The Burning Alchemist

My first year attending the festival. What a real mind trip.

Here's a link to a post by a friend that well describes my attitudes towards the dust storms and "whiteouts" of the Burning Man festival.

"Bats in the Wind"

Ever since my first year at the burn I've loved the dust storms.  The milder ones are great to just walk around in as they give such a wonderfully surreal feel to the world around you that's delightful to experience. 

I attended Burning Man same year as this video was created, and as soon as the dust storms kicked up later in the week I said "now THIS is the playa that we've come to know and love".  I said it because the weather had been too mild all week. There was not a challenge in being there and that is a major part of the event. To me it is supposed to be a challenge to attend, in every possible sense, physically, mentally and even spiritually. It challenges so many of the things that we take for granted on a daily basis, food, water, shelter, and that's only the beginning.  It challenges your concepts of city and community. It pushes at your boundaries and tries to blow them away into whole new realms.  It's a place where everything that you hold onto in the outside "default" world can be left at the gate, and where you can be free to explore so many new possibilities, so many new ways of being and interacting.  But what it won't do is push you past your limits, unless you choose to let it, and sometimes you find out that your limits weren't where you thought they were.

And as much as I love the city, I also acknowledge that it isn't for everyone. Others can find their freedoms in other ways and other places.  Burning Man is not the only way, and certainly not the best for everyone, but it is certainly a wonderful way for me.

See you sometime on the Playa...

Ultimate Packing list for Burning Man

Here it is folks, the 6th largest city in Nevada for one week only (every year), Black Rock City and the Burning Man festival.

A map created in August of 2008 by a Washington DC Burner that lists many useful resources for Burners in the Reno Nevada area.  Great for those last minute shopping trips before hitting the Burning Man festival.

"Are you a hippie, a swinger, or just a dirty shirtc**ker?" Simpsons Burning Man, en Français.

Simpsons Family Burning Man from Aung T on Vimeo.

Holy F**king Shit!!! What a total Blast!!

OK, I better explain this.

This weekend I went to an event called Xara Dulzura ( www.xaraproject.org). Unofficially it's the San Diego Burningman communities' regional event. Officialy it's a wonderful community event, and one HELL of a party.

Two performance groups out of the many that were there, that made it so phenomenal for me were Soul in the Machine and Mutaytor. If you don't know them check out their sites to get a feel for what they are because it would take way too long to try and explain them here, ESPECIALLY Mutaytor. Soul in the Machine was flat out rockin' the house, and Mutayor got to roll out a brand new performance in cooperation with the Xara Project. A whole new format for them. A multi-media, audience participatory, interactive storytelling performance. They were so rockin' that it didn't matter how tired and sore I was from walking around all day (I don't get much exercise as a desk jockey) I just had get get up and dance through the entire performance. I'm payin' for it the next day, and I'll still be payin' for it for a day or two, but Hot Damn it was worth it.

[UPDATE: 8/12/2009 website no longer exists as the event is no longer
being held]