Over two weeks ago now, I spoke to an old friend – Johannes – on skype. I met Johannes during my year ‘abroad’ studying History of Art at Edinburgh, where he was also doing a masters, but in cognitive science. He was a great friend to both me and Harry during that period, but it had been at least a month since we had last spoken properly to each other.
There are times in life when a good conversation feels like a sort of decorative addition to the other events of the day; there are other times in life when a really good conversation is absolutely essential. So it was with Johannes that evening. In fact, the truth is that I had found myself in a slight emotional stand-still after the first two weeks of my life in Ghent – when all the madness had ended. It was the inevitable wake-up call. Half-way through a six-day working week – and that’s a lot of plates of burgers & chips – I suddenly found myself depressed and wondering what I was doing. I had lost many days to hangovers and late nights and my interactions with people were not satisfying either my mind or my heart. I had obtained a position of security but with none of the qualities that make life really worthwhile – most importantly, a dependable group of friends. After all, I had not moved to Belgium to work full-time in a pub. Suddenly I felt depressed that this work was obstructing me from what I really wanted to achieve from this trip – most obviously, to write.
So at this point, a conversation with marvellously logical Johannes was really what I needed to clear my thoughts up, cleanse my spirit and brush me back into rational shape. Then, as it turned out, this conversation also became a kind of cosmic way-marker for me, a torch in the darkness, guiding me across many borders and through skies, to the wild and secluded mountains of Hungary. But the reasons for this will be clear soon enough.
As it turned out, Johannes had just returned from a remote gathering of people, known as ‘The Rainbow Gathering’. It had held its annual global meeting this year, now far from where he now lived, two hours’ drive from Budapest, and was at the time of his visit, roughly half way through its month-and-a-half-long encampment. Situated in a remote countryside region, in the bowl of a ring of grassy mountains, Johannes had already visited twice, initially for the celebration of the full moon, and then simply because he could not resist it.
I have almost never met any person with a tale of an adventure or journey who was so brimful of enthusiasm and amazement for what they had seen, as Johannes was that evening during his skype conversation with me. I felt that even young Wordsworth returning from the Alps or Goethe returning from his long plod across the mountains from Italy, could not evoke the same exuberance and joy for what they had experienced, and the wisdom they subsequently derived from it, than Jo had at the Rainbow. Jo told me many true and perceptive things that night, relating to his experience of the gathering which later resonated for me also. One particular idea, I especially remembered – and it is behavioural. “There is something quite amazing about the way that people look at each other at the Rainbow Gathering. In ordinary life, if you happen to catch somebody’s eye, they will normally avert their gaze immediately. The experience might even produce feelings of shame and embarrassment in both concerned. But in the Rainbow, it’s different: if you catch somebody’s eye, they will hold your gaze for 3 or perhaps 4 seconds – maybe even longer! And peoples’ eyes… they seem different – they shine!!”
As if to prove his point, he then sent me a link to portraits of ‘rainbow’ people, taken by a French-Canadian photo-journalist (actually a real anomaly as it turned out, as use of cameras is generally frowned upon in site).
http://www.featureshoot.com/2011/05/benoit-paille-montreal/
I did not need much convincing. I was longing to see Johannes in Budapest anyway, and a quick detour to the Rainbow felt just what my soul longed for: starved of love, family, of nature; yearning for a sign that I was on the right path. The next morning with no hesitation at all, I booked the next available flight to Hungary.
833 words a day 