This may seem like rather odd timing for this article, with last year's Gathering being many months behind us, and this year's gathering still being more than a full season away... but I've started working on a new round of zines/books of my writings to print, and I wanted to add this one to the Rainbow book.

If you aren't familiar with Rainbow, here's the place to start: The Rainbow Gathering: Five Decades of Beta-Testing Anarchist Society

Rule #1 of Rainbow

The first "rule" of the Rainbow Gathering is "Ignore all rumors of cancellation."

How does a non-organization, with no leaders or representatives, keep things moving? Easy, with a combination of processes (systems) for decision-making, problem-solving, and conflict resolution... and people willing to take responsibility for their own actions and sit in council together.

So, how does this decentralized non-organization respond to the proclamations by violent aggressors around the planet that everyone must stop going outdoors, must stop gathering, and must live in fear of the flu?

Well, as you have already guessed if you've spent much time pondering decentralized & voluntary organizations, the answer is that there a whole lot of different answers. There will be about as many answers as there are people at the Gathering (plus al the answers for the folks who don't show up.)

Just like we saw made clear in so many facets of life on Earth last year - we don't all live in one shared reality. We exist in a big, messy pile of somewhat overlapping realities. The same thing became extremely clear with Rainbow last year. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of people who, if asked, would honestly reply that there was no Gathering, because that's what they were tricked into believing. Meanwhile, I spent over a week at that Gathering that they think didn't occur.

No, there was not a deadly global pandemic

To be clear, there was no existential threat to humanity in the form of a virus in 2020. The threat came in a much more insidious (though nearly as unseen) form; the threat that humanity is still facing, is that of the masses' obedience, subservience, and trust in violent psychopaths. From Bill Gates, the king of monopolies and long-time promoter of eugenics, to his employee Neil Ferguson, the man whose "simulations" have called for almost a dozen fake pandemics in the last 15 years; from Bill Gates' employee (and his father's good friend) Anthony Fauci to well-known terrorist Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who now runs the CCP-controled & Gates-funded WHO.

They took a pandemic model that has called for mass death every year, and been wrong every time (just look up Neil Ferguson, even Wikipedia doesn't hide his fraudulence), added 24 hour media coverage from every corporation, pushed a non-diagnostic procedure as a "test," renamed all flus & colds as "COVID," counted nearly every death as "COVID," killed tens of thousands in nursing homes by forcing hospitals to send sick people to them, and then heavily censored & de-platformed anyone who spoke out against their crimes.

The existence (or not) of sars-CoV-2, how infectious it is (or isn't), and how fatal it is (or isn't) all have almost nothing to do with the "pandemic response" of the last year - That was all part of a planned (and publicly stated) operation to tighten government control, crush independent businesses, and sell hundreds of billions of dollars in vaccines. Simply look into the Rockefeller Foundation's "Lockstep," Event 201, or the anti-science "response" from authoritarians around the world.

Agents Attempt to Cancel Rainbow

To be clear, I'm not referring to the folks who actually hold jobs and get paychecks from the State here, I'm referring to Agents in the sense of the Matrix. You'll remember that everyone who had not been unplugged from the Matrix yet (those still under the spell of Authoritarianism) could be taken control of by the Matrix at any time, with ease. The same is true in this world - those who trust the psychopathic pedophiles behind government & corporations only need to be told a simple lie, and they turn on the rest of humanity without question.

The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it. Morpheus, The Matrix (1999)

This year, leading up to the Gathering, there was a huge push online to attempt to cancel Rainbow. There were the usual agents, using baseless arguments about tribes not wanting us there, as there are every year... but this year there was a new layer. Many of the olders & many entire kitchens decided to speak out against the Gathering, calling for us to just obey the psychopaths and everybody stay at home instead of celebrating, connecting, and praying. This doesn't even account for the fact that a huge portion of the Rainbow Family are homeless, full-time travelers, or live in the woods all year.

All the Rainbow Family FB groups began banning anyone who spoke out against the lies, banning anyone who was actually on the ground at Spring Council or Seed Camp, and hundreds of people started spreading memes about how there wasn't going to be a Gathering.

I haven't dug through the history books, but just in the 5 years of my being part of the Rainbow Gatherings, this is the third time that a situation like this has played out. Here are the other two:

Oregon 2017 - Gathering in the desert, with very little water, even though we're in Oregon. Thousands get sick from norovirus that was on the land. Location chosen because it was the only place a tribe was OK with us being. All the way until I went into the woods, there were still FB people telling everyone that we weren't welcome, and using the earlier rejections from other tribes as the basis for their argument.
South Dakota 2015 - FB convince a LOT of people that every Lakota on Pine Ridge was out calling for us to leave... But in reality it was just a couple of guys that all followed the lead of one. There was in fact a large circle of tipis next to main meadow, dozens of Lakota stayed with us for a week or more (including AIM members & grandmothers), and many important councils happened at that Gathering laid the groundwork for Standing Rock.

2015 was my first Gathering, and when the waves of FB madness started, I noticed a trend: there were a lot of the same names popping up over and over in every group, always with the same message(s). Started looking into them, found over 30 accounts that had been created within the previous month. Needless to say, I went. There were only 1500 of us, and it was absolutely breath-taking all the way through. To think, if I had listened to the loudest voices, I probably would have written off rainbow then. Thank Gaea I assume everybody's full of BS until they prove otherwise :-P

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The 2020 Gathering

This was by far the smallest National Rainbow Gathering I've been to (and as far as I know, the smallest there has ever been) with just about 250 people on the land at the peak, and perhaps 400 all together over the Family's time there. For reference, the last few years were a range from ~1,500 to ~17,000 people, and the largest gatherings were well over 50,000 people.

This was by far the most peaceful, respectful, and relaxing gathering I've ever attended. The Road Pirates only came through once during my more than a week on the land, I never heard a single call for Shanti Sena, there weren't even many dog fights (literally only 1 troublemaker dog.) There were only 7 kitchens, but there was always more food than people. The springs were running so strong that nobody ever had to wait for filtered water, and there were streams & wetlands all over the land.

Another wonderful thing is that I went and sat at Vision Council for the first time - actually a few times throughout the 7th - and the Family were able to come to consensus on the region for next year's Gathering on the first day! For those that are unfamiliar, this process sometimes takes a week or more, as contingents from various regions just keep blocking a call for consensus. Council went on for another day, with a few more points being consented on.

Here is the whole of the consensus reached by those on the land at this year's Vision Counsel:

We the People, being individuals present at Rainbow Family Vision Counsel at the 49th annual Rainbow Gathering of Living Light in the Payette National Forest on the 7th day of July 2020, convene and consecrate our manifest through Consensus by Silence.
1. We reaffirm that our living vision thrives and relies upon Consensus found on the land in Open Counsel.
2. Consensus is our very best means of advising, but is not binding, and new advice or current situation may cultivate new consensus from individuals present when the people gather in counsel on the land.
3. We suggest that Harvest Counsel be called as close as feasible to the consented 2021 Gathering region, on the weekend of the full moon after the fall equinox.
4. We encourage individuals to share all of the vision counsel consensus instead of just part of it.
5. With great joy and abundant enthusiasm, we invite all who carry hope and intent to join us in a morning of Silence from dawn until noon to constitute World Peace through inner peace, and to Gather with Open Hearts for the 50th rainbow gathering July 1-7 2021, and to counsel our vision on the seventh day, somewhere in the regions of: Santa Fe, Carson, Cibola, Lincoln, Gila, Apache, Coconino, Kaibab Prescott … in a National Forest.
6. We call for a discussion on Rainbow Caravans to be held on July 1st at Main Counsel.
7. The Earth as a whole is the common heritage and responsibility of the life borne upon her.
8. We close the 2020 Vision Counsel with a silent passing of the feather.

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Heading Home in 2021

As with most everything right now - we're looking at a very similar situation to last year, just with less people believing the fear porn. Of course, that means that those who believe had doubled, tripled, and quadrupled down on their lies - because it's much easier to dig a hole deeper than to admit that you're in a hole and climb out.

It's currently shaping up into three separate camps of people:

Camp 1 is those who came to Rainbow last year, or who at least acknowledge that it happened, and will be having a Gathering somewhere in NM or AZ - as the family on the land consented.
Camp 2 is those who are ready to come Home, but they believe that Rainbow didn't happen last year, because it was "postponed," and they want to have their Gathering in Idaho.
Camp 3 is those who are still fully supporting Bill Gates and his agenda, still locked in their houses 11 months later, and are still calling for no Rainbow Gatherings until everything is "safe."

Of course, pretty much all of the websites that have been used by the Family for years, and all the FB groups, are run by people that fall into camps 2 & 3... So if you go look at welcomehome.org, the long-time main site to direct people to, it says that Rainbow was cancelled last year, and no information about this year.

I had this conversation with many of the Instant Soup folks last year... If you are going to wait until the most violent & abusive people on the planet tell you you're allowed to go to Rainbow, then you've already made it home for the last time. Stop pretending.

I'll be in the woods again this year, celebrating peace, community, and freedom! I hope to see you there!

If you're interested in all the freedom-oriented events happening this year, here's my list: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Xfxko9ixrydRNXMV4oxLSl59qJnAL6NP6RVsNG6KfDg/edit?usp=sharing