an offering. She swung one chain spinning
the flame in a circle. She stepped backwards and twirled the other chain, which made
the flames look like a wheel. She walked forward and swung the flames in unison which
created two flaming wheels rolling across the stage. She switched directions and the
wheels rolled the other way.

The house band played along to her movements — she danced to their beat.

The fire dancer stood in the middle of the stage and spun flames in all directions making
a fiery three-dimensional sphere. She danced like Shiva as Nataraja. She unfurled
flames behind her and in front of her like giant folding fans, her timing changed with the
music altering the illusion. She turned her back to the audience and swung the flames
over her head like a golden halo. One subtle adjustment and the ring became a spiral
and then back into a circle facing the audience. A wave of dancers flooded the stage.
The New Yorker who we referred to as the thespian did a dramatic reenactment of birth.
One by one we were born naked and dancing in front of the fire.

The house band played a wild set. Everyone got up to dance. Soon there was no
distinction between stage and audience or theater and life. Everyone drank the tea. The
treehouse theater was known for psychedelic tea parties. We danced until the moon
set. At some point I returned to camp. People slept on stage. Hot coals simmered in the
trench. The MC slept in the tree house. In the kitchen, a few of the earliest risers rattled
pots, banged pans and stoked the kitchen fire.

“Who wants to go on a water run?”

“Is anyone free to wash dishes?”

After the vision, we went our separate ways. The Rainbow Family dispersed in the four
directions. Hella and Birdie decided to stay in Vermont. Moon set her sights on the
horizon.

I sailed back to Ithaca.

by Lea Lion