Reacting to Burning Man 2007

I'd just arrived back from three weeks in Kenya and was facing a little crisis - many of the people who had expressed interest in attending Burning Man weren't going to be able to make it, I had even less money in my checking account and more on my credit cards than I had thought and most importantly, I was no longer sure that a week out in the Black Rock desert of Nevada was practical or even necessary.

I'd arrived back from Africa hyper-sensitive to the use (and abuse) of resources.  My reverse culture shock entailed me being blown away at just how much infrastructure we as Americans take for granted - the amount of concrete that goes into a single highway overpass or the expense of just one of the countless streetlights we pass everyday. 

Even though my past experiences had been amazing and Burning Man was far and away the most environmentally responsible gathering I'd ever been to - I still shuddered at the idea of 50,000 people who couldn't think of anything better to do with their money than take off for an opulent week in the desert.

It didn't take long for a larger picture to return as my friend Lach and I began making plans for our voyage and the logistics that go along with bringing everything you need to not only survive a week in the desert but also make an offering to the community that could only come from you.  We spent the day in China Town gathering items for the tea shop we would set up and a familiar feeling began to creep in.  A certain excitement that I'd felt as a child climbing the stairs to a  roller coaster or water-slide.

Burning Man is what it is often made out to be.  It is a week of hedonism, fueled by silicon valley tech money and psychedelics.  And It is an excuse for people to show off wild art, to ride around on crazy contraptions, burn breathtaking pieces of art and wear over the top costumes or nothing at all.

But at another level (one that gets much less play in the press), Burning Man is an earth shattering glimpse into a possible future.  The week long festival happens once a year on the second largest flat area in the western hemisphere - hours from the closest city and many miles from home for the vast majority of its participants.  Burning Man can't be understood without including this pilgrimage that begins before and continues on after in as many different variations as there are people attending.

It strikes me that in many ways it is the antithesis of a civil war reenactment.  Rather than mimicking what has already been -  people gather to throw their arms open to everything that could be.  Rather than the uniformed civil war soldiers ringed by passive observers, Burning Man is an experiment in radical participation.  Somewhere during the week every single person gets to swing their sword and lead the charge.

People come to the festival for many different reasons.  Being so many things to so many different people makes a comprehensive description tricky and it's not surprising that many articles miss the point entirely.  The organizers are careful to keep the philosophy fluid enough to avoid any dogma.  But if a common element is present - tangible within the first moments of stepping foot upon the playa surface - it would be freedom.

It can be shocking just how truly freeing life in Black Rock City can be.  So much of what we are led to believe in as necessities in the "default world" (what participants in the festival call the world beyond the gates) are shown to not only be open for debate but possibly downright harmful to the experience of being human.

Burning Man operates on a gift economy.  It is unexpectedly sweet to receive a cup of cold ice tea on a 100 degree afternoon with no return expected.  The wallet and cellphone, watch and car-keys are turned over for a different set of tools.  A head lamp becomes your best friend and your clothes become only as good as their ability to serve you in heat and cold and delight others or remind you of the archetype that you embody.

Your days and nights become about interaction and relationship.  A destination only serves as catalyst for the profound and beautiful experiences along the way.  Your normal sense of ownership and control are turned on their head as dust-storms arise and neighbors rush to help each other anchor tents and reinforce shade structures.  Strong winds and unflinching sun humble us and a wide horizon of majestic mountains and bright, bright stars puts all the weeks endeavors into their rightful place.  Put simply, Burning Man amazes with what is possible.  It awes with what the human being is capable of when working together, when giving to the greater community, when being transparent with their gifts and weaknesses and striving.

I'm now, one month later, slowly becoming grounded again in this reality.  Like waking from a dream, I'm struggling to remember the clarity that engulfed me.  Each year I attend Burning Man, I find a testing ground where all my working hypothesis about what might be inside of me and what might be the absolute nature of reality - get worked through.  I emerge exalted and humbled on the other side.
 
The image that I came away with this year is that we are proceeding along lines and organizing principles much larger than a single philosophy that any of us holds.  But each of us is immensely important to the process.  We are co-creating the next step, and all that is asked of us is our conscious, loving participation and our sharing of our findings as we mine our own depths of who we are and what our place is.  Its a brilliant realization to glimpse the proper gratitude at the honor of getting to count myself among so many others, slowly awakening to our role as evolutionary agents in this epic masterpiece.