A Black Rock State of Mind

Rolling along the cracked white playa at night is a phenomenal experience. There's the crackle of alkali crust as the hardened surface breaks under the weight of my tires, kicking up little powdery puffs of dust in my wake. Then there are the random little bits of artworks that suddenly appear, like a field of green LED's sticking through the playa mirroring the myriad of stars above. And the moonlight dancing through the Black Rock desert, setting it aglow beneath its reddened ochre cat eye.

But the most stunning moment is upon turning back to take in the sudden ephemeral majesty of the pulsing, throbbing, shining, flashing, thumping, burning wonder of creative freedom that is the psychedelic Vegas of Black Rock City.

I marvel every time I see it.

My first trip to Burning Man we arrived at night. You have to crawl through 70 miles or so of thick inky darkness to to get to Gerlach. Aside from this small outpost there is nothing but black mountains and salt flats extending off into infinity. But out past Gerlach the night was broken by an unbelievable city of lights strobing against the interminable emptiness of the desert. I was thunderstruck at just how large the festival was... and how electric. In spite of the intense hostility of the land to life and limb, these technopagan freaks had wired the playa and flipped the switch.

A few hours later I was in a strobe-lit booth coming on to a tab, watching a friend in a reclined dentist chair get playfully beat with styrofoam pool toys by three random burners. I never looked back.

The most overt element of Burning Man is the sheer degree of pure, unfettered human creativity that transpires. The 2.5 miles of silt filling the ancient lack bed of Black Rock becomes a blank canvas, a tabula rasa upon which to paint the kaleidoscope of imagination convening between its rocky hills. My impression to this day is total awe at the ludicrously psychedelic playground that manifests in that shining eternal moment. Works of art stand by themselves, unattended, as offerings to the spirit of the event. They are there simply to be, and be enjoyed. In most cases here is no ownership, no one charging admission or even standing by looking for adoration or gratification.

Ranging from minute to monumental, covering every sense, the art of Black Rock stands as a testament to the devotion of its acolytes. Some spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to create something spectacular that will last 5 or 6 days, then be destroyed. Witness the temples of David Best: vastly detailed and intricate buildings ornately buttressed and festooned with spires and symbols all uniquely reminiscent of some sci-fi Indian or Thai holy shrine. His temples are places of worship, explicitly constructed to honor those lost to death's bittersweet embrace. By Saturday it is covered in scrawled and shaky messages to the departed. I love you dad. Mom, I miss you. On Sunday night, the last night of Burning Man, the temple is set ablaze, and through the flaming vortices tearing out of its incinerating husk, you can just make out the faint wisps of Spirit...

This year the temple will span over 3/4 of a mile. It's conflagration will no doubt set the blackness of the Black Rock mountains on fire themselves under the stellar firmament above.

Each year there is a theme that sets the tone for the whole event. One year was Hell. Another, The Body. The Floating World was the year my wife and I were married at the Temple of Joy. This year the theme is The Vault of Heaven. Accordingly, costumes and art will will tend to highlight this theme. One piece is a playa-wide night kite flying. The organizers are hoping to get at least ten thousand lighted kites flying Thursday night, bringing the body of Nuit a bit closer to earth.

Less tangible than the art and general costumery and freakishness is the community of Burning Man. There's a general feeling in the air of coming together - of communing. Everyone comes for their own reason but everyone's there to participate in something powerfully unique and meaningful, something that humanity desperately needs: a grand party with a big heart and an incredible wardrobe.

But beyond the conviviality and celebration lies a deeper tone of release and transformation. Burning man is, at its core, about the cycle of creation - birth, life, death, and rebirth. This theme is enacted on the desert floor as life rises from its empty wasteland and gathers tens of thousands of digital apes with all of the tools and technologies, dreams and visions, tears and laughter they bring with them. The vast chaotic jubilee accretes around the central figure - the Burning Man - swirling out to the event horizon at the edge of Black Rock City. At the apex of the festival the masses gather around The Man and set him to flame. This is the central moment of Burning Man. This is the ultimate reason people come to the playa. To Burn The Man. It is the mythic transformation ritualized in a great pagan celebration of fire.

Properly phoenixed the burners march inward towards the flaming, smoldering pile of debris, drums pounding, chants and calls resonating through the thick, churning crowd. For whatever reason, whatever innate impulse or orchestrated symbol, we always move counter-clockwise around the fire, perhaps hoping to turn back the hands of time and relive this wondrous week under the desert sun...

Afterwards the night becomes a thunderous din of sound and fury, wailing against the emptiness of mechanized life, commodified nature, and co-opted meaning, branded, packaged, and sold back to us. At Burning Man there is no vending allowed. Large corporate logos - like the ones on the sides of rental trucks - are requested to be covered up. Video cameras must be registered and visiting press is highly regulated. Ice and coffee at Center Camp are the only products available for purchase. Everything else is based upon a gift economy. Give what you can. everything comes back around. One year there was a bar around the corner from our camp. 3 guys spent $1500 on liquor, built a bar, and poured drinks for anyoone. They ran out by Thursday, but the patrons kept bringing over more alcohol from their camps to keep the bar stocked. Gift economy.

It is this freedom from commercialization, this brief moment of living the ideal and casting off the shackles of capitalism that make Burning Man such an oasis. Indeed, much of Silicon Valley leaves their cubes and offices for the playa, finding release, escape, and inspiration to bring back home. For now, the ideal can only exist if we work the rest of the year. But for one week we can drop our guard a little, fly our freak flag higher, talk to strangers and invite them into our temporary homes, embrace the land and the beautiful fury of nature, and walk amongst the human imagination as it manifests its vast mysteries into the arms of creation, unfettered and ever on the wing.

Posted by LVX23 at August 19, 2004 12:49 AM | TrackBack