Thank you family for renewing my faith in our gatherings, for all the helping hands offered along the path, for the amazing and abundant food, for the way family came together to honor the passing of our family.
Everywhere I turned my gaze, family was busy creating a beautiful and amazing gathering with abundant filtered water to keep us hydrated. Along the trail, musicians of all ages shared their heart songs with guitars, fiddles, saxophones, drums, and vocal cords. Children's laughter rang out all day.
Near the upper meadow, yogis held space, grounding the energy of all of us. In the upper meadow, workshops by the dozen took place and the healing energy was strong. In the lower meadow, gatherers of all shapes, sizes, ages, and colors gathered to share food, oms, dancing, and song.
Main council happened on July 1, 2, 3, and 5 and perhaps it continued on July 6 as well. Younger and older family, earlies and first time gatherers and those of us in between sat in council together sharing thoughts, issues, heart songs, and visions for the future.
Our tireless shuttles drivers helped family shorten the distance into our heart center and our amazing parking crew welcomed family home in a positive manner. A huge thanks to long time family who held space at the Front Gate in a loving and peaceful manner.
Least anyone think all is perfect, we had our share of issues and I'm certain they will be talked about for some time. Using words or music to express our frustration is always a better choice than using large wooden sticks or fists. Serving food at dinner circle that includes dead animals and/or dairy products leaves our family who don't eat such things hungry and disrespected.
Some of our family still have unresolved legal issues due to the over zealousness of the United States Forest Service Law Enforcement officers and the Wasatch County Sheriff's department. Rest assured I will be trying to obtain statistics on arrests, citation, tickets and other issues. But really family, I've been telling ya'all to have legal drivers, legal vehicles and insurance until I'm blue in the face so forgive me if I don't see the tragedy in your car being impounded due to lack of insurance.
A huge thanks to family who helped us find this beautiful home. The people of Utah are amazing. They came out by the hundreds if not thousands and were thankful to have this amazing gathering in their back yards. The civilian folks I and others met in Heber City were kind, loving, and welcoming people despite their elected officials fear mongering.
The thought that was running through my head the entire gathering was we survived the dark ages and we are back as amazing as ever. Thank you family!
For those of you interested in what the media had to say, try this articles:
Salt Lake City Tribune
Utah Public Radio
Minneapolis Star Tribune
Thank you Karin! I am so thankful for the blogs you keep, with so much detailed practical information, thoughtful loving insights, and beautiful enlightening reflections both before and after gatherings.
ReplyDeleteI have not been able to come to a gathering for a few years, and your blogs are a major source to help me feel connected and stay up to date on the national family goings-on.
It makes my heart so glad to read your positive words! I know of course there will always be incidents and ongoing issues on the "dark side", but there have been times over the past few years that I have wondered if it would even be worth it to find my way back to this particular home again. You have renewed the yearning and hope I feel for this wonderful crazy Family!
Much Love <3
Lovin you sister! Thank you for all that you do! :)
ReplyDeleteSeems the rainbow like other controversial or less regular mechanism, always needs some pr, because of the demonization by some status quo, and a chronic problem or two. Don't believe the hypel. The dif between reality and what is said about reality, is or can be a great rift
ReplyDeleteThanks Karen. Once again this year I failed to have that face to face conversation with you which I've looked forward to for years. Next year perhaps. Kept missing you at Info. But had some nice chats with The Other Karen. I enjoyed her son's help as he and another lad took an hour as Goodwill Snickers Emissaries distributing hugs, "we love yous" and Zuzus to passerbys at the fork in the path. Good article by the SLC paper. On the otherhand got to wonder what was whispered down the lane that resulted in the report of "500 pounds of pasta" being cooked for days for a picnic on Friday as mentioned by the Tribune. Lovin' you. Jay, aka "The Snickers Guy"
ReplyDeletethis year appears to have been a turning point in the culture clash between traditional rainbow family values and what is being brought to gatherings in recent years by harsher elements of the dead tour, ICP and other transient populations who lack the commitment to non-violence and healthy living more traditional rainbow family people have.
ReplyDeleteyour blogging was better than ever and helped keep focus in the groups through the whole spring up to the gathering. thankfully, none of the drama, that I end up in the middle of happened this year online and from reports, didn't happen much on the land either, though I have seen nothing reported back on the front gate scene yet.
there has been some grumbling and I expect much more about the people who were working with LEO in putting on what many felt was a lot more police interaction than they would like to see, but in all people's gathering tales are upbeat and positive.
thank you for all the work you do keeping the family chronicles, Karin. you're a blessing to all of us.
happy day
peace
Tommie Jayne
My thanks go out to my family who kept their hearts open and their hands busy.
ReplyDelete