Burning Man and the World I've Returned To
by Shady Backflash
Imagine for a moment stepping into Fantasia and spending an afternoon
with flying pink elephants, mice practicing sorcery, flying broomsticks,
and all manner of mind altering weirdness. Then imagine leaving that environment
and returning to the present, to the Strip Malls On The Waste Land Theme
Park that is Anytown, USA. Each moment that you are away from the imaginative
realm of Fantasia, you hunger to return, to reconnect and revitalize and
re-experience the sense of bliss and wonder. When you return, everything
is as you remember it, only more so.
But you begin to notice that one major shift has occurred: you are no
longer surprised by the sight of flying elephants. Rodent sorcerers and
flying broomsticks have almost begun to seem, well, if not exactly commonplace,
at least familiar scenery and quite shy of their miraculous first impression.
This description is not unlike what a return visit to Black Rock City,
home of the Burning Man Festival, feels like.
Burning Man 2001 was my third experience of the festival. It came at the
close of a summer of vending at different music festivals, including the
Berkshire Mountain Music Festival, where I met James, the individual that
I traveled and camped with at this year's event. James and I met up at
the So Many Roads festival at the Red Rocks Amphitheater in Denver and
rolled into Black Rock City on Tuesday, August 28th, the second day of
the festival.
Events leading up to Burning Man had already put me in a reflective state
of mind. A good friend of mine from high school, whom I was still in close
contact with, had died shortly before I hit the road for the festival.
My friend, Dean Hoekel, died when a cigarette he'd been smoking in bed
caught his mattress on fire and he foolishly tried to throw the mattress
out of the building rather than escape with his life intact. While I was
away, I had thought Dean burned to death, but my father recently informed
me that he heard that Dean died from the smoke inhalation rather than
the fire itself. Whatever the case, Dean was a close friend and news of
his death shook me hard.
When I arrived at Black Rock City I went looking for friends from previous
visits, including a friend from college and also a friend that I'd met
by proximity of our camp sites my first year at the burn. I met my friend
from college first and James and I decided to put our tents up in the
camp that she and her friends (all either from the Bay Area or Chicago
transplants to the Bay) had set up. The Camp was at 8:30 and Enlightenment.
Then I set out to find other folks I'd met at previous burns. Interestingly
enough, I ran right into the primary character that I was looking for
and he was camped at 8:15 and Soldier, less than half a "block" from 8:30
and Enlightenment. He expressed that he was pleased to see me but admitted
that his attention was divided because he was on his way to a "Get Married
To Yourself" ceremony. Rather than part company, I decided to join him.
The Get Married To Yourself ceremony was officiated by a gentleman with
long grey frizzy hair, youthful facial features, and radiant charisma.
He asked the crowd that'd gathered to hold their own hand and make a few
solemn pledges, including, "I will not forsake you" and "I will always
be true to you," and "I will never put a hex on myself." He then asked
us to make up some pledges of our own and passed along the following phrase,
which he suggested we tell ourselves on a regular basis: "I am a fucking
genius!"
Suggestions were made that we arrange a honeymoon with ourselves and,
when asked about consummating this new marriage, that we should reclaim
the phrase "go fuck yourself" and tell people that that is what we intend
to do on our honeymoon.
After adopting a fuzzy purple and yellow plastic wedding ring (which I
lost to the playa the night of the burn) I walked away quite pleased by
this bit of inner alchemy, though a bit uncomfortable with the fact that
I hadn't written out a prenuptial before the wedding, to keep my inner
masculine from taking my inner feminine for all that it was worth... or
vice versa.
The frizzy haired character announced that he would be doing a Chaos Meditation
later in the week and I decided that it was an event that I should not
miss. Unfortunately, I missed it.
I didn't spend much time on Black Rock City seeking out events or information
or event art. This time on Black Rock City, I spent a great deal of my
time deepening my connection to the people I was camped with. I also spent
a good deal of time grieving the recent loss of my good friend. It was
intense and incredible to be at such an incredible party and also realize
just how ritualized the space at Black Rock City is. The people and the
art there just exude vibrant playful creativity. Whether beholding a beautiful
twenty foot high blue goddess sculpture or dancing at the uberrave camp
Illuminaughty, Black Rock City is filled with magic and mystery.
Not long after the wedding to myself, I ran into two friends of mine from
the pagan festival circuit, an escape artist and a stage magician, both
of them performers at Caesar's Palace in Vegas. They told me that they
were recently married, so I offered them a wedding Tarot reading and was
invited to their camp for dinner and the reading later in the week. I
brought a bottle of homebrewed honey meade made by mutual friends of ours,
and was glad to be a part of such a special time in their lives. The reading
was also quite enjoyable.
After the reading, Magnus, the stage magician, suggested I check out a
Living Tarot performance that was happening at a nearby camp, so I left
to attend that while he went to a drum ritual with Fantuzi, a character
from the Rainbow Family circuit.
The Living Tarot workshop began by introducing Rob Breszny, an astrologer
who does the Free Will Astrology (formerly Real Astrology) column in many
alternative weeklies across the country. I'd heard of Brezsny's column
because my sister is totally devoted to the wit and wisdom contained in
it and later learned that Brezsny had a Santa Cruz band, Tao Chemical,
that my other friends in the Tie-Dye Mafia, Mikio and Phil, used to go
out to hear. Well, as fortune would have it, the character that'd been
introduced as Rob Brezsny was none other than the minister who'd married
me to myself! That amused me to no end! Here was a guy who impressed me
just by being his wacky interesting self who I later learn is a guy whose
writing and music have inspired a lot of other people that I know. It
made me all the more bummed that I missed his Chaos Meditation, but also
made me realize that the next time I get to playa, I will have to make
a point to keep an ear out for anything he is offering. The Living Tarot
was interesting but didn't seem to open any new worlds for me in terms
of my understanding of the Tarot, which I've worked with for eleven years
now.
