So, How Was It?

How was burning man? This has been, without a shadow of a doubt, the question I've heard more than any over the last two weeks.

Burning Man Sucked! Burning Man was Incredible! It was happy & sad; stressful & relaxing; exciting & boring; old & new. This year, it was even hot & cold, rainy & sunny, windy & still.

I think that about sums up Burning Man for me. It's a year's worth of emotion, experience, love, hate, joy and sorrow wrapped into one hell of an intense week. Was it more "green" than usual? Not really.

This year couldn't have had a rougher emotional beginning. At the greeter gate, every year whether it's your first or hundredth, you are greeted with a warm "Welcome Home" which is generally followed by at least some hugs, and at most, some nude "dust angles" (never done it myself, but it's a snow angle with pizzaz). As Lindsay and I bumped our way down the entrance road, alongside thousands faces that were familiar not because we recognized the features, but because we recognized the look they were wearing, we had a long discussion about how much this year really did feel like coming home. After living everywhere and nowhere for 2 months, driving down a familiar dirt road surrounded by our old community was a warm and welcome feeling.

The shock of Lindsay's face and the cold stare of that nasty woman who was "just doing her job" who took our plants snapped that warm feeling clean in two. All of the sudden, home wasn't so homey. We had been robbed, not just of our lovely houseplants, but of the trusting, open feeling one gets when returning home.

Thankfully, and most necessarily, our actual "greeter" was warm, friendly to the point of tears in the corner of his smiling eyes, and so happy to share the excitement of the thousands of people he had probably greeted that day. It was enough to at least remind us why we were here.

Upon arriving, we spent a good 1/2 hour just putting around with our big ole' home, trying mostly to find a spot to park, but also taking advantage of this one opportunity we'd have to drive around the Playa and take it in.

We ended up pulling into a great spot, filling in a hole around a nice little common area some other people had made. We introduced ourselves, and through weary (they had been out until sunrise the night before) eyes they welcomed us to their neighborhood.

Lindsay and I spent most of the rest of the day building our mini-dome, a place that would provide us respite from the sun so we could leave the RV locked down during the days, and a place that would later become a wonderful little gathering spot. Through the coming days, most of our neighbors' shade structures we completely destroyed by the wind.

After a quick dinner, we indulged in a bike ride around the city, taking it all in, talking about where we'd like to come back to, what we'd like to do and experience. Seeing Center Camp again was magical. Consuming the beauty of all of these people in their Burning Man best filled me right up. But the surge I felt as we first pulled our bikes into the open Playa is beyond description. I believe Linds referred to it as the "hum" and I can't think of a better word. Though, it's not just the sound, it's the energy in the air... it just fills you up.

The next couple of days, we spent our time lounging around with Kathy and Raspberry Truffle, two Seattleites that had come for their first time. They were a godsend. Not only because they were wonderful people to share the time with, but because they had planned (as we had) on sharing their food with the people around them - and their food was fantastic. We were soon joined by another group of neighbors from Santa Rosa. These guys were fun - here to party, and generally added a great up-energy dynamic to our little group.

Our nights were spent drinking a cup of coffee around 7 or 8pm, then maniacally navigating the city: drinking champagne with a very gay male cheerleader, listening to 4 musicians who'd never met jam out with full sound equipment (ick), taking in the nighttime art, watching a (somewhat disappointing) aerial dance performance, listening to incredible original music at center camp, smiling at passersby, zig-zagging from here to there to see this and that, and then finally coming to a slow down around 12:30 or 1am and making our way back to (again) our warm and comfortable bed.

I think it's time for a very deserved pause from the narrative to pay homage to some of the art we saw:

Giant scrap-metal figures praying (in different prayer poses from around the globe) to a 90 foot tall wooden oil derrick that people could climb the stairs to stand at the top. The meaning behind it was powerful, the sculpture was just perfect.

Two Oil Tankers, in a yin-yang vertical dance, teetering, but balanced gracefully.

A "Merry Go Round" of flying monkeys, powered by people on bikes, complete with strobe lights so that in the dark of night, the merry-go-round would go away, and all you would see were animated monkeys, swinging from limb to limb, being fed a red apple by a green snake with a hand for its head (yes, it was beyond description!)

Mini-Golf on the playa.

A quiet dome way out in the playa - where tea was served at sundown each evening.

And then, there was the temple....

I could list on and on and on, but it's probably better if you just click here and check it out.

Back to our narrative...

The arrival of Shiva and Nicole brought enough excitement to live up to the anticipation we had been feeling during the couple of days we spent without them. We had so much we wanted to show them, things we wanted to do with them, things we were ready to share. All in all, those thoughts vanished during our first walk out to The Man. We had waited for Shiva and Nicole to arrive before heading out there, we thought it would be a nice thing for us to all do together, and because the man was to be "closed off" Friday Night, we couldn't wait for better weather to arrive, so we went for it in the rain. Lindsay has done these moments all the justice they need. Double Rainbow in the Desert + Art + Happy People + Love + Loved Ones + Coming Home + Spontaneous Engagement = HOLY-SHIT-WOW!

It was all we needed, more than we had hoped for and everything we expected of Burning Man.

The Man itself, usually a shining example of interactive creativity, was really quite a let down this year, consisting mostly of a green-living expo that was really WAY out there. I'm not sure, but a Rocket Stove that can heat your house on just a bundle of sticks each day sounds very interesting, but dude, this is Burning Man, lay off the sales pitch!

During the course of our remaining couple of days, the most I really remember doing is enjoying the time with friends, eating, drinking and being merry. I know we went dancing and explored center camp some more (a week spent just doing center camp would probably be a great week). We attended the burning of the Man on Saturday night with Kathy and Raspberry Truffle, who made the observation we've felt in the past "Wow, you can just FEEL the energy in the air, it's amazing.", then returned to the safe confines of our trailer while they shot a 1000-foot propane fireball out of the Oil Derrick. The fireworks were amazing, and the excitement level was through the roof. After all of that, what really left a scar on my brain was Sunday.

Nicole and I are the kind of people who get satisfaction out of putting ourselves out there. Shiva and Lindsay, not so much. But through a group effort we devised a simple plan that turned into one of my favorite memories. Sunday Morning, Shiva cut up a watermelon that had been given to us in exchange for a plate of fresh from the oven cookies (yeah, people liked those a lot, almost as much as the freezy pops we had been doling out. The RV was a good thing.) and refrigerated it in small chunks. Nicole filled up our water mister and we set out in the early afternoon, the hottest part of the day, to do some do-godding.

The effect was immediate. People had been out all night, probably without enough water, probably doing god knows what to their body. Many of them had probably awakened just an hour or two earlier because it was too hot to stay passed out any longer, and they were now trudging their way back home to their tent. That's where some of them bumped into our 4 smiling faces "Would you like a slice of fresh Watermelon and a cool mist?"

Needless to say, our smiles were returned with the most thankful faces I have ever seen. Some people's hands were too dusty to stick into the watermelon bowl, so we would just feed them. Some people were so sunburned that the cool mist from the water sprayer was almost too much. But let me tell you. Not only is the cliche "It is better to give than to receive" one of the truest statements on earth. The feeling of being called an Angel or Godsend tops it all.

Feeling wonderful, we returned to camp and began the altogether frustrating practice of waiting for the sun to set a little so it would be cool enough for us to break down our camp. I got bored and went for a bike ride. Didn't do much, but I did find a slice of Playa unused enough to put my road bike in its highest gear and pedal as fast as I could. Fun!

Our cleanup process was a snap. 3 years of dome-development proved useful and the heavy duty zip-ties we had used to build everything just clipped off in a second. We were asked by a couple of Burning Man Rangers to help clean up after a some people that had ducked out on Saturday Night and left behind their wind-thrashed Home Depot garden tents.

With the assistance of a good amount of rope and grunting, Shiva and I were able to wrestle the twisted metal into a manageable-enough bunch that one of our neighbors, who was only driving to Reno, was able to take them home for disposal. Toward the end of our struggle, a very warm and happy woman asked shiva to pose for a couple of pictures in the sunset, and in return presented he and I with a Cleu. A wonderful piece of neckwear representing "You, The Earth, Your Consciousness and The Universe." A touching gift that felt like an instant-karma reward for the work we had just done.

Exhausted, the four of us donned our white robes (courtesy, Burning Man 2005) and set off to joined the rest of the community for the procession to the temple burn. This year's Temple was an exquisitely detailed, Zen-inspired wooden tower that had become an emotional idol for so much of the community (for more on this, see Lindsay's blog). In contrast to our 2005 experience, we were surrounded by somber, respectful, and emotionally connected people who shared with us the power of the moment as someone sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (a tribute to Nicole & Shiva?) before the fire was lit, followed by "Redemption Song" as they lit the flames. The fire creeping at the feet of this magnificent temple, as people around us sobbed, smiled, held hands and swayed, some of us singing along quietly, was a more spiritual prayer experience than any I have ever been a part of.

As the flames crept further up the desert-dried wooden structure, cracking and popping, emotions swelled around the circle of what was probably 20-25,000 people at that point. Spontaneously, the wave began... but not the cheesy, arms in the air wave that you've seen at the ball game. This was a wave of sound. People screaming and yelling, releasing angst or sharing joy, I don't know. But the swell of sound and energy swirling around a circle of people all focusing on a fire more beautiful than can be described was something I'm proud to have been a part of.

The next morning, well before sunrise, we bid farewell to Shiva & Nicole as they joined the already long exodus processional. A couple of hours later, Lindsay and I drove our rig into the now teeming line of cars, to creep our way off the playa. The sun came up, and as we looked around at all of the familiar faces, we knew this would probably be our last burn. But what a good one it was!