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A strong wind

breath of the spirit | rainbow family | on-site docs | off-site links

Puffy face of wind blowing across clouds.

A strong wind's blowing through, and sometimes we just got to follow it.

When I was a kid, no-one sang in Friends Meeting. This was the "unprogrammed" sort of meeting, where folks sat in silent worship until one person or another was "moved by the Spirit" to speak. Sometimes a handful of people spoke in the course of an hour, but no-one had ever sung. Then one day a Friend was moved to sing...

The song that chose him wasn't a traditional hymn, but it was one that many of us knew. Somehow, it seemed appropriate as the first song that I (and most of the others there) had heard in meeting for worship.

Spirit of God in the clear running water
Blowing to greatness the trees on the hill
Spirit of God in the finger of morning,
Fill the earth, bring it to birth, and blow where you will.

Blow... blow... blow till I be,
but breath of the Spirit blowing in me. (*)

The refrain sometimes comes to me, at odd moments, as
"Blow, blow, blow till I be, but breath of the spirit, blowing in thee."

Breath is life. Spirit. Aum. Vibes. Sound. Sitting in silence.

Well, for a very long time, Friends have been trying to express what they hear in the silence of worship.

(*): Spirit of God, it turns out, was written by Sister Mirian Therese Winter, and performed by the Medical Mission Sisters in their album "Joy is Like the Rain." The words and chords are in Rise Up Singing, the Group Singing Songbook by Peter Blood and Annie Patterson, published by Sing Out.

breath of the spirit | rainbow family | on-site docs | off-site links

rainbow family of living light

We are one family,
We are the same family, stronger than before.

We are one family, of many colors, with deep roots. As various groups find their way onto the World Wide Web, it becomes possible for us to array ourselves together. Of course we have differences, but there's no reason to exaggerate them.

One group mentioned a few times already in these pages is the Rainbow Family. I got involved when my youngest brother, Jeb, started attending Rainbow Gatherings. He had left his "blood" family back East, and we found that one good way to see him was to go to one of the gatherings held every year somewhere in North America. Over the years, every one of my immediate family has been at least once.

breath of the spirit | rainbow family | on-site docs | off-site links

on-site documents

This section of the site is under development. For the time being, here's a report by the U.S. Forest Service on the most recent "national" gathering, held last summer in Oregon.

--> The Oregon Report

Other on-site documents will be posted here (eventually). Most will relate to the Rainbow Family of Living Light, and one or two will reflect on this broad social movement in the light of past movements of change and consciousness. (A new site has been set up in the last year, in memory of Jeb, who died in a jail in Austin, Texas, in January 1998.) For now, the following off-site links can give plenty of food for thought.

breath of the spirit | rainbow family | on-site docs | off-site links