"Of course we have headmen!  In fact, we are all headmen.  Each one of us is
headman over himself."   A !Kung (Bushman) of the African Kalahari desert,
"Life Without Chiefs"

Everyone focalizes who helps the family get focused.  A focalizer is a
person who takes on the responsibility of passing on Rainbow information
year-round, and serves as a contact if listed in the Rainbow Guide.  We
council together every year at 3:00 on the 5th day of July; our Family is
welcome.  Focalizers Council consensus, Colorado 1992

What's focalize, anyway?
        It's a magical word; it means anything you want it to.  The catch is that
you really have to mean it.
        In essence, focalizing is communicating:  passing any info you receive through
the larger network on to the network in your area.  If that's all you can
manage, it'
enough.  But as usual, the possibilities are endless.
        One brother mainly focalizes a bus:  every year he loads it up with
pilgrims to the great North American Gathering of the Tribes.  Others
focalize a kitchen or camp for their home
folks at the Gathering.  Or focalize C.A.L.M., All Ways Free, the Rainbow Guide.
        Some focalize mostly on the regional level.  Regional gatherings take a lot
of work and a strong network, connecting several circles in the region.  A
dozen regional circles across the country focalize occasional newsletters or
informal mailings.
        Others focalize strictly local circles.  In New York they hold two huge
picnics a year.  In Madison it's a small one every Sunday.  In a couple
dozen other cities, circles are monthly.  Some of these events take over a
down town park.  Some materialize miles out in the woods.
        The Monterey and Santa Cruz circles pulled off a magnificent benefit show
for All Ways Free.  A circle in Tampa did their benefit for the Children's
Rain Forest; Tallahassee does one
 regularly for the victims of genocide.  In D.C. and Berkeley, Family
circles feed the homeless.  The Memphis circle does an Earth Day celebration
for their city each year.
        Focalizing involves looking into the magic that manifests the Rainbow
Gathering,
learning some of the skills, and tapping the same sources on a smaller
scale.  Our circle springs from Spirit; Mother Earth is our teacher and
guide; holding hands in a circle somehow re-connects us not only to one
another but to sky above and earth below.  Helping this to
happen is a powerful and empowering experience.

Who focalizes?
        If you're the first to get tired of waiting around for the 4th of July,  if
you don't care to live where there isn't an occasional Gathering in the park
you do.  Instead of complaining, or finding a substitute, or moving away,
start a local circle.
        The key to focalizing anywhere is:  find the other focalizers.  It takes as
much collective familiarity with how Gatherings work as you can muster.
Find all the other brothers, sisters, households in your area that feel like
missing pieces of a circle; council and decide what to do about it.  Do it
together.
        The Rainbow has no leaders, only louders.  You can't start a circle all by
yourself, but someone has to call the first council.  When three or more of
you agree to invite all peaceful beings in the universe to a local park,
it's already happened.  The folks that show up are the circle; they'll
decide what to do from there.
        The Rainbow Guide is a good place to start.  Contact all the focalizers
listed for your region and ask for addresses around your hometown.  Add
friends who you feel are Family, and ask them to add theirs.  Mail out an
invitation or do it by word-of-mouth.
        Start any council with a circle;  it draws the energy together.  A moment
of silence
gathers the focus.  Songs, prayers, chants help too.  Passing the feather
and sharing heartsongs is a good way to break silence but once it starts,
make sure it travels all the way around so every-
one gets to speak.  After that, put it away if it gets in the way of the
flow.  But encourage every- one to participate.
        (It doesn't have to be a feather.  Use a stick, a rock, a shell once we
passed a Gumby doll long into the night.  What's important is the discipline
of listening to each feather-holder in turn till our own turn comes, and
what it teaches us.)
        The first council may simply choose a time and place to invite the
community at large to experience the Rainbow a picnic, potluck or overnight
campout anything that's free and peaceful and open to anyone.   You may also
talk about exactly how big an area you're inviting.  Your city or town, the
surrounding countryside, a bioregion or state boundary?  Don't take too big
a bite; let it grow organically.
        Besides, who's going to help?  The idea is not to volunteer to keep the
mailing list, make the phone calls, scout the site, draw the flyer and lick
the stamps yourself.  A circle of people within the larger circle will
hopefully share these responsibilities.  Plenty of good folks have been
burned out like a fuse by volunteering to do too much or picking up whatever
other volunteers may drop.
        The other side of responsibility is power, and it pays to diffuse the power
(defuse the powder) among a minimum of three people.  A solitary focalizer
can get too important to be much use any more.  So make it clear from the
start that the essence of Rainbow is to share, not only the potluck-eating
and decision-making but also the shitter-digging and envelope-stuffing.
        You need one person's address for getting mail, but that person isn't the
focalizer.
It takes a veritable Rainbow of talents to keep a circle rolling, from
scouting enthusiasts to designers of flyers.  This is Rainbow.  Share it.
 
What do focalizers do?
        Whether, when and where a second local gathering happens is the decision of
the circle that shows up for the first one.  The focalizer's job from that
point on is simply to communicate the when and where.  This can mean
ocasional mailings, using a phone tree (where each person you call has four
or five to call in turn), recording a message on a contact number, or just
posting a flyer in the right places around town.
        Remember that the Rainbow is not the Rainbow unless it is open, always
inviting new brothers and sisters into the Family.  Don't let it become the
private club of a habitual few who know each other and think they're the
Rainbow people around town.  If your circle thinks that, you're not!  Keep
extending the invitation; seek out your spiritual kin.
        At your local gatherings, the focalizer may be the one who puts up an info
board or

signup sheet.  The one who realizes folks are getting hungry and it's time
to circle.  The one who reminds everyone of what needs counciling before you
eat.  The one who proposes doing a benefit, a campout, a caravan to the
regional.  But as soon as you suggest it, shut up and listen.  The circle
may or may not jump at your idea.  It may or may not want you to act on its
behalf.  You have volunteered only to serve and facilitate, not to lead anyone.
        In Babylon people dont grow up with council and consensus.  We're used to
being told what to do and Rainbows in particular often magnetically repel
anyone who tries.  Others are unconsciously looking for the security of a
leader, and before you know it they'll be following wherever you go:
presto, you're just as trapped in the leader role as they are trapped in
follower.  Don't let them get away with it!  Respecting consensus is all the
more important for the one who chooses to focalize, because our circle is
one of the last places people can learn this crucial part of being fully
human.  Even at the price of inefficiency, frustration, endless
discussion,let the people decide.  They'll get better at it with practice.
Patience is a wonderful thing to learn
 (once you learn it).

        At first it may seem necessary to do most of everything; just don't get in
the habit!  When things need doing, make an effort to pass the task along.
Soneone is out there waiting to be
useful, maybe even unaware of some talent they have.  Giving away all those
tasks, each to the right person, will leave you exhausted but save you from
burning out.
 
        Healing Babylon's bruises is one chief reason we come together.   And one
of the basic healings the Rainbow offers is precisely this:  the medicine of
participating in something worth-
while, giving your own best contribution for free, just for love.  The
focalizer is therefore one of the Family healers.  The ego traps are many,
but stay in touch with your circle.  Remember the higher calling of Rainbow,
to help us all heal and grow, learn to be part of a Family again.
 

Who are the focalizers?
        Each year at the North American Rainbow Gathering we hold a Focalizers'
Council to share what we know and do.  We are young and old, brother and
sister, from rural and urban places; we have different methods and ideas.
We have in common only the love of our Family and the urge to serveQ and,
gradually, a network of communication.
        Several individual volunteers send out an occasional Focalizers Quarterly
Mailing to update addresses and pass messages from the various Family-wide
focalizing circles (CALM, All Ways Free, the Guide etc.) to the regions.
There is an ongoing international conversation on alt.
gathering.rainbow, a UseNet newsgroup.  The Colorado Legal Eagles maintain
an extensive archive on a web site called the WelcomeHome Page
(http://WelcomeHome.org/eagles.html; for info, call 303/258-0506 or e-mail
[email protected].)  We also communicate through the all-volunteer
all-donation newspaper All Ways Free and mini-manual/directory, the Rainbow
Guide.
        Once your local circle gets going, send a contact address and/or phone to
the Rainbow Guide.  (If you want to hear from other focalizers but don't
want your phone number in the Focalizer pages of next year's Guide or don't
want to appear there at all make that clear.
  The Focalizers' Network keeps a separate list available only to
focalizers.)  As soon as its practical, invest in a P.O. Box so more than
one household has access to the mail.
        Just as we do at gatherings, local, regional and Family-wide focalizers can
help each other out.  Run off some copies of Ho! for your picnic, and pass
the magic hat.  After your copying is covered, send some of the magic to
help with Ho!s paper, printing and mailing costs.  Send some to All Ways
Free and the Guide; it's the surest way to get some Frees and Guides to pass
out at your next event.
        If every local circle dreamed up some small-scale fundraiser for Rainbow
communications once a year, no one would have to pull off a megabuck event
to print regional
newsletters, AWF or the Rainbow Guide.  If small chunks of money are
continually coming in from all over the country, the cost spreads out to
virtually nil.  The same principles apply on the planetary as on the local
scale:  if everybody does a little, nobody gets burnt out, and the work is a
celebration rather than a chore.
        The heart of focalizing is really no different from the heart of Rainbow:
loving service.  The focalizer is just the first to realize that it doesnt
stop after Cleanup.  We feel called to serve our Tribe as the Tribe is
called to serve this planet in the hard hour of its transition.  The joy
that flows from this will sometimes seem to be the only reward ... except
for patience.

"Among Indian groups such as the Mehinacu of Brazil's Xingu National Park
... if something needs to be done, it is the headman who starts doing it,
and it is the headman who works harder than anyone else.  He sets an example
not only for hard work but also for generosity:  after a fishing or hunting
expedition, he gives away more of his catch than anyone else does.  In
trading with other groups, he must be careful not to keep the best items for
himself."
 ("Life Without Chiefs," by Marvin Harris, New Age Journal)

FOCALIZERS!  Please contribute your knowledge and experience to update,
improve and amend this document into a FOCALIZERS MINI-MANUAL that
represents our collective wisdom, not just mine!  Write Focalizers
Mini-Manual c/o Atlanta Rainbow, P.O. Box 5455, Atlanta GA 30307.  Many
thanks for your input and feedback!  love, Stephen Wing