The Rainbow Family of Living Light came back to the Allegheny National Forest! They're currently still here till July 7. My younger daughter and I went out there on July 3, camped out with them, and joined in on the margins of their huge prayer circle at noon on July 4. Recall that the Rainbows visited the Allegheny National Forest all the way back in July of 2010, and I was fortunate enough to spend a day with them in their huge encampment along Queen Creek--just a few days before my family and I moved away from the forest to far-off Pittsburgh. For the 2010 articles I wrote about that first visit (on my old blog), click HERE and HERE. If perchance you are one of The-Several-Rare-Existing-Followers-of-My-Shadowy-Career-as-a-Re-explorer-of-This-World--(and you know who you are)--you might recall that it took me 5 attempts to rediscover that old encampment site fourteen years later, in September of 2024. For that somewhat maudlin article, click HERE. I was so happy the Rainbows came back to my forest...
If you don't know who the Rainbows are, let me see if I can give you a general idea: They're essentially modern hippies who gather on federal lands from July 1 to July 7 each year to build relationships and to pray for peace. They've been doing this since 1971, and there are actually some Rainbows who have been to each and every national gathering for the past 55 years. The climax of the Rainbow Gathering is always held on Independence Day. Attendees are advised to enter the "main meadow" reverently and silently to pray or meditate for world peace. Then, at noon, they all gather in a circle and begin the group prayers with haunting vocalizations of the "OM," the primordial sound of the universe. It starts off low and simple and gradually develops into more complex harmonies--if that's the right word. After about half an hour of this, it breaks into wild drumming and dancing. It's a powerful thing to hear and see.
Here's Forest Road 119 with the Hickory Creek Wilderness on the right--where no parking is allowed. The Forest Service temporarily made the road into a one-way from east to west, and there were cars parked on the south side of the road for about two miles in either direction of the main entrance to the Rainbow encampment.
I was hellbent on visiting the Rainbows while they were in my forest. I was so grateful to them for returning, and I wanted to actually be present this time for the prayer activities on July 4. I halfheartedly invited my younger daughter to go with me. She's always up for a hike and a campout, but I didn't think she'd actually come. I'm glad she did. The last time the Rainbows met in the ANF, the hike from Forest Road 119 to the main meadow was about 3 miles long. This time, the walk was less than half that distance. In fact, I'm not even sure it was the same meadow this time, though it was in the same general location as the 2010 meeting. The 2010 meadow was bordered on the north by Queen Creek, and the 2026 meadow did not seem to be adjacent to the creek. I'm not sure. Anyhow, we made camp on a very steep hillside about a quarter mile from all the action... Good thing I brought a hammock tent because all the nice level areas were taken.
So here's the thing about the Rainbow Gathering: All the stuff that makes it cool and unique and distinctly "Rainbow" is also the stuff that you're not supposed to take pictures of. It's common etiquette at Rainbow to leave your cell phone in your tent. Don't take photos. There is indeed some nudity and a little light drug use--mostly marijuana. But people here engage in deeply personal (and yet communal) acts--like prayer, and swaying to the spirit, and meditation. It's a sort of invasion to film any of that.
And so, these pictures don't begin to capture the essence of the gathering. The thing that made this visit to the Rainbows so cool was to be in a patch of hemlocks and beeches, deep in the forest that I know and love, and there to find such a different experience from the solitude that I usually seek and find there. The sunlight breaks golden into woodland shadows through clouds of sage and incense smoke. Guitars strum softly, and unfamiliar instruments gently play. The best thing of all is to see the vast and motley array of humanity in its full expression. People of every race and gender gather there. Some are dressed in wildly eccentric fashion. A few are wearing "furry outfits." Whereas some are wearing little or nothing, others are dressed as if they're about to go clubbing. The tattoos, the jewelry, the hairstyles, the raw beauty of the human animal! A Rainbow gathering is a gift for the senses: sights, smells, sounds.
It's especially meaningful to experience all of this in a forest setting. But again, I say all of that in order to apologize for the fact that these several photos cannot begin to do the gathering justice. I wanted to photograph people--individuals--but I didn't feel that I should.
At the entrance to the main meadow, there's a map of the various special interest sites with a legend, which is pictured below. You might want to click on these photos to make them easier to see. Notice that there's a medical unit, a Jesus camp, a place to have your dreams interpreted, a place to make music with others, and a place to see or purchase art, etc. They have food stations and shared cooking fires and places to get coffee as well as less obvious things like "egg camp" and "mom's basement," whatever those are...
My daughter and I brought our own food and ate it in the privacy of our own small campsite without a fire for cooking. As welcome as we felt, we weren't comfortable with the idea of just showing up and eating a stranger's food. We also neglected to bring our own utensils and camp-plates, so we were not able to join in the huge common meal in the main meadow on the evening of July 3.
This is the kind of thing that appears in the forests when the Rainbows are here. No idea what this place was about. We stopped to see, but there was no one there.
I've been following some of the many Rainbow Facebook groups, and a lot of them bemoan the fact that a criminal element seems to have made its way into the gatherings. This time, an elderly man had his cane stolen. There have been a few aggressions. I actually did see a campsite right along Forest Road 119 with a cardboard sign out front that read "Just Here to Find Women." And what do I have to say about that? It's hard for a movement to remain true to its original vision. Over time, any idealistic movement will create traditions in an attempt to keep the vision alive. With the passage of decades, the vision can become less important to some people than the traditions that were meant to preserve it. This is what happened to the movement created by Jesus, which developed into some really weird expressions of Christendom that do not begin to resemble their founder: that purveyor of mercy and nonjudgment, the wandering poet, the barefoot Galilean who got the whole Christian thing started, but who in no-wise supported the half of what a lot of modern day "Christians" (evangelicals and conservative Catholics) support.
And yet, there are many still within Christendom who "get" and follow the message of Jesus--maybe not the majority, but "many." I think most Rainbows are there for all the right reasons: they have hearts for peace and goodwill toward humanity. But there will always be those outliers who are just there for the curiosity of it, or the carelessness and recklessness of a few nights in the woods smoking pot and hooking up.
In 2010, the Forest Service estimated an attendance of 12,000 people at the Rainbow gathering in the Allegheny National Forest. This year, the Forest Service estimates an attendance of only about 2,000. This makes me sad, but it's in keeping with the spiraling trends that most voluntary associations have experienced since the pandemic. I know it's true for churches...at least for unglamorous, socially responsible churches with educated clergy who preach love and not hate.
Thank you, Rainbows, for coming back to the Allegheny! I'll be right old by the time you make it back our way again, but my daughter just might be there. This is a poor quality photo that my wife snapped as my daughter and I were piling into our 24-year old car to leave to go spend a night with the Rainbows. We'd been spending a few days at our second home up North, so the Rainbow camp was close by.
