The Earth People's Festival

That's what the Earth People's Festival of Life is all about. And that's what it's going to be about next weekend.

Right now the Festival is happening but in a small space, focused in a basement room of Phillips Brooks House. It will be spreading to other spaces during the week, and it will be moved outdoors on Saturday and Sunday to the Earth-Space centered around the Plaza (overpass) just north of Harvard Yard, for a gigantic "Celebration of Ourselves and the Earth." Ideally, it will keep going from there.

The Festival is free, it is open to everyone, it belongs to everyone-we're all earth people. The Festival is a community event; that is an event of and for the Cambridge-Harvard and the larger community. It is a participatory event. You are the Festival as you bring your energy into it. You are the Festival right now, if you want to be.

What's happening now, in PBH: people are bringing all kinds of energy together; people are drawing posters, writing leaflets, tie-dying, silk-screening, and taking what they make out into the community to spread the word. There is a free store open there. Nothing is bought or sold; whatever is there has been brought, and probably will be taken. The people at PBH are also gathering other kinds of energy around the community: for instance, green energy (i.e., money) and grain energy (rice) for the big celebration this weekend. There is a green energy "drop" at the Orson Welles and people with bread baskets and oatmeal boxes are wandering about the streets and shops.

What's going to happen Saturday and Sunday: we're not quite sure. As one of the Festival leaflets says, "The more of our energies that can be gathered in the next few days, the more far-out things can happen" later. For sure, there's going to be plenty of music-several bands are coming to play, and people should bring their own instruments. There will be teepees, air bubbles (Design School people are building a plastic airhouse), and other structures and displays. Local dance groups-including Lindsay Crouse's Dance Company of Cambridge-and theatre groups will be on hand, creating free-flowing ritual events. The Bright Angel Artists' Community will be bringing dance, theatre, and singing groups. Cambridge Intermedia and Boston's Fish Gladstone Boy will put on light shows. The tie-dying and silk-screening will continue, bicycles, faces, and other things will be painted. All sorts of playthings (balls, balloons, Frisbees, etc.) should be brought and played with. There will be plenty (hopefully) of food to be shared-East House at Radeliffe has offered its kitchen and some money for bread-baking, and the people at the new rice and vegetable restaurant at 1419 Cambridge Street will be helping with the cooking, (Bring your favorite recipe.) Mainly, people will be there to celebrate Life and the Earth.

ONE of the most important things about the Festival is that people will be responsible to themselves and the land. Voluntary Free Help! marshals are currently designating themselves to get people together as needs and questions arise. The structures set up on Saturday will be removed for future use and the land will be returned to itself on Sunday afternoon, ending with a two-hour musical clean-up. (Mayor Alfred E. Vellucci has suggested that Earth People begin to make regular use of Kingsley Park adjacent to Fresh Pond for day and evening celebrations.) People should bring anything and everything to raise goodvibes, and a plastic garbage bag to absorb the excess. People also should walk or do anything else to get to the Festival rather than drive in cars. Containers of all kinds used at the Festival (like people should each bring a jug of cider, or try and get stores to contribute them) will be recycled into a main art area to be painted and made beautiful, along with bicycles, faces, bodies....

The Festival idea belongs to everyone and has always been in the air, in the form of fairs, tribal gatherings, country "bees," hoe-downs, least days, and community celebrations of all kinds. The connection for the land was made by a number of persons who had been gathering together around a Youth Culture and Politics group organized by students in the fall within the Kennedy Institute's seminar program. Part of the idea was to provide a space where people from all parts of the community could come together in mutual celebration of what is most vital in their lives. A time for people to share ideas about shaping our common environment. After all, we all share the same city-space and are seeking ways to liberate our energies to use it together.

ARRANGEMENTS were cleared with the University through Dean May's office last Wednesday to have structures, amplified music, and displays in Festival Plaza itself. Theportion of Harvard Yard adjacent to the Plaza behind Holworthy and Thayer Halls was agreed on as an area for food, if the freshmen who live there approve. Arrangements for this and for approving the use of various freshman bathrooms are being coordinated by the Freshmen Council.

It is also agreed that the gates of the Yard will be open for the duration of the Festival so that people can be free to move about with their bodies, musical instruments, balloons, etc.

An agreement was made with Dean May that total expenditures for the Festival would be borne by Earth People's Community. But, there is no organization or single funding source "doing" the Festival for anybody else (we are all potential participants) and Earth People's Community is simply an idea. So the five people who happened to be in Dean May's office at the time the agreement was signed are now the only people officially personally responsible for any expense connected with the Festival, including possible damage to trees or to University property. (There'll be plenty of groovy structures, materials, and bodies to paint and do beautiful things with-so this caveat is in the agreement just because that's the way things are normally done.)

Anybody can sign up as a member of Earth People's Community. Many who have come down to the Phillips Brooks House basement space have already done so, so come down and add your name if you feel like it, as a way of sharing in the event.

When various earth people met with Mayer Vellucci on Monday, he arranged a meeting for them the following day with Cambridge City Manager Jamse Sullivan to discuss possible activities and displays to spread the event onto the Cambridge Common.

The Mayor really dug the Festival, saying that we are all earth people, and suggested people get a flat bed truck full of musicians and people in costumes to ride through Cambridge neighborhoods during the next two or three days distributing posters and turning everybody on to the gathering this weekend. He said no permit would be necessary.