Hello all! I just returned from the Oregon regional rainbow gathering held this year in the Ochoco National Forest just outside of Prineville. I got there near the end of the gathering and there were maybe 60 or 70 brothers and sisters present. It was nice, as it created a real sense of intimacy and closeness. I have to admit that there were no elders there and that there was a bit more drinking than you would 
normally see at a rainbow gathering, but it was made up for by the mad pirate "space bag" play on the last day, and the family vibe that was felt by everyone. At the end of the gathering, we spent a day cleaning up the campgrounds, then 19 of us carrying our own packs packed up on to a blue bus (also referred to as the blue pirate bus) and headed back into Portland. When we arrived, there were many brothers who had never been to Portland before and I offered to give them a tour of the city and show them a kosher place to sleep. After terrorizing Old Town / Chinatown with our crazy hippie ways and meandering through
Pioneer Square, we rode the MAX to Washington Park and slept in the bushes. It was great having family with me in Wash. Park, sharing food and good times.The next morning was Saturday, so naturally we went to Saturday Market at the Skidmore Fountain MAX stop. Our group split up as a brother and myself stayed in the market to sell jewelry on the sidewalk and the rest went to go check out the city. We agreed to meet back at Pioneer Square at 5 PM. However, it wasn't long before this brother and I found ourselves on another journey entirely, say, through the looking glass, as a very kind brother in the market traded some l for one of my pendants. I packed up my jewelry and decided to see the City of Roses in a new light. I have been here a while. Why not follow this new brother through the city and see it through his eyes? So I did. And we both wandered through downtown, a bit aimlessly, as I was following him, you see? And our trip through downtown led us right to Pioneer Square, and just
as we arrive, there's everyone else from camp, standing at the MAX stop, yelling at us to hurry over to them. As we dash up to the stop, MAX tickets are thrust into our hands, a MAX train arrives, and we tossed onto the train, almost all in one motion. We're told "You're going to a party," although I'm still reeling from the fact that if we hadn't arrived precisely when we did we would not have seen anyone this evening, so it was meant to be that we should be going. An hour and a half MAX-plus-bus ride later we arrived in Forrest Grove to find ourselves at the McMenamins Grand Lodge. This has to be the grandest, largest, manor of an estate-mansion I have ever seen. It's three stories tall and hundreds of rooms big with an east and west wing, and sits on a many acre garden. As we begin to walk through we quickly notice the tent areas for the stage and band and all of the incredibly rich
looking white folk everywhere. Then someone points out to me the compass the square and the G symbol over the main entrance and I quickly realize this is a Freemasonic lodge, a Freemasonic party. And here we are, standing on the outskirts of this very rich place and very rich party looking very dire, tired, dirty, worn down and very hippie. I mean, we just cam back from the regional, slept in the park, wandered downtown, and now we're here. However, when the blue bus finally arrived, it was explained to me that the lodge used to be a Freemasonic "old people's home", but is now leased by the McMenamins as a hotel of sorts, with a spa, hot-tub area, and a bar called "The Doctors Office" in the basement hall.
Also in the basement were a series of restrooms with showers in them, so some of us naturally jumped in and got clean, and although our garb didn't fit in with the slacks and collard shirts of most of the others at the party, we quickly fixed that by stripping to our undies and
sitting in the hot tub singing gypsy songs. We danced and rocked out to the band playing, and although I was a bit apprehensive about the type of people at the party, I found everyone to be accepting and kind. Speaking of Freemasonic buildings, the Mcmenamins Grand Lodge isn't the only Freemasonic building near Portland no longer used by the Freemasons. A few blocks away from the Central Public Library is the largest Masonic Temple in Portland, built in 1921 as a recreation of King Soloman's Temple and for the purposed of housing all the branches of Freemasonry, including the Eastern Star, Kinghts Templer, et. al. it is now called the Mark Building and is used as the Portland Art Museum administrative offices. Noticing that Portland has many curiously no-longer-used freemasonic buildings, and that the predominant symbol of the city is the rose, I began to think of another secret society I know of that uses the rose as it's symbol: the Rosicrucians. Hmmmm.
