pictures from kathryn's lry archives

Tacos on Tour: Summer '81 and Common Ground

“traveling, traveling, traveling ...”

Keith gets up front and puts on the scary shades. August 9, 1981.
photo by kathryn

So, Con Con over, we piled ourselves and all our apprehensions into the cars and began the caravan from Camp Derricotte (in Missouri) to Carleton College (in Minnesota) for Common Ground.

dolly, somewhere in missouri?

On learning we are about to enter a dry state (Iowa?) The Fifty-First Airborne Transport Vehicle (Dolly) stops to refuel.
photo by kathryn

Despite the fact that my stuff had already been packed in Tom's car, I decided to defect to Dolly. We were caravaning, anyway. And though it was cozy at first, by this point I was tired of being smooshed in the back seat. Much more room to stretch out in the Mobile Command Headquarters.

Feeling washed-out at the side of the road

becca kovar?, hillevi wyman, evelyn mcdonnell? and jeff edmonds try to maintain.
photo by kathryn

Then came the car trouble. Or something. I just remember a cumbersome process of everyone trying to communicate that someone needed to stop. I think the red van, which was bringing up the rear, had engine trouble. Then, there we all were, in the well-fertilized cornfields. In the hot August sun. We sat there for quite awhile, with varying levels of success at staying unruffled.

Passing the time while stuck in the breakdown lane

leslie stanton, amy shapiro and lane betz in the back of Dolly
photo by kathryn

We stopped overnight somewhere on the way. (where'd my backpack and sleeping bag go?)

On the path...

kathryn price, brian oelberg, and lane betz find common ground
photo courtesy brian oelberg

Well, one response to the chaos and doom around us... Get Married! And a number of us did. First Keith and I got married in the hall outside registration. They had asked us if we were married, and we immediately said “Yes.” (You couldn't room together, otherwise - one of many stupid prejudices at “common ground.” But still, we felt bad for lying and set out to rectify the situation immediately.) Then a few days later, in response to even further doom and chaos - lane, brian and i tied the knot. Here we are the next morning, after oversleeping in Dolly. We tumbled out of the truck and trotted to the meeting, pausing on the way for this rumpled snapshot.

Behind us, across the pond, is the field where we did the women's ritual. The women did a rather Pagan circle to invoke women's experience, energy, leadership and power, and to bring these things back into The Church. We lit candles from a central flame as we invoked and named these qualities, then we processed up to the chapel, where the men were waiting in the dark. We carried this energy into the church and lit the men's candles, and the altar candles, from our own. The Church was now alight with the flames and voices of women and men as equals.

Four years later, still seriously alienated from the UU's (over the betrayals of Common Ground) and a devout Pagan, I attended the Covenant of the Goddess Grand Council. There I met the people who were talking about starting CUUPS (Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans). We talked about the idea of creating a place for Pagans in the UU society, and of trying to bring some of the vitality and “juice” of Pagan worship into UU ceremonies. It turns out they were at Common Ground, too. I still wonder, in my Pagan heart, if it was the power of that ritual at Common Ground that laid the astral groundwork for some of the Goddess-oriented changes we've since seen in the UUA. Or, from a different angle: I wonder if that highly emotional experience left an impression on future leaders that influenced their spiritual direction and, hence, their UU policy decisions in the following years. I know my friends and I were strongly affected, I can only assume we weren't the only ones.

So, I may not have gotten what I wanted out of Common Ground in the short-term -- we lost youth autonomy, we lost LRY, LRYers felt bitter and defeated -- but maybe some of us actually did get what we wanted, and what the denomination needed, in the long run. Spiritually, I mean. The legacy of what it did to our generation of youth, and UU youth in the following years, is another matter entirely. CUUPS may have recently brought a number of old LRYers back to UUism, but it doesn't change the betrayal we experienced as youth at the hands of the UU leadership.

I'm not personally involved in CUUPS, but have dropped in from time to time over the years. I'm a Pagan, not a UU, and prefer to put my energy there. But it's still good to know that CUUPS is there if I want to drop back in.

An interesting historical and synchronistic note: Carleton College, and maybe that same ritual field, was the site of the 1963 founding of The Reformed Druids of North America. Though begun as a joke, and as a protest against the College's then-extant Religious Attendance requirement, it later grew into an actual spiritual group. Offshoots and former members are still visible in the contemporary American NeoPagan community. So, perhaps we picked up on some of that energy, as well.

did anyone have time to take pictures at common ground?

next page: fall of '81

soundtrack: through the mists of time and memory
side four: “i was on the inside / when they pulled the four walls down”
august 9, '81 - november 12, '81:
all i want - joni mitchell
heart and soul - t'pau
badlands - bruce springsteen
walk through the fire - peter gabriel
privilege (set me free) - patti smith

pictures from kathryn's lry archives
picture index & soundtrack notes
the midwest, fall '79 - summer '80 | office and villa, fall '80 | joe taco's housewarming party, fall '80
spring '81 | star island '81 and villa afterwards | con con '81 | tacos on tour, summer '81
fall of '81 | cog in the eighties | the tribe(s) in the nineties and beyond
how i wound up doing this site

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(In cases where photographer is unknown, I have listed the copyright to the person who owns the print, to the best of my knowlege, in order to legally protect our rights as the photographers and subjects.)
All text copyright ©1981-1999 kathryn price theatana & kpt/katharsis ink
Site copyright ©1999 kathryn price theatana for big electric celt productions
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