Religious Narrative: 1st Draft

            A young woman sweeps her hair away from her face. This is so her friend can add silver spirals to the paint on her forehead without making a mess. They’re spread out on blankets, backpacks, unrolled sleeping bags. The silver woman is just one of many painted faces. From the crowd, but I can already pick out dragons, fairies, even an elf.

They come bedecked in saris, swimsuits, shawls stitched all over with jingling coins. They’ve got dreadlocks, braids and flowers in their hair. Their hands are covered in henna. Their feet are shod with hemp sandals, Jesus style. Every man wears a beard. They come every summer, from college, from shared apartments, from every little brick house with a dream catcher hung in the window. It’s the groovy pilgrimage. The glittering psychedelic romp in the woods. The hippies are on their way to the Oregon Country Fair.

It’s difficult to explain exactly what goes on at the Oregon Country fair. Every year in mid-July, an alternate reality is constructed in the woods outside of Eugene, Oregon. A cynical person would say that people come to do drugs, and they wouldn’t be entirely wrong. The smell of weed and patchouli doesn’t wash off you for days. But the primary attraction for me, possibly because I was there as a child, was the weird.

I step out of the crock-pot bus into a choking cloud of dust and dazzling sunshine. I am instantly aware of the smell of barbecue and falafel. Somebody is playing the pan flute. As the haze settles, I see a towering shape lurch towards me. A man, standing fifteen feet tall in stilts, dressed in a suit of tree branches and moss, strides past in an instant and vanishes into the trees. My brother and I, six and nine respectively, are pretty used to the antics of pacific northwestern oddballs at this point. My family has been making this trip since before either of us can remember. But I still feel a sense of elation every year.

It really does feel like magic, when you’re there. It’s wicked hot, but the luscious Oregon forest covers the winding alleyways and odd grottoes in a hazy green gloom. The Long Tom Riven is brown and lazy in the summer, but you can find a glittering serpent rising from the water if you look carefully. You can find a patch of grass and sleep for hours, but why would you?

The grounds are dotted with open air stages, built from scrap wood, driftwood, held together by spit and crazy. You sit on the ground, or a picnic blanket, if you’re fancy, and watch people come out and do… whatever they can come up with. Women model dresses made from busted lifeboats and condom wrappers. A young guy sprinkles broken glass on the stage and flops face down into the pile. (“I lost a contact!”) A shirtless, hairy man strums a guitar and sings an ode to his own sweaty, pendulous breasts.

Everybody seems to be celebrating something, but it’s not clear what. Rounding a corner, it’s possible to stumble into a full parade, marching band and all, making its way around the grounds. Beads are given out and there is glitter in the air. A woman combs every knot out of my awful, unruly hair and braids it into a crown. I wear fairy wings made from wire and pantyhose. A kid here doesn’t have to pretend to be in a fantasy kingdom, they really are. Revelers range from naked and dirty to totally concealed within elaborate costumes. It’s a Merry Pranksters magic bus psychedelic dream come true, where everybody ‘does their own thing’ in the very truest sense.

               This is the place where I have what can be described as a ‘spiritual experience’ for one of the very few times in my life. It’s all about transcendence, I suppose. What people are celebrating is unique to themselves, like a thousand parties at once. And in the grime and sweat of it, I felt like I really was a special being. Like magic was real and I was at the heart of it.

               By the time my family makes it back to Eugene, it’s getting dark and we’re all beyond exhausted. Just wash the dirt off and collapse into bed, please. In a few more days, the people camped out in the woods will be returning to their lives, going back to work or school or home until it’s time to make the pilgrimage again. Then they’ll meet again in the Oregon backwoods for a celebration of the self.