Burning Man ~ The Journey

There still in Mug status. Neither bring beer when they come to my house.

I always bring beer. And you always drink 11 of 12 of them. Kiss my rosy, hairless ass

Ok ....  here is the longwinded, short version of my introduction to Burning Man 2015.  Enjoy, hate, call B/S ... whatever.  Its MY experience ... not yours.  Want to go next year?  I'm already in build-mode for 2016 which WILL include some radical gifting, live music and a mutant art car!!!

Read & reflect....

Everything you’ve heard … everything you think you know … everything you want to believe about Burning Man is true.  It’s a dusty, windy, harsh environment that is the absolute best stage for the greatest life experience one with an open mind, body & soul could possibly happen.

No photo, video or story can replace the feeling you get while being home on the Playa – period!  I wish I COULD convey the atmosphere but I could not do it justice; it’s magical.  It is what YOU, the participant & contributor make of the event.  Without contributors, this would be just another festival and a festival it is not.  For me, it WAS a life changing experience that I hope to add onto next year.

It was a late Wed’s evening, shortly after 10pm when I first set foot on the alkyd Playa; a long, anxious 16 ½ hours after I pulled out of the driveway bound for a place that I knew little about and one that only exists a short time out of the year.   The four corners of our little community marked by 4 little plastic flags fluttering in the breeze.  Our early entry convoy takes a brief moment to roll around on the dusty ground like kids making snow angels and reflect on the 4 months of preparations that went into the start of this journey to our own self-realizations of what this opportunity means for each of us.  The moment was short lived and the work to strike camp began; 4 individuals, two trucks & trailers loaded to the limits had to be dealt with.

Fast forward past the 3-1/2 hours of sleep we got that night to the next afternoon.  Four more of our setup crew arrived, filing out of a V-10 cargo van whose departure destination was upper Washington state.  Their look of excitement matched ours of less than 24 hours earlier.  They brought ice cream sandwiches!  At less than a full day in, you realize the small things you take for granted like flush toilets … hell, a toilet with a door for that matter … and toilet paper.  Little things like water & ice become a foundation for sustainability.

Dust rules…  You have to love dust.  It gets everywhere and quickly becomes evident that it doesn’t ‘go away’.  We complete a few days of camp building; functioning kitchen, shade enclosures, yurts, multiple 32’ diameter shade structures, a couple large hexa-domes, the “naughty corner” and our bar!  After the initial setup of camp, we spend a few hours securing everything in preparation for an incoming dust storm slated for late Friday night & well into Saturday; just a day before the event opens.  I could go on & on about the storm high-winds, dust and chaos that occurred for the next 18 hours but you wouldn’t appreciate the love for the dust anyways…….

Personal expectations … I find this is a keystone element to the event.  Asking someone ‘why did you come’ or ‘why do you come back’ is the one element that is different for everybody.  I found no two answers the same to the hundreds & hundreds of people I met.  Ok, ok.  So a few people I met shared the ‘bucket list’ reply but honestly, they either didn’t get “it” yet or they never will get “it”.  There is a largely spiritual aspect to this event.  One that I witnessed breaking strong adults down to sobbing infants looking for core values of comfort.  Everyone should experience this moment of self-clarity that is deep and empowering.  I know I did.

Overcoming obstacles … For me, finding ones’ self on the Playa requires the ability to live with crazy camp mates.  One is making a gender transition.  Others are nudists.  Some came from other countries while others are life-partners.  The final piece of the puzzle were those whose burn involved copious amounts of drugs that would mimic ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’.  Never the less, these 28 people shared my space & the 70,000 others were my campmates.  It soon became obvious that no boundaries exist on the Playa.  One of the deepest obstacles I had to overcome was the reasoning why anyone would leave their family to be a part of this.  Why would anyone bring their family & participate in all this?  Neither direction made sense.

Speaking of direction; try navigating in a circle in a dust storm or remembering the Playa address of some cool bar or raging sound camp.  Its harder than one would guess it to be.

To the onlooker you exist in a harsh environment, play ‘dress up’ in crazy clothes, ride your bike around the desert adorned in blinking & glowing lights trippin’ on a cocktail of drugs & whatever form of “Playa Juice” you were served up at the last bar you attended … all the while your body is thumped from all directions with soul pounding EDM music.  Try to keep your eyes locked on any one cool mutant art car, one fun rave camp, one herd of gorgeous topless or fully naked women or the glowing horizon dazzling with laser lite shows that can be seen for miles.  Yeah, sure … it’s all true.  That fun lasts thru the first evening.  Dig deeper though.  There’s far more beneath the surface.

‘The Playa Provides’ … a mantra you will hear over & over again from those who have attended.  Didn’t “get it” before & sure as hell do now.  The community of Burning Man exists 365 days a year but only 7 days a year in physical existence on the Black Rock Desert, NV.  The existence of this community IS because those who attend participate rather than just ‘attend’.  During setup I watch as a camp across from us tried to cut rebar stakes from a long piece of rebar.  They worked on the first one for at least 20 minutes using an import hacksaw.  They finally managed to get one cut with a great triumphant look of exhaustion & joy.  I smashed their victory by offering my cordless sawzall and received a great cocktail served by two beautiful, topless women of their camp.  Gifting has its perks.  In their case, they had a need for a better way to achieve their desired results and we had a way for them to achieve this.  Would you have ever sought out a cordless sawzall in the middle of the desert?  All I can say is ‘The Playa Provides’.  Any need can me met with a little searching … even spiritual ones.

The Temple:  I first visited the Temple on the first open day of the event.  Its grandeur wasn’t quite as I expected it to be.  I’ve learned to leave your expectations of everything at the gate.  The cornucopia-like shape adorned in thousands of copper sheets stood proud in the dust.  I parked my bike and walked in.  The stick walls were already becoming shrines to lost loved ones, triumphant stories of overcoming illness& all-out rage towards something they felt the need to release and share.  It was overpowering and I had to leave … I wasn’t ready for that moment in my life quite yet.

The Man:  I wasn’t overly impressed with ‘The Man’.  The ‘Temple’ impacted me greatly.  Others have said “It was better last year” and the same for The Temple.  Take it for what it is, not what it compares to.  It’s nothing more than the burning of a man-shaped wooden structure that towers over the Playa acting as a marker for your travels across the miles of dust.  The symbolism of the man burning is far deeper.  What do you think it would mean to you?  I know what it was to me.

The Temple, Part 2:  I felt like the nearly 2-weeks would never come to an end.  Part of me ‘had enough’ while the other part of me craved more.  Everyone breaks, eventually.  I broke the Thursday morning of the event.  Feeling beat down, I gathered my playa-pack and headed solemnly into a mounting dust storm to re-visit the temple and leave behind the feelings, emotions & mementos that I brought with me to the Playa.  No friends, no family.  Just me.  I reached the outskirts of the Temple and gain my sense of situation.  It had already gotten the best of me days earlier and I could already see the number of feelings left behind by others had exponentially grown over the week.  The entrance to the Temple pulled at my heart as I walked thru again, reading the stories and seeing the tokens left behind.  I managed to make it thru to the inner garden where I lost it.  Watching others balled up & broken down from their emotional journey is too much.  I spend some time sitting, watching, listening & feeling.  I find my place on the Temple wall to leave behind a few of my memories; one for my dad & one for our fallen brother Mooch.

I exit the Temple & seek a quiet place behind the temple on a formed wooden art piece.  I proceed to loose it all again.  This time, I’m out of the comfort area of others.  It’s just me & the dust.  I soon make out a figure walking towards me.  She asks if I need someone to talk to.  I don’t.  She offers a hug.  I do.  Later she walks off into the dust.  I only presume there are others like me beyond the limited visibility that needed some form of consolation as well.

The Burns:  Though smaller art pieces and structures were lit on fire and burnt to the ground just 5 days into the event, others such as the Man & the Temple are the highlight celebrations for night & day opposite reasons.  Key pieces of art are built to live just a short moment in time.  For the Man & Temple, a years’ worth of hard work burns to the ground less than a week later taking with it the emotions left by the visitors and hopes that the new Man & Temple will bring forth something new.  The Man burn is a celebration and treated as such.  All the art cars and 70k+ participants surround the Man to bear witness of a spectacular fireworks show and burning of the Man.  The heat from the flames, the cheers of  the revelers manages to overpower the thumping music even though you still feel it in your chest.  The temple burn is something spectacular.  No sounds from the art cars, no sounds from the participants, no fireworks – solitude.  The only sounds that could be heard for those twenty minutes were the crackle of the raging fire, the sobs of joy & loss and occasional ‘pop’ from some random piece of memory left in the temple for it to burn.  I could say more, but I won’t.

CT Ride …  ‘Critical Tits’ ride.  Normally a celebration of 5k plus women – this year drastically less due to an impending dust storm that matched the one earlier in the week in strength but not duration.  A small group of us rode with the women who braved the unity & adventure a couple miles into a blinding dust storm whose destination was not marked, visible or otherwise.  The ride was glorious!  The events that followed more so…. But that is for another time & another story to be shared.

‘The Playa Provides; Part 2’  Anything you need, desire or want can generally be found on the Playa if you search for it.  Saturday evening a group of us were cruising deep Playa on a friends art car when we heard these crazy rumors of fresh pizza being made & served out there, somewhere.  Hokum!  The buzz was going strong & shots still being thrown back as we trusted our driver to find the pizza!  BM Alert:  Nothing, other than ice or coffee is bought or sold within the BM event.  Food & booze is free … everywhere.  Camps are, for the most part, all open to everyone.  Back to the story.  Rupert, our beloved British driver of ‘Joyism’, his art car, makes way into the dark & dusty horizon.  A few failed attempts, a couple u-turns and an ‘hey, I see a light way up there’ lands us at the doorstep of a small 4-person group serving hand-made pizza right out of a generator powered pizza oven at nearly 2am in the middle of the desert.  The Playa Provides.

The story could go on and any small, subtle key part of it elaborated upon to the point I would lose you, if I haven’t already.  Each piece playing a bigger role in the overall experience.  Remember my earlier statement, everyone is there for their own personal experience.  YOU make it what YOU want to make of it.  For me, one key part of my experience was some of the worst that the experience threw at me.  Biking into total whiteout conditions to visit the temple … biking into total whiteout to support the CT ride … dealing with issues pertaining to being part of a camp.  I could go on & on (more than I already have).  From all of these rises answers, experiences and more questions.  None of which I would ever trade or replace … nor try & duplicate.

You’ve heard me state that the story of a Burning Man journey cannot be told.  I’ll reaffirm that.  I doubt there are words, pictures or expressions that encompass the experience one can have if they open themselves up to it.  Once I entered the gate & crossed from pavement to the shifting Playa sands, I was no longer me.  I was open to whatever was to become because that is what I needed.  That is what I wanted; the journey to be open & free to be anything or be nothing or be both.

I don’t encourage anyone to attend.  After all, it’s a dust place filled with sex, drugs, free booze and loud music … to the onlooker.  To the participant, it’s so much greater.

Out of time today to post pictures but I'll get some up tomorrow.

Awesome.

Now I want to hear stories of what happened in the "naughty corner". 

JK.

 

Sincerely,

Jim

Thanks for the write-up, sir.

I feel the same way about the temple. In the three years I went, the energy in each one was epic. Sometimes overwhelming to a point where it felt like my knees would buckle once you step inside. During the latter part of the week the energy builds as more and more people release their tension, frustration, anxiety and whatever reservation they have carried through out the year. Walking past each picture, each note, each figurine - its just surreal how much energy we put off as humans. For all of that to be housed in one structure only to be burned on Sunday night; its un-describable.

Thanks again for the write-up. Maybe next year I'll see you out there. )*(

Ok, here's a few pics as I get them all sorted out & find the ones I'm willing to share with the group.

Here's the best shot I've seen yet of the Man burning Saturday night of the event.  The fireworks show leading up to this was at least a non-stop 20 minutes.  One of THE BEST I've ever seen hands down.

The Man before & the party after...

Loaded up waiting on the rest of my convoy...

   First light the next morning overlooking the port-potties

The Temple as I remember it, shrouded in sorrow & dust...  A good friend of mine helped to build it.  Each piece was hand bend & glues together, drilled for the screws, hand sanded on all edges & coated in linseed oil.

Last views of the Temple as it began to burn...

A message to our lost brother Mooch among the thousands of other messages of love, hope, loss, frustration, fears and whatever holds you back.

El Pulpo Mechanico & Serpent Mother by The Flaming Lotus Girls.  Two VERY popular, fire breathing works of mechanical art ...  Talking with some of the artists, one of these pieces burns over 200 gallons of propane each show.

There are some fish on the Playa

Random art, words of wisdom & the LOUDEST cound car on the Playa; Aztec Warrior

A little view of the city from 30' in the air.  This does it NO justice.  The lights, the sounds, the lasers, the smell of the Playa dust ... it all plays into the total experience.