I was babysitting for a 3 year old girl the other day and, after telling her a story and suggesting she close her eyes to go to sleep, she wriggled with the joy of being alive and said: ‘I love…the whole world!’ How many times in each Rainbow Gathering do we hear someone cry out… read more

Another story I was told about the Carpathian Rainbow Gathering this year was that the locals were under some misapprehensions about what a Rainbow is. It often happens that rumours spread in the nearby villages about the strange, possibly Satanic, cult gathered in the forest and, especially if Christianity still rules the minds of the… read more

This summer I was sitting around my fire in the Rainbow and my girlfriend asked me to read aloud a chapter from Somewhere Under the Rainbow and I flicked the book open to the chapter about health. ‘The urge towards simplicity is understandable in a world that has grown too complex to understand. As biologists… read more

The question of freedom at a Rainbow Gathering is always a thorny one as we negotiate the subtleties of being free from and being free to.; do we come to a Rainbow to be free from alcohol or is someone free to get wasted? One thing I love about being at a Rainbow Gathering is… read more

First, a quick joke: What’s a hippie’s favourite brand of tobacco? Yours. I don’t mind too much when people walk around the circle asking me for ‘tobacco connection’. Addiction is a nasty beast to carry on one’s shoulder and maybe they gave away all their cigarettes and rolling tobacco to other people who asked. Hey,… read more

There aren’t many economists in the Rainbow. I’ve often wondered just how much money flows in and out of the Magic Hat in a gathering but it’s rare that anyone holds the hat for more than a week or so as it’s a stressful job, and the finances recorded in the Magic Hat book are… read more

I had the crazy idea this summer at the European Rainbow Gathering in Lithuania to print up 50 copies of my book about the Rainbow and give them away to people in the circle. It was an expensive mission and the books got held up for 2 weeks by the customs control (I ordered them… read more