Sunday we did indeed get up ridiculously early and jump right in to hours of camp teardown. I mooped and schlepped and helped write down the inventory of one of our two camp storage containers (which both got absolutely crammed with stuff in every smidge of space). I worked on that until mid-afternoon, after which Josh and I tried to consolidate and pack up as much of our own stuff as we could in preparation for leaving the next day.
Around 7:00 we got a few people together to head out to see the Temple burn. As I already mentioned, that burn was particularly lovely and meaningful, although I’d done much of my processing already. I was especially drawn to/impressed by the smoke angels (vortexes or tornados of smoke that formed at the fire and “marched” across the playa in a line until dissipating into the air). They started at the Temple and kept leaving it in a beautiful procession, one after the other. I also loved watching all the embers dance away up into the sky, billows and puffs and clouds of tiny glowing sparks all moving this way and that until they winked out. I was glad to feel the sense that all the grief and loss of the last year were puffing away so beautifully, and to put a ritual sense of closure on my year of living cancerously. I took out my letter to myself that I’d been carrying around and re-read it. Ryan, who was sitting next to me, asked if he could read it, so I let him, and then Josh asked to see it too, so I let him read it too. Really the whole thing was beautiful and satisfying. I would have stayed longer but at a certain point everyone else with me wanted to go so I just let that desire go along with everything else I had let go of that burn and went back home to Pink Heart, where almost everything was transformed also. Our fluffy pink home during the week was gone, all packed up, vanished like the beautiful temporary love dream it was; but our little silver yurt and shade patio were still there. (Hmm, are there metaphors here? Yes, probably, but I will let you imagine your own.)