This was a gathering where I didn't take up any crosses, like the Banking
Council trip last year. I did some small tasks around the kitchen, but I
decided to be basically a bliss bunny this time and mostly make music and
run around nekkid. It was also very mellow for me. I didn't run across one
Shanti Sena movie the whole gathering (other than a few possible ones I made
myself in Bus Village when I was in a world class cranky mood.), quite
unlike Vermont and Oregon, where I was getting into them daily.

The site was along a creek valley, with steep sides going up to tabletop
mountains beyond. All routes out included a strenuous climb of a few hundred
feet up grades of 45 degrees in spots, and in the latter days covered with
slick mud. It was NOT handicapped friendly, and many people regretted having
come in with heavy loads on two wheeled carts. The walk from Bus Village was
a mile and a half to the first signs of people, and another to Main Circle.
It was tiring enough to be just a once in and out a day trip. I only trucked
in about half of my musical instruments.
(However, one evening a relay of people brought in a spinet acoustic piano,
about four feet high and heavy enough for at least ten to be carrying it,
and set it up by Sun Dog. It was a high festive occasion coming down, all
kinds of laughing people ready to take turns helping carry it. As they came
thru Rainbow Crystal they set it down for a rest, and I was one of the
people who played it. But I am interested to have a confirmation of whether
it ever got OUT. I'm sure there weren't as many eager people standing by on
the return trip, if it occurred. Did it get chopped up and put in the fire,
as Gary Stubbs predicted?)
It was an athletic occasion doing that trail, but still I commuted to Bus
Village every evening so I could have some guaranteed food, a dry bed, and
the best shitter I have ever crapped into at any gathering. It was a long
white box with a real toilet seat on a movable screwed down panel.

The land was almost entirely under deciduous tree cover, with ferns covering
the forest floor. There were few meadows anywhere of tipi circle size or
more, and the only large one down in the valley was swamp at one end and
barely dry at the other. Most of it had blue and red tapes blocking them off
with "riparian area" signs. Main Circle was placed at the drier end, and was
off to the side from the most populous parts of the gathering, Many objected
to having many people in the wetland, and Lovin' Oven refused to serve Main
Circle, instead distributing their products on the trails. The Silent
Meditation was held in a larger and higher meadow at the southern fringes of
the gathering, and it was a waffle iron of grass mounds surrounded by little
canyons, with few good places to sit.

On my first walk in, the first kitchen I encountered was Rainbow Crystal,
and I was very pleased to find Gary Stubbs back on Main Trail being his
usual sociable self. He had set up his place at Back Gate last year, around
all the usual gate movies, in regular contacts with the cops, and if you
know Gary you know to keep him the hell away from policemen as he has
troubles keeping his civility around them. But that was last year.

Now I'll tell you what I like about Gary's kitchen: He always puts it right
on Main Trail in one of the most heavily traveled parts of it. He sits in a
chair and booms out in his bass voice "GOOD afternoon" to everyone who comes
by "where are you from?" "is that right, I've been there, lovely place"
"that's an interesting tattoo you've got there, it that of a..." "is that a
guitar there? will you play us a tune" etc., etc". You can sit by him and
watch the whole gathering come to you if you want. There is no bliss rail,
anyone can come thru or sit down in it. I can go in and get a cup of water
without having to put on clothes. He's got one product, his soup, that gets
made eight or ten times a day, served boiling hot, and so he never asks you
to wash your hands unless you're slicing and dicing. When people ask where
the hand washing station is, he says, "Wash your dish at the dishwashing
station. As your hands pass thru the water, they will become clean."
Absolutely none of the uptightness, chickenshit, exclusivity, and sometime
outright misanthropy that I encounter in some other kitchens. I set up my
tent for stashing musical instruments et al. by there.

Most of the days the weather was humid and hot enough for nudity from about
three hours after sunrise until sunset, and a few nights until just a few
hours before next sunrise. A lot of other people were going nude too, I
observed more of it than any other recent gathering. There was a creek
running thru the middle of the site with many places conducive to basking
and bathing (but the water was very cold!). I brought a lot more clothes
than I wore, there was need for long skirt and sweater only one night. It
was dry the first week, but early the next there was a strong thunderstorm
accompanying a cold front that turned all the trails into quagmire in an
hour. Then it started to rain late in the afternoon of July 2 and continued
all night until sunrise. One rumor was that it was three inches. Then it was
like the battlefield at Passchendaele everywhere, travel on the trails
turned into a saga in every step, and it took four times as long to get
anywhere. A dam of rocks that had been built across the creek was under
thigh-high water for a day.

These muddy conditions prevailed until the end of my stay, the trails were
under trees most of the day and the sun could do little to dry things. After
several days of people walking thru, many in bare feet, the trails took on a
general odor of dirty socks. The trails were lined with wet knee-high ferns
and bushes, very treacherous for anything worn below knee level. I wore only
minidresses when I was wearing anything at all. This was over high-topped
work boots with a tread, often heavy and uncomfortable. I didn't travel
around as much as I usually do, I hung around Rainbow Crystal (which became
the geographical center of the gathering), and played my big drum either
there or at Granola Funk, which was nearby. GrFk was the scene of a week of
frequently intense and moving music that was often enough to occupy me
without having to look further.

These conditions seemed to affect the flow of supplies coming in. Food was
scarcer than usual in my neighborhood during the height of the gathering. I
could eat up to two bowls of Gary's soup a day before my stomach would say,
"Give me a break." All of the high volume high efficiency kitchens like
Kiddy Village or Sun Dog were made remote by the mud, and most of the other
kitchens nearby were new starters that had food only by chance encounter. I
would be going to six or seven kitchens sometimes before giving up. Also the
hamburgers and Dr. Peppers that come thru the old friends I have blat with
didn't appear like they usually do (cuz I wasn't getting around as much).
There were some culinary moments - like July 3 evening when the New
Vrindaban devotees had a four course meal and a fast moving efficiently
served line that took less than five minutes and that they let me go thru
three times - but I would have starved if I hadn't had my propane stove and
private stash. On the day before I left the gathering, I gave the money I
had intended for the Magic Hat to Gary.

I left at sunrise on the 7th, earlier than I usually do. Late on the 4th, a
combination of too much exertion, not enough food and water, and too much
weed left me with the mother of colds, and I spent most of the fifth in my
truck sleeping it off. Two Bears (claw) told me he was leaving on the 5th
because he felt that all the magic he could do was done at the end of the
fourth, and I started to agree with him for myself. Two weeks of athletic
walking while semi-fasting had left me with a cumulative tiredness, and I
needed to get back to the land of steak and eggs. I damn near didn't make it
out thru the mud, and the last thing I said on the site was hollering
"ASSHOLES" in the stillness as I was regarding two vans parked such that I
had to rock front and back in the mud between them to turn onto the road.

Ain't no such thing as a bad gathering, and this one too was full of moments
that I will be turning over in my head all year, but this was more tiring
than most.
 

- Butterfly Bill