Waking Dreams: Burning Man 2022
What to say about that big festival in the Nevada desert…
It is a serious challenge to describe this strange and wonderful event without ending up mired in, much like an Opulent Temple port-o-potty line at 1am, a long uncomfortable stretch of cliches. My apologies to 2023 attendees: I understand the use of the term “mire” surrounding Burning Man could be triggering for some.
To clarify, in my joke above, no stones are being cast, for I am not without sin, shamelessly flaunting cozy fun fur jackets, bright tutus, and leopard print… everything. I believe I currently own more pairs of “meggings” (that’s “mens leggings” for the uninformed) than regular pants, numerous heart shaped sunglasses, and steampunk/steampunk-adjacent attire, adorned both in and out of various porto lines across the playa since 2011.
I absolutely love it, and although I will likely only continue to attend “the big one” sporadically, for a few reasons I’ll touch on, I hope some flavour of the Burning Man experience is a part of the rest of my life.
I’m not quite sure what drew me initially, but I’ve always been interested in various aspects of counterculture movements. A lot of this initiated around music, an early obsession with the sound and story of classic rock, and the surrounding cultural movement that represented a break from the mainstream to explore the further reaches of artistic expression, often underpinning a message for social change. This expanded to include periods of history like the early punk scenes of New York and London, the political hip hop movement of the late 80s that continues strong today, as well as modern rave culture.
All represented a significant break from what came before it. A rejection of the status quo, and often, the rules and regulations that inhibited their radical expression, and in some cases, their very livelihood.
A deep respect for these movements instilled a propensity to question common practices and outdated ideas, and promote new and progressive ones. I’m far from an anarchist or libertarian. I think the answer to bad government is better government. Same goes for policing.
But let’s make sure we continue to get better.
And sometimes that takes dramatic action, outside the box thinking, and, on occasion, a healthy dose of mind expansion.
Burning Man 2011 - “The Great 8!”
Burning Man’s origins are tied to a San Francisco group called the Cacophony Society, an avant garde collective ranging from the die hard anarchist to more playful pranksters that enjoyed a good bit of revelry. After outgrowing their welcome on the beaches of San Francisco in the late 80s, they moved to a topography more apt for the wilder and chaotic sides of free expression.
I’m far from an expert on the history of this event, so I shouldn’t attempt to describe what the scene and intentions were like back in the early days. But as legend goes, it was definitely an experiment in the extreme; a truly lawless environment. The few close friends I know that attended back as early as 1998 definitely attest to this, and the common catch phrase that remains today - “Safety Third” - likely had a significantly heavier weighting to it back then.
It remains pretty damn wild and chaotic, but with enough structure in place to create a relatively safe environment required for the now roughly 70,000 attendees. Personally, I’m okay that a level of freedom needed to be sacrificed to restrict automatic weapons being fired by intoxicated individuals from the back of racing pickup trucks. But to each their own I guess, and this newfound cap on the limits of “free expression” certainly rubbed some of the early hard cores the wrong way.
September 5th, 2015 - Terrible photo, but one helluva birthday party
I believe my earliest introduction was in 2005, on a backpacking trip on the Juan De Fuca trail with my University hiking club. I met an Australian on the trip who ended up being my introduction to a truely committed global wanderer. He also had an excellent blog that was early inspiration to start my own digital diary, and one such entry documented his trip to a strange event in the Nevada desert. It included descriptions of wondrous art, incredibly kind and open people, wild parties, and a truly unique and incredible experience. I was hooked, and although it took me another 6 years to actually make the long journey to the Northwest Nevada, I followed news articles and photo journals studiously every September.
Fortunately, we had our own strange and magical modern age counterculture scene here in British Columbia. In 2003 I attended my first Shambhala Music Festival, at the ripe young age of 18. The wonderful Lyster brothers mentioned it to me when I returned to BC for my second year of University, and as I’m pretty consistently a ‘yes’ person when it comes to the threat of a good time, I jumped on the opportunity and we drove out to the Kootenays to experience a new world I was completely unaware existed.
Shambhala circa 2004
If you know, you know, when it comes to Shambhala, but at the time, it was a true life changing experience for me. It introduced me to a wonderful, loving community of good time seekers, the joy of youthful play and silliness well into adulthood, and spawned a deep love and appreciation for a wide range of electronic music that has really only grown to this day.
In 2011, a group of 8 close friends including those same Lyster bros, all piled into a rented RV to drive down to Nevada. Burning Man was still there, waiting to provide a significantly larger scale, more dynamic, more mature, and somehow even more silly version of that experience, and once again, caused a profoundly dramatic affect on my life and world view.
I could go on and on about the specific areas that represent catalysts for these affects. The sharing community, an appreciation of new forms of arts and culture, the energetic power of large groups of humans in synchronized joy and harmony. I have observed the residue of this state of consciousness in myself, and many of the attendees, spreading outward in our common lives back home.
Likely the ethos of Burning Man was part inspiration for our dear friend and avid Burner, Reza Marvasti’s incredible non-profit, “The Power of Play”. Play brings joy and happiness that echoes out through peoples lives, and into those surrounding them. People thrive and, I think, operate at their best in these conditions.
And, who am I kidding… I do love a good party.
And oh boy, Burning Man is definitely that.
2015 Temple
The Burn is not without it’s share of problems. And no, I’m not talking about environmental factors such as the flooding that occurred in 2023. Ideally, you should be reasonably prepared for these types of events, and although it dampens the good time temporarily, to me it is not a major call for alarm or questioning the entire program.
Primarily, for me, the issue of this event is around the ecological challenge of having a 70,000 person event where a large percentage of attendees fly around the world, rent large RVs, and drive into an off grid location, that requires the constant hum of 1000s of generators to literally keep the lights on, and the party moving. Add on to that art cars constantly jettisoning enormous amounts of fuel simply for the (very true) fact that “flamethrowers look cool”.
At least it seems that most people have figured out that the 7.4 minutes of life you get out of EL-Wire lights was likely not a good use of resources in recent years.
It’s unfortunate, but it’s kinda just how things are there, and it’s difficult to see that changing anytime soon. You may disagree with me, but a sustainable form of society it certainly is not. As a microcosm of the larger world, I hope that our advances in battery tech, etc. trickle down to address some of these problems along with our larger issues of climate change.
The Org has also reached a difficult position with the purpose and direction of the festival. It’s difficult to accept massive sums of fundraising money from billionaires, and not have to twist a few rules that make up some of the core ethos of the event. This trickles down to a more local level, with the issue of the “turnkey” camps being difficult to manage, as wealthy people will pay for this experience, and especially the larger, more elaborate, high budget camps, require the capital to make their show happen.
Saying all that, of course I do think it brings more good than bad, and it has brought significant inspiration to many a wealthy modern philanthropist. The ‘leave no trace’ ethos is generally kept as religious commandment, violation a cardinal sin, and implemented very well by individual camps and the post clean-up, literally sweeping the entire 16 square km area. The Org is involved with many sustainability projects outside the event, building solar arrays for the local town of Gerlach, and a variety of other initiatives. They are tracking ‘green camps’, which I’m proud to say our camp in 2022, “Planned Playahood” was awarded with some accreditation for the work we did in this space (waste management, bike repair, car pool organization, participant involvement, etc.).
I imagine there are countless social initiatives directly spurred from this event, and I could go on and on here about the positive affects, but I did want to share this challenge I see that puts a damper on the larger event for me. The growing numbers of regional Burns arguably provide similar positive impacts without the same format which creates such an environmental challenge, and so it’s great to see these continue to grow and thrive. For a variety of reasons, many people I talk to now prefer these smaller gatherings to the main event.
Speaking of Planned Playahood, camping with this incredible group was one of the standout features of Burning Man 2022 for me. I had not been a part of a larger organized camp (we were roughly 100 people aged from 6 to 80(!)), with meal plans, and significant infrastructure.
One of our primary purposes was as a women’s reproductive health resource, as we have a number of health practitioners that were able to bring various tools and resources to our camp to provide guidance and assistance where needed. This felt particularly relevant as the US had just decided they felt 50 years of progress wasn’t really the Supreme Court’s jam, overturning Roe V Wade, and reversing the ability for women to reliably receive abortions and other forms of reproductive health in many conservative states.
What the actual fuck America?
Planned Playahood
This was our special service to the playa, though we also advertised a full bike repair shop open every day, wedding officiant services by the legendary Doctor Z, a great bar and sound system for funky house parties most afternoons, and of course, a Museum of DilDon’ts, because, well, it’s Burning Man, and it’s fucking hilarious. The museum represented a culmination of efforts throughout the camp to bring together many objects of various shapes and sizes that should NOT be inserted into anyone’s… well, you should get the idea.
Mary and I were a part of a team for dinner duty for one night, which was a ton of fun, and an interesting challenge to cook a healthy and delicious meal in the middle of the desert for 100+ people.
Does this look like enough broccoli for 110 people?
The camp is made up of a terrific group of humans, many who were previously introduced to me by Mary, who had camped with this group for many years, even running as camp mayor once, which is no easy task! It was an absolute treat to get to camp there and experience what it was like to build a larger collective camp.
It’s an insane amount of work! Major kudos to all of the core group that makes it happen, in this, and all other camps. If you don’t know, most things that make Burning Man, well, Burning Man, is brought, built, and paid for, by individuals and collective groups. Key infrastructure, the Man itself, and a unique iteration of a spiritually focused “Temple” each year is what is covered by the ticket and built by Burning Man itself. Everything else you see is shared by the attendees themselves.
Four days before the event officially opens, we’ve driven into an entry line that is already quite long, as 10,000+ early entry ticket holders descend on the playa to start their own build and setup for their respective camps. Even before they’ve got their wristband, people are ready to perform.
The camp build was actually a ton of fun. All “back of house” needed to be shaded for camping and the kitchen/dining, as was the front of house for bar and dance floor. There was a classic geodesic dome that housed one of Mary’s key contributions to camp: “The Lady of Shorn Beaver”, a giant female form to provide the dome with an entrance/exit ‘birth canal"‘. And a cool swing for the front corner that made for a great spot to finish the night before retiring, taking in the view out to the open playa.
It was super hot, windy, and dusty, I absolutely destroyed my back, and it was a ton of work for 3-4 days, but was incredibly fun the entire time, with a great, well organized team.
I also took part in building an approved piece of art to be displayed out in the open playa. Apparently I’m technically part of a San Francisco art collective now, which is rather hilarious. I really should investigate whether there are any lucrative tax benefits associated with being a member of “The Goodest Boys and Girls Art Collective”…
Our dear friends, and camp mates, Luke and Lisa, lost their wonderful pitbull mix Charlie in the previous year, and Neal “constantly-scheming-a-heartfelt-surprise” Gottlieb organized a special piece to commemorate his life, all other dog’s lives, and apparently anyone named Charlie’s lives too.
My small contribution was building a dog house to keep a signing book for people to record memories of their beloved pets. Neal spent an inordinate amount of time building an incredible scaled up replica dog collar that Charlie used to wear.
It was a beautiful and tearful moment as the whole camp walked out with Luke and Lisa to surprise them with the gift. Luke coincidentally was even wearing his Charlie underwear!
Planned Playahood day parties
Deep playa random martini bar with a velvet rope and table service
A big highlight art piece from this year was “Paradisium”. An enormous grove of reclaimed wood-built “trees”. It was hard to capture, but the attention to detail was incredible in some of the individual trees you could climb up and inside.
The daily afternoon party at Dementha (“Mint, Music, and Misting”) was a saviour during this particularly hot year, as they had a ton of misting hoses, unlimited delicious Mojitos (all bars are open/free at the Burn), and good daytime house music:
Dinner prep
New (I think?) since I had previously attended in 2015 was Golden Guy Alley, a Nevada desert take on Tokyo’s Golden Gui district. A super cool narrow alley network of unique bars pack the better part of an enormous block.
As we were leaving Golden Guy, we heard reports of an impending thunderstorm. 2023 attendees really learned that this can mean a significant emergency situation, but even in 2022, we still took heed and booked it back to the safety of camp. Neal, rightfully not trusting the roofing job I did on Charlie’s dog house, booked it to rescue the booklet in a dust storm, and came back proud and disheveled saving the day.
One of our many awesome day parties - “Funk the Supreme Court”
Longtime camp member Jurgen (left) all the way from Austria on his 80th birthday!
The infamous “Beam”
It’s hard to beat the magic of a Burning Man sunrise
Especially with delicious bubbly from Neal and Limor’s excellent wine collection!
With fresh breakfast sandwiches served up!
I had attended Neal and Limor’s official wedding back in the Spring. It was an great event on a beautiful property owned by friends and fellow Planned Playhood-ites John and Natalie outside Mariposa near Yosemite. But never one to shy away from an opportunity for romance, a Neal and Limor playa wedding was held and officiated by Dr. Z at the Good Boy Charlie.
Squamish hometown hero Andrea (The Librarian)
Campmates from the San Francisco bluegrass scene put on a great show at Centre Camp
The Temple
It was very special to be back there with Mary, who I had attended the Burn with 9 years earlier as friends in 2013. To avoid the possibility of vomit splashing across phones and monitors, I’ll spare you any sappy analogies to “Waking Dreams”, which was Burning Man’s official theme that year. But needless to say, it was an absolute treat exploring that wild and crazy place together.
This turned into a longer post than anticipated, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised… Honestly, I could go on and on. As I suspected, avoiding cliches was an impossibility.
We were there for 12 days that year, and so I’ve left out a ton of stories, special pieces of art, interactions, moments, names, etc. In that time I had so many meaningful connections with so many different individuals, that I just can’t list them all here.
I’m not sure when I’ll go back, as it’s sounding like it’s not really on the table for 2024. The regional events and our own variations here in BC are adequate replacements. But that “Power of Play” energy - to live weird and silly for as long as you do, lives on. Promote art, new music, and fashion. Share new progressive ideas and promote social change. Build cool shit, and maybe just burn that same cool shit right back down.
And there are still plenty of opportunities to wear those meggings.