Monday, November 10, 2014

My Experience in the Israeli Rainbow Gathering


Well hello there Maniacs!
The preparations for the flight to Thailand are happening as we speak, but this weekend I took some time off to go to the Israeli Rainbow Gathering.
I was really hoping it'll be an experience like the one's I had in the Midburn community events, but it was completely different. the rainbow is a gathering of people for a whole month in some forest, who try to build a community on peace and love and shit. it's a free event and you get food for free so it has a really nice anti consumerism aspect to it.

I took a few hitchhikers with me on Friday and the ride was very nice and the view was incredible. when we got closer to the gathering we went through my favorite grapes vineyards. I was really excited! We arrived at sundown and couldn't see jack. but we still build our own independent tribe and built our tents together. afterwards we started hearing everyone shout "food circle now". this is a call for the major social event that happens twice a day in the rainbow, where everyone gathers around the main fire and chant and sing and do hippie stuff before the food, and then everyone eats together in a bowl they bring themselves, and have a portion of food being poured like in Oliver twist movies.
as most of you guys know i eat Raw Till 4, so I came prepared with my own fruits and some quinoa and broccoli i precooked at home before heading out. so I had that, and a bit of bread my friend made from whole wheat. 

after dinner, as it was apparently full moon, the full moon celebrations started. basically it was a lot of hippies singing and jamming together around a huge fire. it was really nice. a lot of good vibes and shit, but i felt completely out of place.



the following day was great! i went with my friends for a nice walk in the woods, met a few nice people and got to talk to some hippies. I was supposed to get back on saturday night back home but I felt like I still haven't opened up enough to the experience and got out of my shell, which usually takes me a few days. also I wanted to see how I handle the situation and being alone without the friends i came with and got to know through that time. so i decided to stay another day and see whats up.


my friends left at night and i knew a few people from other festivals but i was still pretty lonely, so i went to help in the kitchen. i met some nice dude and we went to pick some sugar cane next to a vineyard. I must say after trying to eat it, it is not food for humans. really inedible and it made me a bit nauseated as well, so i ultimately ended up having a panic attack in a vineyard in a place i don't know with some dude i don't know. he handled it very well, but i was still feeling crappy so i went to sleep back at my tent when we got back.



the day after, i woke up feeling fine but i was a bit sad. i felt lonely cause i wasn't really opening up to the environment and i am certainly not a hippןe. i have  a huge resistance to new age stuff  and some people i spoke with had this thing that they made me feel like they were a bit condescending.

after wandering around and seeing that most of whoever's left in the gathering were asleep i saw a group of people playing a game and i said to myself: "Henya, this is your chance to open up. Your'e all alone and you can just go, say hi, and sit with them", and so I did. they were friendly and let me read a card as soon as i sat in the circle, but afterwards the very loud girl asked my if I'm not underage or something.


Now this got me a bit worked up, cause I know i look young and everything from being vegan and
fruitarian a long time, but It is non of your interest how old I am. I didn't feel the need to answer her saying I'm actually 26, probably older than she was, but the fact that they give a shit about ages in such a place is a bit silly in my opinion. but than again, most of the "hippies" there weren't even vegan or vegetarian so I don't know why I'm getting all worked up over this.

Seriously, all those people claiming to be spiritual and hippie shit is just ridiculous if they are eating dead food. talking about peace and taking part in most cruel industry ever created that terrorizes billion of innocent beings is absurd. i had conversation with the carnists hippies many times, and every time i get so mad. even the one's that are vegan are saying all the time that we shouldn't bother other people with what their eating, but I wonder how calm and shanti they'd be if it were their sister lying on someone else's plate. it's noteworthy that the rainbow gathering's food is strictly vegan.

anyway, after she asked about my age in such a condescending and disgusting way I went to have some dates and pears in my tent, and I got to a point where i felt like i needed to get the fuck out from this place asap. i picked up all my shit and then a new friend, Kiki, came to see if I was heading out and i went with him, and a few more hitchhikers back to civilization.


on the way I could help myself from stopping to pick some grapes from the vineyards all over us, and I got myself a really nice box of my almost favorite grapes - crimson red. as it is "Shmita" here in Israel, a year in which we don't cultivate or pick fruits commercially just so the land could have some time to regenerate itself, the vines were packed with ripe sweet and beautiful grapes just waiting for me to binge on :) seriously, meeting Kiki and picking grapes were actually the highlights of my rainbow experience, but i was happy to spend some time in nature and with friends, and its absolutely great to try something out and just see that's its not for you, so you don't have to wonder what would it be like if you went and tried it out.

to conclude, I really don't have anything against the rainbow, I had a nice time, but i didn't really connect to the atmosphere there and I preffer Midburn and Burning man events much better. It's not allowed to take pictures there because no electricity is allowed, but I took the liberty to shoot some pics anyway :)
Peace,
Henya

the rainbow gathering in israel 2014

my tent and fruits. I had another box of cherrimoyas, pears and kiwis inside the tent. no need to give up on a fruitarian RT4 or fully raw lifestyle when camping.

the vineyard

hippies in the picking!


doesn't seem like much but my guess is that there's 20kg worth of grapes here

me and Kiki :)




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