Time Machine #4: Rainbow Stlyin'

According to Wiki, the Rainbow Serpents mythology is closely linked to land, water, life, social relationships and fertility. It pushed the ridges and the mountains up from the Earth as it snaked along underground waterholes.

Like its namesake, the Rainbow Serpent festival is an environmentally-aware gathering of social people, its main focus being music amongst various workshops, food, circus arts & crazyness. No doubt there was some fertility going on amongst the hippies too, although the thought of that act after 5 days of sweat, dirt and smoke is a fairly feral one.

The common theme amongst Rainbowaiins (or should that be Serpentites?) is that while similiar, Earthcore is 'too commercial.' This answer was the cliche of the festival, that had a few of us giggling in the end while the respondent stumbled to explain exactly what they meant by that. Now granted, Rainbow does have a more family orientated atmosphere. There is a kids area, as well as various entertainment like the ever-cool Amazing Drumming Monkeys (vids here & here). You can also bring in your own alcohol, so I suppose it gets anti-capitilist points there too.

To diverge for a moment, the Saturday night opened with an Aboriginal act consisting of about 9 members with didgeridoos, drums, DJ equipment, and both English/Aboriginal lyrics. The music was great, the whole atmosphere was fantastic and I have a greater understanding/respect for the indigenous people of Australia. I dont know why but it all just sounded so ancient, so tribal and wild, it was just very cool. It was like staring into a portal 5000 years into the past or something.

Some of the great, random entertainment

But black magic wasnt the only thing we'd come to see. A little white magic wouldnt go astray either - that of course being stereo systems that can shake the Earth so hard it would have the Rainbow Serpent grooving in it waterholes. And that is where commercialism comes into play. You see, for all its flaws, Earthcore has the most amazing sound system I've heard. The music becomes viscous and flows thickly and crisply while wrapping your whole body in it. And such quality comes at a price. Rainbow had some great DJ's but the equipment just wasnt of the same calibre.

On a brighter note, we still had a blast. I have to try to get this down on paper although I feel I'll fail miserably. Sometimes you have these unexplainable moments where you come to a deeper realisation about things. This was one of them...

I lay back, as I started to float, and my vision started to pixellate. Everything became hexagons, and then even my body and my breath and my mind was all a massive mosaic. It was like everything in the universe warped and flattened out into these interlocking hexagons, on a massive sheet of space-time matter. This sheet collapses in the middle, not unlike a black hole, and the hexagons were spiralling down into it. Spiralling through with it, it was like each level I came to I was expecting the end, but there wasnt one. Sort of like when you go too far underwater, and each second you swim to the surface, desperate for air, your panic rises exponentially as you are denied it. Thats what it was like, I couldnt believe it could go deeper, but with every level it did I realised there was truly nothing below and it was such a full-on realisation it scared me. Above the power of our brain to comprehend I guess.

It was this weird feeling of both macro and micro at once, coming from a swirl of hexagonal universes and drilling right down to seeing DNA and then further down into infinite subatomic particles as well - then right back out again, all in a couple of seconds. Again I dont know what it all meant or imparted to me, nevertheless I sat up and was in awe of the new knowledge of the connectedness of things I had. I'll never forget that ^_^

A special mention has to go to the guy in this video, who can sphongle with the best of them. We had great groove on, me in my crazy multi-tailed hat.

In boiling hot sun, I awoke to find the massive
shade had collapsed on me, shattering my tent :(

All in all, RS is fantastic fun. There is much more craziness, great people, a mix of decor and attractions, and all the Sphongle you can handle. Highly recommended for open-minded peoples :)