Processing our emotions

Every year at the gathering, I feel the universe is teaching me a new lesson. If I fail to embrace and learn the lesson, then it comes back to haunt me at another gathering.

I feel the same about this year. Not gathering taught me new lessons. I learned how strong our family really is, how we clung to each other when we didn't know what to do, how we created ways to discuss and listen to each other. I learned that using our hearts and our minds, we could manifest right action and focus on the needs of the human family instead of our own heart's breaking.

I saw the power of consensus by foot. The consensus to not gather was not made on the land, but it was made by foot and by those thousands of feet oming from home or in small clusters of people.

I saw the powerful emotions of my sister who truly believed praying for world peace on the land was the most important action she could take and who was willing to die to pray for peace on the land.

Even my own little July 4th movie was derailed by an all night conference call, lack of sleep, and the powerful energy that inhabited my being.

I've missed a lot of gatherings over the last 30+ years due to care giving challenges, graduate school, and trying to create a career for myself that I value.  Gathering isn't the only part of my life but during June and July, it is all consuming no matter if I am on the land or not.  No matter where I am, my heart is on the land and with my family. If I'm working I get nothing done. If I have local projects, they fall by the wayside. It's much easier to go to the gathering because non-gatherers understand going camping in the woods. What they often don't understand is that I am not paying much attention to my local community when I stay at home.

We are complex creatures and need to love and nourish ourselves.

Image by Lisa Runnels on Pixabay

I want to honor everyone who feels safe enough to express their emotions. We feel the way we feel and our feelings are not right or wrong, it's just the way we feel. I know many of us, myself included are working on processing these swirling emotions. I also know in my hearth that we understand each other best when we are sitting together on the land and can listen with our breath, our ears, our eyes, and our energy. I long for us to be together again and share with each other so we can heal as a community.

I know many one-on-one relationships will be damaged for a long time.  But, I got to "know" people I had barely met before by listening to their heart song on the phone or online.

New relationships have sprung up. Old ones have withered. This is the circle of the world. What decays provides nutrition for that which is growing. May all be relationships be processing and growing.

I'm writing an article on this year's gathering and would love to hear your thoughts

The working title of my article is "The Rainbow Gathering and COVID-19: How a physically dispersed anarchist community addressed the pandemic" and it has been accepted for the December 2020 issue of
Communities: Life in Cooperative Culture magazine.

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

The article addresses  how COVID-19 impacted our annual gathering that takes place July 1-7. The article will focus on how participants responded before, during, and after the event as well as the aftermath for our community and those impacted. I am doing my best to gather responses from individuals with different perspectives on the course of events created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

I have created an online survey that you can take for your opinions to be included.

Feel free to reach out to me if you would prefer to respond via telephone eight five eight four zero five seven five zero three or email (kzirk at earthlink dot net).

Vision Council Consensus (2021)

Updated 7/11/20 @ 7:30 a.m. California time

Looks like the people who choose to gather had a vision council/counsel/circle and came up with the following consensi:

Day 1: We the People, being individuals present at Rainbow Family Vision Counsel at the 49th annual Rainbow Gathering of Living Light in the Payette National Forest* on the 7th day of July 2020, convene and consecrate our manifest through Consensus by Silence.

1. We reaffirm that our living vision thrives and relies upon Consensus found on the land in Open Counsel.

2. Consensus is our very best means of advising, but is not binding, and new advice or current situation may cultivate new consensus from individuals present when the people gather in counsel on the land.

3. We suggest that Harvest Counsel be called as close as feasible to the consented 2021 Gathering region, on the weekend of the full moon after the fall equinox.

4. We encourage individuals to share all of the vision counsel consensus instead of just part of it.

5. With great joy and abundant enthusiasm, we invite all who carry hope and intent to join us in a morning of Silence from dawn until noon to constitute World Peace through inner peace, and together with Open Hearts for the 50th Jubilee Rainbow Gathering July 1-7 2021, and to counsel our vision on the seventh day oh, somewhere in the regions of: Santa Fe, Carson, Cibola, Lincoln, Gila, Apache, Coconino, Kaibab Prescott … in a National Forest.

Day 2

6. We call for a discussion on Rainbow Caravans to be held on July 1st at Main Counsel.

7. The Earth as a whole is the common heritage and responsibility of the life borne upon her.

8. We close the 2020 Vision Counsel with a silent passing of the feather.

* Blog owners note: The counsel/council/circle took place in the Nez Perce Clearwater National Forest not the Payette