Home from Rainbow Land

Just got home from the Australian Rainbow Gathering, which was all kinds of awesome!

We packed up my trusty van, Sunshine with all the gear and tipi poles on the roof and hit the road! On the way we stopped at the Coroborree Land out at Tabulam to pick up the big communal pots – was nice to break the journey and have a nice swim in the river on a hot day!

It took most of two days to drive down to the Blue Mountains, but it was great to arrive at Home and get the tipi set up… right before we all moved to a better site, 2 hours away. Exhaustion much!?

Aaaand then it was time to drive down to Sydney to pick Littletree up from the airport.

Honestly, I have no idea how people manage to live there, I was so wiped out from being in the city for one day, and all we did was drive in to the airport and drive out again!

So it took us a whole week to get down, get set up, move again, set up again and settle in! Phew! But it was really nice to be in the tipi once more, and to be in nature and at rainbow, after a year without gathering on the land.

I Loved being able to go for circles every day, singing and Aumming and eating communally under the big tree

And Food Circle around the sacred fire in the evening

There were so many awesome workshops – someone bought a bucket of avocado seeds and some carving tools, and some people got together to carve an avocado chess-set

Juggling, capoeira and Hula Hooping

I held my usual water-bottle-holder crochet workshop

Random acts of group massage

Face Painting in silence by the creek

Making signs for the kitchen

Fire Twirling

Dress-ups for the production of Alice in RainbowLand, and for the Cabaret

And so much more!

I worked in the kitchen (as I do), but was pretty good at stepping back and not getting burned out

And spent a lot of time lying on a rock in the river, or in my hammock. It was wonderful to catch up with old friends and to make new connections. Great to be back in the bush, watching the stars and the moon, falling asleep at night to the sounds of the drums, making chapatis and doughnuts on an open fire, feeling the rain on my skin.

But not too much rain!

And now it’s good to be home!

More photos can be found on my flickr page HERE

Capoeira Class

A capoeira group has started up in our village, which is super awesome! All three of us have been going, well Purple is in San Francisco at the moment, so just Littletree and I went this week.

It’s loads of fun, and I’m so glad to be getting back into training; I’ve been badly out of practice, so it’s great to have a proper mestre again to teach me.

I first started playing capoeira just after Littletree was born – I wanted to get fit again after being pregnant, and living in Brazil, it was the thing to do! Only being an attached parent, I could rarely put Littletree down, and she really loved the movement of capoeira… so i would train with her in one hand! I got really good at one-handed movements.

So she has the rhythm in her body since birth and she picks it up really easily. I remember when she was two and we’d play together on the beach in Tel Aviv. She’s also out of practice, but really loving the class!

She even showed everyone up getting in the roda against the mestre

Capoeira Cats

All packed up again and ready to leave Israel. It’s been nice to visit, a little short, but so good to see everyone!

On the weekend we had a lot of friends over for a little get-together, we all sat around chatting and we got into playing capoeira.

Littletree has been really getting into playing again – she begged me to do some training with her every day :)

Loads of fun!

Sadly, Littletree’s cousin found some abandoned kittens mewling in the woodpile. One of them was already dead and the surviving three weren’t in good shape; hungry, cold and wet from the rain.

Everyone took turns in holding them on hot water bottles and feeding them special milk from a dropper.

Tonight I fly to Bangkok to await Littletree and Purple, who will be coming in two more days, then Littletree and I fly to Malaysia for a month :)

Blue Mountains Rainbow Gathering

We’re all home from the rainbow adventure now and well unpacked. The gathering was spectacular! One of the most stunningly beautiful sites; and not just beautiful, but logistically perfect and easy – clean water, nice land, soft grass, no ticks, mozzies or leeches, easy access while not being too close to any towns… and awesome people!

Littletree and I drove down slowly, stopping on the way to see the Solar System Drive that you can read about HERE.

There were so many rainbows on the way there, it was almost like magical providence leading us home

We were lucky enough to get there early, before the road was blocked, so I could drive right in to the site to unload our tipi and the poles and everything (cars aren’t allowed to enter the rainbow site after the opening day), and since we’d decided to sleep the night on the road just before coming into the site, we arrived early morning and had plenty of time to find our perfect campsite and set up and get the car out before the day was over. Our faithful van Sunshine served us like a true champion :)

I had help from a couple of people to get the tipi up and was quickly rewarded by yet another rainbow

So we were settled in and ready to work on helping set up the gathering and build infrastructure

The gathering was so full of wonderful friends. I barely saw Littletree as she roamed freely with a bunch of other kids exploring the forest. They all made bows and arrows

and played all sorts of cool games

and made faerie crowns

and did face painting

and attracted butterflies

It’s such a supportive environment for children – no cars or roads to worry about, dozens of supportive grown-ups available, and freedom to roam and explore :D

A local theatre group, Living Light, joined the gathering to give a preview of their performance

I spent a fair bit of time in the kitchen, though not as much as I have in the past, which is pretty good

and we opened up our tipi for chai nights where I made doughnuts for everyone. I pumped out a few hundred organic chocolate-filled doughnuts, and cinnamon ring doughnuts. mmmm

I also did a lot of crochet – I added six new hearts to Littetree’s blanket, I held a couple of crochet workshops

 

and I even made a rainbow heart that slowly morphs into a square to be part of a patchwork community blanket; a free-form heart that becomes a square was no easy feat, I don’t think I did too badly, considering this was my first attempt.

Since there were several pregnant mamas,

I held several midwifery circles and did ante-natal check-ups

I swam every day in the creek

sang and danced in the magic hat parade

played capoeira and partied around the drum circle by main fire

enjoyed the sunset against the mountains

and watched the full moon rise

It was such an enriching, revitalising experience. To be in nature, to hold hands and chant AUM with 100 people before every meal, to sit in talking circles, and feel supported by my family. I was sad to leave, but I left knowing the consensus for the next rainbow in Australia will be just 2 months away, in January! details HERE

Of course, there’s no way I could fit the whole experience of rainbow into one (or even two) blog posts, and I took many photos, which you can browse on my flicker page HERE.

New Zealand World Rainbow Gathering (part 2)

(You can see part 1 of this post HERE) We had a fantastic time at the World Rainbow Gathering in New Zealand. Littletree was off most of the time playing with the other kids

Or twirling her ribbon

Most folk congregated around main meadow before dinner to do workshops like staff twirling, poi, hula hoop, acrobalance, juggling, yoga, capoeira, etc

And just enjoy the sunset

We lit Channukah candles, rainbow-style.

We enjoyed two food circles every day

I spent a lot of time in the kitchen

And I held a few workshops – rebozo massage, women’s mysteries/ billings method, crochet. And I did some pre-natal care with a few pregnant mamas :) as well as catching up with a lot of old friends

(photo courtesy Arjuna)

Someone made a drum kit out of djembes and a pot lid

Someone carried in an antique mantlepiece and set it up by the river – then people hung their stinky socks up on it on Christmas and everyone came and put random gifts in the socks

 

(Photo courtesy Arjuna)

I hung out a lot with some family from Quebec, they had a temple set up in their camp that included tins of maple syrup!

The vision council reached consensus for the next World Rainbow Gathering to be in Argentina, March 2011, details HERE. And so, so, so much more! I could write 27 blog posts and still not tell all the stories! You can see the rest of my photos from the rainbow on my flickr page HERE.

We were sad to finally leave the gathering, but it was time to go. We flew off to Adelaide, South Australia, but that will be another post.