Beltane, 1 May 2012
The world of 2012 is full of the awareness that we are a species of emergent consciousness, that we are processing our way through darkness into light.
Many are those who came here for this purpose. Here is the story of a few of us who gathered in 1995 at the event called the Hundredth Monkey Camp, to reach inside ourselves, to reach out and touch the world.
Our goal... Waking The Monkey.
Chapter 1
Arrival
Friday
25th August 1995
The
sun was westering behind us as we turned down a narrow country lane that held
no obvious promise of anything much.
Just when we thought we were completely lost we came across an open farm
gate in the twilight with a sign on it which read “Monkeys” and an arrow
pointing inside.
Exultant and relieved that
we had found our destination before full nightfall, we drove through onto the
lumpy grass of the field. To our left
the hedge stretched forward and then veered to the right. Just beyond its end we discerned a yellow
geodesic dome with a campfire set before it.
We bumped across, testing the suspension of the VW microbus to its
limits and pulled up in the gap between the hedge and the fire, where a curving
branch bedecked with coloured streamers and a woven spiral web was set up; at
its base a sign read ‘Welcome’ in a fine script reminiscent of Elfish, on a
background of a tree amidst stars and surmounted by a crimson and gold
sunburst. Next to this, more
prosaically, was written on a square of brown cardboard ‘GATE Stop and check in’.
People were getting up from
the fire, coming out of the dome behind, striding towards us across the field
as we disgorged from the vehicle, cramped and claustrophobic from our lengthy
confinement. The first to approach us
was Sheila, Palden’s partner and co-organizer of the event, her long, almost
pointed ears adding to the Elven resonance.
I introduced myself and my friends who had given me a lift and would be
moving on, my name was ticked off a list and I
bought the week’s meal tickets in no time flat as we tried to reorient
ourselves to surroundings that were rapidly becoming invisible in the fading
dusk.
The
Camp proper would not be opened formally as a ritual magical space until the
following evening, and the majority of participants would be arriving during
the daytime, so although most of the site facilities had been erected, there
were actually very few people on the site.
It was already too dark to put up tents and I was advised to dump my
gear in the large circular marquee about a hundred yards behind and to the
right of the Gate encampment, where there was space to sleep an army. Not that protection from rain would be
needed, as it was an exceptionally fine and clear evening; more likely from the
chills that such clear nights can bring in late August.
The
welcoming committee had bidden us to take our time in becoming acclimatized,
and find our way back to the Gate encampment in our own time for a cup of
tea. It seemed that the Gate was the
sort of place where the kettle was always on the hearth.
The fire by the dome was the
only one in the field and looked like a Caravaggio with the brightly lit faces
standing out from the surrounding blackness.
It seemed to be a miniature universe entire of itself. If one looked away it was possible to
discern the looming shapes of the trees behind us, even the distant raised profile
of hills we had so recently traversed against the background of the stars, but
look to the fire and everything else vanished, except, ghostlike, the vaguest
intimations around the periphery of vision.
It
was easy to understand how the so-called primitive world view populates the
universe with chaotic demons who try each night to break into the circle of
light and extinguish it before the dawn comes to rescue us. I was already finding animistic feelings
reawakening, primitive perceptions which might be frowned upon or feared by
modern city-dwelling rationalists; but if we truly were to go beyond our
everyday lives in some way then this was a fine starting point. We might not be able to leave the twentieth
century physically, but abandoning as many of its trappings as we reasonably
could was a good first step towards getting in touch with a more real level of
being, experiencing, understanding ourselves.
This was entirely
different to the Glastonbury experience that I had had at solstice time that
year, whether at the Tor or the Festival.
The former had been a primal experience fuelled by rhythmic djembe drums
and the tide of the season, while the latter had been in some ways more akin to
primitive living in a nomadic village, close to the earth and its daily cycles,
stripped of the expectations of our city personae. Not that the festival was exactly everyday and homely, but I was
able to take it at a more leisurely pace, visiting the many tented cafes,
playing my guitar and meeting people.
As I became more
attuned to the hum of the great mass of humanity in which I was swimming I
began to see the entire event as a giant superconscious entity in which we were
the neurons connecting with each other.
It seemed that only some transdimensional reality model like this could
account for the incessant waves of synchronous events, as people that you might
be thinking of would appear out of the crowd, blurring the boundaries of
reality. I determined that this
perception was something I would take with me to the camp. If the world is to go forward from its
present crisis then a degree of intuitive and spontaneous co-operation of this
sort is not only a vital quality but one that needs to be recognized in order
to be encouraged.
After
many wonderful vignettes and fascinating whirlpools of energy that I became
involved with it was time to set off for home and I was astonished at the
experience of going back out into the world.
I could feel the friction and viscosity of the fear in the atmosphere as
I myself began to lose my attunement and return to mundane reality and everyday
life. But I had awakened something in
me that would not be so easily dulled.
*
Here for the moment, it was
intimate. No pulsing djembe set the mood, no crowds jostled amidst the hustle
of trader’s stalls.
A
voice called out as we approached the fire: “Know any Grateful Dead
songs?” The guitar I was carrying had
clearly been discerned from a distance by the speaker, a wild looking fellow
with long blonde hair straggling down the sides of his near bald pate. His wide
grin disclosed several of the longest teeth I have ever set eyes upon, and
there was a twinkle in his eyes. He
wore a ragged sleeveless sheepskin jacket not unlike my own, which had a grinning
skeleton holding two hearts above an exploding sunburst and the legend Grateful
Dead ’72 painted on its back.
“About thirty-five.” I replied, somewhat taken aback by this
question. I was so accustomed to my
musical interest being no more than a curiosity to most people that to have this
enquired of me at such an early stage was both a surprise and a delight. In the darkness he could not have seen the
design on the Afghan jacket I had only just unpacked and donned. There was an added poignancy to the
question, as Jerry Garcia, their legendary lead guitarist had died barely two
weeks earlier, and I was still feeling the grief. We had been asked to come as representatives of communities that
we felt a kinship with, and though some might take it as mere jest, it was my
intention to come as a one of the Deadhead tribe. The musicians used to jokingly claim that they were built on
‘Misfit Power’, and Garcia would say that when the band was really cooking it
felt that some greater being was playing the music through them. A metaphysical connection that I had begun
to experience with my own life and which I felt was appropriate with the
camp.
“Amazing”
he replied. “I’ve been asking people
who turn up with guitars that question now for more years than I care to
recall, and you’re the first person ever to reply in the affirmative!”
We
were all amused at this and it helped break the ice as we were introduced to
the others round the fire. The speaker
was one of the site crew and introduced himself.
“Swami
Barmy, the Barmy Swami, at your service.”
Grinning, he made a slight bow and we all laughed.
Despite
his interest in my music somehow I still felt uneasy. Perhaps it was his outlandish appearance, or maybe his impish
grin. It might just have been my own
unreadiness to cope with the unexpected after a tiring journey. Other than Palden and Sheila there were
Ivan, a giant of a man with his head shaved in Mohican style, and Brigantia, a
slender woman of slightly above average height. She gave me a strange look that I was to remember later.
The
Swami’s greeting had seemingly been a good augury, despite my inner feelings of
reserve, so I set into a couple of songs as I sat down to wait for the
kettle.
It
was not long before we were all ready to retire, my lift giving friends Ben and
Julie to their microbus and I to the marquee.
Swami
was also planning to bed down there, and so we went off together in the
darkness with just a torch to find our way.
My new found companion had a rough and ready manner which had put me in
two minds. He was not abrasive, but
sleeping in the same space as this wild man had activated some of my
unconscious fears and taboos. It seems
I had brought more of the city and its neuroses with me than I had been able to
acknowledge.
Here
was someone accustomed to taking his rest in whatever protection was at
hand. As I drifted off into oblivion
inside my mummy-like sleeping bag I seemed to sense a deeper presence behind
his fearsome and feral exterior. Somehow I felt accepted in a way I was not
accustomed to, having encountered so much rejection over the years as a result
of the long path of unfolding my gender identity
Here was someone accustomed to taking his rest
in whatever protection was at hand. As
I drifted off into oblivion inside my mummy-like sleeping bag I seemed to sense
a deeper presence behind his fearsome and feral exterior. Somehow I felt
accepted in a way I was not accustomed to, having encountered so much rejection
over the years as a result of the long path of unfolding my gender identity.
Steeling
myself I hurriedly slipped out of my little cocoon and headed through the open
sides to find a space sufficiently far from the marquee. Squatting on the open ground I looked up and
became aware of one of the most breathtaking and awesome sights I have ever
witnessed.
The
fire at the gate had died down, and we were sufficiently far from any towns or
major roads for there to be no artificial glare thrown up into the sky. The total absence of cloud cover, though it
made for a chill night, allowed me an untarnished view of the wondrous vault
that stretched above. The memory of the
African sky which I had known as a child had long dimmed. Living in a city I was accustomed only to
the most prominent of stars as points of light struggling through the haze of
pollution and sodium yellow street lights.
What
I saw now was of a totally different order of.
The sky shone with silver dust, hinting at colours just beyond sight as,
twinkling, it seemed to breath. The
bright stars with which I was familiar were lost amid the multitude and I was
forced to orient myself with the points of the compass even to find the North
Star.
A river of sparkling
gems stretched across the infinite vastness above me. From behind me to my left
the Milky Way arched across the sky, high above the silhouette of the Malvern
hills on the Eastern edge of the world reaching its climax before me; and here
tonight, the new moon offered no competition. The galactic hub was illuminated
with the lights of worlds uncounted, then slid down to the South Western
horizon and disappeared behind the stygian blackness of the wood beyond our
field.
As I gazed upon this
panoply of splendour I felt an echo of the awe which early civilizations from
the desert parts of the world had had for the sky and its gods. A shooting star marked its passage through
this vision of eternity and I forgot the cold which was seeping into my bones.
A
second meteor burnt up in the atmosphere before my eyes, puncturing the
protective skin of ionised particles which enfolds our little world,
momentarily bridging the gap from infinity to limitation. Viewing the crystalline splendour from which
this burst of energy had emerged I reflected on the doctrine that the human
race had been as gods before we fell from the heavens to our present lowly
station. But was it not also told that
we should build a ladder to the stars, and climb on every rung until we had
regained our stature amongst the gods?
Feasting
on the banquet of brilliance I hugged myself for warmth as I, amazed, tried to
absorb the wonders which seemed so casually spilt across the heavens like the
contents of a divine jewelbox, accidentally upended and spread out upon this
velvet field.
A
third shooting star gave itself up to oblivion, vaporizing into a momentary
stream of wonder for perhaps my eyes only.
It was as if this entire display had been made solely for the purpose of
taking my breath away. Though the sky
is as public a thing as could be, I felt the intimacy of my contact. Squatting, hunched up and hugging my knees,
my body began to shiver and protest against the cold which was the price I paid
for this.
There,
utterly alone with myself in the middle of a field in the night, I was touched
with the infinite, and yet could not have been less alone. It was one of those moments of total clarity
with which we may be blessed when through accident or design, and perhaps some
cunning mix of the two, we find ourselves in alignment with the Cosmos and
there can be no doubt as to meaning or purpose. We are part of all this, and this is part of us. The billions of years which separate us from
the fusion of our chemical elements in long-dead supernovae felt like the blink
of an eye.
Looking,
waiting for a fourth shooting star I was conscious of my shivering flesh and my
bare feet wet with the dew. A heavenly
gateway had been opened and I had glimpsed infinity in my soul as much as in
the sky. But the wheel of change would
not still for my inner world. I had
been granted this divine spectacle for a few moments, to ask or hope for more
was spiritual gluttony. Suddenly aware
of how cold I felt, I was back in my material shell and the warmth of my little
nest beckoned.
With a heavy heart I
left the silvery gleam and made for the darkness of our night’s shelter. The gentle sound of slumberous breathing
welcomed me and I slid into my sleeping bag, filled with wonder at my nocturnal
cosmic journey, and for once grateful that what I might havethought was an
unwisely late cup of tea had led to such a revelation of splendour.
©Claire Rae Randall 2012
