doubt don’t do

New Mexico rainbow – foto by Smith

Second day at rainbow, July 4th, there was to be a mass circle prayer for world peace at noon after 6 hours of silence, and we were all gathered in ever larger concentric circles in the main meadow waiting. At 11:45, the skies opened and poured forth great waters. Prayer Circle became mud central as 50 folk or more shed their clothes and bounced about in the mud in a great circle cluster.

We went back to our tent and used the rain and thunder to mask our own celebratory rites.

After the couple hours of falling water stops, I hobble over to the homeopathic free clinic trying to get help for my torn groin muscles which have been bothering me ever since 2004 when I tried to pick up my overweight mother who’d collapsed on the floor due to bacterial infection in her blood. It had never healed, and since I’ve neither health insurance nor money, I’ve just lived with it. Our world travel had kept me mobile because for 31 months we walked everywhere, and the exercise kept me limber – as had the massive amounts of marijuana (an anti-inflammation drug) in Mexico, and the 23 cent a day pill of Flexiver aka Meloxicam, an anti-inflammatory I was buying over the counter at the Mexican pharmacies (on my doctor’s advice).

But once we came back to the States, I walked way less due to having a car, couldn’t afford to buy grass to ease the swelling, and found that a) I needed a prescription for Meloxicam and b) they didn’t sell it in the U.S. anyway. That makes sense seeing as how cheapness and efficacy is directly against the ethics of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry.

Our days of driving and our night sleeping on hard ground had aggravated my injury and I was having trouble walking. Didn’t think the herbalists could help, but they gave me a pain-killing mixture of tincture of wild lettuce that gave me a minor buzz and immediately made me feel less pain, and a trauma oil made from St Johnswort, arnica, valerian and oils of wintergreen, tea leaves,vitamin e and extra virgin olive oil. I rubbed it on and could immediately walk a wee bit better. Effects lasted for about 2 hours.

By 4:30 we’d discovered our tent was leaking slightly, and we both admitted we couldn’t face another sleepless night due to my bone/muscle pain and Lady’s freezing, so we packed up and hiked out. Got a 9 mile ride to our car and were told we were lucky we were leaving early because more rain was on the way and tomorrow thousands of folk would be leaving at the same time so we probably would have had to walk out.

Got to our car and found someone had parked in front of us, blocking us from the road. I walked through the woods scouting an escape path out while Lady wrote a nasty note pointing out the inconsistency of their Rainbow beliefs with their actual actions, then I drove at 5 mph through the woods out to the road.

We got a whole 83 miles down the highway before we both were too tired to drive. I looked up in the sky at the largest rainbow I’d ever seen and decided since we’d just left one Rainbow and were now beneath another, here is where we’d sleep.

tried to make it home over the next two days, but Monday’s 15 hour drive covering 872 miles left us 242 miles from home when I realized I couldn’t do it anymore.

We drove 1,901 miles back through New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. I drove most the last half while Lady by myself. As I drove, Lady read out loud from Breaking Trail – A Climbing Life by Arlene Blum about her troubles breaking into the male dominated mountain climbing world of the 1960s. Back then men said mere women were too weak, too soft, too temperamental, and bled too much to ever be able to climb the world’s tallest mountains. Arlene most definitely proved them wrong. What a fantastic tale of a life.

100 gallons of gas – foto by Smith

Lady felt bad coming back because the trip was so rushed and cost near $100 a day for the seven days when you add in the new tent, sleeping bag, rest stop food, 5 motels, etc. She wondered if she’d been foolish. Gas alone was around 100 gallons at an average of $2.50 per gallon, even with our 40 miles per gallon trip average it all added quickly up.

Told her no – that she’d seen country she’d never experienced before, I’d had my attitude about the Rainbow Tribe refreshed for the good after the unfriendly encounters with the European Tribe, and that it was important to do mad, crazy things every now and then just to keep the heart alive, the mind wondering, and the spirit soaring. I told her not to doubt herself because, “Doubt don’t do”. Make a great tee-shirt or bumper sticker.

Besides the generosity and friendliness of the Rainbow Tribe, the thing I like and remember most is the constant drumming. Except for 6 hours of silence before the July 4th noon prayer circle, there was the sound of constant drums, many drums, every second every minute every hour of the day or night. You’d think they’d be irritating, but the sound is soothing, relaxing, ancient, mystic.

There’s more, but I tire of the tale. We went. It was good. We returned.

Now what?

my Lady love – foto by Smith