LVX Burning Man 2004

This year's Burning Man had the highest attendance ever, hosting over 35,000 people. The weather was moderate with some winds and a few balmy nights (as well as a few very cold ones). Our camp setup went pretty well but had to be re-evaluated when the winds picked up on Weds, blowing in from the northwest, and further adjusted on Thurs when they shifted from the southeast. Before anything else, you're camping in the high desert. Everything is bound to the weather.

This year we camped in walk-in way out on the southeastern perimeter of the city. At first it was nice to be a bit removed from everything. The increasing din of the playa nights was subdued and distant offering solace when bedtime finally arrived. But this distance made it more difficult to travel, putting us about 2 miles away from the epicenter, a good distance from the port-a-potties, and generally sheltering us from the community. In the end we were too far removed and missed the steady flow of people. The upshot was that we were pretty close to Lush, the biggest party on the playa.

Lush camp is one of the two main soundsystems out there (the other was Sol Henge). There are hundreds, but most pale in comparison to the scale and magnitude of the two corner camps. Lush had dancers, fire spinners, trapeze artists - all wearing next to nothing. Revellers danced amongst transported (and dessicated) palm trees and fire pits, beneath the billowing parachutes suspended on old tree limbs 30 feet above. I spent a fair amount of time at Lush, but in the end I was left a bit hollow. There seems to be a trend towards spending a lot of time and money on large clubs with free bars (there is no vending at Burning Man), and less on actual art. I'll return to this point later.

However, nothing adds to a party like a home-made propane flamethrower. Sadly, Burning Man doesn't burn so much as it used to. Environmental pressure to minimize burn scars on the playa has forced open fires into designated steel bins. It used to be that by Saturday night everything was burning. All across the city. But I digress. My buddy and I brought the flamethrower out to lush one night for a couple of hours of devilry, harrassing the ravers with sudden bursts of very close flame. There's a sort of jaded regard for fire that one develops out there. Groups of ravers would pass, we'd spark the torch and watch as they casually disregarded the fire light cast by our torch. Fire is still commoon out there so a sudden orange glowing isn't too surprising. But then they'd realize the flame was about 3 feet above them and quite hot. The usual response was a reflexive cower accompanied by a baleful, horrific stare, followed quickly by our evil, mocking laughter. After the liberating moment of mortal fear had passed, it was "do it again!", the terror replaced by smiles and wild cheers. By the end of the evening we had pretty much re-engineered the flamethrower in our heads to make it bigger, louder, and more portable. Such joy!

Burning Man is always a great party, but what I really look for out there is a sense of transformation and spirit. Usually I find this in the awe-inspiring sublime works of art that have been the staple of the event. In years past I've been brought to tears by such creations, scattered across the playa like a canvass for the heart and soul of humanity. Sadly, as I noted, this year there just wasn't very much art. And herein lies my emerging criticism of Burning Man. It's turning into too much of a party and losing its soul in the process. The growing attendance has necessitated a larger bureaucracy to manage the event. This has created a widening gap between the ideals of the founders and the practicalities and concerns held by the organizers. Burning Man is a hierarchical corporate enterprise, albeit a highly progressive one. But in their attempts to keep the event going by appeasing any opposition, they've marginalized a lot of the freedom and expression that is the real heart of the event. Art is being regulated more and more, and larger attendance by families has brought about increasing censorship and parental uptightness. Similarly the growing popularity is altering the landscape, moving more towards club-style camps with open bars. Alcohol seems to be edging out the entheogens. It also seems that the nudity that was once simply a form of freedom is becoming more and more sexualized in this party atmosphere. As with all good underground movements, they become diluted and changed as their popularity grows and they become more mainstream.

But the experience of Burning Man is still a phenomenal one. The spirit of community and giving continues to flourish. The BMorg continues to resist any attempts at commercialization and keeps the media wolves at bey. I think they need to put a cap on attendance at somewhere around 15k. This would cut down the overhead significantly and narrow the crowd to those more committed. BMorg should also open up the restricttions they've imposed on art and themes and channel more funds into art works, discouraging the rave clubs a bit. (And I'm an old raver but the whole Esplanade seems to be turning into rave soundsystems.)

The burn on Saturday was fantastic. Not much of a prelude beyond the standard parade of fire spinners (though the flaming wings were pretty cool), but the burn itself went like clockwork. Fireworks exploded into the sky as the fires began to climb the observatory. The whole affair was very well choreographed, free of the common errors that have often plagued past years. More fireworks as the flames grew higher. The wood geodesic dome under the man began to glow with flames forming a spectacular geometric pattern of fire, spinning off vortices of flame & smoke. The man began to burn fiercly, launching caches of rockets from his thorax and neck until, finally, he was fully engulfed. A tug or two on the lines and the man fell into the raging inferno, to great cheers of the 30,000+ crowd.

Once he fell the fire safety lines were broken and much of the crowd moved in towards the flame. I followed, as I always do, pressing through the thick mosh hotter and hotter until I finally reched the inner edge, open-faced to the blazing ruins of our burning man. I've noted before that the inner mosh always rotates counter-clockwise around the fire, though I never really knew why. This year tehre were a lot of folks who didn't understand the rotation at all and were just standing. As we pushed against them trying trying to keep the flow, a fellow pagan reveller shouted out "Counter-clockwise! Counter-clockwise! Banish!", and my intuitions rose to conscious awareness: we were indeed banishing the old, clearing the ritual of our phoenixed effigy, formerly swollen with all of our hopes and desires packed in over the last week, now released and free. All things renewed by fire.

I made about two revolutions around the inferno, ducking out into the open, running until I had to pull my cloak over my face to shield the burn, then diving back in behind the outer row of people. At this proximity it feels like every inch adds 15 degrees. Suddenly I was aware of a harmonic field at the edge of the circle. About 15 people were gathered, mashed in, auming steadily, while a wildman riffed arabesque on a tenor saxaphone. I was immediately captivated and joined the group, intoning deeply to find my register. Within moments I was tuned in and, like crickets at dusk, our aums gently synched together, all inhaling at once, then auming out together, again and again, the wildman spinning out scalar runs on his sax. This was the moment I was looking for. This was the singular point of devotion and spirit I come to Burning Man for, sudden and emergent, strangers brought together in the purity of transformation. There were no words exchanged between us, just occassional sideways glances of knowing, communion, an awareness of hope that we might help add a little more intent to this bacchannal.

Burning Man is, in whatever form it takes. I always leave transformed in some way, ever prone to re-evaluating my life in its wake. For me the veils of illusion have dropped a bit this year, and I hope it's only a temporary lull. I didn't have the transformative shamanic experience that I've come to take for granted as part of my yearly trek to the Black Rock Desert. This is certainly due in part to my own expectations and headspace, though I feel I can fairly level some criticisms as well. One realization is that it's really up to me to contribute my own spirituality and creation to the event. If it decays into some ribald pagan frat party and I've done nothing to counter it, then it's only me who's left to blame. Another thought is that I shouldn't rely so heavily on this yearly event to provide me with the psychic housecleaning I seek. I need to make it happen elsewhere, find the time in my daily life to engage in the same spirit and communion that seemed to flow so freely.

In the end change is constant and Burning Man will inevitably fade, hopefully to be replaced by another similar current, appropriately occulted from dilution and evolved to bring newer generations closer to the utopic ideals of it's founders - ideals that are really the same ideals shared by all of us since the infancy of humanity: warm companionship and community, expression and creativity, freedom from meaningless routine, and a communion with the ineffable and un-namable mysteries of creation. Burning Man is simply one point in time carrying the current onward, sustaining and nurturing the human spirit as it blossoms into hyperspace.

Posted by LVX23 at September 8, 2004 12:36 PM | TrackBack