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The Playa That Can Be Described – By Guy Spiro You are at 4,000 feet of elevation...the wind is constantly blowing the playa dust...there is virtually no humidity...
When the first Man was burnt on Baker Beach in San Francisco in 1986, no one could foresee what it would evolve into twenty years later. A history and timeline as well as much more information can be found at www.burningman.com and many other sites. As the years passed, the event grew beyond the capacity of Baker Beach and it was moved to the Nevada desert northeast of Reno. At its peak this past year, there were around 40,000 people. It is going to continue to grow. The environment of the playa is harsh. You are at 4,000 feet of elevation on a flat lakebed, so the sun is an issue. The wind is constantly shifting and blowing the playa dust everywhere. It is hot in the daytime and cold at night. There is virtually no humidity. People sometimes have difficult moments adjusting to these conditions. You need to drink at least a gallon of water a day (I went through two and three gallons) and dehydration can set in so quickly that you can be in trouble before you know it. I was prepared for these things. But when I got to camp, I found that my bike had not made it on the truck from Chicago and I was bereft. As the sun moved towards setting and in a previously unimaginable cloud of blowing dust, I had to construct my hexayurt (more on this later) and try to get done in time for my first meal with the camp. I confess that I did not react well to thinking that I was to be on foot for the week. After dinner that night, I walked out to the Man, walked back to camp, and then over to Center Camp and back. This was just enough walking to get a sense of the size of the city and give myself a big blister on my right foot. All through my walking I was passed by hundreds and hundreds of people on bikes and bemoaned my bikeless state. The next afternoon, however, fellow Entheon Village camper Ricky and I took the camp van into the closest town, Gerlach, where we bought more propane for the camp and four bikes for myself and other bikeless campers. There is this local fellow who every year comes out to the playa at the end of Burning Man and collects all of the abandoned bikes. He takes them home, fixes and cleans them up, stores them in his barn and sells them the next year for $40 apiece by the side of the road in Gerlach. He told me that he has somewhere around 3000 bikes each year. Brilliant if you ask me, and my bike problem was solved. That night, flashlight taped to my handlebars, I ventured out onto the playa. First I went to a camp nearby that had a four story structure made of scaffolding. Climbing up to a large porch on the second level, I stood and marveled at the sight of the lights of the city that stretched out before me. A little later, standing at the bottom of a long steel ladder looking up at the fourth level, one of the guys who was part of the camp came up next to me and asked, “Afraid of heights?” The truth being yes, I answered, “I’m not crazy about them.” He said, “Well, I’m not going up there and carrying you down.” To which I said, “Yeah, I think I’ll settle for the second level.” This was educational. Radical self-reliance is not an empty phrase at Burning Man. Out in the regular world you would never see a structure like this that anyone who wanted to could climb up for the view. If I wanted to climb I could, but it would be my responsibility to take care of myself. I found that attitude everywhere on the playa, and you can get right up close to some things that you could not get within 100 yards of in the regular world. After riding the length of the Esplanade from 2:00 to 10:00 and back, stunned by the lights, the music, the costumed people and the amazing creativity in evidence everywhere, I headed out to the Man. One thing to be prepared for if you go to Burning Man is the non-stop pounding dance music that you find everywhere. It is, after all, on a major level, one giant party. Circling the Man and looking at some of the art cars, I decided to go deeper into the playa as it was obvious that there was much more out there to see. Off in the distance was this green, lit up, strange looking shape that I could not make out. Pedaling out toward it, I could see that it was a structure with lots of people and art cars around it. As I got closer, I saw that it was a large structure, and closer yet, that the size was amazing. This turned out to be the largest installation on the playa. It was constructed by a group of Belgian artists and they called it Uchronia, but it came to be known to everyone else as the Waffle. It was made from waste 2x3 boards, destined to be burned anyway, that were donated by a Canadian lumber company, nail gunned together into this huge structure that hundreds of people were dancing and partying in to changing colored lights and a massive sound system. Out beyond the Waffle, off in the distance was another strange shape. I kept thinking, what is that? At night, lit up in the distance, it looked a little like a white puffy dandelion. Riding up close, I found The Starry Bamboo Mandala. Not long after I got there, some of the large art cars began to converge and I got that that meant a performance of some kind was probably about to start. It was an amazing combination of dance, acrobatics, and fire spinning that was almost Cirque du Soleil-like. Riding back after that performance, I stopped at the Temple of Hope, a beautiful wooden structure where people are encouraged to write messages to loved ones who have passed on or are otherwise out of their lives. By the end of the week, before it was burned, it was covered in these messages. I never visited it once when there were not at least a few people overcome with emotion from their own or others’ messages. Leaving the Temple, I found the large art cars converging again and saw someone with some kind of flame-thrower shooting long flames up into the air. Coming closer, and indeed, getting right up to the site, I found two guys in silver flame-suits, looking a little like spacemen, both shooting some kind of lit accelerant into the air. Then I noticed the fans. Arranged in a circle were eleven large industrial-looking fans. What the heck is this, I was wondering, when the two of them shot their flames together into the wind generated by the fans, which then whipped the flames into a thirty-plus foot fire tornado. And I was close enough to it to feel the heat. If my mind was not already melted enough, there were two more fire installations to go. The first, named The Burninator II was best seen from a distance. It consisted of somewhere around fifteen pipes, maybe fifteen feet tall, sticking out of the ground ten to fifteen yards apart that shot flames high up into the air. They would all go off at once, and then ripple to the left and then to the right. They would go off in different patterns and it was quite an amazing sight. Once again, you could approach the pipes and get right up to them while a performance was going on. The second, called Serpent Mother, was a 168-foot long skeleton snake body with 31 separate flame spouts in the sections of the body, with the head moving up to twenty feet high, shooting a long flame through the fangs. This installation was a crowd favorite and whenever it was performing, there would be people dancing and partying inside the installation and all around the perimeter. With both of these installations, you could again get close enough to feel the heat. Never in the real world would you be able to experience this from anything like this close. I did not make it to the Conexus Cathedral that night, but there was no escaping seeing it. Half the size of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, it rose fifty feet from the desert floor, with a 100 by 200 foot floor plan. It was magnificent by day, but luminescent by night lit by changing colored lighting and beautiful beyond belief. It became a special spot for me and I spent Saturday night after the burn until sunrise Sunday morning there. I’ve mentioned the art cars. You can drive your vehicle to your campsite, but if it is not a recognized art car, you cannot drive it again except to leave. Art cars range from modified golf carts to a sixty-foot articulated city bus done up like a ship, with two levels on top full of dancing and partying people, to large construction cranes made into giant flowers and dragons’ heads shooting fire from their mouths. They were impressive in their creativity in the daytime, but came alive at night, all lit up and driving slowly about the playa. Etiquette requires asking permission to board, but that seems rarely denied. The downside to getting on an art car is that they go where they go and stop where they stop. I got stranded very late Sunday night after everything was burned and had to walk across the playa without the familiar landmarks of earlier in the week. Entheon Village, where I stayed for the week, was one of the more interesting and prominent camps on the playa. Situated right on the Esplanade, it was an easy landmark with its large domes and red strings of light. I am so proud of the young people ranging from mid 20s to mid 30s who conceived, planned and administered Entheon Village. They are known and special to me, each and every one of them. They hosted 400 people, fed us two gourmet vegan meals a day and kept us watered and happy. It was truly a heroic effort and they are to be congratulated. Entheon Village hosted MAPS, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. World famous artist Alex Grey, whose painting Avalokitesvara graced our June cover, was there with his Chapel of Sacred Mirrors. The great visionary artists Roberto Venosa, whose Astral Circus was on our September cover, and his partner Martina Hoffmann, whose painting Lysergic Summer Dream is on the cover of this issue, were also there with a gallery at the camp. There was a third gallery with great visionary art and a Zen Meditation Temple. The largest structure at the camp was the speaking hall, which hosted such luminaries as Stanislov Grof, rising star Daniel Pinchbeck, and far too many others to mention, and turned into one of the premier dance clubs on the Esplanade that pounded until dawn all week long. Aside from building my hut way too close to those sub woofers (my mistake), I counted myself very lucky to be part of this camp. Chicago area readers may want to attend one of the Entheon fundraiser parties that happen a few times throughout the year for a local taste of burner society. Another stroke of luck I had was being friends with Vinay Gupta who made for me one of his hexayurts. Those who can afford it rent or bring their own RVs. While you will see many of them, they are a small minority. Most people stay in a variety of tents and tent-like structures. A hexayurt is made inexpensively out of insulation that makes it easy to cool in the heat of the day and able to retain heat through the cold of the night. The one afternoon we suffered a really bad dust storm, I was snug as a bug as I waited out the wind. I was very comfortable at all times and cannot recommend the structures more highly. Conceived as a low cost, easy to construct refugee shelter, the hexayurt has attracted serious attention of government agencies, and worked great on the playa. You can check them out at http://howtolivewiki.com/hexayurt/. Next year, if not an RV, a larger hexayurt will be a definite. As I said much earlier, Burning Man is not for everyone. Two things that will trouble our more conservative fellows will be the nakedness and the drugs. As far as the nakedness goes, you get used to it pretty quick. It is rarely meant to be titillating and is so matter of fact that, after the first hour or so, you hardly notice it. And it is not the majority of people by any means. It’s mostly younger people who, let’s face it, can pull it off, looking good in the process. It’s about being free to be, not about arousing prurient interest. The costuming that goes on really turns out to be much more interesting. Drugs are a fact of life, especially at a venue such as this. There is no open dealing, indeed there is no vending at all except at Center Camp where you can buy ice, water, tea, lemonade and electrolytes. Any sharing and consumption of psychedelics is very discreet, and while you can see clearly that the playa is awash in them, I saw no commerce whatsoever. It should be noted that there are a variety of law enforcement agencies around, and anyone behaving stupidly or too irresponsibly will attract their attention. It is not impossible to be arrested. While I do not recommend drugs, I am an old hippie and will not deny that I did my psychedelics back in the day. I believe that they do have their place, as they do provide a doorway to experiencing the truth that other realities exist. They served their purpose in my life and I would not deny the younger generations or anyone else the right to experience them. Ideally one grows out of them and comes to approach the higher realms meditatively, but I would legalize all the recreational substances. I think it is a basic human right to alter your consciousness. All that being said, I found that Burning Man was much like a week long psychedelic trip, without taking any of the substances. Of course in my own case, I do bring the experience of my youth to the process, and all of the fantastic art, the lights, colors, music and openness of the people made for a week long flashback in the most positive sense of the word. In terms of what is really going on at Burning Man there are a variety of theories. The more conservative elements in society would tend to see it as a Bacchanal that probably should not even be allowed to exist. It surprises me how many in the general population do not even know of it. Among those who do know about it, there are varying attitudes. For some, especially the weekend party people who only show up for Friday and Saturday, it is just a giant rave, and many of the weekenders did not really seem to get the spirit. At the other extreme, for some it is almost a religious experience. There are many whose year revolves around Burning Man, the rest of the year being devoted to getting ready for the next burn. When they say, “Welcome home” to you the first few days, they really mean it. I was very impressed with the Black Rock Rangers. This is from the Burning Man website: “The Black Rock Rangers are a cross-section of the Burning Man community who volunteer some of their time in the role of non-confrontational community mediators. Responding to the ever-changing environment, we address within our community situations that would otherwise require outside intervention. By encouraging and facilitating communication, the Rangers promote awareness of potential hazards, from sunstroke to tent fires. We are emphatically not the police or a paramilitary organization.” The rangers I met were all very sincere, helpful and committed to the safety and enjoyment of all and were invariably responsible and resourceful. Their attitude is central to the over-all spirit of Burning Man. Any time I saw any situation of a confrontational nature, compromise was always easily reached. The same ideals from the ’60s that so quickly became obscured by politics, the war, and other divisive issues have survived and are strongly reflected by burner culture. While I do not see Burning Man as the be all and end all, I do see it as a very important current in our society. As I said much earlier in this piece, the spirit animating this event is the same as the ’60s and the founding of the country. It is about freedom, self responsibility, expansion of consciousness, and many of the other attributes of the emerging age of Aquarius. This is so even if many burners are only vaguely aware of it. I found many who do get it. One serious issue that cannot be overlooked is the environmental impact. On the one hand there is a great deal of responsibility exhibited by all concerned. Burning Man is a “leave no trace” event. This is meant very seriously. You are encouraged all through the week not only deal responsibly with your own trash, but to pick up any moop, matter out of place, that you see anywhere on the playa. By the time the last person leaves the playa, there will not be a sequin left on the ground. All of the burn sites will be cleaned and, except for some tire tracks that the wind will soon obscure, there will be not one sign that a city of 40,000 people was for a short time flourishing on that spot. On the other hand, there is all of the fuel that is burned. There is no electricity other than that which is generated, and who knows how many generators are in use for the light and the music and such. Fire is featured at many of the art installations and large quantities of propane and other accelerants are consumed. The name of the event is, of course, Burning Man and most of the large installations, the Waffle, the Temple and others are burned on Sunday night after the Man burns on Saturday night. I have no idea what they must have to use to melt and burn the metal in the Man, but burn it did. This has to give one pause. My theory, and it is only my theory, is that all of the burning is to some degree a somewhat unconscious protest that we in the larger world are still even burning fossil fuels, almost a “Well, if we’re still going to be burning this stuff, we’ll show you how to burn it with style.” It is art. It is only for one week out of the year, and in my opinion the trade off, in so many ways, is worth it. I had so many wonderful experiences, met so many great people from all over the world, and generally recharged batteries from decades ago, that I am sure that I will be back next year and in many years to come. That being true, it is also true that at week’s end, the following Monday I was ready to get back to my life. Leaving the playa takes longer than entering. You are in a huge dust cloud in line with thousands of other vehicles. The dust is so thick that at times you cannot even see the vehicle in front of you and you have to stop and wait for the wind to shift or die down for a moment. Once out onto the two lane highway, you emerge from the dust that you have lived in for a week and can breathe more freely. It is a nice moment. Nicer still was the very long shower in my Reno hotel room while waiting for my flight the next morning. The large hotel/casino I stayed in was loaded with burners. Many of us acknowledged each other and the sense of family was extended. At the Reno airport there were still many obvious burners to wink at and enjoy being around. My flight to Dallas had burners, and I hung out with some waiting for my connecting flight to Chicago. On that plane were only a few burners, and by the time I walked out of O’Hare airport, I could no longer see the others at all. I was back to the so-called real world. This article cannot really give you a clear picture of Burning Man. It is a faint reflection as, indeed, the Playa that can be described is not the Playa. Again, Burning Man is not for everyone. But for those to whom it is, it really is.
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One of my favorite lines from the Tao Te Ching is, “the Way that can be described is not the Way.” Language being inadequate to express the higher truths, they can only be experienced by the individual. I went to Burning Man for the first time this last summer and words cannot properly describe the grand spectacle that I beheld. This will be my insufficient attempt.
As I approached Burning Man 2006, I had only the descriptions of my burner friends from the past several years to go on. Being a greybeard, I was taken by many on the playa as a veteran burner and my first glance at Black Rock City led me to say out loud, “Ok, I’ve been a burner all my life.” While some younger burners may not like to think so, the spirit animating Burning Man is the same spirit that animated what is thought of as the ’60s, and in my opinion, animated the founding of this country, but that is for another article. The cutting edge of art, individual self-expression, radical self-reliance balanced by the sharing and gifting, the mind blowing expansion of consciousness and openness, truly does make for a homecoming of a very special sort. Burning Man is not for everyone. But for those to whom it is, it really is.
Thirty miles east of Reno and eighty miles north of I-80, during the week leading up to Labor Day, you will find Burning Man, alternately know as Black Rock City and also referred to as the Playa. You know you are getting close when you pass Pyramid Lake on the two lane highway and you start to see little patches of what, in the distance, looks like white sand. These are the first little bits of the playa, which is an ancient dried up lake bed that stretches for several miles once you arrive at the site. Getting closer, the patches become larger and larger until you come to the turn off and begin to see how large the playa actually is. The other thing you begin to see is the dust. What looked in the distance like white sand is not. It is dried mud, compacted dust, the top layer of which is loose. If you know others who have been to Burning Man you’ve heard about the playa dust, but now you know that they have not exaggerated. As the line of vehicles moves slowly past will-call and towards the gates, first timers get their first taste of the dust that will be omnipresent through the week. The vehicles entering the site stir up a huge cloud of dust, and a first timer can wonder just what have they gotten into. Past the gates another mile or three, you come to the outer edge of the city and you begin to see.
Black Rock City is laid out in a semicircle. The far edges are the streets 2:00 and 10:00, as on a clock. Every half hour in between is a street pointed toward the center, where, in the middle of the inner playa, stands the Man who will burn on the coming Saturday night. There are seven streets, starting with The Esplanade as the inner ring facing out toward the Man and beyond to the outer Playa. So an address will be something like, “between 4:00 and 4:30 and The Esplanade,” which is where Entheon Village, the camp I stayed at, was located. Center Camp, where many of the Burning Man administration services are located, was at 6:00 and The Esplanade, actually extending back two or three streets deep. To get a sense of the size, it is three miles or so (this is a complete guesstimate on my part, but I think I’m underestimating, if anything) across from outer edge to outer edge, and the deeper playa that you are allowed to go to is another three or four miles. Looking back at BRC from the deeper playa at night, it looks like any other small city, except that it is more colorful. Indeed, at its peak BRC is the third largest city in Nevada.
When friends told me that I would not be able to see everything at Burning Man my attitude was, “We’ll see about that.” It was another thing that they were right about. At any hour there may be as many as twenty different things going on at the myriad of theme camps. Many of them will not appeal to any one person, but the choices are one of the first overwhelming things to deal with. You not only cannot go to every event, you cannot even see every significant art installation. As I look over the pictures that are posted at many places online, I keep seeing large installations and exclaiming, where the heck was this? How could I not have seen that? You are left having to accept that you have seen what you were meant to.
Arriving late Monday afternoon in the Entheon Village shuttle van, I was greeted by the dust and the sheer size of the city. This early in the week, many of the camps are still being constructed and while many more people will arrive as the week goes on, you can still start to get a sense of how large the layout is and what a huge undertaking BRC must be. Working our way through the streets, the dust, and the people, I began to have the flashbacks to the ’60s that would continue through the week. Arriving at the camp, I was simultaneously blown away and melted down.All content and articles copyright ©2006 by Lightworks Inc except where noted. All rights reserved.