Everyone focalizes who helps the Family get focused. A focalizer is a person who takes on the responsibility of passing on Rainbow information year-round, and serves as a contact if listed in the Rainbow Guide. We council together every year at 3:00 on the 5th day of the Gathering; our Family is welcome.
At our first council in Nevada we consensed to set up a focalizing bank. Our current bank council is Sharon Sheets, Donny Wirtshafter, Peter Fraterdeus, Mark McCracken, and Susan Songbird. At our '92 council, we consensed to commit our present funds of $82.69 to a mailing to update the focalizer list. All other expenditures must be approved by the banking council. Anyone may donate to this fund at the following address:
Rainbow Focalizers' Fund
c/o Mark McCracken
3015 NE Broadway
Portland OR 97232
1989 FOCALIZERS COUNCIL CONSENSI, Nevada
1. The Focalizer Council is an interdependent Council working independently within and supporting the Rainbow Family and Gathering, serving as an information access point to Focalizers.
2. This Council undertakes faithfully to transmit clearly attributed information on Rainbow Family Consensi and activities only.
3. The decisions of this Council do not bind the Rainbow Family Tribal Council.
4. The Focalizing Banking Council serves primarily to provide resources for the outreach needs of Focalizers. Resources are allocated only through concensus of Focalizing Banking Council. Upon Focalizing Banking Council consensus, resources may be allocated to other Rainbow Family needs.
1992 FOCALIZERS COUNCIL REQUEST, Colorado
The Focalizers Council has a request. Too many gatherings have happened that claim to be Rainbow but aren't. We ask the Rainbow Family Tribal Council to put in writing the long-standing consensuses of the Family that define a Rainbow gathering, big or small. One way of wording them might be as follows:
This place is consecrated to Peace and Healing. The things that keep it sacred are:
1/ we have no leaders; all decisions are made by consensus of open council, between sunrise and sunset, on the land within the region hosting the gathering, beginning with the decision to hold a gathering
2/ we have no rules; consensus decisions stand only by the respect each of us has for one another and for the council circle
3/ This gathering is free and non-commercial; money goes to the Magic Hat for the needs of all
4/ we encourage a peaceful vibe; we discourage weapons and violence, alcohol and other harmful drugs, and any disrespectful behavior towards our brothers and sisters
5/ we are here to honor and heal our Mother; we act respectfully in all our relations to the earth, and leave no sign that we have gathered here
(Others have since suggested clarifying that our Welcome is open to everyone; that we gather on public lands; and that the gathering include some central moment of focus, like a silence. Come and Council with us over the next year so that we can refine our defining in time for next July. Or send your comments to All Ways Free. Q scribe)
BACKGROUND INFO: 2 letters concerning rumor gatherings in Illinois and Pennsylvania, both Fall 1991 (the Shawnee Gathering I have heard was one of Zeus's ideas last year) Q scribe
TO BE READ AT THANKGIVING COUNCIL
(from thumper)
Dear Family:
Y'all might have heard about the Gathering-by-rumor that happened this last August on the old 1986 Pennsylvania site. The Regional Family had a solid feeling that this third Gathering in five years would constitute
abuse of the land, and myself and many others tried - in vain - to find
some Council process to which we could appeal in an effort to relocate the
Gathering. It seems to have been a sort of "road Family" Gathering, with A-
Camp thrown in too. I haven't spoken to anyone who went, but I'm told that
about 100 people gathered over four weeks; I hear that one person named
"Odie" is now comatose in a local hospital from an alcohol-related
accident.
I saw Zeus Cosmos at a Mid-Atlantic Regional Gathering in West Virginia in September, and he told me that he'd stopped by the site after the
Gathering, and that there was a big pile of trash left over. I needed to
get away from the city late last October, so I drove up to the Allegheny
National Forest, and sure enough, there was about 3/4 of a ton of trash &
junk, all neatly piled at the trailhead in old Bus Village. Six 55 gallon
drums, four big pieces of sheet metal, a bunch of partially-recycled glass
and aluminum containers, lots of two-month-old dumpstered food, and about
700 pounds of rubble made of burnt trash and broken beer bottles. A number
of Drum tobacco containers confirmed that it was OUR trash. I took pictures
and will [did] send them to All Ways Free when they are developed.
It took me two days, and it was disgusting work, but it's all cleaned
up now. I also found a camp downhill from supply depot that was only half
broken, so I got that too. The site is beautiful. I will leave to you the
question of why Zeus Cosmos didn't clean this up when he found it, or how
anyone calling themselves Rainbow could have left it in the first place.
Once the regs are in place, the FS has the legal power to get a judge
to issue a Temporary Restraining Order against the Gathering, like they did
in Texas in 1988. Although the Forest Service has destroyed more forest
than we ever could, their case will be made stronger by our own lack of
Respect for The Land. According to the Forest Service, the Minnesota site
will never be like it was before we came. The same thing almost happened in
PA - once the leaves and snow have fallen, garbage becomes part of the
soil, and it's too late for a real cleanup. I had thought that Minnesota
would "shock" us into tightening up on our garbage scene, but now I'm
afraid that, for too many of us, Respecting The Land is simply not as
important as having a Gathering.
Please lend some guidance to the regions on the issue of "rumor
Gatherings", which don't seem to be planned by any sort of consensus
process. Note that they seem to happen at sites where more than one
Gathering has already happened; if we stop re-using sites, rumor Gatherings
may be less likely to happen.
OneLove, Thumper
from Christopher:
Rainbow Greetings my friends. Many things have transpired since our last meeting. Particularly I am concerned with the Shawnee gathering. This year's gathering showed very few characteristics of a Rainbow Family gathering. I deliberated at length whether or not to burden you with this information and concluded that every part of the Rainbow makes up the whole. If the sanctity of one gathering is jeopardized and one link becomes weak then the whole is in danger.
I saw things at this gathering that I have never seen before. There was beer at main circle! There were three fires built in the Wildlife Sanctuary and several people even camped there! The focalizers of the gathering did not even show up (to my knowledge). Meals were sporadic and there were only two councils the entire nine-day gathering, which concluded nothing and accomplished nothing. Most people never even made it to the main circle because there were several kitchens that fed people which only created individual little "movies" with no sense of family. Now for the horror story to beat it all; they built a kitchen in a cave! And drove out all the bats! As well as sooted the ceiling! One thing council did establish is that the cave was not a good idea. So representatives of the council went to the cave but the people there would not pack it up! I have become very disillusioned after this experience.
I am sorry to bring such news, I wish this letter could bring more happiness, but this matter deeply troubles me and I feel it must be addressed. I feel something needs to be done but I do not know where to start; I am only one brother. As soon as I regain my normal energy level I will be wishing to do something about these problems.
Take Care, Rainbow love, Christopher