NMScene

For me, this has been a year of trying new things, exploring new options and learning to define myself as a person, sharpening that edge. That foggy cloud coalesced more this weekend as I took a trip up to the 2009 Rainbow Gathering in the Santa Fe National Forest, just east of my grandfather’s home town of Cuba, NM. To me, Cuba represents the old country, the place my grandparents met and came out of.

The sleepy town of Cuba, NM has been around for over a hundred years, home to farmers and ranchers who lived a hard but steady life at over 6500 ft at the base of the Jemez Mountains. Situated in far NE New Mexico, it is one of the more isolated and scenic places in the state. The last Rainbow Gathering in New Mexico took place more than ten years ago outside of Taos. I can still remember the news reports and video of what looked like a bunch of dirty, feral, hairy people wandering around the forest. I didn’t understand why they were out there or what they were doing.

I had a lot of options to do some really fun and exciting things this weekend, but I decided to throw caution to the wind and go off that beaten track and onto another. Not just because I wanted to have a new experience, but also because I wanted to understand what these people were all about. I wanted let down my preconceptions from what I’ve experienced before and allow these people to form new ones.

Because my time was limited, my intent with my trip up to the gathering was to stay less than a day, and even less if my experience wasn’t going well. Altogether I ended up spending a solid 12 hours at the gathering, from the time I got into the forest to the time I left it.
I did have the intention of getting to the gathering earlier in the day that we had arrived, having gotten to the area designated as a parking lot at around 7 in the evening, which was late, but still gave us two hours of sunlight to get to the gathering and get to know the place a bit. I had packed a bag with some snacks and drinks for me and the two friends I brought with me, Devon and Cetta.

We were greeted by a friendly guy who was directing traffic and giving out basic info. We were told that the main gate was just a few miles up, and that there was a shuttle service going back and forth giving people a ride. So we went down to the spot where people were being picked up and taken. There were maybe fifty people up there. They were all hanging out taking in their own groups. I have to say, I did feel like I stood out like a sore thumb. I wasn’t dressed like these people and a lot of them didn’t seem too interested in socializing. That’s fine; most people don’t have good people skills and tend to stick with their group. Gauging social proof wasn’t too hard out there and I knew I was going to be judged as a first timer right off the bat at best, and at worst looked at as a undercover cop, which I really didn’t want to go towards, as we had passed between eight and twelve forest service and state cops along with a news van on the way up.

I wanted to go around and just chit chat, but as soon as I was about to, some people we knew pulled up, Brandon, who was with his friend David and three girls. They had come up together in two separate cars. They were all smiles and I told them we should hang out, as none of us knew anyone who was up there. We agreed. After they had lugged all of their gear to the drop of point, one of them suggested that we take one car up there, stuff it full of gear and people, and come back for the rest. We thought it was a great idea so Brandon and David and Brandon’s friend all crammed into one of the cars, went up into the hills, and left two girls with us, Crystal and Tiffany. They were both nice but even more out of their element than I was, and a bit on the young side.

Crystal had enough of waiting, and started walking off with tiffany, and Devon followed. it was getting dark and had been almost an hour at that point of waiting for Brandon to get back, so we started walking up the road to the front gate, which we thought to only be a few miles up. It was about three miles in that someone pulled over and offered to take us up to the gate, which they said was almost another seven or eight miles up the road. Two guy’s from Santa Fe, one worked in Los Alamos and the other up in Espanola, which to me counted as locals even though those cities lie thirty miles away on the other side of the mountain range. They were very friendly and really saved our asses, to be honest. That was an extremely long walk that none of us expected and had an elevation raise at least a thousand feet from the area we had parked in, and even though I’m in good enough shape to do it, I don’t think anyone in the group would have done well with either the elevation or the distance, especially since they were all smokers and were already huffing quite a bit.

We were expecting the car that went up to drop off gear to be spotted but we never did see it. It was too dark to look around at the parking that was full up there, so we found ourselves walking into the gathering just after sunset. The first camp we ran into was A Camp, and some scrappy dude was pretty damn friendly, he said there was elk meat steaks and PBR available to anyone who wanted it. I had been warned that A camp (alcohol camp) was hella sketchy and not to be trusted by a friend who lived for a month at a Montana gathering a few years back, so we decided to move on and see what else was out there. We walked about another mile down the road before coming to the “main” gate which was just a bunch of busses next to a banner. An older guy in his fifties greeted us and knew right away this was our first time. He directed us to go down a hill and that we would find the main meadow where most people were gathering.

Down we went this trail, which was another good half a mile through some pretty damn lush forest. This section of the Jemez is extremely beautiful. We passed a ton of scattered tents and a lot of trash. This pissed me off right away; having been to burning man so many times I have a very strict Leave No Trace Ethic. I hate seeing shit all over the place, and I was seeing it all over this trail. Gloves, boxes, shirts, bits of paper, all pushed here and there in what was pristine land. Basically the mountainside where the event was happening had been molested for several weeks.

We finally made it down that trail and into the meadow, which looked to be a mile long and maybe half a mile wide at the most. We looked around to get our bearings and saw how spread out the gathering was. It would be impossible to find our friends if they had set up anywhere other than right near the main circle. Some people we met from Pennsylvania told us there was an info tent and board we could post messages up on.

The portion of the event that I think I liked the most and had the most connection with was the first hour we were on the meadow. We met some girls from Pennsylvania who had driven down and were splitting with another friend who was going on to Portland. They welcomed us to our first gathering, and I welcomed them to New Mexico, which I don’t think they really recognized as anyone’s home, they just gave a half smile and said nothing.

We went to the soup camp and ended up being fed some “Rainbow Soup” out of a spare pan and bowl they had lying about, it was some vegan concoction of tomato soup, noodles, and spices. It was tasty, and more importantly hot. Kind of sketchy coming out of a 50 gallon barrel but it was so hot I don’t see how it could have had any pathogens in it. We went to the info tent that had a message wall you could leave messages at. I didn’t have too much hope that the small paper Crystal left for Dave or Brandon would be read amongst the mess of other messages left up on the board but it stated that they would be back every hour to look for them.

After leaving the info camp, we tried to find the latrines, otherwise known as “shitters,” which was supposed to be dug up the hill behind kids’ camp. The logic of digging a open trench to defecate into just uphill from a camp for kids kind of defied my sense of logic, as did the fact that they were craping into a open trench, which is pretty damn illegal for a lot of reasons, including sanitation, disease, and just plain nastiness. Of all of the things this gathering does, I think that the open trench solution to disposing of human waste is one of the stupidest things they could do. It’s disrespectful to the land, the people who will be camping here in the future, and is just plain gross.

We wandered over to a large fire and warmed up. We did some exploring of the meadow and camps. One fire had about fifty people in what Cetta called a cuddle puddle around it; each person was massaging the person in front of him/her, then they’d turn around and massage the other person behind. It was kind of cool to see. Right next to that fire/circle was another fire circle where several people were playing drums, a horn, and a flute. it was pretty nice and people were very into the dancing going on around it.

We ended up at the end of the meadow which had several tee pees gathered together. One of the teepees had a line about fifty people deep. We met up with the two guy’s who had given us a ride up, no one knew what was inside the tee pee and no one would say. Of course we all knew there was some kind of drugs going on inside. This was probably the most fun part of the entire night, we all chillaxed and laughed a lot with the people in line around us. We finally did get to the end of the line. Someone was hustling for spare weed for people to smoke inside, and I declined to go in (i don’t smoke and cant be inside a room filled with it due to my asthma).

I told Devon i’d meet them back at the drum circle. I wandered off and hung out near the fire and danced for some time. It was hard for me to let go and dance like I usually do. Maybe I was cold and maybe I just wasn’t feeling the circle, but I was only able to get a bit of dancing in. I think If I had been there by myself that woulda been a slightly different story. Devon and Cetta found me about a half hour later, pissed off at the teepee as the pipe never got passed to them, and some “inner circle” people hogged the shit up.

It didn’t take long for the group to run into someone with the chemicals they were looking for. There was a barter and some mushrooms were consumed. I didn’t want anything that night, I wanted my experience to be clean and sober, not just because that’s the path ive been on for a while now but because I wanted to experience and understand the event for what it was in a clear mind rather than a distorted view of it.
We ended up wandering back towards where we had started. We found another fire to stand next to as it was getting colder and colder. I had put on Cettas skirt earlier over my shorts, which I had worn not expecting to be out there that late at all. Randomly crystal found her boyfriend David, and got super happy knowing that all their gear and equipment was nearby. We all walked up the hill to his car.

We were hoping he’d drive us back down the hill but he refused, which really kind of pissed me off at first, because there was no more shuttle service till morning, and because I had made it a point to keep an eye on his girls till we found him and Brandon. It turns out Brandon, according to him, freaked out, and left, leaving him by himself to find his girls. None of their gear was set up and Devon and Cetta were in a..special place, mentally, and I was cold and sober and really tired of walking. I was pretty pissed at this point, as I was unprepared to camp there, was running out of food, freezing, exhausted, and had to tripped out friends with me. I really didn’t have a choice any more, so I grabbed some gear from his car, and walked the half mile back down to the meadow to set up his camp. Neither Cetta nor Devon could help with the set up. The tent was brand new and no one really knew wtf to do with any of it, so I took charge as much as i could and set the tent up with everyone’s help. They all jumped in right away.

I decided to stay outside as it seemed really crowded. Some dude was going around with what he said was a sheet of acid. Everyone took a square. I took one also but palmed it and put it in my pocket. The guy said some was working and some wasn’t, one of the batches didn’t work out. I really didn’t want drugs in me, and extra didn’t want some from some random guy i just met in the mountains. I was the only one who didn’t eat it.

It was almost 3am. I was freezing and tired. I decided to walk across the meadow to the drum circle which still had a fire going and people around it. Cetta and Devon came too. I decided to stay standing. I really didn’t have much rest the entire trip. I drove the whole way up, and stayed standing the entire time with the exception of the ride up from the two guys who’d picked us up and the half hour or so i sat in the chairs in front of the tent. I could feel some extreme exhaustion coming on but I knew as soon as I stopped standing or walking I was going to get really, really tired. Cetta and Dev went back to the ten and I hung out at the fire.

I listened to some guy with a messed up voice- sounded like someone had punched him at some point in the throat- talk to everyone around the smaller fire. He was kind of funny, and had something that looked like a Celtic tattoo across the bridge of his nose and down his cheeks. I left after he got pissed of and started yelling at some guy next to him, explaining that he was born at the gathering and that this was his home and family.

The drums continued. I wandered back to the drum circle and watched the curious people around the fire. There was father time, who looked like he was 80 years old. He was extremely thin, white hair, beard, and sported a Technicolor raincoat coat that looked as old as he was. He held his right hand up in the air giving the peace sign. He looked like he had no teeth and just stared at the crowd, wild eyed, as if he were casting peace sign in to the minds of everyone around him.

There was a young woman, maybe 24, dancing wildly. She didn’t look like a lot of the other women around, and was really getting into the dance. She ended up topless, sweating before the fire, shaking her perky breasts back and forth next to another topless guy, who may have been her boyfriend, who was over weight, and also had perky breasts, dancing feverously. A black man sporting dreads and a flute, less than a foot long and very thin, played facing the fire. Someone danced in front of him and he quickly shouted “get your fucking ass out of my face!” and the guy, who was hispanic, wearing a fedora, no shirt, and moustache, quickly complied. He was soon replaced by a thin blonde man with a beard, again no shirt, wearing tan shorts. The flute player’s response was the same but the bearded man seemed to be taunting him, continuing to dance right there in front of him. The flute player got pissed and stood, played his flute in front of the fire, and the bearded man began to dance even harder around him, shouting taunts. The two continued this dance for a few minutes. I thought a fight was going to break out so I moved, not wanting to get caught up into it. Finding only smoke I moved back to my original position. The hippy battle had ended; the wild bearded man won, the flute player disappearing along with another tall back dreaded man who sported a dark grey trench coat and beard.
I decided I was done at that point. I walked back to the camp and sat in the chair, putting my feet up crossed legged into the other chair, trying to curl into as comfortable as a ball as I could manage. Dave and Devon tried to invite me into the tent but it really looked crowded, so I opted to stay out so they could rest, but the drugs and alcohol and smoke had them all in a very chatty mood. A lot of shit was talked about everything we had seen today. Most of it was pretty damn funny.

They continued on and didn’t notice that everything in the forest got really quiet. It took me a while to figure this out too but I looked up from my curled up position and realized that everything got super quiet. People were walking about but saying nothing. I looked at my watched and saw that it was around five in the morning, and the sun was going to be up soon. The night sky was brilliant, the moon had just said and the entire Milky Way could be seen through the slight haze from the campfire and through the overhead clouds. Dave, Crystal, and Tiffany
got up to warm themselves next to a fire and I dove into the tent, hoping to warm a bit and lie down so that i could get some kind of rest. They came back and continued to talk loudly, laughing, carrying on.

That’s when we heard the first “shhhhh” from outside. Cetta asked, “wtf did someone just sush us?” everyone laughed in the tent and we all shushed ourselves. Then, again every few minutes we got the same thing. I stayed silent, but everyone continued to talk shit about dirty hippies being quiet. Someone came up to the tent. The voice sounded male to me but I was told later that it was a girl.

“Please, please, please, please be fucking quiet! Please!” she begged, “don’t you know that there is silence from six am till noon on Saturday?” “Fuck you fascist” was Devon’s response. “What the fuck for?” he continued. “You’ll find out tomorrow at noon it’s wonderful, just be quiet!” Everyone in the tent laughed at her and she left. They continued to be loud for a few minutes then began to sush each other and whisper. That’s when the rocks began to be thrown at the tent. One of them hit my back as I lay there, quietly, listening to everyone giggle and snicker in whispers. I had really had enough at this point. I decided i was getting the fuck out of there at seven with or without Devon and Cetta. I tried to fall asleep but the rocks kept falling.

Finally six fifty rolled around. “Cetta,” I said, “Fuck this shit I’m out.” Cetta soundly agreed and we tried to wake Devon. I told Devon that David would take him back if he wanted to sleep. I didn’t ask but Dave said right away he would. Devon passed out and Cetta and I got out of the tent. I looked over and saw a guy, a bit shorter than myself, sporting a beard, giving me the evil eye like no one’s business. This immediately made me irate as hell, as I had been super friendly to everyone around me and hadn’t made a single noise in the last three hours. “This is fucking retarded” I said as Cetta and I began walking. We walked back up the trail we’d gone up before. Dog shit was here and there. The mess in the forest was even more visible to me now, as were the broken branches and tents all over the place.
I just wanted the fuck out.

Cetta and I were slow hiking up to the road. The elevation was a lot to deal with- somewhere around 9200ft and we had to go kind of slow at first on the hike up the ridge to the road. Cetta continued to talk shit about the entire gathering. I kept getting pissed every time I saw another mess around the area. The walk out was quite magical, however, and the forest, though molested, was amazingly beautiful around us. A camp talked some shit to us but it was funny. They had been the most fun to be around the entire time we were up there, and we had spent the least time there, which was too bad. Cetta and I hiked out around seven miles- we walked for an hour and a half, before a guy in his late forties to fifties drove up behind us, honking lightly and quickly, offering us a ride. He was a part of the shuttle service. His name was Gary and he was a Servant of the Lord! (yes, with exclamation point) and said he was doing a ton of the shuttling but his truck had broken down the day before right before we’d gotten there. He was super friendly and started driving us down. We found another guy walking and we gave him a ride also. We dropped him off and then got dropped off ourselves. I wanted to give him some gas money, but didn’t have anything on me. I thanked him profusely, and lead Cetta back to the car.

The funny thing about it all was that the vibe in the parking lot area was ten times better than up at the gathering. It felt more real and honest than the sham up in the hills. I did meet some good people and saw a bunch of oddities of humanity. There were a few things which completely tainted my experience, however. The biggest thing, one which I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive for a long time, was the way that these people disrespected the forest. What a fucking mess. There was no ethic to keep it clean and pristine. It was basically a big shithole for them to go and do whatever the hell they want in. I take a lot of pride in the Jemez. It’s my land. It’s the heart of New Mexico. The fact that it was so severely disrespected really, really tainted my view of “hippies” (which I use the term lightly. My best friends mom is a hippy of the sixties and hates the people who call themselves hippies today- being dirty and having dreads isn’t a qualified to being a hippy, as it seems its become). That forest is going to take a long, long time to recover

The second was the blatant hypocrisy. Hippies are very much about “don’t tell me wtf to do!” ethic. I respect this ethic because it’s at the core of what America is. Don’t tread on me, ect. But at the same time, getting shit thrown at us and yelled at is fucking retarded as hell. There was little to no organization. There wasn’t even basic infrastructure for restrooms- and yet they expect everyone to conform to silence for seven hours? Fuck that. What a crock of shit.

Lastly, what occurred there wasn’t something I saw as being a benefit to anyone, nor existing as something needed for anyone. We can all go camping, and we can all go in varying group sizes whenever we want. It didn’t open my mind, didn’t give me a new view point on anything at all, in fact, it only reinforced some very negative stereotypes of hippies in general. I left the forest pissed and saddened by an event that has passed its time and place in history. If I were into this movement, I would start another one. I’d start from scratch, figuring out how to connect to a relevant future, not some burnt out, wild eyed dream that will never come about.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 12:10 am and is filed under Reviews, Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.