Recollections of Running Water Farm

Reprinted by permission of RFD Magazine, www.rfdmag.org
By Douglas B. Caulkins

Mikel & Running Water

On Summer Solstice in 1973, a young man named Mikel Wilson turned 21 and came into a modest inheritance from his grandmother. That very day he met with a realtor in the mountains of North Carolina. He wanted to purchase some property with two conditions: it must be at the end of a road, and it must have water.

The first property the realtor took him to was at the very end of a long muddy road in a remote mountain cove. The driveway to the old chestnut cabin was overgrown with briars and blackberries – nearly impassable. The cabin was basic; planks nailed to a frame and a stone chimney, a wooden floor and a tin roof, a kitchen, living area and bedrooms. There were old rusty iron bed frames in the bedrooms and an ancient potbelly stove in the kitchen. One room was plastered with faded movie posters from the thirties and forties.

The cabin was in the middle of sixteen acres of mostly wooded property on the southern slope of Roan Mountain, not far from the North Carolina/Tennessee line. Clear, cold rocky streams rushed through the woods, fed by several springs and interrupted by occasional small waterfalls. Above the cabin was an abandoned field, ideal for a home garden. In front of the cabin was an overgrown grassy area. Below the cabin were several large apple trees, old mountain varieties. And beyond the apple trees was the outhouse.

Later that day Mikel bought the property, paying for it with cash. This was to be Running Water Farm, where many men of the southeast experienced their first Radical Faerie gathering and all that means: heart circles, acceptance, gay spirituality, fabulous outrageous drag, unconditional gentle love, vegetarian feasts, childlike playfulness, amazing performances, fey ritual, hot genuine sex, and natural native beauty.

A few days later Mikel loaded up all that he owned into his 1950 Ford woody station wagon and moved into the cabin. Later, while he was cleaning, he discovered that he wasn't the only resident – a five foot black snake lived in a nook at the top of the kitchen cabinets. They were wary housemates for the rest of that summer.

He took a job in a small restaurant not too far away, cooking breakfast for the local mountain men starting at 5 a.m. most days. And he began the long task of cleaning and repairing the cabin, tilling and planting the garden space and in general tidying up. He cleared a small area in a nearby briar patch for growing herbs. This was the very first area to get irrigation and supplemented his income quite nicely for a couple of autumns.

Something of a milestone was when he finally ran a pipe from a spring into the cabin and no longer needed to carry buckets of water inside. There was no faucet on the pipe, so water poured into the kitchen sink, a constant sound of running water. This was how the place got its name, Running Water Farm.

As the seasons went by, he became a part of the local community. His neighbors were all old mountain folk, reserved but kind, with thick accents and odd colloquialisms that sounded more Scottish than American. They were pleased to have such an industrious young man nearby, even if he did have long hair. Mikel still remembers the old woman who taught him how to make biscuits the mountain way, directly on the top of her wooden table, without using a bowl.

But he also became friends with local residents closer to his own age. In particular, there was a hippy family that lived down the road from him. The husband ran the local VW shop while his wife, Carol Spunk, hosted a weekly discussion group. These discussions ran the gamut: feminism, environmentalism, radical politics, and community. At these group discussions, Mikel came to terms with his sexuality and realized he was a gay man.

In February 1976, he did what so many gay men do: he packed up his car and drove to San Francisco. He took a slight detour on his way out there, stopping by a remote cabin in rural Tennessee where he spent a few days with Milo Pyne, the last remaining resident of the Short Mountain Collective. Milo had big plans to revive the community...

In San Francisco he moved into an apartment on the corner of Haight and Ashbury. There was a rent strike, so he paid no rent for his entire time in San Francisco. He landed a job as the dishwasher at The Elephant Walk, a gay bar in the Castro. He cut quite a figure in San Francisco, hurtling down the steep streets on a large wooden skateboard while wearing a whirling dervish skirt, his long hair streaming behind him.

But the following September saw him on the road again, in a Volkswagen squareback with a broken accelerator. He and his friend Soma ended up driving straight through from San Francisco to Running Water with the accelerator wide open, coasting through gas stations to fill up the tank.

Mikel resumed his life in the mountains of North Carolina. He took two semesters of weaving at the local technical college, as much to spend time in the warm workshops instead of his drafty cold cabin as for the education. Mikel attended the occasional mens’ conferences in the southeast when he could, meeting other gay men and participating in the workshops. These were the waning years of Gay Lib – progress had been made, but there was a realization that something more needed to happen.

In April 1978, Mikel drove down to Atlanta for the Southeast Conference Of Lesbians and Gay Men. The conference started out on a contentious note because the women wanted to host a women only sexuality workshop and this seemed discriminatory to many of the gay men on the planning committee. The rift between the lesbians and gay men continued to deepen as the conference proceeded, primarily because of thoughtless and insensitive behavior on behalf of some of the men – totally unintended, but there nonetheless. The women were at the conference to get serious work done, while many of the men just wanted to socialize and party.

By the end of the conference, the women felt badly mistreated by the men. When everyone had gathered in the auditorium for the closing session all of the women stood up, essentially told all the men that they needed to get their shit together before the women could work with them, and marched out, leaving all the men sitting there, flabbergasted.

The men began to talk. There was realization that, yes, there were important issues that they needed discuss and deal with. And there was a new idea as well, that gay men needed a men's only caucus, just as lesbians had women's only caucuses. Mikel stood up and offered to host this men's caucus at his property in the North Carolina mountains. He even suggested a date: the weekend of Summer Solstice. And over the next several weeks, he and others worked hard to make this happen.

That June thirty men showed up at his cabin for the longest days of the year. This was the first Running Water Farm gathering, preceding Harry Hay's first Radical Faerie gathering by more than a year. Yet Mikel clearly remembers that some men already identified themselves as faeries. These radical, energetic young men from New Orleans were members of LASIS, Louisiana Sissies in Struggle.

It was an amazing experience for all the men involved. For many, it was the first time being with a group of gay men interested in such topics as spirituality, our place in society, relationships and personal growth. The men there were conscious! The men talked, walked in the woods, cooked meals, sang, shared, played...

Mikel hosted two more gatherings at Running Water Farm. At the third one, in the summer of 1979, he announced that the property was for sale. He moved to Asheville, bought a large old house near downtown and rented out rooms to an assortment of young gay men and lesbians, and so there were always friends, guests, one night stands, boyfriends and girlfriends, talking and partying and hanging out. But Montford House is, perhaps, a different story...

Stepping Stone

Ron Lambe was living in San Francisco when he read about the gatherings at Running Water Farm in RFD. He realized that he had to experience one of these gatherings, so he attended the third gathering that Mikel hosted, in the summer of 1979. He had a wonderful experience and was looking forward to future gatherings when Mikel announced the place was for sale.

Ron had been looking for a place to buy out in California for years but could never find anything he could afford. North Carolina land, on the other hand, was much more reasonably priced. He spoke with Mikel and made plans to come back in July to check out the place.

It was a warm Summer day when he arrived and let himself in the cabin. He inspected the cabin and the various items left behind, which included a scythe. Being a little compulsive, he felt obliged to do something about the overgrown plants out front, and he began to scythe a path through the weeds. That was when another group of three men arrived to look at the property. These men were Peter Kendrick, Rocco Patt and John Jones.

A few years earlier, Peter had realized he was gay and that he wanted to meet someone compatible. After some thought, he took out an ad in the Mother Earth News. More then 100 men replied to it. Peter replied to these men, continued to correspond with some, and met a few. These men included Sam Crawford from Chapel Hill, John Jones from Chicago and Rocco Patt.

Rocco was in the Army and stationed in Germany, but fortunately didn't mention this in the first few letters he exchanged with Peter, who had consciously avoided the draft. Peter disagreed strongly with the Vietnam War effort and would have been put off by the fact that Rocco had voluntarily enlisted. When Rocco was discharged, Peter met him at Fort Dix, took him home and soon enough they were a couple.

Peter was living on Long Island at the time, but he decided to sell his house so that he and Rocco could explore the country and determine where they belonged. They loaded up their pickup truck and traveled to New England and Pennsylvania, extensively in West Virginia, then to Tennessee and finally North Carolina, where they decided to stay. They ended up in Asheville and began their search for a home.

Sam Crawford had been at one of the Running Water Farm gatherings. He wrote to Peter, saying that the property was for sale.  Peter wrote John Jones, telling him they were planning to look at this promising property and inviting him down for a visit. He and Peter shared an interest in starting a collective and getting back to the land.

The three of them walked down the overgrown driveway that July day, and found Ron there, scything away. The four of them talked and discovered they had a great deal in common. They all lived in urban areas, but wanted to move to the country to live in harmony with the land.  They wished to live outside “the system” as much as they could by growing most of their own food and exploring alternatives for their other needs. They were interested in maintaining the twice-yearly gatherings at Running Water.

The four of them formed a for-profit corporation called Stepping Stone, Inc., to manage the equity each of them was investing. On September 21, 1979, the Friday of the Fall Equinox Gathering, they met Mikel Wilson in the nearby town of Spruce Pine and closed on the property. They used all their savings to purchase the property outright, avoiding a mortgage. It had rained hard that day, but the rain eased to a gentle mist as they drove to Running Water. They were greeted by a group of loving men already assembled there for the weekend. For the new collective, it was a glorious homecoming and the beginning of a magical journey.

After that fall gathering the four men made a difficult decision. They had spent all of their money on Running Water, and quickly realized that there were no jobs to be found in the area. But Peter had been corresponding with yet another man who had answered his Mother Earth News ad. This older gentleman had an apartment in Tampa, Florida for rent, adjacent to his own. The four of them moved down there for the winter and lived a Tales of the City existence as they became better acquainted. They all found jobs in Tampa: Peter as a waiter, Rocco as a cook, John as a groundskeeper, and Ron processing checks at the telephone company.

The following spring they moved back to Running Water – the only period when all four men were living there. They hosted a June gathering, which was large, with 70 men attending. And they tended to the farm, looked for work and met the neighbors.

The four of them tried to fit in with their rural Appalachian neighbors, but found it a challenge. For instance, several days before the 1980 fall gathering, Peter and Rocco were in the apple orchard below the cabin when several bullets tore through the apple trees, dangerously close. Rocco followed the sound of the gunshots and discovered two neighborhood boys shooting in their direction. When the boys spotted Rocco coming after them, they ran home and hid the guns. Rocco, who was very upset, gave the boys a stern lecture about responsible, sensible and safe gun use, which includes not shooting towards a home.

A few days later, Rocco and Peter were leaving the driveway when they met a neighbor, the father of the two boys, coming in the opposite direction. He motioned them to pull next to him, rolled down his window, and said to Rocco, “Don't you ever, ever come on my property and tell my family what to do or we will run you off of this mountain.” This was so unexpected and upsetting that Rocco and Peter returned to the cabin to recover from the encounter.

That fall gathering was exceptionally large, with 150 men attending. Peter had written a letter explaining what Running Water was all about which had been broadcast via a pre-internet web of correspondence and mailing lists, and that is how most of the men who attended that gathering had heard about it. There was no way the kitchen in that cabin could easily handle the meals for a crowd that size, so Rocco negotiated the rental of the kitchen of My Sister's Kitchen, a small natural food restaurant, and that's where most of the advanced food preparation occurred. As well, they harvested the apples from the orchard and pressed gallons of apple juice – all of which was gone by the end of the gathering. The gathering was a huge success, with parades of men coming in from where the cars were parked, and drumming and dancing and singing. Somehow the story about the gunshots got told and there was some heated discussion about what to do about that, but no real decisions.

And perhaps just as well. After that fall gathering relations with the neighbors improved greatly. Peter speculates that they were impressed with the number of men that attended, concluding that the four men had important and significant connections.

That was also about the time that the collective took over the production of RFD. Peter remembers that the four of them were somewhat surprised when they read in RFD that Running Water was to be the future home of the magazine, but that's what happened. Faygele Ben Miriam had been the sole person responsible for the magazine for the previous few issues, a Herculean effort for one man. Ron Lambe drove to Faygele's house in Efland, near Chapel Hill, and came back with a number of cardboard boxes, and that was all that RFD was at that point. The magazine was in disarray, and it took a concerted effort to get the magazine organized and functional again. The magazine was published from Running Water until 1989, when Short Mountain Sanctuary took it over.

Neither Peter or John were able to find jobs in the area. Peter applied for a number of local jobs, most of which he was overqualified for, but apparently the local people had as much of a problem understanding his New York accent as he did their rural mountain accent. Both Peter and John ended up in Asheville, where they rented rooms in Mikel Wilson's Montford House, and were able to find paying jobs. Ron ended up staying at Running Water most of the time, with Rocco living there off and on. And there was one winter when just Rocco and Peter stayed there. Peter recalls that winter as an idyllic time, even though it was harsh and difficult to live in that remote cabin in the cold on the side of a mountain.

“We kept Running Water going and then we took on RFD. That went on for about eight or nine years, I guess. We were probably living on about $4000 a year, which was pretty back to the land. We grew a lot of our vegetables, we belonged to a food co-op and our main income was producing RFD and having the gatherings. The gatherings paid for the taxes. They were very cheap to host. And a little gas and insurance, we had very little expenses. But they were rich years of great food, great friends, colorful dinners… musical events. It was rich. We had great experiences with that. Many great memories.”

 - Ron Lambe, at the 2009 Gay Spirit Visions Fall Conference

Ron Lambe lived at Running Water most continuously during the later years. He also essentially ran RFD. He very much had to live on a shoestring budget as well. In the later years he was active with the Western North Carolina Alliance, an environmental group, and that eventually lead to his buying a house in Asheville, where it was headquartered. But this left Running Water empty.

Stepping Stone did find some caretakers, but that proved problematic, mainly because of monetary issues. After the caretakers moved out, Running Water was vacant for a while. Eventually Stepping Stone sold the land to a straight couple whom had been neighbors and friends.

“Running Water didn't last forever but it was a wonderful adventure while it lasted. It wasn't the kind of thing that does last your whole life. For the adventure of it and trying something new, creating a social dynamic, a living space in a rural place, that's how I feel about it, that it worked, it worked for a while and we all got a lot out of it.”

- Peter Kendrick

Gay Spirit Visions

The last gathering at Running Water occurred in 1989. At that gathering Ron Lambe and Peter Kendrick reconnected with Raven Wolfdancer, who had been at the very first gathering. They realized that the energy of these events needed to be kept alive, but perhaps in a less anarchic, more focused and structured manner. Ron, Peter and Raven had several lengthy conversations that proved to be the genesis of Gay Spirit Visions. Peter says, “Getting Ron involved made things happen. Ron is a networker and facilitator of extraordinary talent.”

Peter discovered a program at the University of North Carolina - Asheville, where he worked n the mathematics department. They would give grants to speakers to visit the university and talk on various topics. With the help of some friends on the faculty, Peter was able to draft a proposal for Harry Hay to travel from California to lecture at UNCA. But the lecture was incidental as far as Peter and Ron were concerned, merely a stratagem to pay for Harry's travel so he could be the keynote speaker at the first GSV gathering. And that worked like a charm.

More difficult was finding a place to host the gathering. Ron, Peter and Raven wanted a place with indoor plumbing. The date for the first conference was in the late fall at the end of the season, and so they figured that camps would be very interested in the business. Ron and Peter traveled all over western North Carolina visiting a great number of camps and retreat centers, and indeed, most were very interested, that is, until the management learned that it was a gay conference. Then they were booked, or some other problem. It was discouraging.

Finally, Ron and Peter visited The Mountain, a Unitarian Universalist retreat and conference center outside of Highlands, North Carolina. The Mountain staff was totally fascinated with the idea of the conference from the very beginning, although they were uncertain about the particulars. They made it clear that they wanted to host Gay Spirit Visions. And so that's where the first GSV conference was held in November of 1990, and where GSV conferences have been held since.

Running Water Memories

“That was a very special time for me. About six months before, I had just come out. I forget how I learned about the first Running Water gathering except that I had tied in with any gay and lesbian political stuff happening in the Chapel Hill/Durham area. It was a new beginning for me because I had just separated from my wife after seven years of marriage, and I had my two sons and was on my way back to Tennessee to my more permanent job. Gabby Haze had his kids with him as well, so the boys had other kids to play with and garden space and play space and lots of very gentle guys who kept an eye on them.

It was a beautiful piece of land with all these streams coming down off the mountain. But it was quite different from the more organized gay and lesbian conferences that I had experienced in the previous six months. Sort of scary because it was, like, whoa, there are no rules here, I can do what I want. And there would be impromptu workshops for us to work on stuff that we needed to work on.

 I do remember one of the workshops I participated in. I think it was Crazy Owl who organized it. Basically it was an outdoor no clothes circle jerk but with kind of a guiding meditation. It was very spiritual.

There was always music out on the porch and we were singing all these faerie chants. Michael Mason who was a beautiful man from that area was very good at getting us going with singing rounds in the cozy back room of the cabin. Oh, I have to say that the food was fabulous, as well as the dress, or undress.

Another unforgettable thing was the sweat lodges we had. There would always be a sweat lodge down below the cabin in the woods next to a waterfall, and this water was about 33 degrees Fahrenheit. So, it was sort of a test of your manhood to refresh yourself in that water after a round in the sweat lodge. Up at the cabin you would hear ‘wooo-ooo-HOOO-ooo,’ and you knew people were getting under that waterfall.

And there's one more incident that I really must tell you about. So we were out on the lawn, on this sloped lawn, managing somehow to play a game of twister in a big circle and the kids were in the circle, men were in the circle, there were men in dresses in the circle, there were men in jeans and flannel shirts, there were men in no clothes at all. And we were managing this challenging game on a sloping grass surface when this old mountain guy comes up out of the woods. One of the neighbors, and I'll never forget the expression on his face, I mean his mouth and eyes were so wide open and he didn't say anything. I was in my underwear, and I just said, ‘Helloo!’ But he didn't say anything, he just proceeded up the hill.”

- Gary Briggs, at the 2009 Gay Spirit Visions Fall Conference.

“Harold was the neighbor who would cut through the property. His family lived below and he lived up above us and that was the old roadbed and so he naturally took that little shortcut through. He was very nice and asked our permission to come through the property. We said, ‘Sure!’

So he did get an eyeful of things but he was very discreet about it. I think he liked having this kind of secret going on. I remember another time when three of the boys put a mattress on the bridge over a little creek out in the woods and they were having a little three way party. Harold, trying to be nice said to himself, ‘I don't want to disturb the fellows having fun – I'm going to cut through the woods.’ And he came upon these fellows just carrying on. He looked at them and they looked up. ‘You boys having a rest?’

I think he had some faerie blood in him somewhere. When he died I went to the funeral and a lot of his family came up and said, ‘Harold always spoke well of you boys.’"

- Ron Lambe, at the 2009 Gay Spirit Visions Fall Conference

Running Water, June 1980, impressions. The largest gathering ever held at Running Water Farm attracted a crowd of 70 men. The weekend was yet another experience with open anarchy at work. Perhaps even more so than at previous gatherings. There was a continuous flow of circles that one could attend dealing with diverse topics from body work/new games to serious political discussion. The most important aspect was that one did not feel compelled to attend any of the structured events. Personally the only workshop I made it to was an hour long watermelon feast that was oh so sweet. I have a feeling that after a few years of infancy the “S.E. Network” has now come of age and that we will be looking for new and more complex ways to involve ourselves with each other and the world around us. The gatherings are still the only times of the year when I am able to be around spirits/persons of the same desires, goals and emotions as myself.

I am discovering that these are spaces for intense personal sharing unlike any other. I find myself taking the vibrations of a gathering back to the dominant gay culture as found in “the bars,” not necessarily by talking with people but by being open and spreading a feeling of love and warmth around me when I am in that rather tired and tight environment. In our own small way we are changing the culture that we must take a part in.

In closing I would like to point out that there are beginning to be gatherings of this same nature all around. I am beginning to feel a web of energy develop among us that will make us free.

- Mikel Wilson, RFD, Summer 1980, #24.

Towards the end of one gathering there was a trip to the summit of Roan Mountain to view the groves of Rhododendrons in bloom. There were probably twenty of us there and it was wonderful to wander through this strikingly beautiful natural garden with faerie friends. We had an impromptu circle in the picnic area, in plain sight of a number of people also there to see the blooms. Two guys were heading on to Tennessee and we each one kissed them goodbye, right on the lips. This was very cutting edge in the day, bordering on dangerous. I found it incredibly empowering. I was one of the last to leave the area and I heard this rather large lady comment to her companion,“Must be a fraternity.” We had a good laugh over that.

- Doug Caulkins

During another gathering on one of these trips to Roan Mountain, we went up in several vehicles with a group close to twenty.  When we came back and started dinner someone noticed that one fellow was missing.  He was a shy and quiet individual who had not yet made a strong connection with anyone.  Some of us raced back up to the top of the mountain and called his name.  We did retrieve the fellow with much rejoicing.  He had accepted the entire experience with grace and humor, we were all so relieved.

- Peter Kendrick

I loved the mountainside. Running Water is on the eastern slope of Roan Mountain, so there is no level land. It's a wonderful, slanting place, and the little cabin was nice, but when we had gatherings it was such a pleasant place to be, with streams running, sweat lodges, meeting lots of people, occasionally some good sex.

There were some men who were involved who were major gay activists at the time. Carl Wittman, who wrote the famous gay manifesto in 1970. He lived in Durham and taught a gay men's folk dancing class that I attended fairly frequently. He was good friends with Allen Troxler, who wrote the pamphlet Running Water Rounds. Lee Mullis and his lover, Philip Moon. Barry Yeoman, who turned into fairly major independent journalist in North Carolina. And, of course, Faygele Ben Miriam, we were good friends. Boy, he was one of those characters where they truly broke the mold, and really in your face, but just a sweetheart. But I know I have forgotten so, so many people who used to go there.

- Stuart Norman

It wasn't a huge gathering that I attended in 1979, probably only 10 or 13 men, probably about the third  time I'd been up there. And I remember that we had all kind of settled in, sitting on the porch and we were just talking, and these women arrived. One of the first things they did was take off everything but their shorts, and I wondered about that because there were chiggers and mosquitoes and things that bit that we had been dealing with. I think someone mentioned this to them, but particularly in the late 1970s with gender issues and with women, you kind of let it all play out.

Later I saw them and they were just bitten all over. One woman had these really large breasts covered with bumps and red bites, and they were sitting on the porch applying this stuff to help with the itching – it was some sort of natural remedy that Ron Lambe and Peter Kendrick had put together. At dinner they were wearing shirts and it was a real reversion. That's one of my keenest memories of up there, because I was kind of intimidated by them when they starting taking everything off.

- Roger Bailey

I loved going to Running Water, and I always felt so welcomed and so honored to be a part of a faerie circle. I remember the music – there was a piano in the cabin, and Ron Lambe played the piano. There were afternoons and early evenings by lamplight and candlelight with people playing the piano and singing. I remember how people helped with getting the meals prepared.

I remember the heart circles; usually there was a morning circle. I remember how the shawl was passed around the circle. Frequently, it was used as the talisman, people speaking would hold the shawl, or wrap themselves in the shawl. Dennis Melbason had crocheted it, and presented it to Harry Hay, and it went around to a number of gatherings. It was of white cotton, triangular, about six feet across the top. In the center, a large representation of the god Cernuonos, the horned god. There were grapevines crocheted in the corners, grapes and vines and leaves. It was a very powerful object; I felt that it had a great deal of healing energy.

I do have a lovely memory of Michael Mason. He was reciting one of his poems with this flipchart thing. My friend, Phil Smith ripped the page off and destroyed it – he thought he was adding to the moment with humor and in fact it turned into quite a nasty little incident. It required some tender loving care and healing afterward.

- Be

When I went to the second gathering I was just flabbergasted by the fact that there were all these people intense in black lace and champagne glasses and all of these fabulous things. I remember feeling that I had found something that I didn't think went on in anyone else except me. So it was really, really nice. Very comforting and very, very nice.

I had my two boys with me, and they were maybe seven and four. There was some point where, after a few days people were getting more comfortable with each other and starting to get sexual. And I went through this whole thing about my kids, and walking around, and what was going to be going on and everything like that. But I wasn't going to leave.

- Gabby Haze

One of my favorite memories of Running Water is just how charming the cabin was. It had this porch, this little narrow porch with a porch swing at the end. And all those group photographs were taken on that porch. Really all we had to cook on was that wood cook stove and we were able to create all this food on this stove and the wood stove oven. And there was a loft, a sleeping loft.

One of my other favorite memories was of how much singing we used to do. Ron was really into the piano and we would sit around the piano and just sing. What a sweet memory of Running Water, all the singing that we did.

And I also remember we would often circle under those giant apple trees. So there we would be like circling under these beautiful old apple trees. I remember also going for a walk and not realizing how much stinging nettle there was around on the land. Suddenly I was in this place where there was only one way to go and it was through the stinging nettles so I had like a little stick and I parted my way through the stinging nettles.

One of my other real vivid memories of Running Water was just how innocent people were. I think that maybe that was true in general of the early faerie gatherings. I think that was something that really touched me about the early years at Running Water and I remember vividly there was a way we connected with one another that wasn't as complicated as it is now.

- Daz'l

A Gay Spirit Visions Memory (1991)

I thought I would cry forever in the closing circle. As a gay man, I had never felt so safe.

We were feeling pretty unsafe two days earlier. Gay, black and urban, my best friend Ricky was anxious about a trip into the South. It didn't help that we spent a night in Lynchburg(!), Jerry Falwell's home. We got lost in the mountains between Johnson City and Asheville (there was no interstate there yet), and we arrived in a fog to what seemed a deserted camp. Despite our nerves, we still felt called there.

Dinner Friday (the conference only ran Friday-Sunday then) eased our fears as we began meeting men on an incredible journey – gay spiritual seekers. Later, all 90 or us opened with a heart circle in the lodge (the upper Tree House didn't exist yet). James Broughton and Joel Singer presented a late-night festival of their beautiful films. We began to breath and make friends. Many are still in my life.

Saturday was a whirlwind of keynotes, panels and workshops by Andrew Ramer, Franklin Abbott, Charlie Murphy, Dave MacDonald, Don Shewey, John Stowe, Crazy Bear, Sequoia Thom Lundy, and others. How to choose? Saturday night featured riches of music, dance, prose, poetry, and costumes.

The community capped the evening with wild dancing and drumming under a full moon. Looking into the beautiful faces around the fire, I knew that I had found a haven to which I would return often, safe and loved. And so it is.

- Bob Strain