Once The Dust Settles - The Burning Man Adventure

Burning Man is infamous in many circles. Here in the Bay Area bringing it up elicits one of two responses. The eyes either roll and sigh - “he’s one of those”, or the eyes widen and shine, paired with the happiest smile you've ever seen. Both reactions are genuine and both kinds of eye movements are well founded. The week long desert gathering can be seen as a gentrified woo-woo music and drug festival for hippies and digital nomads, and for others it's the best and most beautiful tradition that brings community, art, human experience together in people's favorite time of the year.

The divisiveness and mystery of the whole thing intrigued me, so when I somehow stumbled into an invitation to go to the 2022 burn, I jumped at the opportunity to experience it for myself.

The burn is (apologies for my sophisticated english expressions) the deepest send I’ve ever sent. It’s expensive, incredibly time consuming, it completely dominates your life for the weeks leading up to it, and once you’re there there’s no choice but to completely and utterly give in to the dust, the elements, the heat, the culture, the disconnect from society. The first nights after coming home are the ultimate physical and mental hangover/comedown/reckoning with reality. There’s no half-assing Burning Man, at least in the physical sense.

But what about the non-physical part of the burn? The emotional side, the memories I made, the impact it had on my life?

The classic reaction when I tell my friends I went to Burning Man is to look into my eyes, do their best cali girl impression, and airily ask me "omg did it change you? “ I usually reply with an equally sarcastic joke about me emerging from the dust a different man after visiting the orgy dome on Playa. Don't worry mom, this isn't true. Who goes to the orgy dome nowadays??

Sarcasm aside, I do end up frequently asking myself whether those seven dusty hot delirious days did indeed change me in any way. I don't think they did, at least not any more than any other extended adventure trip I’ve done. It didn't feel as transformative as so many other burners I’ve met claim it is.

Months later, I’ve now realized that this is not because of a lack of incredible sights, magical moments, amazing people, or insufficient chemical encouragement. Playa is unquestionably the most surreal, magical, incredible place I’ve been. It’s honestly hard to put into words what it’s like to bike through the desert at night, surrounded by music and sounds and people and light and energy. So what happened? Burning Man didn't change me because I didn't let it.

The lack of insights or transformations made me consider how I approached the burn, which ended up in me reflecting over how I approach all the other experiences in life. How you do anything is how you do everything.

Surrender

For change to happen, you have to open yourself. Let yourself become like clay - flexible, malleable. If you do not permit it, you bounce from impact to impact, experience to experience. That is, until something comes along that is too strong and you shatter and explode into pieces. Wet clay does not shatter, it molds, it gives.

As with everything, there’s balance. Too flexible and you let yourself be influenced by things not worthy. Too brittle and you risk missing out because of your inflexibility.

People are like this too. The more you enter a relationship with an open, vulnerable mind, the stronger the impact they can have on you. Surrendering your ego, your pride and sharing your soul is how you get close to someone and allow that person into your life, either in a positive or negative way.

The opening experience of Burning Man symbolized this for me. After scanning your tickets, you stop your vehicle at one of the gates, and all the passengers get out. By the gate stands a person. Usually a veteran burner with many burns under their belt volunteers to stand by the gate to greet all who arrive, give them a warm, dusty hug, and say “welcome home”.

*cue eye roll*

That was my first reaction, and probably yours while reading this. But after a while of chatting with my volunteer, who was very excited that this was my first burn (compared to her 27th), I began to realize what this meant and why they did this. Eighty thousand people go to the burn. Every single one of those is given a warm, familiar hug and are personally welcomed home.

For many, this is home. These are their people. They built this. This is tradition and this is their tribe. She has been doing this for longer than I am live.

If you roll your eyes, how can you be a part of the tribe? How can you learn and participate and give in and cry and laugh if you don’t open yourself to the experience? Buy into it. If only temporarily, it doesn’t have to be forever. I’ll definitely laugh at my young hippie days at Burning Man, but if I want to experience something or someone while I’m living through life, it starts by believing, having faith, and giving in.

Intention

The first step towards getting what you want is understanding what you want. Without a clear direction or path, it’s easy to stumble astray, or to not advance at all.

The yogis understand this. Most yoga classes you’ll take will have some part (usually in the beginning of the practice) reserved to setting an intention. It can be a dedication, a goal, external, internal, anything at all. But to take your next hour and mindfully, intentionally point it a certain direction is powerful, and has the effect of multiplying the possible effect of the class in the path you chose.

An important caveat here is that it’s totally fine to have the intention be discovery and exploration. I don’t know what I want half the time, but I try to be intentional about entering spaces or experiences knowing that what I’d like to get out of it is clarity itself.

These two points are going to manifest themselves in my next Burning Man in a few different ways.

• I’m going to focus on having solo experiences a lot more. Release my notion of having to be with known people at all times, and surrender to more impromptu and unexpected experiences

• Seek out what I want. I knew that Burning Man has a lot of talks, conferences, rituals, ceremonies, etc. that attempt to go a bit deeper than the regular dusty life. I wanted to participate, but I didn’t look for them. Next year, I’ll be more mindful of looking at schedules and participating in those activities.

And the two points also extend beyond just the festival. I’m hoping to approach my entire life with more surrender and intention.

If you’re going next year, see you in the dust )’(

Thank you for reading! Keen on talking more about Burning Man or anything else? Reach out on IG, reply to this email. Like any good burner, I’m happy to talk about this for way too long.

Catch you in the next Notas del Campo