Extract 1

In the New Age world of 1997, Rainbow Circle was a break off tribal group of Rainbow 2000, led by Jean Morning Star. The group was in the early years of re-inventing itself.

Extract 2

I entered the big Lodge that evening at nine thirty pm. This is the big white tepee, which I found full of people sitting around the fire burning in the central earth grate. I didn't know theform or how to behave, whether or not there was a code to observe. I was introduced as Don and I started talking about the Severn bore and Sabrina the goddess of this mighty river. I told the story first penned in the twelfth century by Geoffrey of Monmouth.

Extract 3

Then as I stood up, as if by magic a girl appeared in front of me. She started to chant and sing in extraordinary musical tones. I could only assume it was some sort of healing communion. I looked to the woman on my right, who just smiled when I asked what she was doing. So I stood there, slightly taken aback but nonetheless enjoying the attention. I put my hand to the side of her face, which was expressionless below a woolly hat, and said "that was lovely, thankyou.".
Outside the Lodge I got into talking with a couple about the tides, the Moon and the equinoctial sunrise, and somehow missed the group leaving for the river. So I asked, "Are we going to the river?"
In that instant she was there, standing beside me. She took my hand and said,
"Where do you want to go?"
"To the river, to hear the bore in the dark," I replied.
"I'll take you," she said.
She'd never been to the river, in fact she hadn't been off the campsite for a week because she'd been in healing. It turned out she didn't know the way and we went to the food tent to ask. After receiving fairly useless instructions we set off across the camp, her arm around my body and mine around hers, total strangers in an enchanted world, the world of Rainbow Circle. She broke into her wonderful singing, intermingled with wolf like calls, which I was told were her ways of talking to her family and letting her children know where she was.
This girl is either way out or spaced out, I thought. Either way she was something else and definitely worth getting to talk.

Extract 4

That's where my travels into the otherside of life started.I got into the cab of Old Red and scrambled through to the back eager to open the door,lest she evaporated into the September night air.
She told me her travelling name was Molly and then she said, "but you can call me by my real name." In that moment I felt a connection, an arousal, a desire on both our parts. I lit the gas ring to boil the kettle, embarrased to turn towards her, feeling an overwhelming sense of her sexuality.
When I sat opposite her in the candlelight I could for the first time observe her features and her dress. She wore a flimsy orange top, which revealed her stomach and showed the fulness and firmness of her body,and a pair of tight fitting celtic trousers decorated from top to bottom in narrow black, orange and brown horizontal bands. Everything about her was provocative and although she had a slight London docklands accent, the tone of her voice was clear and sweet to the ear. Her brindle hair, the features of her face, her boyish masculinity and her feminine aura all screamed tomboy, gypsy, duality of nature.
That evening was one of those extraordinary occassions when you just know that things are really beyond your control, and yet somehow I felt in control. I knew I was going to see her again but I was unsure whether the second meeting would fulfil the promise of the first, for I could'nt be sure on that first meeting whether she was naturally high or whether the buzz she exuded was drug induced. As we talked she would grab at those things which I said, which interested her, with a fervour which brought her face alive and which snaked into my being. As she smiled, the steady gaze of her eyes transformed into a dance of movement, reflecting the race of her thoughts. Never before had I seen a person's eyes move in such a way; it remains the one endearing feature in my mind of this extraordinary woman, who came to frustrate my status quo and yet who led me into a wealth of experience to which I would otherwise have not been privy.
When Molly left, after that first meeting, she brushed past me, deliberately rubbing herself against me like an animal, and she demanded that I should be walking her back to her tepee. When we parted we hugged in the normal way of Rainbow Circle and she said come back tomorrow.
Probably I should'nt have gone back, but then I was going back anyway to see the others. I'd already made plans to go and help Jean with her wagon. I think if I had'nt taken the initiative the spontaneity of all that followed would have been lost and I would have been frustrated in another way.
And so the next day I returned to the field. It was a perfect late September day, with the hangover of summer heat giving it that most rare sensation of time standing still. The scents of autumn, of ripening fruit in the hedgerows and late harvest were heavy in the air, the sounds of the camp which straggled through the fields intermittent and hazy. It was a seductive day, a sensuous mother earth day.
I went to see Jean's wagon as promised and I could see that beyond the lodges in an open green Molly was stripped to the waist grooming the black gelding. After a while I walked over to her and she just said hello. The gelding had been quiet until I arrived and then he started to become fractious, she said he was jealous of me. Then, without warning, she took his lead reign and started to run him around the field, running at his side. When she finished she drew up near to where I was standing and stretched herself across his flanks, raising herself onto the balls of her feet, rubbing her naked torso into the sweat of the gelding's body, her celtic trousers stuck by her own sweat to her taught legs. I approached her and said "you're a very erotic woman." She glanced at me mischievously and chided me, as if I had accused her of her promiscuity.
The following day I took her to a magical place of ancient stones and all the black birds, the jackdaws, crows, rooks and ravens, went wild in the sky above her head, cavorting in a frenzy in the wind and I saw the Morrigan and recognised her for what she was and fell under her spell. We walked through the maize field rattling in the wind and she said it was the spears of an army and in the vast river valley below she saw the sun glinting on the armour of an enemy, which was not Celtic. She turned to me and said "you were once a chieftain, were'nt you?" I shrugged and had no reply.

Extract 5

The photos from Nigel Eaton, the Aussie, came through on Wednesday and they were great. I've got two prints stuck up in Old Red, showing me and Jim from Kent, riding the Severn bore at about as good as it gets. There were great pics of Matt, boy did he surf it well, and more of Nigel and Damion and also Steve King and Dave Lawson, the record breakers alongside the Aussies. It's all great stuff.
More than anything it's been a weeks of meeting new friends in shared experiences and shared dreams. Also a hint of new beginnings which may lead to new Travels and journeys along the River of Life.

Extract 6

A few weeks later on 15th of October I had an evening of experience about as way out as it gets. I took Molly to Garden Cliff on the banks of the Severn by a place called the Strand, for her to witness the Severn bore and for me to catch a dusk ride at one of the more gnarly spots.
Magic Girl evoked the goddess, she was the goddess! She covered my body with her magic. As I sat waiting on the bank, she pushed me down and crouched over my head. She was in a trance, possessed and gripped by some ancient ritual, which she was re-enacting from a previous incarnation.
A three star wave, according to the EA prediction, turned into a monster. With a roar, which put a fire in my belly and a fear in my heart, she swept up full on across the whole width of the river.
This was no ordinary bore wave. The approaching roar was 10 minutes. I was standing up to my waist in the swiftly flowing water, waiting and waiting for sight of the wave. Magic Girl was standing half naked on the high riverbank silhoueted against the sky, her brindle hair falling like a mane, across her cheeks, tangled tresses snaking down between the sleek muscles of her back. Arms outstretched and head back, her face raised to the sky she sang and chanted, calling up the powers of nature, calling for my safety, sending her glory deep into my soul.
Suddenly the bore was in front of me, a boiling roaring 4ft wall of white water. It was on me in the half dark, I could only just see up river. The turbulence was everywhere, but somehow I was up and riding until I reached the rocks, which stuck up menancing me through the low tide water ahead of the wave. Then the drag just pulled the board in and I was off miraculously escaping injury. The current was epic, the dark closing in, so I paddled and kept paddling, shooting up river in places at close to 20 miles an hour, knowing I could'nt get out until I reached the end of the cliff half a mile upriver. I was over the outcrops and nearly got sucked into the whirlpool at the beach, top end of the cliff. Then I was ashore, slightly pissed off at not making the whole ride, but as I scrambled up through the rushes dragging my board, man was I stoked. I was blown away and high. I'd done a monsterbore in the dark, with one of earth's sensuous creatures sending me on my way.
I was five minutes on the water and it was twenty minutes to walk back over the cliff. I foxcalled but she didn't hear until I got back to the top end of the cliff. Then I saw her light flashing. She called back and then called my name, relief obvious in her voice. When I got down I came up behind her and she screamed in surprise.
She was totally fazed and scared I'd gone down. What would she do? What would she tell the world? Or would she just walk away and pretend it hadn't happened? She was well and truly lost, uncertain and unknowing of the magic she had just wrought. Well guys, I tell you, night surfing on the bore is wicked shit. It's selfish and foolhardy, but man the rush.
As I dried off in the van I wanted to brew up but she was having none of it. She wanted to get away, she was shook up and scared, high on adrenaline. All she wanted was to get away and go to Pixie's place in the woods.
So we drove off from the Strand, but not before a strange shape formed in the clouds, which for all the world looked like an elephant, and was'nt this the place where the elephant tusks had been found in the river, from those legendary days when the Roman army brought with them elephants to ford Sabrina's flow?
From one strange experience to another we made for Pixie's camp.
Pixie and his mate John are handcarters.It's about as slow a life as you can get on the road. It had taken them 5 weeks to get up to the Forest from Glastonbury. Both these guys looked slight of frame and I was pretty impressed that they had it in them to tow their carts and worldly possessions anywhere, let alone along the main roads.
They had settled in the Forest for the winter and their simple benders comprised a series of hazel poles covered with tarpaulins to create a tunnel like structure. Inside Pixie's entrance was a small woodburner stove and at the far end the cart formed the bed, raised above the ground. An assortment of rugs and hangings and various pots and jars completed the scene. There was a small bookcase with well thumbed books and a manual on mushrooms and a shelf with a collection of sacred objects typical of today's travellers. The whole structure was no more than 10ft by 5ft wide,much the same area as my van's living space. The dog, a mongrel lurcher, slept beneath the bed and was a constant companion to his master.
Magic Girl or Molly, as she's known in this otherworld, embraced Pixie and described what I'd been doing. Pixie was too bleary eyed and stoned to take much of it in and my exploits made neither an impact nor stimulated any response. We had some tea, Pixie and Molly smoked and Pixie told me about Stonehenge and how he had saved King Arthur from arrest. Pixie was a druid and a knight of the Round Table, which I found rather amusing, although I managed to conceal it. His size was clearly compensated by his cunning as other unmentionable exploits demonstrate.
We left the woodland camp at 11 o'clock. I'd come face to face with a paradox. In the space of hours I had crossed the threshold of normal experience and discovered the Edge, that shadowy place between the real and the unreal worlds of our consciousness. I would'nt have ridden that bore if Molly had'nt been there, it was a dangerous wave, a fool's wave. Yet in my survival of that danger I glimpsed for a second or two a height of awareness beyond my experience. At Pixie's camp I realised that there is no limit to what we choose to be.
As Molly and I walked back through the woods to Old Red I found that this half gypsy was of the town, not the country, for when the badger's white flare shone in the moonlight ahead of us she screamed and clung to me in fear and when the dog fox called on the hill she thought it was a wolf. I did'nt enlighten her. Then she asked me to be her mentor in the matters of the countryside and her guide through the supernatural maze that seemingly engulfed her. It was then that I slid through the slide zone into the valley of enchantment.

Next day, Thursday, I got dumped on with a cold and bailed on the night ride, but I went to watch it. This was the biggy, the full five stars. But where was the noise and the might? She was beautiful, but small. Now that tide was a full foot higher than the day before and yet the wave was diminished. I've heard tell Magic Girl can part the clouds at sunrise. Well I believe it! She made that wave big. Get your head round that. Hey man, she is a surf spirit! Wow!
Friday morning I got in below the Severn Bore pub as the wave broke over the sand bar 600 yards below. Only the record breakers were out and they had it. A cool wave bigger than last month jacked and broke on the point of the sand bar, then peeled right and barrelled all across the river. That barrel was makeable with a board and I guess the young American groms would tuck in under the lip at 3 ft.
Matt was changing when I got to Over. We went on down, no one else out. I was cold, in the early grip of a bug, not feeling too good. I got a short ride, but the river flow was up and I didn't feel the push. Basically I wasn't with it. Matt took the wave across the river, then he was off 10 yards above me. Then he paddled and hell he was back up. That cool cat had picked up a trough three waves back behind the head wave, got up and pumped his board as the bore reformed. He then proceeded to take the bore out all the way up and through the bridge. This young guy is a pro man, surf instructor and bloody good. The record breakers are the masters of the long distance cruise, but Matt is the King of the wave at the moment.
I shall get out on the down river waves through the winter but the big bore Hunt is over for this year. Tom rang for info on the bore, requested by John Baxendale contacting wingnut, (Tom's e-mail) wondering whether it was the famous Robert Wingnut Weaver. But hey, you guys who find the Bore Riders Club on the Net, this is where it started, the October Bore Hunt 1997.