The Rainbow Family

“For me, the first Rainbow Gathering was in Woodstock…It was the same vibration”

Photography by Benoit Paillé
Text by Sophie Pinchetti

“WELCOME HOME!” Those are most likely the first words you will be greeted with when entering a Rainbow Gathering. Now a global phenomenon, Rainbow Gatherings take their roots in the counterculture of the late Sixties. A Rainbow Gathering can bring together anywhere from a few hundred people to tens of thousands for the larger ones, particularly in the United States. This is Freedom’s home!

Brewing with the colourful energy of people from all walks of life, Rainbow Gatherings are all at once an event, a process, an experiment, a way of life and a state of mind. Here you will find Punks, Hare Krishna devotees, Conspiracy Theorists, Druids, Bikers, Ecologists, Nomads and Radical Faeries joyfully co-existing in a truly alternative reality. If you have a belly button, you’re a Rainbow… so goes this Rainbow proverb. And with that, all hopes for an official definition of Rainbow fly out the window. Rainbow celebrates diversity, uniting individuals of all colours, cultures, creeds, nations, shapes, and sizes. There are as many views and opinions of what Rainbow is as there are people attending the Gatherings. Something of a contemporary reworking of the hippie movement, Rainbows are a consciously expressed alternative to mainstream culture, forming intentional, non-hierarchical communities in the middle of nature every so often. Today, Rainbow has become the point of convergence for a multitude of different subcultures – and something of a Holy Grail for anyone genuinely interested in alternative living. As issues surrounding the sustainability of our modern civilisation multiply every day, if there ever was a time to get inspired by the Rainbow spirit – it’s surely now. In the face of advancing environmental destruction and social inequality, the Rainbow spirit resonates in today’s burgeoning anti-capitalist sentiment.
Read more : article via The Other