Earthdance
 

Daughter No. 2 wants me to go to this festival with her in September:

Earthdance--The Global Festival for Peace

"and I can drive the bus down, mom [yep, that's a converted hippie bus] so you don't even have to camp out. It'll be fun!"

Think I should?

Looks like a bunch o' damn hippies.

The gathering of elders looks pretty cool, as do many of the events.

Good opportunity to be the coolest mom on the block.

Oh hell, go for it. Indulge in a little harmless hippiedom with people who are essentially pretty cool and well-meaning.


I also think it's really cool that your lass would want to go to it. It's a worthy ideal to push towards.

I've been to about 3 previous earth dances. They've got drum circles, indians, good music, etc.

It's pretty fun.

I imagine this is something like a Rainbow Gathering?

yeah, something like. She may try to go to that one, too--she's been several times before-- but I told her that's a little too much roughing it (not to mention out in the middle of nowhere).

She really wants me to go, badly--she misses me. It's sweet. She picked something far enough in advance so I could make travel arrangements.

Not sure that hippie bus will make it from Portland to there, though. :)

and it looks like people dress up (i.e., bizarre costumes)--always a plus for me!

Wrong place to look for employees with "not weird" names, dude.

Go for it Cloud.
Your daughter loves you and wants you to be there. It's a testament to how you raised her.

Buy a solar powered shower and get your bones down there. Then relax and enjoy it.

True, but it's the right place to look for smiles....and weed. ;)

Seriously though, it's a sober crowd, but it is a lot of hippies.

so you'll smoke with a Sunshine and tap a Moonbeam, you just wouldn't hire them afterwards? ;)

Of course I wont' hire them. They're stoners. ;)

but is peace an achievable ideal? or just a pipe dream?

Does it have to be one or the other? Is 'peace' an achievable dream? Possibly not. Is it possible though to make the world more peaceful than it currently is? That's a different question entirely.

What the hell? Go be a hipster, Cloud. Looks like a big Pagan festival to me.

It looks immense fun to me. God knows I am fairly cynical about the whole Age of Aquarius, lentil-eating, gaia-protecting, hippie scene....but that cynicism melts away if you put me in a festival field with windphones and people juggling. People being positive and trying to achieve change in a fun way: what's not to like?