I first heard about Burning Man about 5 years ago from a long time girlfriend who had never been. WHen I first looked into it, I got about half a page down into the What Is Burning Man article & knew right away that my Husband would not be into this. It was a little pricey & I knew he wouldn't let me go. Yes, I knew I had a choice to go anyways, but it wouldn't have been worth-it & I couldn't afford to do it on my own either. So many years went past & we ended up peacefully separating and are now better friends than ever. When I became single again at he ripe of age of 29 & having not been single for 10 years, Burning Man was put on my "stuff i've always wanted to do & can now" list. I was a little hesitant to buy a ticket at first since I didn't know anyone that was going & who I could camp with, but then I discovered my friends from Big Sur were going & bought a ticket on the spot. As I began to prepare I was overwhelmed with how much planning & preparation was needed to go be wild, crazy & free in the desert for a week, but some order is necessary to be the foundation from which you can be wild, crazy & free from. The structure at Burning Man is so essential to your survival at Burning Man. Sometimes it is the only structure within your experience at Burning Man & you rely on it to get back to your home to your tent at who knows what hour.
Burning Man started at 12AM on Monday, August 29th, this year & I left that night in order to carpool up with some experienced Burners. Hooray for not getting lost or broken down without friends! We left around 9PM & drove through the night. Somewhere out in the middle of nowhere, at 2AM, my girlfriend's tire blew & one of the guys in the group googled tire shops in the area & called one. They picked up! We were within 12 miles & so we got our tire fixed & were on the road again in no time. Around 10AM on Tuesday, we arrived to Reno, 2 hours from Burning Man. We stopped at a gas station & one of the women in the group was having a panic attack after driving all night with her son in the car, so she took some meds & rode in with me the last 2 hours, sleeping. I was a little nervous, but thought "If anyone can handle this, I can. I am a Reiki Master after all" :-) So, driving into nowheresville, a.k.a. Black Rock City, Nevada, I was doing Reiki on a woman who was about to get the shock of her life possibly. As we pulled off the dirt road & onto the playa, dried up ocean bed, the car began to jostle her and she woke up. Mother Nature decided to create a display of sand/dust storms for us to freak out over in the long drive to the gate. Coned-off lanes contrasted the natural desert scene & directed us towards will call, the gate and eventually the welcoming committee. We first pulled up to some Rangers who were not wearing goggles or a mask & so were covered from head to toe in a thick layer of playa dust, almost as if on purpose to scare us. I definitely had an "oh shit" moment here and this sent the newly awoken and still panicky passenger of mine into a crying fit. It was hard not freaking out myself & consoling her, but I pulled it off. I pulled over to will call where the other caravaners were and right before my passenger got out she asked me if I wanted any Ketamine. My Mother had a brain injured patient who got that way because she took too much Ketamine. I declined, but was curious as to what it does to you so I asked. It was the funniest thing, this woman was asian & barely spoke any english & she looked at me & said "fucked up" in her japanese accent. It made me laugh & set the tone for my adventure on to the gate by myself.
When she got out fo the car my car engulfed layers of playa dust & it set in that it was about 110F. You couldn't roll the windows down because of the dust storms & the a/c didn't work. You just have to blast air & get as naked as you can to survive. Oh... and don't forget your goggles & face mask/scarf to keep the dust out & so you can still breathe. I then pulled up to a 65 year old man who tried to act like my ticket was fake... he obviously didn't get the memo about how gullible I am & thought it was funny. After driving all night, I didn't think it was very funny. Then I headed to the welcoming gate where they said "Welcome Home." Having never been to Burning Man I said "I've never been here before," & they were super welcoming. They got me & a few other Burners out of our cars & made us make love to the playa. As we undulated & made playa angels getting the playa all over us, they explained how the playa was going to be everywhere for the next week & we better get used to it, become one with it & love it. After that they had us ring out a bell & yell out "I am no longer a Virgin!" to Black Rock City, a made up name for the city in which Burning Man takes place, which is a temporary, leave no trace behind city that is only up for one week out of the year. This would be the 25th anniversary of Burning Man, which started by just a few dudes in San Fran. Once I left the welcoming committee I headed out to the city to locate my Big Sur people and our camp. I had the address & had yet to figure out the layout of the city & how to find my friends. Burning Man is layed out like a clock. The center of the clock is called the playa, although playa is the geological term for flat, dried up ocean bed that Burning Man is built on. From 2-10 O' Clock, radiating out from the center were streets. Each street was 15 min apart, so you could live on 2 or 2:25, etc. Going across those streets were encircling streets that created concentric circles to the playa. So you would have an actual address when you were there, like 2 & G, or 3:15 & I. Towards the center of the playa with A & towards the outskirts of the city was L. The central most street, which encircled the playa, was called Esplanade. I parked near the address & set out to search for my group with my jar of water, goggles & scarf over my mouth. Everybody was in party mode & I ended up walking in the vicinity of 8:15 & E for 3 hours in the hot sun, in the dust & continuously having to return to my car for more water & more chap stick. Finally I gave up & went back to my car to fix my bike, get in the Burning Man mode & start having some fun. Fun entailed getting half naked & smoking a solar bowl with a new friend I made on the playa & heading out on my bike to search some more. I rode around for awhile & when I gave up on that I landed at some trampolines & decided to have a jumpsy. Not long after I got on a woman asked if she could join me & we started doing acro yoga on the trampoline. I guess it was pretty good because the Burning Man filming crew asked if they could film us. She asked me where I was staying & I told her I couldn't find my camp & that I hadn't slept in 36 hours & needed to set up my tent & sleep. She told me to set up in her camp & took such good care of me. I do a lot of camping & have an amazing tent, so I set it up & made it all nice & homey & fell right asleep around 8PM & didn't wake up until 9AM the next morning to the sound of someone puking right outside my tent. Awesome!
I set my mat out on the playa under a shade structure the camp had & began a little Ashtanga practice. I was facing the street side of our camp & it was a little ironic doing yoga & being disciplined while watching people who looked like they never went to bed & are staggering out of the port-a-potties. I knew that might be me soon, but I wanted to start my burn off right, with some yoga. One of the guys in the camp took me to a yoga class that was down the street & it was pretty good. The teacher didn't even use a mat, she practiced right on the playa & was totally covered in it by the end of class. It was awesome! After the yoga class, he took me to the Temple of Remembrance. The temple is the largest wooden structure built without a foundation & consists of multiple towers connecting to a central tower via arched pathways. In the central tower was over 100 bowls & gongs set to go off to play a song from the bottom of the chamber upwards, awakening the 7 chakras and opening your crown chakra (where your connection to divinity lies). When I sat down in the temple I immediately went into deep meditation for a good hour. I felt completely connected to God in that temple, it was very powerful. After the temple, we went to Center Camp, where they had internet & a system for finding people & leaving messages. Thankfully, one of the members of our group put a message in about having had to move camp sites & so we located them. After saying hi I returned to my temporary camp & broke everything down & had to set everything back up again at my true camp site, in the heat & a light dust storm.
It was so good to see familiar faces amongst the chaos of the previous few days & I was so happy to still have a week left to bond & have fun with my group. I loved my group & had so much fun with them. The first night we all got dressed up & headed out together on our bikes. We stopped at the "poops," as we called them, and then headed out to an Irish Pub that was seemingly in the middle of nowhere & made with plywood. You are drawn towards warmth at night in the desert & so anything with fire is fun. This Irish Pub had two trash cans with fire in them to warm up near & some really amazing dub step to dance to & warm up that way as well. After the Irish Pub we headed over to a main stage where Fractal Nation was opening that night & caught a really awesome fire dancing show as well as Sofia Thom, who is an amazing dancer & performer. A few of the women in the group stayed at a campfire that was near the show & the rest of the group headed off into the dark night, across the playa t check out some of the art. We checked out a giant wheel with skeletons that looked as though they were rowing a boat, twisting left and right, when the wheel was spinning. Then we headed over to a giant zip line that traversed the mile-wide playa. We lost some more members of the group, but pushed on to visit the Temple and right away I went into deep meditation again for another hour. At this point I only had one friend with me & it was about 3/4AM, so we headed back to camp.
Each night there was some kind of main event & our group would get all dressed up & would head out on our bikes together & the group would get broken up over the course of the night based on who was wanting to do what & it flowed quite naturally. One night they set all of the many art instillations on fire, which was awesome because they were all over the place & some were pretty big. It got pretty hot & we had to watch out for ashes. This night was special because our group cleaned out dome & put on a formal dinner where we all got dressed up. Another night we all walked to go watch the big Trojan Horse burn. This was my favorite burn. We were pretty close & the horse was pretty big. I had come to love this horse actually. It was right near our street close to Esplanade & during the day, it stood out as being big & black & at night stood out as being lit up in neon red. It was our beacon toward home/camp. I didn't realize how much I would miss that Trojan beacon ;-( Another night we all went out on a mutant vehicle/art car called the Samba Bus. They played good music that was a break from the constant dub step, although I do love dub step, & had a double decker London Style bus with the top removed & a bar upstairs. We rode this car out to watch the Man burn. After the burn it got really quite & I realized my group had disappeared. I decided I didn't want to be out that deep in the middle of the playa by myself & I wanted to get back to camp & call it an early night. Being deep playa & having no art instillations or trojan Horse to guide me having been burned, my bearings were off & I was lucky to have headed towards Esplanade, the exterior of both the playa & the neighborhood. I remembered that we had ridden pretty far from camp to hop on the art car &, by the grace of God, remembered the address where we had parked. I was a little nervous at finding the campsite where my bike was at remembering that there was nothing really stand-out-ish about it & it was now very dark. I ended up walking to the edge of the playa & being pretty far away from where my bike was, so I headed towards the right street. Once I got to the street I began looking for the cross street & had only gotten 2 blocks down when, in the darkness of the desert, it appeared as thought the street had ended. I had a little mental break down & knew that this was no time for me to lose my shit & that I had to get my shit together. My perception was a wee bit altered as well, so I really needed to get it together. Primal instincts kicked in & I decided I needed to pee & then I could calm down, walk back out to the main road & start back again down the street hoping to see where the street continued. I finally happened upon the cross street & like a beacon from heaven I had left my flashing red light on from my head lamp, which was squeezed around the basket of my bike & so amongst a sea of bikes in an obscure camp site in the middle of nowhere I found my bike & happily, and groggily rode back to my camp at about 2AM. During the day, we would ease into the day & when we felt motivated go out & play & visit other people. Although, our camp itself was really cool. We had a dome equipped with stereos for playing music, a kitchen, a bar, hammocks & lots of chill space & pillows. Hanging from the top of our dome was a nest with colorful ribbons & peacock feathers hanging from it. It was really great & so we spent a lot of time just chillin' at our camp. The last day we were all there, Sunday, we spent a good portion of the day packing up & tearing down our beautiful little home for a week & had fun doing it. After we packed everything up, we got ready out of our cars & headed to go watch the Temple burn. This burn was silent, unlike the others that were orchestrated with dub step or other loud music. It had a very different feel to the other burns, it was silent, sacred & spacious. The temple meant different things to different people. For me it was a place where I found God & where I made a promise to my Self, to God & the the Universe which I am a part of that I will always see that I am enough & that I will always remember my connection to wholeness & never let my Self feel lonely. I also wrote a note in sharpie on the plywood walls of the temple two of my dear friends who passed away. So to me the temple burning was symbolic of me releasing their spirits & also releasing the outcome of my life to God, of offering my life up to God & letting that promise & that remembrance be ignited.
It took us 5 long hours getting through the line out of Burning Man & then we had a long drive through the night to get to Reno for breakfast. Our group was all tired, delirious, hungry & fragile on that long drive towards breakfast. We all met up & woke up a little with some good food & then headed to one of our friends houses on a beautiful 200 acre property outside Tahoe to spend one last night together & be blissed out by the presence of so many trees & creeks to play around in, a drastic contrast to the lifeless playa life we had all just been through. The whole week was very surreal, eye-opening, freeing & respectful. I found a family amongst strangers in the middle of nowhere for 10 days. We created a sustainable community in which we all shared our inherent gifts with each other, sometimes material, sometimes, immaterial. It was a beautiful experiment to be a part of & a beautiful experience & one that I will never willfully miss out on in the future, come hell or high water.
Returning home was an experience in & of itself. The drive was so long, yet empowering having doen it by myself. I had a lot of time to think & process what I had just been through & even let it seep in & incorporate it into who I am & what gifts I have to offer this world. When I got home, unpacking became a multiple day adventure. Its true nothing that comes to the playa remains unchanged. The playa was a force to be reckoned with, both at Burning Man & back home. It sticks to everything & is so drying & smells distinctly like old, dried up ocean bed. Burning Man ended about 2 months ago & I am still finding playa everywhere. Although, it reminds me of my true Self & what I experienced there & so I don't mind it at all. Every time I find more playa I sing "I'm bringin' playa back!" I can tell you about my experience, but everyone has a different experience. You just have to go, I can't tell you why, but you just have to do it.
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