Burning Man - Part 4

Each day was different and each night was different. The sheer amount of input was tremendous and overwhelming. I can't hope to tell the story sequentially and the sequence truly doesn't matter all that much, so here are some experiences and observations. 

The first few days of Burning Man for me consisted of lots of physical work during the day. We put up these communal structures, lifting up the metal frames and staking them into the ground with steel rebar. We'd stake down fabric as flooring for our communal areas, we'd move these couches into position, we'd help to raise a huge shade structure, trenches were dug to conceal cables and wiring, coolers and food supplies were moved into constructed storage areas, bike racks were built and a lot more. By the end of the day, most were dusty and tired but elated as well. The first night as the sun was setting, we got everything situated as our camp was not yet well lit, and everyone ran to get their head lamps and perhaps a warmer layer or two as the temperature dropped, and then we headed out on our bikes to explore a bit. 

The city was still growing but many art projects were up and already in place and more were in progress. We cycled out towards a huge statue of a woman in an elegant pose, lit up against the dark desert sky. The crowd was sparse compared to what it would later become and we cycled out through the open playa (the Burners' name for the desert which I will henceforth possibly use often) in any direction we felt like on our rickety Burner bikes. Burning Man bikes tend to be old and falling apart cause the sand and weather destroy anything nice so bringing a fancy mountain bike is ill-advised or so I am told. Besides that, drunk or hallucinating or unsavory people who are inclined to walk off with a barely functioning bike with sketchy brakes and a missing pedal are damned sure going to walk off with something much nicer. Bikes disappeared from our camp on a pretty regular basis, though they were also left there pretty regularly by unknown parties as well. Bikes are everywhere and are probably the dominant mode of transportation, though walking is close behind at least for short distances. As we biked out towards different interesting-looking sets of lights, I started to learn that some of the sand was hard-packed and in other areas, the sand was more beach-like and therefore much harder on which to ride. It quickly becomes apparent that this is  something to which one must pay particular attention when biking around the desert at night using a head lamp for illumination and really anytime. Suddenly and unexpectedly biking onto thick beach-like sand can be an unwelcome surprise if you're trying hard not to spill the drink in your left hand or end up lounging involuntarily face-first on the beach-like surface of the playa. 

We rode beyond the woman (the actual name of this famous installation is Truth is Beauty by an artist named Marco Cochrane) and found ourselves in a forest of fifty or so ten-foot poles at the top of each which was a spiral galaxy of colored lights. We rode around and through the posts, the galaxies hovering in the dark over our heads. The artist was living in a trailer next to his installation putting a few finishing touches on his work. A few stopped to chat with him about how it all was put together. Others rode in and out of the maze of lights and soon we headed towards the temple.

The temple is a significant structure at Burning Man. Because the festival is named for the Man and is for many the moment to which the entire week climaxes, perhaps that structure could be said to be of greater importance, but I'm sure there are many who would argue the temple to be of equivalent or greater meaning to many of the attendees. The temple apparently takes different form each year and since this was my first time attending Burning Man, this is the first temple I have seen. The temple was an 87' square pyramid, 64' in height, built of interlocking wood pieces without the use of any nails, glue, or fasteners of any kind. It certainly was big enough to contain at least a few hundred people, though exactly how many I am not sure. There were always people there later in the week, but it never felt crowded. The first night we passed by, the temple was still under construction. It wouldn't be until later in the week that I would visit at greater length and come to understand its significance. 

For me like many others, visiting the temple and spending time there, and the burning of the temple on the last Sunday of the week had a greater impact on me than anything related to the Man. More so than the Man I think, the temple becomes the vessel for a flood of emotional and spiritual energy poured into it throughout the entire week. I don't say that in any pseudo-mystical sense. Once the temple is opened and the week progresses, people visit it on mini-pilgrimages, some for short visits and other for long meditations and contemplations. The atmosphere inside is quiet and respectful and perhaps a little hushed in awe. The structure itself is quite taking but it's clear inside there that it's a serious place for many. Quite often I saw people crying or having some other kind of significant emotional or spiritual experience. Occasionally someone quietly played sparse music (one time on a lute as they slowly and repeatedly walked the perimeter of the room) to encourage a comfortable atmosphere. People sat in the center of the temple for long periods around a large shrine made of large black basalt stones. From the time the temple opens, many or perhaps most slowly begin to decorate the insides most often with writing on the walls but also with letters, books, pictures, flags, trinkets, mementos, stuffed animals, and any other token of significance related to some personal transformation they are hoping to achieve. These are most often related to a loss of some kind, be it a family member or a relationship, but also there are many related to self-realization or self-actualization of some kind. People write notes, some for all to read, others private, and the temple fills up with these messages so that as you walk through or sit you are surrounded by the shrines others have made which at the end of the week with the temple itself will all burn. Each person intends through this act to help them let go of something or move or progress or transform. I saw messages for lost parents, siblings, husbands and wives and even pets. Some leave messages for a significant other who is gone, perhaps for good and perhaps just because the relationship has dissolved. The unifying thread is people fill the place up with things that weigh on them and the resulting gravity of the place is palpable. I will mention the temple and the temple burn more later.

The problem with describing these things is the same problem as trying to take a picture of the grand canyon. It's impressive to some extent, but it's one piece of a much bigger puzzle and the medium is insufficient (or maybe in this case the camera) to capture the full sensory experience. We're in the middle of the desert two hours from Reno and normally there is nothing here but sand, wind and sky. But tonight, all around us there are lights and music slowly beginning to spread throughout this gigantic city a mile and a half in diameter which is being constructed from nothing. Roads have been built and street signs put up and there are people moving in everywhere in RVs and they are setting up tents and hexayurts and large geodesic domes. There is an old saloon and a piano bar and dozens of huge art cars ranging from yachts on wheels to giant sharks, and it's all happening all at once all around us. Music blares from each passing car and competes with the sound of flame jets periodically bursting ten feet in the air from a giant mechanical octopus or a giant pirate ship with mostly naked people dancing on it.

On my second night at Burning Man, we finished up our work and the camp was looking more and more finished. Colored lights were strung throughout our communal space and the bar was set up in preparation for the coming chaos, but all was relatively quiet as the sun set and I contemplated in which direction to head for the evening. I had made tentative plans to move in a direction with some people who were not to be found as I returned from my tent and I contemplated my options. I later found out they had a similar moment of indecision when they turned up and I had disappeared. At that moment, a girl from the neighboring camp to ours called Burners Without Borders came by to look for a friend of hers allegedly staying at the CouchBurners camp. He friend nowhere to be found and noting how neither of us had our own bikes, she said perhaps we should go look for bikes and agreeing and grabbing us each a beer from the cooler, we headed out into the desert quickly spotting a giant shopping cart carrying a dozen people across the desert to which we gave chase and climbed aboard.

We made friends and marveled at the scenery as the shopping cart carried us into the growing madness. Even at that early day, the city still looked to be lit up like the Las Vegas strip, but in a circle over a mile in diameter all around us. Lights of all colors, people juggling fire, and each person passing by on a bike lit up just like the art, covered in neon and glow sticks and pulsing colored lights. It was like a constantly shifting moving canvas and it never repeated. New music came from all sides as we rode. We saw a double-decker red bus covered in lights blasting Rock Me Like a Hurricane by the Scorpions not far off from our current ride, heading on a different course. I was enthusiastic as I had expected entirely electronic music and was happy for the alternative. Commenting that she liked to run, my new friend and I thanked the shopping cart driver for the ride and leaped off, running towards the slowly moving bus and hitching a new ride. Our new friends were volunteer firemen at Burning Man, though off duty at that moment. Like many of those who created and drove art cars, they were not new to Burning Man and told us stories that were hard to hear because of the music and the bottle of Fireball whiskey one insistent fellow kept putting into each of our hands repeatedly. One of them told me a story from years ago of a plane crash at Burning Man. (There is actually an airport with a landing strip that gets created at Burning Man each year and numerous people fly in and out.) We rode with the firefighters for a bit but they had to head home to their camp early for duty in the morning not long after we boarded, but do not worry.

Soon enough, we spotted a giant shark bigger than a school bus ominously lurking across the playa with its profile lit in red neon. We ran some more and chatted with the long-time attendees who told us how lawless it used to be and their shark would drive 50mph across the desert back in the days before a speed limit was instituted and how they'd run over and "eat" other art projects. People used to fire off guns and Burning Man was bereft of the rules since instituted which many old-timers resent as defying the intended spirit of the event. Once you've got 60k people showing up though, it is tough to let everyone do everything they want without people getting hurt. As it is, even with the rules in place like speed limits plenty of people still do get hurt every day at Burning Man. You aren't protected from your own stupidity. You climb on to and jump off of moving art cars. You can climb up a giant thunderdome and watch people inside smash each other with slightly softened bats. You can be strapped into the harness inside the thunderdome if you like and be one of the combatants. You can end up battered and bruised in the latter and you can fall off of your perch in the former and there is nothing really stopping you from doing either. Nobody is around to tell you not to climb or to be careful. There is fire everywhere at Burning Man. There was a large ring of fire on the ground at one point fueled by propane and people leaped over it freely to sit and meditate or dance and there was nothing stopping somebody from getting too close and burning themselves except their own common sense and sense of self-preservation. It's nice to be in a place where you it is expected for people to rely on those faculties without everyone constantly holding everyone's hand for fear of being sued. It's the opposite of the coffee-cup-labeling culture we live in now where people can't be held responsible for spilling their own hot coffee on themselves and being burned. At Burning Man there is self-reliance and self-expression and radical inclusion and many other things but importantly there is responsibility for one's self and one's actions which contributes to the overall sense of freedom without restraint that pervades the event.

Everybody says "Welcome home!" when they meet at Burning Man and they mean it. People hug each other and they mean it too. Guys, girls, young and old. The happiness and the enthusiasm and the community did not feel contrived to me, they felt very genuine. In the so-called real world where people are often conditioned to be suspicious of each other, especially in the US, people here trust and take care of each other. It's just so integral and understood that even newcomers quickly see that they are not only welcome but can truly express how they feel without judgement. I think this atmosphere of acceptance is part of what makes this event compelling for a lot of people and one I think perhaps I didn't fully understand until being there myself. Insecurities about behavior or appearance fall away quickly in a place where everybody just decides to not only be themselves but to accept everybody else for who they are and how they look and what they do without judgment. There are a lot of naked people at Burning Man, but after the initial adjustment, this becomes entirely desexualized in my view and more about people just being comfortable in their own skin. We live in a hyper-sexualized society here in the US where any woman walking down the street in New York or LA would draw immediate and unwanted attention but at Burning Man, it just becomes part of the tapestry and people are just treated as people. Guys and girls walk around naked freely throughout the event and everyone accepts this as just another personal expressive choice without judging it. One girl I knew was interested in being topless at the beginning of the event but initially intimidated as she adjusted like everyone to this new environment, and by the second half of the event she was topless the entire time and I don't think wanted to put her clothes back on.

I was cynical about this atmosphere of freedom before I attended Burning Man myself. I was judgmental thinking that people went for a week to live freely but then went back to a life where they hide from what they really want. Maybe there is some truth to that for some people, but any individual's motives do not detract from the genuineness of the event. In fact, the atmosphere which encompasses everyone trying to figure out what it all means to each of them with the understanding that the answer for one is not for another, that's a big part of what I think it all means. Whatever people who go there make of Burning Man, whether it's a passing distraction or an escape or a party or a spiritual or personal transformation or perhaps a year-round lifestyle as I see it is now for some, the event itself is accepting of all of these things and every person who goes is able to figure out what it means for him or her individually. Everyone probably comes to their own conclusions and perhaps that is what I didn't fully grasp til I was there. I have heard many people write off Burning Man who haven't been. It's easy to dismiss it and paint the attendees in broad strokes as hippies or ravers or druggies or any other generalizing term. A lot of people who don't want to attend see Burning Man as fake or contrived or perhaps simply as a giant party. I guess the thing I really understand better having gone is that it is not just any one thing, it's many things to many people and it can be more than one thing to a person perhaps each day as they experience different parts of the city and go through the experience themselves. I told myself before I went to suspend my prejudice of what I thought the event would be, knowing it was unlikely that my understanding from stories would be sufficient to truly know what this thing was, and now of course I know that inclination was correct and I think did me a great service as I experienced it firsthand and formed my own opinion.

We wandered on and on that first night. There was so much to see and the gate wasn't even open yet...