So after 2 days of hitchhiking from Tbilisi , we finally arrived at the gathering.
I was very close to the family and Home, and the ecstatic song repeating itself in my mind was echoing even more vividly and loudly saying "Pachamama I'm Coming Home"
I should note that immediately after we turned our heads away from the sign we saw a police car approaching us. It stopped in front of us and one of the polices asked what we are doing here, in poor English. I answered in English “for the gathering, to meet our friends”. Burak who knew a little Georgian talked to them in Georgian and they asked for our passport which I reached out to my bag to take it out. However, while I was doing so, he asked where I was from; to which I simply said “I’m Iranian” so that I don’t make long sentences in English. Over the years, I had learned to be concise and look poor to the police. When my hand touched my passport to take it out, he said something to Burak in Georgian and they started to leave. They were leaving the location of the gathering. Then, looking flummoxed, Burak told me to forget about the passport and pointed towards the way ahead of us meaning “Let’s go.”
Finally, I realized that the polices are also there to watch us. Later on, I found out that they come and go in the car once or twice a day. Sometimes, they are there all day. But normally they would leave after dinner. They would watch us during the singings at night and the dances after dinner. Then, they would leave.
When we went past the sign “Welcome Home”, there was still a distance to cross. Therefore, after 5 more minutes of walking again, we arrived at this other part of nature. It looked as if some people were camping beside each other, very close to one another and had made some sort of structure with the woods they had collected. Burak looked like having an idea of it. When we approached them, we confronted a girl who came towards us and said hi, while she started to hug us; firstly Burak and then me. I should mention that Burak had already been to the Rainbow, in that specific place for seed camp. They had already been there to make the camp ready for us to go there and start.
This girl hugged us and I noticed that the people who were sitting and lying there stood up one by one to say hi to us, and of course, they hugged us. Some didn’t though, as they were perfectly excused from doing so the moment I looked at their faces. They were surely not lying down there at that specific time and space. They were most probably experiencing some supernatural atmosphere. The concept of hugging is not that much an attitude that we people of the world embrace nowadays. When this guy hugged me and pressed me to himself for almost 4 to 5 minutes I had the feeling that I had just come back from prison or something; that I am of value. It goes without mentioning that at the time it looked slightly awkward to me.
In parenthesis, I should note that in my travel diaries I don’t aim to judge anything or anyone or romanticize any concept or event. I don’t aim at describing something to looking alluring or disgusting. I have learned to be a mere observer and that is the ultimate pleasure for me. I adore accepting the concepts as they are, as this has brought me great pleasure over the last three years. Also, unfortunately, we were asked not to use our phones in the rainbow, and I respected the family.
Consequently, I don’t possess any photo of the family in the mountains. The whole fire, dances, music and the charming nights were obviously exciting to have photos of, to share them with you. For me, respect was the most important matter and I essayed to live that kind of life to temporarily let go of my belongings. Anyway, staying for a long time in the mountain would not allow me to have many photos.
However, I have some photos of the nearby location that I will share with you during the story.
The place that I have already mentioned above is what they call “Welcome Center”. This is a part where some brothers and sisters stay during the day and welcome and hug the newcomers. How about that? As I was totally new to the surrounding, I and Burak departed. He went to see his friends and I went to find a place to pitch up my tent. I walked and walked till I found a place and I pitched up my tent. At the moment I knew that the location is weird but it was getting dark and I had to do it anyways.
I did so and went to wander around and say hi to some people. On my way, I said hi to some people who were straying around their tents. But no one seemed to give a shit about me :=D
This was the first blow in slightly shattering my illusion, as my friends formerly had told me very beautiful stories about the good hearts. But I’m saying here that when we think about something for a long time, we idealize that concept. We romanticize that. I probably acted quixotic in this regard. Therefore, although broken-hearted at the moment, now I can see more clearly and sensibly that I expected too much. Dude, why would everyone care about you? Just take it easy :-D people have their own lives.
Therefore after wandering around for a couple of minutes, I found my way to the place called "Kitchen". It is normally a primitive kitchen that had some up-to-date accessories, and after the main fire, this is the most interesting and flamboyant part of the gathering which I adored. In the kitchen, people sing and play music and cook with music. It allegedly makes the food holy and healthy. Also, it is usually very appreciated if you give them hand in a task. I would normally bring water to the kitchen from the river. Yes! Of course not the river. We had that clean pipe that came from somewhere safe.
We would wash ourselves in the river with organic soups, and bathe in it. I should note here that we had this problem with the local villagers (one of many) that they didn’t want us to bath in the river as the water would go down to their villages, which by the way they were perfectly right. So every time around the fire we had some people asking us not to do so. I would normally take the water out in my bottle and wash my body outside the river.
This is where we would wash ourselves
When I entered the kitchen, right away I said that I am eager to help as they were still preparing food for the dinner. Of course, I immediately found many Iranians and talked to some. They assigned me to the task of making bread. When doing so, we started socializing and I let them know that I had just arrived at the location. This lovely (obviously British) girl asked where I come from?
To which I replied “Iran.”
The sarcastic response was: “Another Iranian!”
She immediately started to correct herself saying: “Not that I don’t like Iranians. They are really nice; only that there are a lot of them.”
I loved the way she completed her statement very much. I didn’t mind and her tone was not annoying to the extent that it may look offensive when I write them down. She was a very beautiful soul, and we had a plethora of interesting conversations with each other. The last day when I planned to leave the rainbow she asked if I want to hitchhike back with her. But, I wanted to leave the next day. So we departed, without having each other’s contact. But I believe that I remember her name and I will meet her again one day in this world.
When the dinner was ready, I was told to go to the main fire, which I didn’t know where it was. I noticed that when they needed a hand in the kitchen they would shout with each other for the people in the vicinity something like “HELP IN THE KITCHEN”. I am not sure about the exact phrase, but I guess this was the sentence. When the dinner was ready and they wanted everyone to gather around the fire, they would shout “MAIN FIRE”. Again I am not certain that this was the sentence. Then the people would go to the main fire which was a very big fire made out of dead woods. We were, for a plethora of times, told not to kill the tree and only use the dead woods. Life was supposed to be in harmony with nature. You should not kill the tree, you should throw toilet papers and plastics and you were supposed to use organic soup if you wanted to use soup at all.
Yes! Over there I realized that it was possible to live without hygienic materials. We were told that some of them had not been using soup and shampoo for years and nothing had happened to them.
The ritual was that people in the kitchen would bring the food when the folks had gathered around the fire, forming a circle. They would put down the pots close to the fire and we would take each other’s hands and sing some special songs, called rainbow songs. Below you can find the collection.
In the process of doing so, when people took each others’ hands, they would kiss, and the kissing would go one by one and turn around the circle. After the singings, we would sit down and have our plates ready so that people from the kitchen come and take our plates and put some food in it and bring them to us. When we all have our first round, then if there was any food remaining, they would bring more food for us.
The events of the late nights were the most interesting part for me. The songs, the music, and the dances near the big fire. I miss those songs very much. I loved them overwhelmingly. They wouldn’t finish. We would sing nonstop for a couple of hours and when the people were tired of singings and playings would leave. But, only some of them. The rest would stay and play very slow songs while staring at the fire.
Those nights in the mountains of Georgia with the folks were probably the experience I would have never thought to happen. Those were the lights at nights, the stars, fires, the ashes, trees, and music. What do we know of primitive music and dances? The songs were intermingled with each other. The Hindu songs praying to Shiva, mixed with all those howls, unsparingly took away my heart. The upbeat music would go on and on for hours, the lovers would meet each other and the dances would go berserk while the tea-head brothers, sisters, folks, the lovers and warriors gave love to each other and embraced; put their heads on each other's shoulders and cigarets on each other's lips. The buoyant and vivacious nakedness, the nakedness that was in them. Those were relentless tenderness.
This photo was taken in one of those nights at the Rainbow Gathering of Georgia by Tobias Danz (isn't it fascinating?) Yes this was our big fire when facing the moon and stars, howling when watching the moon in the lighted sky.
I experienced many amiable talks with newcomers. I had deep talk and conversation with the fire; the honest holy fire. Everything was holy. Remembering Ginsberg again, one night I started repeating and murmuring to myself:
“Everything is holy! everybody’s holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman’s an angel!”
To be continued…