where it all began....

There was an international intentional gathering in Chapada Diamantina, a mountain range in Bahia, Brazil. Those mountains are sacred to me, in the way that I feel at home there. The hills slope up into tabletops in what looks like large skate ramps, and the hillsides glitter with quartz crystals. Red rivers flow through the valleys and everywhere you wander there are waterfalls. Tier after tier after tier. It was summertime. Brutal. Yet perfect for plunging into the rivers over and over and letting the sun bake me dry. Perfect for spending all day not doing much except relaxing in the shade.
I had arrived alone, pitched my tent, and took a deep breath. Everything that I owned was in a backpack, and I soon met a friend in the same situation, except that everything that he owned included a large metal box. He had hiked into the gathering with the intention of building an earthen oven.
So we set about digging up dirt and collecting hay and crystals to build the structure around this metal box and people started gathering to help and soon we had a small community of enthusiastic oven-builders with their eager hands helping out, and their tarps and tents pitched in a wide semi-circle around it.
Over the next four weeks, over 1000 people passed through that part of the mountains, and for every waking hour, there was bread being kneaded, cookie batter being stirred, pizzas being tossed, and muffins browning. We fed hundreds of people every day and every day people came by with pounds of cheese or flour or sugar to joyfully donate to the abundance.
There was about a dozen of us who were self appointed stewards of this fabulous feasting extravaganza, and though it all flowed pretty smoothly, without job assignments, or schedules, we were always having trouble keeping track of the oven mits.
"Where are the gloves?!", we would call out when the bread started to brown and break open at the top, and it was always a scramble, but somehow, we could only ever manage to find ONE, and a different one every time!
So we called ourselves the oneglove kitchen. And to me, oneglove always stands for the beauty of letting the magic happen....