JasonUnbound

BM2004

Wow.

Not sure I can put it any better than that, so I'll say it again: Wow!

I'm back from Burning Man, and not quite the same as when I left. The week I just spent in the Black Rock Desert was one of the most magically fulfilling I've ever experienced. No kidding. I don't really have a handle on what it all means (does anyone?!), but in that every participant shows up at Burning Man with such great intention, it was just what I needed: a week locked away in unreality with 35,000 people, all conspiring to inspire one other. And this particular unreality — this space in which the assembled co-conspirators are wholly safe to be their most liberated selves — well, it sure felt like the Real Thing to me.

The one-week-a-year temporary utopian enclave of Black Rock City is a place like no other, and despite all the photos and descriptions from friends who have been many times, I was not really prepared for what it's like to actually be there. From the moment your arrive and begin to look around, two things are obvious: First, there is no other place like this on Earth, and second, this right here, right now, is the most happenin' place on the planet. It is an explosion of creative energy, going off 24 hours a day all around you, and it fills you to overflowing with power and potential.

There are hundreds of pieces of art, static and kinetic, scattered about the Playa, but it's the participants themselves, and the performance art they become, who inspire the greatest awe. Their costumes, their movements, their open hearts — these are things that will call me back to Playa. (And yes, I'm committed: 359 days 'til the Man burns!!!)

It was so wonderful to see and spend time with many of my friends on the Playa. The place is enormous, and cellphones don't work out there, thank goodness (I had a two-way radio, but never used it) — and so when I met up with friends, it was usually serendipitous. I feel like I blossomed into my best self while I was out there, and the same seemed true of my friends.

The best surprise of all were the Spores, the people of the bodypainting theme camp Sporosite, who invited me to join as a guest this year. They're a particularly warm, loving, smart and funny group of forty of so, with wonderfully diverse interests and proclivities, who took me in and made me feel right at home. I was feelin' the love all week, and if they'll have me back next year, I'll be one happy camper. In fact, I'd go back to Burning Man just to spend time with my new Spore-friends. But as it is, this is one of many things that will carry me back to that flat cracked dusty lifeless featureless hardpan alkaline dry lake bed in Nevada.

OK, I'm off to tend to my dandy case of playa foot now. (Note to self: take care of feet next year!)