image: Watchara
Memoirs From a Burn
8.30.2019 (Friday: The man burns tomorrow)
5:30am
The Day’s are so very long here.
I woke at 5:30am. 10 minutes before my alarm is set to sound. I am determined to great the sun while meditating at the temple. Peddling furiously across the desert, fellow riders look to playfully engage. I am somewhat disappointed that I can not entertain their efforts in this moment; “I”, have ways. I see the neon of the Playa’s temporary human contribution fading as the sky shows signs of crimson and the blue has become fainter than the darkness that was present just a quarter of an hour prior.
I meditate with open eyes. Taking in the light show as this beautiful life providing celestial body appears to begin its journey across the sky transforming into the loathsome unavoidably oppressive gaseous star it is assuredly on its way to becoming and that anyone who has spent hours under its influence can confirm. After 108 breaths and what additional I decide to be a sufficient amount of time taking in this moment; I staple my contribution to Sunday’s impending Temple burning. My “Burning Man” neighbor, and new friend Tom, is hoping to burn images of the father he lost this year; I have contributed images of the personal “self” I wish to destroy.
7:30am
Today is Friday, the man burns tomorrow. Perhaps I am not using my time here usefully. I need to find the sewage truck, but first I will pretend I am the teenager who once walked through European cities and didn’t go to only one chapel. I laugh at the ways “I” have clung to engaging with “adventure” and deviating from my plan. The ways I have clung to my vision and the ways my journey toward its realization have revealed that the mountain has many valleys to reach it’s peak.
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Reluctance to speak with the “oracle” inside this second significantly smaller and overlooked beautiful spiritual hut, is in part my skepticism and also because I have no burning question to ask. Despite my initial decision to skip this piece of the adventure I find myself saying yes and being sprayed with rose water and entering her quarters. She is thrown off guard that I don’t have a question. She asks me her second question of our encounter “should I just tell you what I see?”
I agree to her proposal.
The oracle stares at me for several moments, eventually deciding that “it is too broad” for her to “give direction”. I apologize for wasting her time. She assures me that it is my time and I may use it to ask any question I like. I contemplate the subjects on my mind:
Will the toilet get fixed?
What does it matter? I know I’ll deal with it. I don’t want to deal with it, but I’ll adapt to it like you do anything with time and directed attention.
Will I reach my goals?
Even if I don’t, I find the effort of walking the path toward a destination more important than getting to some imagined “there”.
If my goals aren’t the right goals isn’t that really only something an individual can personally know for themselves? Giving up that level of intuition to someone else is a level of guru-ship I am not comfortable in engaging with.
I don’t have a question. I will thank her for her time and leave. In hindsight I will thank her in silence and decide she has confirmed the skepticism and independence I wish to retain in my insights.
8:30am
I join Bettie to hear tales of their evening and we share stories of our individual homes while waiting for a sewage truck to pass. She and Tom worked and met in forest preservation and fire prevention. They have a large family and lead a full and what appears to be a beautiful life. The way she describes their home reminds me of the affinity I have for the wissahickon. I speak proudly of my city’s 57 miles of trails in the wilderness of Philadelphia’s park. She tells me of the vast wilderness that surrounds their home, and the familiar story of development that is destroying the natural habitat of the local wildlife. My new friends find their home in direct contact with wild animals who have less forest to conceal their presence. Alongside this struggle, the very people who took care of this wild landscape find themselves in conflict with the new humans moving in with a different aim of progress and development. They feel pushed out by those who covet the land they preserved.
Bettie wants me to wait in her chair while she takes care of her own personal needs for a bit.
10am
I am hot and tired and I am so grateful she offered a seat in the shade. I felt like I shouldn’t ask. Why that impulse? That isn’t individual to me that is a societal epidemic. I will sit and muse upon this while waiting to get my shit removed from the trailer.
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This idea of the gift has intrigued me early on in my Burning Man curiosities. Charles Eisenstein talks of the loss of sacredness in the mass production market in his book “Sacred Economics”. To simplify and hopefully clarify: things that are unique and scarce are more valuable than commodities that are in vast supply. A dollar bill is common in the US. whereas a Pablo Picasso sketch of the same size is very rare. They both are only designs printed on paper, one is common and one is rare.
Gifts that were once rare and very valuable have become very cheaply purchased. A chair and shade, as the sun reaches its apex is very rare in the desert and in this moment. Sherrie has done me a huge kindness. To reference Charles Eisenstein’s teaching again: when everything can be commodified we lose the true value of the item. It isn’t rare anymore. A person to pick you up from and drop you off at the airport. A person to deliver your food. To walk your pet. When mostly these were simple kindnesses you did for your loved one.
My mom and step-dad rushed my “lost” wallet to the airport when I began this trip because I was panicking with no resource. They would have happily driven me had I asked, but I felt why burden them. I hope Bettie knows the kindness she has done me.
I recognize it in turn. It is value beyond ordering a sun shield and chair on Amazon prime same day delivery. It is a neighbor looking out for her neighborhood. That is truly a thing I wish existed more in my neighborhood at home; Unfortunately when one feels like an outsider in a community, as so many do in their communities at home, one must become “radically self reliant” as is another idea in this “burning man” world and sometimes when one doesn’t fit the culture of a community, the gifts feel harder and harder to come by and asking for them becomes less and less an option.
I remember why Tom said he liked the idea of this place: non conformity and burning an effigy. I love them. I am not a “burner” but those are two ideas I vibe with. The gifts they provide aren’t what one might think of in a “gift economy” but these gifts remind me how undervalued something that is priceless can be.
Noon
I had the tank pumped while my friend and traveling companion was asleep. It cost $65 dollars of which I paid on the lower end of the percentage. I feel guilty about this and I’m also really concerned about money, it is a thing heavily resting on my mind during this trip in the land of the “gift economy”. He seems to not mind and is appreciative of my efforts. Thank goodness I provide some intangible value that cover monetary gifts where I didn’t think money was going to be an item in existence. Money is on my mind a lot. This trip has cost a lot more than I predicted and is proving to be less developmental of business than I had originally planned it to be. Initially I would be doing body-work and be put up at a camp. Little to no concern than show up and do my job for the week. I know this lifestyle well and am known for being reliable and competent at it. Time away from “work” isn’t something I can “afford” to do. I have just begun pulling myself out of debt that has been present and steadily increasing from education to illness to education to investments that would prove to not be long term possibilities. Glad to be setting some time aside for some workshop development and know that if I am not on “vacation” at least some business is being handled.
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2pm
The tank wasn’t pumped.
I storm out of the cabin to find the dude. It has been over an hour but the neighbors behind us had 6 trailers to do also. Partially understanding he must be gone by now and knowing I want to confront him. I run from trailer to trailer asking neighbors questions that do more to confuse them than to elucidate me as to where the truck went.
If you know me, you are very surprised by this. I am not roused easily (despite the way I showed my inner dialogue in Day 2, the external reality is generally less moved). When I feel heat gather through my bodily vehicle it reminds me why I don’t allow myself to “let it out” as the woman who lead breathing on Wednesday suggested I do. In this moment I am ready to let “it” out. Not sure if this is the same “it” I felt at her breathing class and not even quite sure what that “it” was other than just relaxation. I want to relax right now and with that seeming to be an impossibility, I feel as though aggression will allow me to relax later.
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When I find him, I will start with how he gave me attitude when he said he wouldn’t be able to clean the tank for 45 minutes, returning instead in 15 mins! During the 5 minutes it took me to run to the kitchen to secure the first (and last chance at a) meal I have had in 24 hours! Then cheats us!!!
My friend provides the possibility that it was a mistake or a misreading with a gauge on the RV, I’m (illogically) convinced there is a war between the burners and the locals... and he wanted to fuck with me since I am a burner!
My friend provides my usual optimistic view that malice is far less common than incompetence. I am soothed by this reminder and less so when he includes “I think people here are intending the best” and I remember how differently we feel about “here” and that people are people.
I wish I had downloaded Rage Against the Machine’s “Your anger is a gift” before entering the desert.
I do some heavier training a bit at Swing City and lay in the hammock, listening to Tool for hours and preparing for my glimpse into the latest step in their evolution when we attend their album release party tonight.
Cover Photo: Jamen Percy
All others in this series can be found in order of date on the “speculation” blog page. Organized by date, the next one contains explicit content, and can be found at 2019.08.30 Pt2