Rainbow Gatherings - group and individual pilgrimages

Share thoughts and ideas regarding what can be done to meet contemporary humanity's need for rites of initiation and passage.

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honjaku
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Rainbow Gatherings - group and individual pilgrimages

Post by honjaku »

Hey I'm back, but only briefly so no worries :)! Well, we all have our disagreements but there is always room to kiss and make up.

Hello Bodhibliss (or anyone who finds this relevant)

I am curious about the rainbow gatherings. Mostly their idea that there is a grouping of people without a leadership and no collective center. How does one form a community without an agreed upon center?

I have paid a visit to Burning Man. It felt somewhat similar - that this is a place without a center. All other pilgrimages I have attended/know of have had some sense of a group - that there is a collective center that I am a part of.

These seem to be different psychological experiences. I suppose my question/comment is that we do seem to need both actually? We need our individual preferences and we need some sense of a collective in which we can 'lose' ourselves. At the basic level the family is the collective.

At one level I know that I was/and continue to be drawn to these raindow gathering style pilgrimages. There is an appeal on some level. (I'm not sure which) But on another level the sense of the experience being curiously empty is often there too.

So this is my question to anyone who has participated in these kinds of gatherings if this is a discussion you'd wish to participate in and something you would like to share, how do you see the group sense and the individual sense coexisting at these gatherings or in general? If you have taken a journey to a new center how does your new center feel with regards to the groups you knew? Does it feel like a gain or a loss?

Cheers.

Neoplato
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Post by Neoplato »

How does one form a community without an agreed upon center?
From my experience, once the ground rules are established, things can run themselves. It's the constant changing of the rules (or not following the rules) that causes all the problems.

Wu Wei, action without action. :wink:
Infinite moment, grants freedom of winter death, allows life to dawn.

honjaku
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Post by honjaku »

Hi Neo, thanks for the reply. Well of course there is the practical matter of organizing such gatherings.

But my question was more related to the psychological side the impact of these different kinds of pilgrimages.

Lets say for example I attend the Ganesh festival in India or say one in Mexico to honor the Lady of Gaudaloupe. Firsty there are agreed upon definitions of what these festivals mean. In participating I generally accept them as relevant to me too.

For the Ganesh festival say, people will set up tents to honor the god of the remover of obstacles. For a few days people perform prayers and rituals and sing songs of devotion. Then on the climactic day the statues are taken in a procession to the ocean to be immersed with much revellery Each group takes its own statues, with the group being some natural grouping of people, usually the extended family, local community.

The idea is generally to use the experience to celebrate yes, but also to ask for blessings for the year ahead, say thanks for what was received and to affirm commitments to each other, to try to be a more diligent worker, husband, wife etc.

The experience (with varying degrees) at such a festival has been a little bit of a the dew drop melting in the ocean. For a while, with a group of people you know, with symbols you share, definitions you have agreed upon you do get a sense however brief, that you no longer are, at least that is the idea. You yield some of your self to a larger idea of life and that larger idea includes your people, your community etc and hope that coming out your ties are strengthened and restored.

Now at Burning Man it was very different. There was no agreed upon definition of anything. There was no sense of a dew drop falling into the ocean, community or anything. there was instead an assertion of the 'I'. Or perhaps that was just my experience at that time based on where I was in life? Maybe that's why it felt curiously empty?

If you've been to these centerless festivals have you experienced it differently?

Ercan2121
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Post by Ercan2121 »

Neoplato wrote:
Wu Wei, action without action. :wink:
Thanks Neoplato,

無爲 (Wu Wei in Traditional Chinese) :)
JCF site works great in all writing systems
except for some Southern Asian alphabets.

Ercan2121
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Location: Istanbul

Post by Ercan2121 »

Ercan2121 wrote:
Neoplato wrote:
Wu Wei, action without action. :wink:
Thanks Neoplato,

無爲 (Wu Wei in Traditional Chinese) :)
JCF site works great in all writing systems
except for some Southern Asian alphabets.
but that's something I'd better discuss with phpBB Group
according to what is suggested on JCF's FAQ page.
http://www.phpbb.com/

Nermin
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Post by Nermin »

Ercan2121 wrote: but that's something I'd better discuss with phpBB Group
according to what is suggested on JCF's FAQ page.
http://www.phpbb.com/
Ercan, this grandma wants to know how they can
make a living in a domain that everything is almost free? :(

Ercan2121
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Location: Istanbul

Post by Ercan2121 »

Nermin wrote:
Ercan2121 wrote: but that's something I'd better discuss with phpBB Group
according to what is suggested on JCF's FAQ page.
http://www.phpbb.com/
Ercan, this grandma wants to know how they can
make a living in a domain that everything is almost free? :(
Silicon Valley's full of billionaires, Nermin; for most software writers
that's only a hobby, you know :-)

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