Report, Reflections and Robots (Burning Man 2018): Part 5—Center Camp and Handpan Jam, Foam Against the Machine, Love Bombs, Late Night Art Adventures and Temple
Friday I got up early and got to Center Camp by 8:30am. I checked in but didn’t go on til 9 so I spent a little time looking around at the art at Center Camp and chatting with the backstage crew. Josh and Mom and Mamadoody came to see me, which was very sweet. Josh even shot video for me to look at later. I think the performance went reasonably well again (especially because again I didn’t prepare anything, I just improvised), and I enjoyed it. Afterwards we got some drinks and headed on our leisurely way back to camp. We stopped by the Census camp on the way out of Center Camp and talked with them a little bit, but didn’t do much else that I can remember.
When we got back we did a little cleaning up around the yurt and hanging out around camp (I made an awesome necklace and bracelet at the “Pink Heart Beading Creation Station”) until it was time to go as a group over to the foam camp (this year it was called “Foam Against the Machine”) and get a group shower and pass out cookies. Once again it was awesome to get to skip the line and go get naked and clean as a group. I felt pretty comfortable with my scarred, modified body this year so I didn’t mind being naked, and I vastly enjoyed the feeling of finally being clean (it was my first shower of the week and my poor hair, long and super-curly on the ends this year, had pretty much solidified into two tangled almost-dreaded ponytails). It was fun handing out cookies to people afterwards too...just like with the ice cream service we do at camp, being able to gift people something they’re really happy about is such a pleasure.
After our time at Foam Against the Machine was done, we scattered and Josh and I along with our campmates Cookie (yes, the one who brought all the cookies we gifted) and House wandered back to camp. We once again stopped at the camp that was giving out snow cones (mmmm frozen sweet treats on playa...so good). I had a water bar shift with Mom at 4, but I mostly left Mom to do the water serving while I worked the line and gave out “love bomb” wooden heart necklaces to people. These were the same thing I’d invented last year for Radical Ritual (I had someone laser cut about 500 more of the heart pendants this year and I put them on necklaces). Like last year, I would gather up a group of people who were in line for water and ask if they wanted to do a little ritual with me. (They pretty much always said yes.) Then I’d give them each a heart and tell them that this was to help them learn how to enjoy gifting and giving out love like Pink Hearters do, and that they should write a few positive words on their heart and then go hang it up next to the beautiful mural on the side of camp that our campmate Legume had painted, for someone else to take. Then they could take one that someone else had made for them, and if they wanted to, they could come back and show me what they got (since I never get to see what people write). Lots of people took me up on it and enjoyed the ritual, and I enjoyed doing it with them. That lasted for about 2 hours. Then it was time for dinner (truly delicious “beyond” burgers which were made from vegan ingredients but tasted just like beef burgers—wow!) and watching the sunset from the patio. This time Mom and Mamadoody joined me on the Patio, and it was once again super nice.
At some point after that, Josh and I went on a little art adventure together, mostly just down the Esplanade towards 2 o’clock, and then went out to the Temple since Josh still hadn’t been there and he had a whole long letter to his dad that he wanted to leave there. I revisited my earlier writings to see how the space around them had been added to and generally looked around at what had been put at the Temple while Josh had his time, and then we left together. On the way back (I think...it could have been on the way there) we saw one of the big art pieces, two trains on the same track facing each other from a couple hundred yards away, get set on fire and sent careening towards each other to crash together in a giant explosion. Unfortunately, the explosion went off just a few moments *before* the flaming trains crashed into each other, which lessened the impact of the spectacle somewhat, but it was still pretty great and the kind of thing that for sure you only see at Burning Man. We also saw and interacted with a few more cool bits of art (including Bloom, a giant beautiful light up jellyfish that you could climb up the inside of, and the Hexatron, a truly gorgeous “forest” of tall light up LED poles with beautiful patterns cycling through them—yes, another hippy trap). We got back sometime early in the wee hours and went to bed.
[Report, Reflections and Robots (Burning Man 2018): Prologue and Preamble]
[Report, Reflections and Robots (Burning Man 2018): Part 1]
[Report, Reflections and Robots (Burning Man 2018): Part 2]
[Report, Reflections and Robots (Burning Man 2018): Part 3]
[Report, Reflections and Robots (Burning Man 2018): Part 4]
[Report, Reflections and Robots (Burning Man 2018): Part 6]
[Report, Reflections and Robots (Burning Man 2018): Part 7]
[Report, Reflections and Robots (Burning Man 2018): Part 8]
[Full set of Burning Man 2019 Pictures and Videos on Facebook]
I also did a lot of volunteering and a lot of moving from scheduled thing to scheduled thing, pretty much all of which was rewarding in some way (made me feel good about being of service and being able to use my superpowers, and led to some great interactions with interesting random people, which is one of the best parts of Burning Man to me), but it also made the burn feel more like work and like the way I usually operate in the non-Burning Man world, where I am constantly filling my time with things and running from thing to thing that past me has scheduled for future me. Upon reflection, I think I frontloaded my week with too much responsibility because I was trying to keep a couple days open at the end of the week, but that didn’t work out too well. It would have been better for me to break it up more so that each day had a little schedule and a lot of freedom rather than the opposite, so I could keep my time at the burn a little more open and available for spontaneous adventures and connections. I want there to be enough empty time for me to get kind of bored or restless and start looking for things to do and people to talk to, because it is those serendipitous moments that are important and meaningful to me. I did manage some of those this year but wish there had been more. Having some more empty, free time would also have been useful to help me re-learn how to prioritize (and celebrate) my own choices around what I want to do and who I want to be in the moment. That mode of being my authentic self doing what I want to do in every moment is usually something I really treasure about my time at Burning Man, and I think my enthusiasm for wanting to be of service resulted in my not allowing myself enough space for that. Since I know I really am a twinkly bright happy powerful Supernova, the reminder here is that like my astronomical namesake, I’ve got to pull in before I explode out. Here’s to the healing power of contraction and quiet!
Speaking of healing, related to all this is my slowly clarifying realization that healing and grieving both take a long time (longer than my impatient “why can’t I be normal now” self wants them to take, anyway), and that perhaps what I am facing now is another round of the challenge to accept and appreciate what is and where I’m at right now and to trust that “new normal” is okay, even when it’s a moving target. I think I was unconsciously assuming that last burn was the burn for processing all the cancer feels and that this burn would be for other things, and in some ways it was, but in some ways it wasn’t. It appears that I am still struggling with some existential angst around “I could have died but I didn’t; why did I live, and what is the meaning of my life now that I have it (mostly) back?” I didn’t process this angst much (or at least consciously much) at the burn itself, but it’s hit me really hard since I got back, especially when Josh and everyone else hit re-entry with so much to do and so much to take care of that seemed really urgent and important and impactful, whereas my workload seemed like mostly non-urgent parenting and household drudgery that no one really needed or appreciated. I’ll be honest, I had a few pretty bad depressive days last week where I felt pointless and valueless and couldn’t see my own positive contributions to the world, and even questioned whether anyone would really miss me if I were gone. The benefit of hindsight makes me wonder if the over-scheduled, tons of volunteering burn I set up for myself was an unconscious way to try to convince myself that I was needed or impactful. (I know, past me, you were just trying to take care of future me, and I appreciate that. But perhaps we need to be a little more honest and insightful about what’s really going on and what’s really needed. So here you go, future me.)
Which is not to say that I didn’t sometimes take it easy or engage with self-care, because there definitely was some of that (thanks, super hot weather, for reminding me). Resting when I was tired, giving myself water and electrolytes and shade and snacks, spending some time at the Temple, asking for a massage, going out on a few adventures, all this was important. Many of the experiences I’ve had lately (at Gaming Camp before the burn, at various points during the burn, and even during this difficult decompression period) remind me or reaffirm for me that self-care is a necessary, ongoing practice, one that is a blessing, not a burden or a guilt. Self-care leads to self-love and self-love is the foundation of and prerequisite to healing all the other things. (Hi, oxygen mask theory, you’re still here? Ok, fine, come sit down here by me and give me a hug.)
Monday morning I woke up early and decided that I wanted to do one more personal ritual before we had to break down and pack up our yurt and load the truck and leave. So I took my handpan and one of our little chairs and walked out to the open playa, and played a sunrise set. A few people came out from both Pink Heart and Red Lightning and joined me, and watched the sun rise over what was left of the playa art. I’m so glad I did that—it was good personal closure to able to say goodbye to the playa and my experiences that week through making music. 
It was a fairly slow slog once we hit blacktop, with some spectacular clouds and rain squalls along the way between Gerlach and Empire (we were soooo grateful not to have been trapped in the line to get out by that rain, though I’m not sure if it ever even made it to playa). We got ahead of the rain and wind and stopped off in Nixon to get rid of our trash bags, where the weather caught up to us just as we were leaving. We did see some beautiful rainbows though. We made it to Reno by around 6pm if I recall correctly, and checked in to the Silver Legacy. It was really great to be able to take a break there and not have to drive all the way home. We called our kids and took that blissful first shower and dressed in clean soft clothes and went down to the lobby to meet up with a bunch of other Pinkies (including Doug and Elena, who hadn’t been to the burn but who came to Reno just to hang out with other Pinkies) who were also staying at the Silver Legacy. We hung out in one of the casino bars for a while and then there was a big group dinner at P.F. Chang’s, which I enjoyed the heck out of, especially since we really hadn’t eaten much that day.
After dinner we were hanging around the front of P.F. Chang’s waiting for our various Uber rides and taxis to get there when Ryan decided he wanted to climb one of the big stone horse statues that every P.F. Chang’s has outside it. I really tried to discourage him but of course other people were encouraging him and he’s a daredevil anyway so he didn’t listen to me. He climbed up just fine and was triumphant for about one minute. Then he started to climb down and slipped and fell and nearly whacked his head on the bottom of the statue but by some miracle missed and merely crashed onto the big cobblestones set around the base. He bounced right back up and was okay (though probably pretty spectacularly bruised) but he certainly scared the shit out of many of us. It could have ended so differently, and I am very grateful that it turned out okay. Whew.
Sunday is always a tough day at the burn because we have to strike camp—it’s tough physically of course but it’s also tough emotionally because it feels like the setting and the vibe we worked so hard to put together all year and so enjoyed all week comes apart so rapidly and irrevocably, and then is just gone, poof, like it was never there. (Yes, yes, we carry it in our hearts and in our memories, but at least for me, that dismantling always carries a shot of grief in it.)
I also remember at some point that day having a conversation with our campmate Lionessa and a few other Pinkies about the news we’d heard that someone had committed suicide the night before by jumping into the flames of the Man burn. Lionessa had been on the perimeter and close by. She watched the whole thing happen, including the heroic efforts of the firefighters who tried to get the guy out of the fire but were unable to save him, and she was pretty upset and traumatized. I don’t want to speculate on why someone would do such a thing or pass any sort of judgment except to say that his decision to do something so spectacularly and selfishly rash traumatized a whole lot of other people, and that is a bummer with a huge ripple effect which is still playing out in the burner community. (And once we got home, that tragic death was all anyone wanted to ask us about once they heard we’d been at Burning Man.)
Eventually we had all done as much as we were going to do for the day (which was most of the strike, it’s very true that many hands make lighter work), and we changed clothes and got ready to go out to the Temple burn. Kathy and Steve and some other campmates had hatched a plan to pull Mom (who still couldn’t walk much on her wrenched ankle) out to the burn with us on a wagon, which was super sweet and such a wonderful example of how our PHamily takes care of each other. So Josh and I and a big bunch of other Pinkies and Mom on her wagon walked out until we got pretty close to the perimeter of the Temple burn and settled down to watch it together. (As a side note, we saw the amazing giant marionette on the way there and back...I didn’t catch the name of this art piece but it was gorgeous: a big woman with words and images written all over her body, suspended from a crane on a truck, and apparently people could take turns moving her arms and legs and head. She was kneeling on one knee for the Temple burn, which was cool.)
It was a really beautiful and gentle burn, with a gorgeous contrast between the white hot flames and the patterned structure of the building on the lower level and a graceful slow slumping of the highest pieces into the lower ones as they burned up. The mood of this burn is always much more solemn and thoughtful (and often tearful). It was really great to spend this burn with such a large bunch of our PHamily, and there was a lot of emotion rocketing around. Every once in a while, someone in the greater crowd would start a wolf howl, and it was neat to hear it travel around the perimeter. Other than that though people were mostly silent and there was a lot of hugging (and occasional tears). It felt like a fitting ending to the burn.
Saturday was my only day with nothing pre-planned and nothing I had committed to do. The burn was almost over and I was starting to feel nibbles of FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) so I was determined to go see some more art (especially the Temple of Gravity, which was wayyyyy out in deep playa), and cajoled Josh into going with me to ride over there before it got too hot. We eventually got dressed and geared up with water and chill neckcloths and scarves and hats and made it out by around 10am, and headed out the 9:00 side towards the deep playa (which is everything that is past the Temple and the circle of the inner playa). We started going from art piece to art piece, following the time-honored adventure ritual of “hey what’s that? Let’s go look.”
We did see some amazing art, including the incredibly impressive Temple of Gravity, which was a giant curved metal frame from which were suspended five huge multi-ton slabs of granite on metal chains—they were so perfectly balanced that you could push on one of the suspended slabs and it would move and sway. It was a trippy feeling of contrast to be a puny little soft monkey yet able to make a giant heavy slab of rock dance.
Another favorite of mine was the Flower Tower, a humongous central rocket-shaped tower with multiple smaller rocket towers around it, each made of steel and covered with hundreds of individually shaped and colorfully painted metal flowers. This was made by Reared in Steel, who are local artists just up the highway from us in Petaluma. When I was at the Rivertown Revival festival back in July they’d set up one of the small rocket towers and next to it a booth where you could make a flower or two for the towers—I had a lot of fun making one and of course I looked for the one I made when I saw the whole thing in the desert, but there were far too many so I didn’t find it. It was super impressive and possibly my favorite piece of art at the burn. Did I mention it also shot fire out from the top, and lit up in beautiful rainbow colors at night? Amazing.
We had a great time flitting from piece to piece, and eventually we made it all the way out to the fabled trash fence (the fence that the Burning Man org puts up to mark the boundary of the event, and which provides a kind of loose containment device for the windborne MOOP that inevitably happens). I’d been telling myself that I wanted to make it all the way out to the trash fence for the last 5 burns, and I finally did it. (On my tricycle no less! I was impressed with both of us.) I had had a somewhat romanticized, fuzzy idea in my head of what deep playa and the trash fence actually looked like, and now I have a real idea of what it looks like and what it means to adventure out there. I would definitely go do that again. It is far and it takes some effort and some preparation to go out there (you would NOT want to be caught unprepared in a huge dust storm, for example), but it’s fun and totally worth it, especially because it is so relatively uncrowded.
So after a while I went to go chill out in frontage, both because it wasn’t as comfortable in the yurt as I wanted, and because our new friend Marie (a super talented illustrator from Paris) was drawing something on our yurt and didn’t want us to see it until she was done. (We had invited people to come write and draw on our yurt walls, almost like a yearbook signing, although not too many people did so...mostly because we were too lazy, I mean distracted, to bug people to come do it.) Once she was done and showed us what she had drawn on the inner doorway, we were totally blown away. She’d made a portrait of me and Josh as a Viking bard and warrior (“I knew you guys liked role playing games so I thought you’d like this”) and it was fantastic! One of the things that happened at the very end of the burn is that we scored a new free yurt from an imploded plug-and-play camp so we may not be using our old yurt anymore, but we will certainly save that door panel as art.
I spent some time taking pictures with Kathy and some other Pinkies in the heart light and then I settled down to watch the burn, which was spectacular even from a distance, with sprays of fireworks and big roiling balls of fire. We not only shared the evening with a bunch of Pink Hearters, but also a cute couple (alas I have forgotten their names already) who had just met at Pink Heart earlier that day and were clearly having a lovely romantic burn night together. (Awww, Pink Heart romances are the best!) One of them was a guy who had been one of my best “salespeople” for the wooden heart necklace radical love ritual earlier that evening—it was really cool to see the ritual “catch on” with other people and the resonance they felt with the ritual.