What just happened to the Rainbow Gathering
on June 17, 2015 at 0241UPDATE: Frank, the young man discussed as the Occupy kid in this article, passed away later that same year.
He was murdered.
What happened is a magnificent fuck-up. Please, bear with me. This is complicated.
What happened is that a young person took more power than he should have been able to and made a spectacularly unwise decision, and the old people are just not immune to hearing what they want to hear. Are you? Nobody in this whole world is.
What happened is Occupy.
We sent Occupy out into the world, and they learned our system and took it to the next level. I don’t know if you know how Occupy works, but they use Rainbow’s consensus-based council system for decisions. However, unlike Rainbow, Occupy wasn’t made of vagrant misanthropes who hate talking. It was made of shiny new and optimistic bright young things, and they took our politics to the next level without taking the trouble to inform us.
So this Occupy kid came to the Gathering for the first time in 2012, and of course he feels right at home, and of course he fits right in, and he jumps right into the Vision Council process, and of course he owns it right away. Because he knows all about councils and building consensus. But he doesn’t know a thing about Rainbow. He doesn’t know you’re supposed to sit through a council or two before you start talking. He thinks of the Black Hills of South Dakota, but he hasn’t been around long enough to know why we don’t think of the Black Hills. He has the skills but no wisdom.
That’s why South Dakota was wedged into the Vision Council Consensus!
And of course everybody ignores it, and says it’s gonna be in Michigan, because everybody knows there are no sites in Vermont and everybody knows that every couple years some wingnut gets South Dakota into their head, they just got it farther this year, no big deal and it’s easy to avoid.
But this kid isn’t a wingnut. He’s a player.
Seriously, you should read what he wrote. He played the Council like a harp. I learned a thing or two about peacenik Machaevellianism from his description of how he got this through Council.
So he actually manages to wedge SD into the Consensus, and then he actually goes and does the legwork. He goes to the Black Hills and starts asking around.
And this is where it turns to tragedy.
Because we’ve been waiting for an invitation for thirty years, but this kid doesn’t know that. He just goes and pokes around Pine Ridge and says, this is great! Everybody wants us, come on over. I met this guy at the gas station and he says he likes hippies.
So he tells the scouts.
And the scouts and the oldsters and the High Holies, they have been waiting to hear these exact words for thirty years.
I don’t know if you know this, but we’ve been pining away for a long time, wanting to come home to the Black Hills. We want to be invited. We have been waiting and waiting to be noticed and taken seriously, and it’s never even vaguely happened. The Lakota have better things to do than hang out with incoherent anarcho-utopianists, and they have not been paying attention to us.
But these guys have been pining away, just waiting for the Lakota to ask them to dance. Because this is a big deal, and it has always been a big deal. We want their respect. We want them to treat us as equals. We want to earn it.
And then this kid comes and tells them exactly what they want to hear.
And, god love every one of them, they believe him. Because he’s not a wingnut. He’s a player. I don’t think he even necessarily knows that he’s playing people.
So the scouts go to the Black Hills and they have a great time and meanwhile off in Babylon we’re all just doing our thing, assuming they’re exploring Michigan for another bug-infested shithole like 2002. So nobody tells them, hey, we can’t do this, we don’t have an invitation. And they think they have an invitation, or close enough to it, and anyway they’re so good at what they do that they’re pretty used to nobody telling them what to do. So they do what they do, and nobody’s telling them different.
And now here we are.
The Lakota do not seem to remember issuing that invitation.
Now the Rainbow family is in a bizarre argument with the Lakota, supporting the USFS against the sovereign custodians of the Black Hills. Breaking our own traditions to do so. I don’t know if you know this, but the Lakota never gave up the Black Hills. They were taken after a treaty that they refused to sign, paid for with money that they have refused to accept, and generally wrangled away from them in a process so disgustingly corrupt that even the United States Supreme Court said we had to give the Black Hills back. Which the government refused to do. Even the UN supports the Lakotan claim to the land. So why are we acting like the Black Hills are an American national forest? Is that what we want?
Obviously fucking not!
Since when do we carry water for the USFS?
Since never.
Don’t we have a tradition against Gathering in the Black Hills before the Lakota invite us?
Why yes we do.
So the internet (me definitely included) kicked up a screeching fit, trying to get the people at Council (who obviously feel that gathering in the Black Hills is okay, since they’re there) to put the brakes on and move the site from Spring Council. Even though the next nearest site is in Michigan. Which we already know, from 2002, sucks in the summer. And it’s like 400 miles away. This is totally unprecedented — we’ve never moved more than fifty miles from Spring Council for the actual site, except in 2002, when we went to the site in Michigan, which sucked. Plus I hear the Black Hills are really nice. So the people on the ground, they don’t want to move. They were not originally amenable to the idea that what they were doing had ramifications that they hadn’t seen.
But the kid who set it all up, he’s figured out he did wrong. The scouts are apparently out in Michigan, desperately looking for something we can use (the reason they’re in Michigan is that the Vision Council consensus was for the Great Lakes, Vermont, and South Dakota. It is the craziest consensus in the history of Rainbow, which is why sane people ignored it). There are *hopefully* a lot of protest voters on the way to Spring Council, and the internet has CERTAINLY made its displeasure clear.
There are regionals springing up everywhere because nobody wants to piss off the Lakota — I didn’t sign up for an ethically compromised land grab disguised as a party and neither did anyone else.
I really think we may be able to stop this. We’ll find out when Spring Council meets, which is….later today!
And while we’re looking for places to have some of this year’s inevitably split Gathering, can I just say….
Kentucky!
UPDATE: I can understand how some people, when reading this, could get the impression that I was insulting Michigan. I apologize for my words, they were poorly chosen there. What I’m saying is that the 2002 site in the Upper Peninsula, which we were forced into by governmental pressure, was wildly unsuitable and had the worst bugs that I’ve ever experienced in my entire life. It was literally a bug-infested shithole, and by shithole I mean that the ground was clay and we had 8,000 people living on a logging road and it rained all the time so the latrines filled up with water and it just generally did not smell good.
And the deer flies were so bad they would even bite you underwater!
If you were at the 2002 Gathering you can understand why few of us are enthusiastic about going back, especially to another emergency site. I didn’t mean anything against the Great State of Michigan or the people who love it!
And by the way I had a GREAT time at the 2002 Gathering. Changed my life, met some of my best friends I’ve ever had, grew as a person, caught pneumonia and had to stay at CALM for a week, ended up volunteering there for ten years straight.
Thank you Vermin! By far the most cohesive and concise overview of our current dillema. I’m going where you go.
I’m not Vermin Supreme but if I were I would say “thank you!” all the same.
Reply posted to Red Power Media and awaiting the Moderators approval.
Please feel free to share this far and wide.
Although I can hardly agree with the threats made and do think that it dishonors Rainbow, one must also consider that long prior to that that James “Magaska” Swan did in fact threaten to scalp the hippies, which is also a death threat that certainly should not be ignored and make this all look like a one sided affair.And factually he made those threats against peace loving hippies who have for decades worked with our Lakota brothers and sisters on a myriad of issues, saving a sacred grounds in the Black Hills which buy purchase was returned to the Lakota. Providing assistance during natural disasters that affected many on the Pine Ridge and Rosebud.Respectfully attending the Sun Dances at the invitation of such honorable Lakota as Good Voice Elk and assisting where requested. We did in fact provide assistance at the last major incident at Wounded Knee, at great risk to our volunteers. We have stood solidly behind all efforts of free our imprisoned brother Leonard Peltier, thee longest held Political Prisoner on earth. I am also as member ofwww.theelders.org founded by Nelson Mandela whom I shared Leonards situation with and who also requested President Obama that he be released as the honorable thing to do.
We did in fact provide assistance at the last major incident at Wounded Knee, at great risk to our volunteers. We have stood solidly behind all efforts of free our imprisoned brother Leonard Peltier, thee longest held Political Prisoner on earth. I am also as member of www.theelders.org founded by Nelson Mandela whom I shared Leonards situation with and who also requested President Obama that he be released as the honorable thing to do. Please note also that Nelson Mandela declared the Union of South Africa to be a Rainbow Nation where all would be treated equally and retribution against those who oppressed all peoples of color would not be their way. He too was a highly respected Elder and in fact one of thee most highly respected Elders of all Indigenous Peoples worldwide.
I have also communicated directly with James “Magaska” Swan to try to resolve things and met nothing but negative feedback and personal attacks and threats. I am an Elder of the Rainbow and of Seneca decent and quite frankly his threats are a joke to me as I know no fear and stand by what it right and proper.
In my communications with him I did in fact cite that many Lakota do want Rainbow there for its’ event in the Black Hills National Forest. I also cited a few names which have also been mentioned here, but he demanded that I give him all of the names so that he could do them harm and accused them of being sell-outs.
He has also spoken very badly about A.I.M. and said that disgraced Lakota & First Nations peoples who as drunks gave all First Nations a bad name. That, to my way of thinking anyways, it extremely disrespectful of our highly Honorable A.I.M members and founders such as Leonard Peltier Russell Means, Leonard & Mary Crow Dog and the list of honorable Warriors goes on and on. Not to mention that to this day A.I.M. is still active and honorable.
It should of course also be mentioned the James “Magaska” Swan has flat out lied in other regards as well.
He has stated that Idle No More, a First Nations Network which I am personally involved with and on every one of their page, would not permit any Rainbow folks nor allow comments on the situations his has caused. That is a flat out lie. I in fact did post the situations following his statement to every single Idle No More page from Canada to Chile. And anybody who so chooses may check that.
What I see here is a racist & bigoted person who may of of Lakota blood, but certainly not of Lakota Spirit, who is nothing but a blow hard and Bully Boy set on destroying Rainbow and it’s honorable relations with our First Nations with whom we are involved with and fighting many battles for and with.
I does sadden me that Red Power Media supports such a dishonorable man and his efforts to divide the peoples, both Rainbow and our First Nations relations, as well as the Lakota themselves.
Honorably Submitted
Rainbow Hawk: Warrior of the Rainbow; Seneca
P.S. A lesson in what Basic Rainbow is:
BASIC RAINBOW:
The most basic truth of what “Rainbow” is resides in the Prophecy which gave it its’ birth.
Rainbow Gatherings evolved upon the concept of fulfilling the Prophecy and it is those who are doing the real deeds needed to restore the Mother Earth to her former beauty who truly represent what Rainbow is.
Of course Peace is absolutely essential for such to happen, so Rainbow also represents Peace.
It is the unity of all colors, all peoples, all life which lives upon the Mother Earth and our purpose for being is to take care of nature and to help bring it back into balance so that all life forms live in a healthy environment which can be pasted on to future generations.
If one attends Rainbow Gatherings and is not involved in actions to fulfill the Prophecy they are spectators there to learn from those who are involved and not participants if they are not there to learn and become true Warriors of the Rainbow.
It’s far more than just a free party in the woods with lots of empty talk and endless opinions.
Indigenous Peoples Prophecy:
When the Mother Earth is sick and the animals dying, there will come a tribe of peoples from all cultures who believe in deeds, not words, and they will restore the Mother Earth to her former beauty.
It’s always pleasant to hear from you, man. Thanks for the good words.
sir, I really believe you are severely delusional. You are NOT NATIVE. We don’t need your help.When have we ever asked for a non Natives help? never! Natives here in New Mexico ,myself included, have seen here the destruction upon the lands you brought here twice in your national drugfests .It was , and is still the most despicable display of destroying the earth, your own bodies and the bodies and minds of young children ,and the open worship of all things evil. All under the false pretense of your distorted view of rainbow “love”. AIM would like nothing more than scalp and shoot you and your ” family” . They don’t like outsiders ,especially the fakes like yourself, who claim Native affiliation . Are you an enrolled tribal member ,not re cognized but ENROLLED with your C.I B . (certificate of Indian blood?)Given to you at birth? I find it laughable your support of AIM, and world savior attitudes. You aren’t capable of knowing our ways nor will you ever be included in ANYTHING we do. I am in agreement with James Swan views of scalping ALL non natives coming onto tribal lands. FYI . you are subject to OUR rules and regulations upon setting foot on our lands . There is no law enforcement except tribal ,and sorry buddy but you aren’t protected nor are your so called rainbow warrior family. Beware you are on Indian land and sorry pal your not Welcomed home here!!!!
. //I am an Elder of the Rainbow and of Seneca decent and quite frankly his threats are a joke to me as I know no fear and stand by what it right and proper //
“Elder of the Rainbow” ? what a joke! that’s a title now? you’re a bandy-legged, wild-eyed womanizing huckster.
you wouldn’t know what was right and proper. you’re a pedantic fraud — an LSD enlightened neo-guru with misguided notions about reality.
why don’t you tell the world about that bad LSD deal back in the 80’s you all .
all year long people who knew better tried to tell you people that it couldn’t be done and none of you would listen. now the people of that land want your scalp. probably make a nice decoration for their toilet seat.
one thing is for sure, dude. the north American council will always have somebody there who remembers what you and that CONVICTED sex offender have done to the family’s reputation with the native people .
the unbelievable mountain of lies told to the natives about crow dog and the AIM leaders has now blown back and caused what will amount to incredible embarrassment for chief looking horse and more death threats against me for being the one that informed crow dog that he was being branded a sellout and accused of selling tickets to sun dance. there must be some terrible evil afoot if it took me the better part of the year to even get to the man to let him know this was happening and that evil is the people behind you that you are probably so full of yourself you don’t even know they’re there .
you’re not long for this world, you bandy-legged weasel. I pity your immortal soul when your body leaves it.
Can’t y’all go to Facebook and yell at each other? The only one who has to read this stuff here is me.
lol. come yell at me at youtube. my fans love it.
add me as ctomeez0013@gmail.com
yell at me at facebook on my wall and i’ll report it for hate speech. 😉
geoff I apologise for the ‘mericans. you europeans send all your missfits and criminals to this continent and then you wonder what happened…..
You ain’t wrong.
But I’m American too.
this line of reasoning always hurts me to see it and clinging to it this way only contributes to the festering wound that was opened in 1492.
how can a person not be native to a place if that’s where they were born? because their parents are immigrants? so were yours. they just landed on turtle island before ours and could possibly have killed off somebody else to live where they are now.
I am a native Chicagoan from a tribal culture that was chased here from Europe and I come from a medicine clan. for many years, when I met native people, they were happy to meet me and we shared our cultures.
now the UUWS is standing there telling me that I’m not a two spirit, the person who told me these things is a sellout and they accuse me of stealing their culture, when in reality, I’m trying to do a patch job on my own, damaged by the same khazarian barbarians who have nearly driven yours to extinction, now feeding you a load of crap about it the fat takers are happily gobbling goebbels’ great lie along with the rest of the brain dead zombie ameriKKKan wage slaves..
the oral tradition was broken when my great-grandfather was orphaned by a pogrom and now , after having so many of the gaps filled in by crow dog and other wise people, they are branded ‘sellouts’ and I am accused of hijacking their culture for profit, while I’m dirt poor living off disability while he is gatting fat off CIA backed proprietaries that feed him.
he must have had more ‘impotent’ things to do than to communicate with me respectfully at the gate. dude never acknowledged my presence and then somebody sicced a lot of dogs on me after he banned me after I attempting to discretely point out the gaffe.
the whole thing stinks of suckers everywhere. as a sensible native chicagoaan, i’ll be watching this shit stew volcano erupt from the safety and security of my studio in the integrated community, the historic iron horse in tucson that loves me as the two-spirit Hebrew-American NATIVE US BORN&RAISED SS#NNN-NN-NNNN that I am.
I AM crazy tommy Jayne tooter, the whistle blower from Chicago, born to the clan kohan for the clan gershom of the tribe levi, in the nation of Israel. my tribe was the only one given no allotment of our own, just provisions ordered to the others to accommodate us.
I definitely resent being blamed for things somebody else’s ancestors did hundreds of years ago that my family had nothing to do with. I don’t know who is writing your propaganda folks, but it looks like somebody did a find and replace on the Israeli ministry of information’s hasbara handbook to me.
same lame class privilege and invalid colonialist authorities, with the names and places changed.
when the white man’s medicine failed to properly repair a gunshot wound, I was directed to chief crow dog. armed with a bag of tobacco as I was instructed, crow dog asked me why I had come to him. when I told him , his reply was that he could do nothing, but the spirits who worked with him could. and they did, in the most awesome, supernatural display I have ever witnessed.
not a penny changed hands. it was a gift exchange and completely kosher, yet crow dog is denounced for sharing his gifts with wasicu and I am called a fakebow by fools conditioned to automatically hate me just for not being one of them.
the first rainbows have been walking the red road shoulder to shoulder down the red road with AIM since 1972, doing the best we could to protect our people , animals, plants and minerals from not only the insane technology that empire deploys, but also the alien mind poison that makes people lie to themselves and be willing to kill people for somebody else’s ideology.
I’ve watched with great sadness as the rainbow family dream was destroyed by this hippie mafia that hijacked our consensus with bottles of LSD and bales of weed in 1985. today, used needles are left in the front gate fire pit.
It is with even greater sadness that I see this same mind poison emerging in the supremacist separatist philosophy of the united urban warfare society .
when did you folks decide you wanted to called something that’s named after the incompetent navigator of the brutal despot who started the genocide of the first nations peoples on turtle island. why would you want to continue to send your tribal representative to make more treaties to break in that shit pile on the Potomac when you’re already ruled by the bankers in the magnificent city of Chicago on the southern shore of our inland ocean?
at least the bankers honor their agreements. the spawn of khazarian barbarians infesting that shit pile take our resources and turn them into weapons and sell them overseas, poisoning our children and killing theirs.
I am a native to the planet earth. the creator of the planet drew no lines on the ground to define us . I do not recognize the authority of the principalities of man. my people arose in the cradle of civilization and my ancestors migrated into Europe, likely taken there as slaves by greek or roman galleons, wandering up through the Balkans , Germany and Poland until we were chased here in the 1880’s .
when I was introduced to the RFOLL’s gatherings in 1999,after living with family people in southern California after getting kicked to the curb by raygunomics in 1982, and AIM through then, I was shown allies sharing the best of their cultures from all over the world at rainbow gatherings , music festivals , city parks, you name it, any place people could congregate in peace and do people things together.
what is most wrong is for the red people who lived on, NOT owned by them, to hate all ‘white’ people for what a gang of khazarian barbarians pulled off on everybody and continue to do so today.
in order for us to defeat this perverted Judeo-Christian Zionist imperialism, there must be forgiveness, respect and reconciliation between children of all races. these were the teachings of my rabbi, Louis binstock of temple sholom and the teachings of every single first nations speaker I have ever heard, until I encountered this wall of hatred and deceit trying to reconnect to the most powerful medicine chief living for his help in settling down this shit stew volcano getting ready to erupt in the black hills.
all of this territorialism has now resulted in an incredible embarrassment for chief looking horse and I shudder to think what the really crazy horses, dogs and bulls have on their minds right now. if any blood spills, it’s on my spirit for triggering it, but the blame will not be laid on me. the family has assured me of that. uncle leonard’s favorite nephew is on my right side in a private chat group at facebook and joye braun , joelle clark and others are keeping me advised and helping me temper my input.
when I finally got to one of the most noble of all your people and informed him of his being branded a sellout and that he and his son were accused of selling tickets to European sun dances when I know the fact is that they’re concert tickets and uncle leonard has been giving it away for all these years. I also have it from a confidential source that whatever money he is accused of taking for a ceremony, he did not get to keep it.
his answer was “uhhhh,,, I did not know that” when I asked joye braun what to do , she said ‘pray’.
as a long time unofficial spokesperson for the rainbow family of living light, the unofficial line is to trust the process and be kind and respectful to each other online. use this time to find common ground, not further anger each other toward confrontation on the land.
That fake “prophecy” was written by a Christian evangelist. It’s not Indigenous. Please stop spreading the lie that it’s a Native prophecy. It is anti-Native propaganda, with a core message that the Natives will die out (or be disappeared) and the white people called Rainbows will replace them. That’s colonial propaganda. It’s cruel and it’s wrong.
Are you talking about the Hopi prophecy?
I don’t believe in or care about the “Hopi prophecy.” I wouldn’t care if it was authentic or not.
I’ll tell you the same thing that I’m telling everyone else — this is a blog, not Facebook. In order to argue directly with other commentators, you have to be careful about where you hit reply. Otherwise, they don’t read it, but I still have to.
My misteak. Thanks for your insightful assessment.
please don’t push for a “split gathering” as there is no such thing. There will be a National Gathering site announced. If not in SD then in one of the other states on this years list. That’s where folks should head to once it is announced. Gather is the opposite of scatter.
Well, the last time somebody pushed the Vision Council into South Dakota the Gathering divided into regionals, so call it what you will. We can’t gather in the Black Hills and it’s hard to get excited about gathering in an emergency site in Michigan, so why not? No harm done, get to know your neighbors this year and see ya at the big one next year. Let this be a lesson to us to not allow crazy Vision Council consensuses.
not completely accurate. but a nice write up of your observations
unfortunately that which you could not observe firsthand, namely what actually goes on during scouting, you appear to have interpolated what you thought might have happened…
having been to SD, MI, WI, VT, NH and ME to scout for this year, my observations aren’t quite a match with yours. I’ll leave out the specifics so as to not add more flame and confusion to the clusterfuck.
have you been to SD to make any firsthand observations of what’s going on there now?
No, I haven’t. This is purely figuring things out from the internet. I am ready and willing to be corrected on any particular.
At the same time, please remember that I was writing with a deliberately breezy and conversational style because I knew my words would be read by many people outside the family.
I apologize for the fact that I make the scouts come off badly in my post. I feel terrible about that. I truly respect the work you do (and I think I’ve met you a few times, Jules — maybe in NM?), and I am well outside the bounds here by questioning the people on the grounds.
I’m well aware that I owe the scouts a debt at the best of times, and now more than ever. If there’s anything I can do to apologize or make up for my rudeness against you and the rest of my friends, please let me know.
It isn’t your fault that you honored the Vision Council consensus more than it deserved.
Thank you sincerely.
And if you could post a paypal account so that I and some others can make up for some of the gas money we made you waste by not properly dealing with our own Vision Council, I’d appreciate that and add it to the article above.
are you on the ground there or elsewhere, jules? I’m tracking info from local events here and the NWR in providence, in coordination with the continental gathering and the fare thee well shows, shasta, Oregon, Michigan, Shawnee , nerg and katuah, as well as david Williams summer of unconditional love tour, because that’s what I do for my family, whether they like it or not.
loving you for what you do for the true family
happy day
peace
Tommie Jayne
I am tuned in directly to the crow dog family and receiving my input from crow dog’s favorite nephew and the grandmothers, joye braun , the president of the pine ridge UUWS, speaking for the Oglala nation and joelle Clarke, who is apparently speaking for the crow dog family’s winter home ground. joseph horse is down there and they’ve got the leash for the muzzled crazy eagle dog 😉
as usual , me and Gregg Blanchard are on the side tending to our personal enterprises and using the annual shit show for entertainment in our leisure time, watching Garrick, Karin, Carla and finch from the bleachers in bigberthabutt’s rumor control booth.
this year we are joined by a bright young brother who realized I knew what I was talking while the rest of you were believing the character assassins and locking me out of your drama because you didn’t like the lines spirit compelled me to deliver to the shit talking misinformed malcontents.
I had to lock Rebecca powell out for suffering from chronic naivete , a mind poison the fundies dish out, loving heroin addicts so much they use her to book free travel to family homes to prey on. I’ve had four find their way here by that route, as well an RV with a frustrated alpha female and her OCD suffering hubby.
at least she brought me some righteous wrecking crew who was totally respectful of me and the environment and handed at least 2 zones of pretty good B grade stuff for being there and a homeless family with a kid who were working out well until the cosmic clowns punched her ticket and she dropped dead in my backyard the first Saturday of the show.
we had to eject Karin from the group because we weren’t going to get anything but bull from the horses and dogs with her there. I’m sure she understood. Garrick too. Carla not so much but I’m all out of shits to give.
I trust your reliability at this time of year and I would be pleased if you would join us, but you would need to unblock and add me first. I’ve been on hormones for over a month and it’s already harder to get me pissed off enough to unleash tom on full tilt ‘fuck you , fuck you back, fuck you up your alleycrack’ mode aka ‘a red hot Chicago second’ , the only thing more deadly than a new York minute.
last night I spoke to the Tetuwan Judiciary council and was put on speaker with a gathering of their Grandmothers and Grandfathers. There are only two options.
Scenario one: we listen to their elders at council and we apologize to them and agree that when we do come back we will first ask them for permission. According to the head of their tribal council (the REAL council) they swear if we do this that should be ever need the help of the indigenous people that they will be there. We can make a treaty with them-and in effect they say all the tribes they also have treaty with
Scenario two: we decide to stay in SD despite their warning. They will tell every tribe they are in treaty with to oppose us every year forever. In addition they will come to our SD gathering and they will blockade, dismantle camps and take trespassers into custody. They will also sue us for damage.. They will set a precedent and no native anywhere will welcome us.
Council begins in just a couple hours. We have exactly that much time to rally our people because if they decide on option two this will start a civil war in our family and there will be a take over by the new generation and we will all leave AND issue the apology and have a National else where. And it will be a historic moment in Rainbow history.
I have talked with the gentleman of whom you speak but he doesn’t deserve to be the scapegoat and either does Occupy. We have a process and we need to stay true to it. It’s time for the new generation to begin stepping up.
I believe our kids are more than capable.
Fox News in Grand Rapids is calling me back after Council and I anxiously pray that they have decided to be mindful.
And- I’m all for Kentucky except sadly it was not consensed upon.
Vision Council’s great and all, but I don’t consider their resolution very binding this year. Let’s make the best of what we got, talk it over, fix some stuff, and do better next year.
The reason Kentucky was not part of the consensus is the reason why most of the East Coast is never part of the consensus — because there just aren’t any sites big enough for 30,000. But there are definitely sites big enough for a really good regional, and if we just go with the flow and have a bunch of regionals this year we can meet up stronger next year.
PLUS I think the alcohol thing is far enough out of control that we could all benefit from a little more personal attention this year.
I have no idea who you are , where you’re from or what you’ve done other than to be an opininated occupy our hometown queer of some sort or other who turned up for that.
AIM and RFOLL have walked the red road together for 42 years and I’ve been a part of that with a very well documented hipstory for 26.
who are you other than another mentally conditioned, pseudo-intellectual quasi-literate upstart of RFOLL v2.0 to come along and say that anything should be changed from the original consensus when the founders are still alive, some of them gathering with great grand children?
my dear friend Gregg Blanchard joyfully announced the birth of a new granddaughter to be named jasper to central florida. she will be brecciated by her mother joyful soulbringer in a private crystal licking ceremony this week.
in selling their agenda, the UUWS has smeared chief crow dog and made chief looking horse look like a fool. they are now making further fools out of themselves trying to marginalize me with character assassination.
the rainboneheads who thing that such a thing as a ‘member’ of the unofficial rainbow family of living light’s global portal at http://www.welcomehome.org has somehow deluded a lot of people into believing is possible has resulted in the emergence of a hippie mafia that have duped many loving people into serving them up free food, drugs and sex slaves all over the country.
I am one of the family historians and I declare this the year of the continental shit stew volcano eruption. there will be no split gathering and we can only pray that if it stays in south Dakota, a compromise satisfactory to everybody is reached quickly. it would be unprecedented to move it off to Michigan at this point.
the unofficial family line is to trust the process and use this time to either prepare to go home or be kind to each other online instead of all the jerkoff junk jingoism being spewed by all conflicted parties.
I’m not sure I like your tone, Tommi.
Come to Kentucky, dag bernit!
This is exactly why I stopped going to Rainbow gatherings, no respect for the Native People, I went to my last gathering in Fla. and they actually had the main circle on an Indian burial plot!!! Fuck that shit. NEVER AGAIN.
I wouldn’t call what you’re seeing “no respect.” I’d call it “insufficient knowledge about how to show respect.”
give me a freaking break, everybody knows about how it is forbidden for people to enter indian burial grounds except for “the People ” to bury their dead. It is the utmost of disrespect for the white man to trespass on indian land unless they are invited by the tribal council.
You have to admit they don’t exactly teach that in high school. A lot of these kids at Rainbow are there to learn, not there because they already know.
that is an accurate observation and I can give you some insight to how it has devolved to dope shooting and child rape in the woods behind the suckers backs throwing the show, but I won’t give you any detail here. you have to come and play in on my youtube channel with the rest of the kindie garten ghoulies.
That tammi lady has some mental probkems. Quite the shtick she put on, all trying to get other trollish folks like her to her youtube channel. I wonder how many chumps think she is smart/insightful/intelligent?
I’ve been to rainbow gatherings where local natives welcomed the hippies and gave them their blessing. Everyone hung out, and they gave the rainbow people welcome information about the land. Rainbow people are all native earthlings. Thats what makes them rainbow people. There are people who show up and make a mess of things – they are not real rainbows. In general, rainbow people hold utmost respect for local natives. Some make mistakes. This South Dakota fiasco is a bit of a mess. Most folks have no idea that the Black Hills is still claimed by the Lakota nation. Most think it is a national forest, and open to all people. Apparently, it is indian land. Not a good place for a national gathering without explicit consent of the native community. So,time for change. I heard rumors in California that the main circle was on a Indian burial ground. Then it was proven false. Local native elders showed us the sacred sites in that forest. Even pointed out where the burial grounds were, some 30 miles away. I don’t know about the gathering that happened in Florida, but it might also have been a stupid rumor. If it was indeed burial grounds, then it was a big mistake. In some places, the locals love the blessing of a rainbow gathering. IN some places, they dislike it. In every case, I would say most rainbow people, in their hearts, have big respect for natives and their ways. In action, the rainbow people sometimes do foolish things, like lead the group into the wrong place. Funny people.
Well said.
What we’ve learned from this has been priceless.
if our council process had not been hijacked by criminals with an agenda in 1985, the turtle soup kitchen would have been building a fabulous site in the Manistee forest that could have hosted 25,000 easily. the meadows would be small, but there’s plenty of water if you know how to manage it, the beavers have been doing it for millions of years without any tools but their teeth and paws.
to the best of my knowledge , the only reason SD is on the consensus is that nobody ever effectively blocked a lone babbling wingnut.
the raven told me that SOUTH DAKOTA IS A TRAP!! BLOCK!! BLOCK!! BLOCK!!
https://youtu.be/rIszGlL-ofk
You just channeled my thoughts exactly! Wonderful writing! Now go deeper – Operation Golden Cougar and UN troops in the Black Hills.
Hi, Bodhi.
I understand decisions may still be in limbo,I would very much like to be informed of the consensus,has two locations for the national or Eastern Regional gatherings..Presently living in Western North Carolina.
rainbow hawk is an ass hole, i posted an article written by the first nations council prohibiting the rainbow gathering from going to the black hills and he deleted the article and banned me from the rainbow family facebook page. fuck that shit. if the rainbow family will show that much disrespect to the first nations, i hope the federal government starts to arrest all members of said family.
Tragically this is a reality, that the supposed leaders of the Vision Council would allow all we stand for to be mocked and made a parody by the blatent disregard and disrespect of the Lakota. This is by no means a “national forest” and due to the undying controversy surrounding the site and it’s claim by the indigenous peoples, I am greatly hurt that this was made even a consideration at all. Wow. Rainbow
I think it could still work out better than if it never happened. If this brings us closer together, isn’t that just fine? What’s going to come out of this besides a lot of pissed-off politically-aware straight-edge Lakotas joining the Gathering? Isn’t that exactly who we want?
We just want them to not be pissed at us.
I don’t mind the way that Rainbow steers by way of narrowly averted disaster. It’s sort of charming.
And we finally got the attention of the Lakota. Now they know we want to be invited.
actually, the mention of Kentucky was satirical, we had a split national one year, kentucky/alabama… ha, ha… i actually went to kentucky, it was in an abandoned strip pit… it was strange!
I wasn’t kidding, though. There’s definitely someplace in Kentucky, somewhere besides a strip mine, where 5,000 people could gather. We just gotta find it.
Rainbow….all it has turned into is a bunch of humanoids tolerating eachother in woods…I rarely meet real family anymore because everyone is so bitter…with stereotypes and hate. Fuck this person fuck that person…what happened to the love…the world you could escape to and be around like mindedness…I have seen kitchens turn down people for food and heard about raping women. It is saddening and my heart hurts…america may not be the land of the free anymore but that shouldn’t erase love.
I’m pretty sure the rapes have been at a constant level the entire life of the Gathering. Hard to know, there are no statistics. But even the forest is not free of that curse.
The rest of what you said is probably accurate, but I love ’em anyway.
I understand all sides but if this is a national gathering why is it not being held in a national forest this is rainbow this is what we do. We are also about building realizations with are native heritage not just do what we want to because we can..this is not what we do as a people and one of the reasons i will not be attending out of love and respect for my native brothers
You have definitely put your finger on the reasons why so many of us want to do a screeching u-turn and get out of there. We are not about messing up the right of the Lakota to their own sacred land.
I was in a rumor control group yesterday and left for a call and came back and suddenly I see a video posted and they are all saying “let’s start with this guy ” so I said what’s up with this? And they said basically if I care about the family I would give them all I know about the kids and about six other names. I said I knew them and love them and asked why… Why investigate? And so, the wing nut started ranting about how there are thousands of armed fugitives and felons headed to the hills and I was either on the his or off it completely for trusting and harboring these felons.
Then they kicked me out.
They call the kids parasites and worse when around the fire. They come up with all kinds of shocking ways to get rid of them.
At Cumberland (God bless Kentucky!) there was a frantic shanti Sena call that almost nobody responded to. And then when asked to council about the brother and sisters who were injured in that unprovoked attack we were told “it’s not our responsibility”. Whose is it? The kids are begging to be taught. And they are the hardest damn workers I’ve ever seen. They’re just kids that need to be brought in.
I was banned from the largest rainbow group online for refusing to stop posting articles and conversations with the Lakota. It’s very odd for our family to be behaving this way and isn’t making for good press. Because of the Internet and social media we have to be even more careful how we behave.
There are tribes in several states ready to come deal with us because they see ALL of it and are not impressed. I truly hope we can heal ourselves and mend the rifts in the family before it ends us.
We all want the some thing. We have common ground.
We are family.
Let’s be that.
fyi: there are people scouting right now to put some sort of gathering together in Vermont. I do not have specifics. Not I am I certain yet as to if they are getting all of the nuts and bolts together in a proper manner. I have been asking them about water and about putting a filtration system together. I am still awaiting to learn more of their plans. I have however, been in touch with some kitchen who are considering setting up in Vermont. I was contacted because I was asked to put a CALM system together for them. I continue to sit on the sidelines choosing not to muddle up the process. Years ago, my CALM elders told me that the healers should stay out of the debate about where the gathering should be; our job was simply to show up and serve the family by creating a space for healing. Right now I am still on the side, trying to figure our where I need to be to best serve the family.
“Years ago, my CALM elders told me that the healers should stay out of the debate about where the gathering should be; our job was simply to show up and serve the family by creating a space for healing. ”
I mostly agree with that, except my role at CALM has never really been easy to define and I’m just not much use as a medical tech. I don’t really have any great talent as a scout or site builder either. I do other stuff. This happens to be the part that I’m good at, and CALM happens to have all the people I like best. If I’m any sort of healer, it’s on this weird political/metaphorical level.
I think you’re right that we follow the Gathering, and I think you’re right that it’s going to be split this year. I think you should go to Vermont and do a great job and have a great time. We can meet up again next year.
I would like to say one more important thing that a Lakota Grandmother said on the “scout” conference call Sunday night & I paraphrased into this realization which made both Caterpillar & Sibling take notice & say to each other, “we’ve got to come up with another alternative real soon”. It is very similar to some of the ideas shared here.
We traditionally always Gather in “National Forests”. The Black Hills “National Forest” is not actually, ethically a “National Forest”. It has been stolen from the Lakota in a treaty violation by the US govt. who have offered many millions of dollars to the Lakota people for it. The Lakota Nation has never accepted ANY payment for the Black Hills & it is rightfully, still indigenous, sacred land, not a “National Forest”. To try to come to camp on their sacred land without their blessing would make the Rainbow family also Treaty Violators.
However, if we were able to come in solidarity & respect & actually do some important service for the Lakota people & help them in their struggle to regain the Black Hills, as Chase Iron Eyes suggests, maybe we can start some real Rainbow magic. I think that would be the most profound healing on Turtle island that we have ever done, even better than putting the fires out in Wyoming!
Read this new article by the brilliant Chase Iron Eyes about an ingenious compromise, even between everybody & Rainbow Hawk.
http://lastrealindians.com/should-Lakota-nation-welcome-rainbow-family-chase-iron-eyes/
And to speak to the differences between traditional and tribal. The traditional leader is the Spiritual leader, the white buffalo calf pipe carrier, A. Looking Horse, who is doing the http://worldpeaceandpryerday.com now. The tribal leaders are more city people, more into money, many cooperate and interact (often to the traditionalists chagrin), with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the people who want to build pipelines and dig for uranium. Some of them are appointed by the BIA.
I love that article, and Iron Eyes sounds like a very interesting guy in general.
I think the first people from both groups who realize that this is an opportunity for all of us will be able to build some very real bridges. Iron Eyes and this woman named Lovesthem Slowheart really seem to get us, and I think a few of us are starting to get them.
Thank you for speaking out against this invasion.
Chief Arvol Looking Horse has said NO. The Rainbows are not welcome in the Black Hills. Please stop pestering him and his family. Maybe no one discussing this here on this page harassed him, but others who claim to be Rainbows, and who I see posting on other Rainbow pages have been causing problems.
http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=4639.msg40444#msg40444
Chase Iron Eyes has said himself, and we all know, Chase is not empowered to give anyone permission for anything. Chase was *speculating* that maybe it would be OK *IF* Rainbows would stop misappropriating Native culture, *IF* Rainbows would blockade the pipeline, and *IF* Rainbows would blockade the Man Camps. But we all know that is not going to happen. So, the answer from him is also NO.
The answer from the Lakota who have the power to say so is NO. Please respect that and stop the bullying. Some kid that smoked a joint with some self-proclaimed scout has no power to invite anyone anywhere (not even to his own home – he doesn’t have one).
Thank you for herding the cats away from the hills. I hope you can stop the rest of them.
As I’ve mentioned many times, my major concern here is with Rainbow. I have absolutely no ability to evaluate competing claims by native spokespersons, who may or may not be self-appointed. I know Iron Eyes wrote the words that I found the most personally appealing. But I don’t know who has the “right” to do what, and it’s impossible to figure that out over the internet in the middle of a giant flame war.
Rainbow cannot begin to fathom the tribal politics that we have barged into. Another good reason why we should have honored our own tradition and waited until we could get some kind of invitation together.
I’m very glad to have done my bit to change the language of the debate and give people options besides the Black Hills. I think my article has helped in that at least a little bit. I personally will be going to the Shawnee Forest in Illinois for a small regional Gathering. I would love to see the Black Hills someday, but this is clearly not the time.
You wrote: “I have absolutely no ability to evaluate competing claims by native spokespersons, who may or may not be self-appointed”
Thank you for acknowledging this. I know it can be very confusing to those from outside the Native communities. All I can say is it takes time. Years and decades of listening. Then listening some more. It’s not easy, fast or simple.
Thank you for being humble about this and not doing the colonial thing of designating leadership for the Native communities.
khapo seng commented on What just happened to the Rainbow Gathering.
in response to Rainbow Hawk:
Reply posted to Red Power Media and awaiting the Moderators approval. Please feel free to share this far and wide. Although I can hardly agree with the threats made and do think that it dishonors Rainbow, one must also consider that long prior to that that James “Magaska” Swan did in fact threaten to scalp […]
sir, I really believe you are severely delusional. You are NOT NATIVE. We don’t need your help.When have we ever asked for a non Natives help? never! Natives here in New Mexico ,myself included, have seen here the destruction upon the lands you brought here twice in your national drugfests .It was , and is still the most despicable display of destroying the earth, your own bodies and the bodies and minds of young children ,and the open worship of all things evil. All under the false pretense of your distorted view of rainbow “love”. AIM would like nothing more than scalp and shoot you and your ” family” . They don’t like outsiders ,especially the fakes like yourself, who claim Native affiliation . Are you an enrolled tribal member ,not re cognized but ENROLLED with your C.I B . (certificate of Indian blood?)Given to you at birth? I find it laughable your support of AIM, and world savior attitudes. You aren’t capable of knowing our ways nor will you ever be included in ANYTHING we do. I am in agreement with James Swan views of scalping ALL non natives coming onto tribal lands. FYI . you are subject to OUR rules and regulations upon setting foot on our lands . There is no law enforcement except tribal ,and sorry buddy but you aren’t protected nor are your so called rainbow warrior family. Beware you are on Indian land and sorry pal your not Welcomed home here!!!!
Yes, I read it, it is already on this page, and you’ve already been quite clear about disliking Rainbow Hawk. Simmer down a little, please. We’re all friends here.
Calm your arse down Spaztica
I want to say something and I have the support of thousands of Travelers asking me where they should go for Nationals.
I have been criticized for speaking my mind when I am not on the land able to attend Spring Council.
My firstborn is graduating from high school and being a mother is my job- it’s who I am. It is also why I am fighting for the kids who call me Madre and that is the main concern I have here. Their safety is paramount to me.
I have been on the phone for hours over the last week with the traditional Lakota Council- the council actually recognized by the Lakota people. I don’t claim to have any real context or understanding and the Lakota who have spoken to me have stressed that unless we ARE Lakota we can’t possibly understand their hearts. An intellectual understanding is one thing but they are having their children taken and their people killed- the grandfathers beaten. They are losing their language and their culture and it is a systemic intentional violation of their human rights by our Government whose
Interest is corporations and money. As usual. Make no mistake – only 3% of their sacred Black Hills has been left untouched and this is horrifying to them. It would be like Isis coming and taking over our land and our heritage. They are willing to lay down their lives and have informed me that their Warriors – in half a dozen or more states- are anxious and begging to be allowed to head for the Black Hills. The young people that I represent will be the ones at the front who get “roughed up” and who have traditionally been the ones who fight to protect the rest of the gathering. The young on both sides will fight and we need to stop this from happening.
We are being duped into believing that the Oglala Council that has welcomed us and is putting out press that we are welcome represents the Lakota people.
Why are we listening to the Forest Service who tell us that this council represents the opinion of the Lakota?
There was an article that says the public relations rep from the Oglala council that “govern the Lakota” welcomes us. I have been urged to tell the Rainbow Family that this council isn’t recognized by the Lakota and is the puppet government that our country IMPOSED on them and who has been a part of the occupation of their land. They want us to understand this.
The traditional Lakota people have begged for our help in standing up to the occupying forces in their territory. They have begged us to contact the Forest Service and tell them to allow Indian Country to decide who comes and what happens in their own land. And they have sworn that if we stand with them they will be there when we need them. Chanupa said “there will come a time when we need each other” and his calm rational voice is what has held off the many Lakota raring to battle. This is their seventh generation and the youth in Rainbow are our equivalent.
Are we going to be one more white man that refuses to sympathize with their plight? Is it really that hard to move less than a hundred people to another site? We are refusing to be inconvenienced by a bunch of Indians and that’s not something I can support.
I am asking every one in my organization (DKCSC and Call Your Mom) to
attend the other gatherings and to lend our voices and our bodies to the Lakota by refusing to support a gathering in the Black Hills UNTIL such a time that we have counciled with their elders and received their permission. As Chanupa Mani said to me, “there is a difference between an elder and an old person.”
I believe that the true elders in the family should step up. Your time has come. Please act.
If a gathering does take place in SD, I pray that we stand side by side with the Lakota who want our support but that we do so in whatever way they choose- even if that means from the sidelines. I hope that during this gathering, we learn and we ask questions and that we become who we say we are. If we are claim to claim we are the fulfillment of a Hopi prophecy than our actions need to be much more mindful and our internet presence needs to reflect that as well. The fighting and negativity and blatant racism I have witnessed should end now – TODAY. The whole world is watching.
Well said!
Any hypothosis the playa was a government agent?
It’s Rainbow! Lots of people have hypothesized that.
But I don’t think so. I think he was just a newbie who didn’t know better. I was once that newbie myself, so I recognize the syndrome.
“Seriously, you should read what he wrote. He played the Council like a harp. I learned a thing or two about peacenik Machaevellianism from his description of how he got this through Council.”
Got a link? I’d love to read it.
I am having a real crisis of conscience about whether or not I should repost his words. Let things settle down and I’ll get a copy to you. It’s pretty interesting, misspellings and all.
It’s really, really clear from reading it that the guy is not a Fed.
Thanks. I have no stake in Rainbow either way, so its more of a curiosity to see a consensus mover in a context outside the ones I’m usually in.
Seems legit. I’ll give you the text without the name of the guy involved. I’d be curious to hear if you see it the same way I do, so lemme know what you think.
I’ll tell you the biggest thing that stands out to me by its absence:
This guy has traveled, he’s put in his time, he’s met people, become part of the family, made contacts. He knows the process, he knows how to build a base. The thing he’s never brought up is positive contribution – his to Rainbow, the event’s to South Dakota. He’s got a vision. Other people share it. Yay them! What’s their sweat equity, their positive contribution besides having a good idea? What’s the pro side for the people of SD to welcome the gathering with open arms? I don’t care about the answers but its notable that he never addresses it. The whole thing is about him and is idea, not how the communities involved are better for it. His “work” is in big picture stuff and politicking. That’s not bad, someone has to do it but its also not enough to me.
You don’t go to Rainbows, right? It would be really, really hard to explain this to you, but his further contribution was neither expected nor encouraged.
It’s sort of a mania among the Gathering that no one person or faction take even the appearance of leadership or control. We fetishize being leaderless and the resultant endless mindbending does no end of good to make us one of the most cognitively interesting bunches of people I’ve ever encountered. We’re leaderless. That means anyone who tries to lead must, de facto, be disobeyed. It is considered extremely unseemly to run a process from beginning to end.
As a matter of fact, one of our main problems right now is that one group of scouts has spent, over the years, too much time scouting, and not enough getting other people scout.
Consensus-building at Rainbow is an endless process.
Wrong form of contribution. He had his idea. His idea got approved. Great, cool. Now set that aside. What grunt work is he doing? Digging latrines, cleanup crew? I’m a firm believer that that if you want the credit (and its fairly clear he does), if you want it to happen, you get out there and get your hands dirty. “I prefer to teach people how to. . .” sounds immediately to me like “I’m too good to move heavy things”.
Its the same thing for SD. OK, decision’s been (hypothetically) been made. Great but that only handles the internal side. There’s a bunch of people outside the tribes with their concerns: the Lakota, the forest service etc. What’s their incentive to have the gathering there? Even if it could be a completely neutral, leave no trace event, why would they want it? That kind of thinking is totally absent in his review.
Again, this is going to be very difficult to explain if you’ve never been to a Gathering.
I don’t know how many latrines he has dug but if it isn’t a substantial number he never would have been trusted to begin with.
But the Gathering is full of people who think their aptitude for swinging a shovel gives them insight into other areas of life. It ain’t necessarily so.
I’m gonna write a horror movie screenplay about a haunted Rainbow gathering on an Indian Burial Ground that gets struck by lightning!
Great user name, by the way.
Thank you i would like that. Ursus is my actual name. And you should post the comments because we kneed to all beware of what is being said
Well – Rainbows have certainly shown your racism today. You’ve come a long way from the Waveland Cafe kitchen I’ll say that. Here’s what was said to the Lakota representative Canupa Gluha Mani today at the council:
“Fuck you and your treaty leaders”
“Fuck your traditional leaders and what you stand for”
“Treaty people can go fuck themselves”
Plus guys telling Canupa to leave (his own land) and “I want you in jail”
Then Rainbows called the police on Lakota representatives.
Here’s more of the chaos your people have created:
– Choosing the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs Tribal Council over the traditional Lakota people. Watch the documentary Red Cry to learn how completely genocidal this is (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfvAqCHpXgA_)
– Using divide and conquer tactics by finding two Lakota people that will come and give you a “welcoming ceremony” while the traditional leaders and wishes of the people are ignored. This is classic white privilege behavior in action.
– Trying to force Lakota representatives to use your “talking feather” system instead of putting them first and allowing Lakota protocols to govern the conversation. This is Lakota land. Lakota protocols should be used instead of an outside system being forced upon (colonizing) Indigenous people.
– Smoking pot around the circle while an Indigenous leader is present. You guys have no respect. None.
It appears the Rainbow Family has essentially declared war on traditional Indigenous peoples. And if Native people don’t go along with your gatherings on their land, Rainbows will disrespect, use divide and conquer tactics, and use your white privilege to side with authorities and remove Native opposition. So much for “love” and “peace”.
It’s difficult to dispute what you’re saying. I wish that you could see these people as I see them, because they really are much better than this.
Thank you for going to Council. The people there are seriously dug in and not the most amenable to persuasion at the best of times. They are, unfortunately, trying to offend you. Please overlook their childish behavior and continue attending.
They hope that if they can get rid of your dissenting voices that they can go on with their Gathering plans as if nothing had happened. I can assure you that is not the case. We who are not there are watching very closely, and we are already boycotting this Gathering in enormous numbers. Major kitchens such as Turtle Soup, Granola Funk, Montana Mud, Magic Bowl and others have announced their plans to go anywhere but the Black Hills, and there are other gatherings already forming in Michigan, Vermont, California and elsewhere.
It’s a weird sort of problem, because pretty much anyone who is there on the land is going to think that they have a right to be there. All the people who don’t think we should go to the Black Hills without invitation are staying away, and that unfortunately leaves you with only those who feel it is their right to be there. The behavior of some of them has been abominable, I agree.
I agree that this is not anywhere near as laudable as Waveland Cafe, and we obviously have a lot to learn.
Sounds about right
You are right on that and rainbow family should respect tradition and this is what happens when we don’t
I think a lot of folks are seeing the value of our traditions now.
The interesting thing is that the tradition regarding the Lakota seems to date to the early 80s, which explains why a lot of the Rainbow founders don’t seem to be aware of it or to take it seriously.
I live in the Black Hills. Locals think James Swan is a joke. He wants nothing more than to cause a scene and be the center of attention. The people here who love the land do not love him.
You may be right, but I don’t think it’s Rainbow’s place to come to your area and figure out who is Good and who is Bad. His threats are ridiculous, but he’s not the one invading our home.
I seriously doubt violence will happen here, no matter what. But the hurt feelings that we’re causing have the potential to last a lifetime.
Chase Iron Eyes,
Please message me. I think that we can turn this around. I have been in talks with the treaty council for days. The things that happened at spring council today were not good and there civil rights activist heard that way. We have very little time to turn this around.
And more than anything with need someone who can mindfully and with knowledge and experience work with the council and Indian country both. I wish I was there right now because we could do some powerful work together on this.
I don’t see any reason why Mr. Iron Eyes would monitor this page, you should try his FB page:
https://www.facebook.com/ChaseIronEyes?fref=ts
I heard the rumors about dissention at the Council today, and I also heard they were overblown. There’s nothing wrong with a long council right now — in fact, that’s a great development. Every day that deliberations continue is another day that people go to regionals rather than SD, and there’s always a chance that the people on the ground will reach real understanding with each other. Let ’em talk for weeks. Let ’em talk so long that they turn into the Vision Council for next year.
Unfortunately we can’t be there without being in the Black Hills, which is sort of part of the problem.
There is also a dirty kid gathering in Shawnee. At these regionals we typically have no real medics or CALM. It’s in southern Illinois.
We had some pretty major health issues among the kids at the last few gatherings and there will probably even be a birth at Shawnee. It would
Be great to train some of these youngsters in first aid.
Without going too far into it, the reaction among CALM to the Black Hills has been anything but enthusiastic. I think you’ll probably see a lot more CALM people at the regionals this year.
Shawnee, huh? That might be the one I go to. Sadly, I am the least of the healers at CALM, and by a long yard (mostly because I spend my time writing on the internet and drawing instead of studying medicine) but I am happy to do the best I can, and if you happen to have directions to where they are in Shawnee I’ll pass them along to everybody else.
Fascinating writeup. I’ve always thought that one thing the Rainbow tradition lacked was a coherent written record and (written) analysis of the near-misses, train wrecks, miracles, consensuses reached and then honored, or consensuses reached and then ignored, etc.
This year’s European Gathering is happening near me, so that’ll be where I’ll be. Although I have a feeling the US Nationals and European Gatherings are different in some perhaps small but significant ways. Have you ever been over this side of the Atlantic? Greetings from the old world, then, and good luck with everything!
I can’t wait to go to a European Gathering! Because of money and logistics, there really are very few Rainbows (read: poor people) who travel back and forth from one continent to another, so there is a lot of misinformation. Americans assume that things are as bad in Europe as they are here. they are wrong.
I don’t think you’re going to have these problems in Europe, ever. Because your continent is not built on a giant Indian burial ground.
I can’t wait to get back over to Europe. Seriously.
Dang, talk about Rolling Thunder ! Garcia must be rollin’ his eyes whilst rollin’ ’round heaven all day. Dead, indeed.
in response to the guys vision of sd gathering. Don’t u get it? Us Natives don’t teach will ever teach. or show non Natives our ways . Period,!!! it’s not for you, nor in your drug addled revolutionary mind will EVER be!!! stop your Bull crap and get the heck off of Natives land. U or your so called family will never be Welcome on ANY NDN LAND! u want to start sum shit and be a revolutionary go hook up with ISIS
I’ll wait a lifetime for you to change your mind, and if that’s not long enough I guess my kids will wait their lifetimes too.
My cracker ass is taught native ways whenever I display the slightest notion of interest. Not every native is a hard core elitist fantasy land dweller like you. Some are just real humans, not all wrapped up in themselves, like you. Get over yourself dude. Open your heart, you might develop some insight and lose sone of your angry bitterness and then might have something to offer humanity besides yourhate and intolerance
The thing is, and I say this as someone who passes for white, so who hears what white people say when they think no Natives will hear them:
Non-Natives, or anyone who has not been raised in a traditional Native community, are clueless at telling who is and isn’t Native, let alone who is and isn’t a legitimate, respected ceremonial person. And predators know this.
For years a pretendian led sweats at Rainbow Gatherings. He is white, but he fooled many, many people over the years. He even paid off some Natives to support his lie. And now other non-Natives who learned from him lead these badly-done, newage, pretendian “sweats” themselves. This is wrong and it is dangerous.
Over time, many of these non-Native Rainbows who learned from frauds have reinvented themselves and now “identify” as Native. They give themselves Native-sounding names; they offensively claim to be “walking the red road;” they appropriate terms like Two Spirit. They lie to you and they lie to themselves. And they are despised, dismissed and ridiculed by the people whom they mimic.
The “Natives” who taught your “cracker ass” were either just as white as you, or a harmful sellout, banished by their community. People don’t get banished for minor things. Usually it involves extreme violence and blood on their hands. See, that’s what happens when Bad Men harm people in the community: they are banished. So they go and sell ceremony to white people.
I’m sorry you guys have been exploited and lied to. But please educate yourselves about the fakes before making the situation worse.
Rainbows need to understand, that being ignored IS an answer. The traditional people didn’t want to dignify this with a response. Their refusal to speak to Rainbows WAS an answer. Because some of our ceremonial people were stalked and lied about, we have been forced to respond. Only to have our traditional people insulted and lied about. To see people like Karin, Denton and “Rainbow Hawk” LYING about us, lying about what is happening here, is very painful. But it’s nothing new. It’s been over 500 years of colonialism, and those Drainbows are just a more colorful wave of it.
Again, thank you so much to those of you who are stepping up and speaking out, and going elsewhere for the Gathering. Thank you for trying to educate your people.
P.S. – Starting from when she first posted about this, a number of Natives went over to Karin’s blog to dispel the lies and rumors she’s posting. She is not letting our comments through. She let a fraction of the critical comments go through, but now she won’t even approve polite comments if they contradict the lies she is posting. She is a source of disinformation and cannot be trusted.
I know Karin personally and find your characterization of her to be deeply incorrect. She is having difficulty with her loyalty to her friends and her inability to discern between the competing voices from the Internet.
Most of the older Rainbows are very fearful of internet drama. I’m not; that’s why I have no problem talking to everyone on this issue. But you really can’t expect that from Karin. She’s just a blogger and owes no-one anything that she does not feel comfortable with.
It’s very interesting, through this process, to see what the Native idea of “white” is.
“White” is an evolving concept, and it’s one I’m ready to be done with entirely. White people aren’t white, they’re desaturated orange. I’m of European extraction. I look forward to the day that I never have to use the word “white” to describe myself or anyone except my best friend since childhood, whose last name is White, although he has tremendous Native ancestry (and those natives probably took the name White to deflect suspicion 200 years ago).
I have Native ancestry too. We all do. To be American for more than two generations is to inherit a profoundly mixed racial heritage. Heck, my family spent 50 years in New Jersey and managed to become both Italian and Jewish in that time.
We all have “native” blood. The Native Americans did not simply disappear; what happened is that their history was silenced. None of us really know how much of what kind of blood we have, and the categories are more or less meaningless. “White.” “Black.” “Indian.” Those categories make no sense at all.
I don’t know if that was directed at me or not, but that is incredibly incorrect and simply harmful. This “more native than thou” attitude is so dismissive of Rainbow and so many people who work so hard. Nobody set you up as a judge of who is the right kind of Indian and who is the wrong, especially based on no information whatsoever. There is no one alive who knows the true history of this continent — the native voices have been silenced, their history has gone underground. That’s not the same thing as gone.
Chill out, amigo. We got this.
Why am I not surprised to see such disrespect being shown to the Lakota people you all claim to love and respect?
Your “love” boils down to self love, and your “respect” is non-existent towards others and the Sacred Land.
At this point in time, you are doing exactly what the gov’t has been doing to us all along > taking and doing whatever YOU want to do regardless of how wrong it is.
Your complete and total disrespect knows no limits, nor does your destruction!
You guys can target James all you want, YOU are the ones who literally called WAR on Sacred Lands, remember that!
When you keep pushing, you’re going to get shoved.
If you don’t like what James and the rest of us are doing, LEAVE…. it’s as simple as that.
SHOW the respect many of you claim to have and just go away.
You wouldn’t want us treading and destroying what is yours but you feel it’s alright for you to do it to US? > BULLSHIT!
@ Geoff > You keep saying rainbow are “better than that”…. well IF that were true, we wouldn’t be having this problem, would we!!
You need to face the realities here and take off those rose colored sun glasses.
What you’re saying there is absolutely correct.
Exactly how “good” we are is under intense examination right now, and we don’t like what we see either. Somebody put it well on the internet, in high hippie-ese — “The Lakota are the light-bringers, showing us the holes in the Rainbow.”
That makes sense to me.
What’s happening now may be the best of all possible worlds. We have all worked endlessly to divert the massive flow of people from South Dakota to elsewhere, and it appears to be working. We’ve certainly reduced the numbers coming that way — time will tell how much we reduced them. The people left in South Dakota may just be the people that need to talk to the Lakota. If nothing else, a tremendous amount of awareness has been raised in a very short time.
I sincerely hope the Black Hills Gathering never rises over a few hundred people. I understand completely that the more people that come there today, the more time it will take to forgive in the future. I think I can confidently promise that we will do better in the future. It will be decades before this mistake is forgotten.
Geoff, you and I had a civilized (or mostly civilized) conversation about all of this the other day and, honestly, both of us were listening to what the other said. Which leaves me wanting to attempt to continue the discussion. Hopefully, we can do so without a bunch of people deciding what I am saying is “racist”, “stupid” or worse.
As we discussed, I am, by profession and training, an Environmental Scientist. Seems an odd profession for a woman with 15 kids (11 of whom are adopted) but I fell in love with a man and a ship when I was a child and learned much from them both in the course of my childhood. That man’s name was Jacques Cousteau and the ship was the Calypso. I wonder today how many remember the lessons taught by those two… not as many as should have I’m certain.
The following claim is frequently made: “Rainbows live light on the land”… and yet, that’s not entirely true. 10,000 people, in a relatively small space, produce approximately 250,000 TONS of waste over the course of 6 days. Double that for 20,000… triple it for 30,000. SOME of that waste winds up in landfills, some is left to rot, some is recycled… but it’s ALL still produced.
*The average person on a high fiber diet produces 350 grams of stool per day.
10,000 people x 350 grams of stool x 6 days = 21,00000 grams or 21 metric tons or 23.14 tons of feces to be buried.
If it rains the rainwater will carry a slurry of improperly disposed of human feces into groundwater, surface puddles, ponds, lakes and streams. This slurry will be laced with disease organisms that were in the feces to begin with or formed once it had been deposited. Other visitors to the National forest and animals can then come in contact with or drink this polluted water.
*The average person produces 800 to 2000 milliliters per day milliliters of urine per day.
10,000 people X 1400 ml X 6 days = 84,000,000 milliliters or 84,000 liters of urine or 22,222 gallons deposited in our National Forest to run into rivers and streams.
This introduces excess sodium, potassium nitrogen plus trace chemicals from anti-depressants, prescriptions drugs and hormones from birth control pills into a fragile wilderness. And then there are the illegal drugs which trace chemicals from are also left behind.
That doesn’t count things like bleach, tampons, dirty diapers (which take a LONG time to biodegrade because they contain petroleum byproducts), toothpaste, soap (some of which is certain to contain phosphorus) and a variety of other personal care and hygiene products.
Now… Urine breaks down into ammonia. Seems fairly harmless right? Tell me, do you know what ammonia does to fish? Did you know it changes the pH of the water and removes dissolved oxygen in the water as it breaks down – which deprives the fish of dissolved oxygen which THEY require to LIVE?
Phosphorous – something commonly used in dish soap and bath soaps; as are what are called “surfactants” (I’ll get to those in a minute – my word of honor as a lady). The phosphorus in soap is harmful to fish and other wildlife. In water, phosphorus behaves as a fertilizer, accelerating plant and algae growth. When plants and algae die, bacteria consume oxygen that is dissolved in the water. When this happens, less oxygen is available for fish and aquatic life that need oxygen to survive.
Surfactants pose a somewhat different problem. Detergent surfactants are made from a variety of petrochemicals (derived from petroleum) and/or oleochemicals (derived from fats and oils). The presence of detergent surfactants in creeks and streams lowers the amount of oxygen available to fish.
It’s all well and good to go back to a site months or years later and claim “no lasting damage was done” but how many go back 4 to 6 weeks later to help clean up the dead fish? Fish which DIED because of *Your choice* to bring tens of thousands of people to a relatively small area for a 6 day party.
I’ve a suggestion which may change both public perception and the environmental impact of your gatherings. Regional gatherings tend to be smaller than a national gathering. Instead of having an annual national gathering – have one every 4 or 5 years… and do smaller regional “meet and greets” (as we ham radio operators call them)in between. Smaller gatherings will have a smaller environmental impact and produce much less waste – which will result in a smaller environmental “footprint” overall.
Lastly… EVERY Michigander KNOWS how to avoid being eaten alive by the UP blackflies found all over the UP from (at least most years) the end of May until the beginning of September. The “secret” to avoid being LUNCH… is to increase your intake of B vitamins. It’s NOT that difficult. Of course it would also be a wise idea to remember MUCH of the UP is swamp – I suggest either the Manistee National Forest or the Huron National Forest as an alternative to *anywhere* in the UP.
Hanyewi.
Average person produces 4 pounds of waste per day. A rainbow family member in the middle of nowhere would produce much less than this: no fast food wrappers, no access to retail products, so no stupid plastic and cardboard packaging there, they don’t tend to drink alcohol, so goodbye glass and aluminum cans.
But regardless of debating assumptions, your math is wrong. 10k would probably produce in the range of 60-120 tons over the course of 6 days, maybe even less.
Oh, and they love nature. More assumption debate (see link below). They don’t allow latrines within 100 feet of a water source. They don’t allow soap in a water source. Liquid waste can only be dumped in a grey water pit. Lime or ashes from a fire are used to keep smell down – so much for bleach (bleach – seriously?).
Anyway, any waste they produce, they leave with. Which is doable, because even if not everyone leaves with what they brought in, there are apparently clean-up teams to take care of that, and any vehicle that leaves has to bring at least one bag of trash with them, to be deposited in a dumpster at least 100 miles away.
http://www.welcomehome.org/rainbow/info/mini-manual.html
I understand that you care about the environment. But to think that among tens of thousands of Rainbow that love the land… that they wouldn’t have already thought about how to best minimize their impact… that they wouldn’t have their own environmental scientists and experts in natural resources and every other walk of life, guiding their actions according to their mission & philosophy. That just seems insulting/arrogant.
http://nevadautahgathering2014.blogspot.com/2014/01/what-ever-happened-to-recycling.html
Thanks for the advice about B vitamins.
My feelings about the rest of your comment are complex, and I’ll have to find time to give you a real answer. Please bear with me for a few days…
I am so deeply offended by this response. Would you speak like that to s Jewish Holocaust survivor? Or even a descendent of a survivor or victim?
There was an Indian Holocaust. The pictures of Wounded Knee are JUST as horrific as Auschwitz. And we as a country are still trying to wipe them out using eugenics and policies of control. Please understand that.
Not sure who you’re responding to there. The mechanics of blog comments make it difficult to carry on any conversation that’s not directly with the poster.
I’ve actually had long conversations with Frank. He’s an interesting guy. You should befriend him and sort through some ideas..of which he has a great many.
Often our youth are quixotic. They speak without a background with which to have the knowledge of which they speak.
They arent old enough to know that they “dont” know.
And they are always so certain they are right.
This is why we need loving, mindful elders who are in their role of teacher. We need to meet every new kid who comes in and then spend some time mentoring them.
Do we have to have a “Big Brother/Big Sister” Program to get that done? Our traditions wont survive if we dont teach them.
What would Love Do?
Yeah, I’ve been talking to him too. He seems like a good guy who means well.
One of the real problems behind this whole kerfuffle is that our scouts, for years, have been too hard-working as scouts and not lazy enough to make other people scout.
Recruitment is always job #1 at Rainbow, because we’re just about the only people in Babylon who are playing the long game. We plan to still be around in fifty or a hundred or a thousand years, and that means on any reasonable timeline any given Rainbow is going to grow old and die long before the race is run.
It is actually very helpful to the Gathering for the older bears to be scientifically lazy and make the younger bears run around. And let’s face it, the younger bears love to do it. Ya can’t actually stop them.
Like Frank.
So… Good at math… perhaps you can explain to everyone why it is that the taxpayers of the State of Montana spent almost $800,000 to clean up the trash that you guys left behind last year. Seems to me that is more than sufficient evidence what you are saying isn’t completely true.
As to the rest of your assertions… I’m an environmental scientist… and the body who will be coming along behind you lot to clean up all the stuff you improperly disposed of, all the stuff you screwed up, replant trees (that it will be at least 40 years before they are large enough to do the same job the ones you cut down are doing today) and a host of other things. I would also remind you that 100 feet is NOT that far and there’s a lot more getting into the surface water than you think there is. I’ve helped clean up your messes – and that includes taking both soil samples and water samples following one of your gatherings.
You’re NOT “treading as lightly” as you believe yourselves to be.
I’ll tell you the same thing that I’m telling everyone else — this is a blog, not Facebook. In order to argue directly with other commentators, you have to be careful about where you hit reply. Otherwise, they don’t read it, but I still have to.
It really doesn’t matter to me why a government chooses to spend a vastly inflated sum of money on this thing or that thing. If they’re spending nearly a million dollars on cleaning up after a Gathering, that is more evidence that their procuring and billing is corrupt than anything else.
I’ve never pretended we’re “treading lightly.” I’m positive we’re “treading lighter,” and I think the benefits far outweigh the negatives. Literally the only chance that nature has is for human beings to learn to love it. I agree that some aspects of the Gathering are dire and some are actively terrible (burning tires) but it is far preferable to 10,000 people living in a city, driving through a drive-through and running the AC.
See you in Shawnee! I told “Creeper” that you were coming. We definitely have needs and I look forward to learning some skills.
I don’t really have all that much to teach but I’m happy to lend a hand where I can.
I have tried to give objective material to people on the internet only to hAve it deleted or called out as disinformation. Traditional Lakota have a protocol and even the Lakota who have welcomed Rainbow broke protocol and have been sanctioned. They thought their silence was enough but we are so used to OUR way that we assumed it was ok. They don’t show up with signs and protest and when we have a meeting a hundred miles from the reservation we are playing dirty. The Pine Ridge Reservation is called a concentration camp by those who live there. The life expectancy for a man there is 44 years old. They have an average of 17 people per house. How would they ever get to a meeting?
They have been embroiled in a battle and that battle has brothers fighting brothers. What we did is kind of equivalent to having the Senate pass a controversial law with only the liberals in on the vote. Sneaky right?
And we haven’t been speaking kindly to those who would protest. Only a third of them even have clean water so the odds of there being wifi in these homes is minut. Just because we don’t hear them doesn’t mean they don’t care.
The right thing to do is to attempt to make peace with those who are upset.
Some of us organized a coalition to go talk to them and to try to do this peacefully. We could use more help because things are heated and we just want everyone safe.
That’s very true.
I’m working with some women who are trying to just get information out there and they keep getting blocked or censored.
They get threats too.
My favorite comment today said “This is a national forest and the government says we get to be there whether they like it or not. We have the first amendment to protect us”
That comment won’t get deleted…
Yeah, that comment shows how far we have to go….
the reason why some Indians have last names such as Brown ,or in your case White, is the Government after “giving” the tribes their Own reservation went down the line giving them last names.OK ,your black ,your brown,your White.etc. To strip them of their identity.Second if you can’t trace your blood to a tribe within one generation,your not Native. Native ways are kept secret for a reason.
Nope, sorry, that is not the reason at all. Perhaps you’ve never heard of the Melungeons and the Native American history of eastern Kentucky.
Why should you have? There are thousands of years of history of this entire continent. There’s no way that anyone could possibly know it all.
As you have so amply demonstrated.
Just happened to be thinking of Kentucky and sassafras today , and I’d sure like to go to another spring gathering .
There was an interesting ancient site (near Morehead) that I wandered upon near a gathering spot … had a monolithic reclining abstract figure of a man made of black stone , and there in the cliff side were a number of dug-out shelves – such as might hold father’s bones .
I thought the beautiful rains come to the Black Hills as the reason and the blessing for our visit last summer . And the tribal medicine people were so happy to see the re-emergence of some plants that had been gone too long , patient to return .
I’m happy it worked out as well as it did.