A Reflection on Burning Man 2009

Did you know that for one week, Black Rock City becomes the third largest city in Nevada? With diners and bars, spas, movie theaters and dance clubs, pyrotechnics and fireworks like you've never seen before, stages for all kinds of entertainment and even a roller skating rink, you'd generally wonder why the 50,000 residents of BRC end up leaving every year after just one week.

Perhaps it is because of the searing hot temperatures of well over 100 degrees during the day, or the approach of freezing temperatures at night. Perhaps it is the soil, with a PH of 11, that in combination with the extremely dry air, slowly dries up and cracks your skin. Perhaps it is the lack of running water and general indoor plumbing. Perhaps it is the white-out dust storms that roll in like clockwork during the hottest hours of the day, and can sometimes last all afternoon and into the night. No showers, no flushable toilets, and relatively little communication with the rest of the world.

The location is a pretty inhospitable one. Now that I mention it, why would anyone want to live there? Minus the pyrotechnics perhaps, most American cities have all the amenities I listed in the first paragraph. So why do those 50,000 people leave their homes to move to Black Rock City for that one week?

The answer for many is because no where in the world can you see this much creativity, ingenuity, and spontaneous kindness, all at once. I once described Wildfire, the firespinning retreat I attend every year as follows: "I saw a 15 foot tall man, and there were balls of flame flying through the mists at night, streaking around the bodies of half naked tribal folk, and club music pulsing in my ears in the middle of the woods, and hugs from complete strangers, and mead shared around a fire. Surely these are not things that happen in the reality of 21st century America? Or did I wander through the mists on Friday night and find my own Avalon, a place where magic and other such wonders still exist?"

Burning Man takes this idea of an alternate dreamworld to the next dimension. There were giant sized LED rubix cubes that required 3 people to solve, fossilized dragons to ride, pirate ships to come aboard, snowcones and massages freely given, a wooden temple of soaring grace, massive games of tetris to play, hugs from every new friend, smores every night, and pancakes every morning, lights that mezmorized, music that moved, rockets that launched, fire that danced in the hands of over 1500 firespinners, and a 40 foot tall man that raised his arms in salute, in joyous epiphany, like a conductor before his symphony, and he burned, brightly, exquisitely, radiently, before those 50,000 citizens his city. And this is all only one small slice of one person's experience of this magnificent city.

There is such a multitude of things to do all around the city, all around the clock, that it is inevitable that different people view the event in different ways. They also all come here expecting something slightly different, looking for something different, and by god, that is what they get. Every experience is unique. Seeing every piece of art created for the event helps to drive that home. Our outlets for creativity and our sources of inspiration are so varied that one find here a veritable rainbow of the human spirit reflected in these inventions.

There was one thing I experienced however, that drew every single citizen close to my heart. The Temple is a tradition started by a man who mourned for his son. Many people make pilgrimages out past the Man, into deep playa to the Temple, to inscribe a message, or to leave a memorial. There were messages to lost loves, to parents and grandparents that have passed on, to husbands and wives, to friends. I could not help but lose myself in the maze of these messages, with tears streaming down my face. Some proclaimed their freedom from fear, some begged for it. Some denounced those that had wronged them, and some forgave them. Some messages were long and heartbreakingly personal, dealing with divorce, cancer, rape, suicide, some asking for understanding or acceptance, or forgiveness. And everywhere I looked I saw another human spirit just like mine, that loves and fears, that gets mad, and confused, and cries, and laughs and celebrates their life. Oh the paradox, that all of our experiences in life are so varied and complex and different, and yet...and yet how similar we all are.

The day after the Man burns, the Temple burns as well. For the burning of the Man there was a cacophanous noise raised by the people, a raucuous celebration of life and destruction, the cycle of our existence. For the Temple's burn, there was relative silence. There was reverence. There was awe. Just before it lit, there were shooting stars in the form of skydivers with streaming flares spiraling down from the heavens. It was a wonder to behold.

One of the ultimate messages Burning Man has to teach is that of impermanence. Once the Man and the Temple burn, they are gone. Once the water runs out, there's none left. The desert cannot sustain us. We have to leave after that week, because our supplies are gone, and our skin is suffering. We also have pledged to make the event one that leaves no trace of our occupation of the land. This means that every piece of matter that did not originally come from the desert gets removed, and the city turns back into a dry lake bed once again.

And so we leave the desert, trying to hold on to every vestige of the spirit we encounter here, and bring it back to the "default" world to which we're forced to return. It's hard. The default world is colder than Black Rock City, in more ways than temperature. Strangers don't hug, they avoid eye contact. If strangers tried to offer free food, they would be mistrusted. Spinning fire on the streets is highly illegal in most cities. But nevertheless, we each do what we can to make the world burn a bit brighter, til the next year when we can blaze in the desert once more.