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Rainbows and Hitching Circles

© Bernd Wechner

This August brought not only a total eclipse of the sun to Europe, but also the annual European Rainbow Gathering in Hungary. The roads in that direction were littered with hitch-hikers. I counted 50 or more leaving Prague. In fact there are so many hitchers heading to a gathering of this scale that many of them are relying on bumping into someone on the way to direct them. The precise location of a gathering being something of an obscure mystery at times.

So what is a Rainbow Gathering? My friend Hamish tells me "it is many things to many people", and there he has a good point. It is indeed many things to many people. Loosely based on native a hidge-podge of native American tradition, it's really grown, since the early '70s into a rather popular if ill-defined coming together of peaceful people.

This gathering ran the full month of August and was centred around the total solar eclipse. People coming and going all the time, numbers peaked around 3000 (I'm told), there must have been 10,000 or more who took part at some time during the month. That leaves a lot of people to which it can mean a lot of things all right!

A lot of people at Rainbow are just checking it out really, new kids on the block, having heard on the grapevine, of some vague hippie, new age, naturalists get together in the wild ... I was one of those of those people. To help us work it out, there's a welcome centre where the basic rules are laid, and illusions dispelled.

What are the key themes of Rainbow then? Respect, harmony and love - between one person and another, between people and nature, anti- exploitation, abuse, violence, discord, just about anything nice you can think of. Participants join the Rainbow Family of Living Light, all are welcome, all are accepted and all are loved. "Brothers and sisters, we looove you," is not an uncommon cry. Nudity and intimacy (surprisingly asexually) abound. Tolerance is the order of the day.

And yet there are rules. No alcohol. No cars. No electric devices. No soap. No violence. It's not a festival but a gathering - the signs clarify as you walk the hour long trail from the nearest village (where cars must be abandoned). It's about getting close to nature and one another, a rejection of the modern society, a middle-class dream - and the hike is part of the ritual.

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